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megan-loves-surveys · 5 months ago

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#40.

What’s your status on FB/MySpace say currently? It was a Facebook short about The Sims that I tagged Ngawari in. ^ How much feedback did it get? Ngawari laugh reacted it, but that's it xD

Who have you texted today? Only my boyfriend. Who did you last have over your house, why were they there? My boyfriend, he comes over all the time cos he lives down the street. What was the last thing to piss you off? My internet being slow as fuck. Recently, who in your house has gotten on your nerves the most? It's just me and my Mum lol, so my Mum by default. What all has pissed you off today, if anything at all? Nothing much, though my new glasses are annoying me. What does the 10th text in your inbox say? They're organized by who sent them, so I can't tell you that. How about the 20th sent text? - Out of all of your friends who have you gotten in the worst fight with? Laura most likely, we used to fight loads when we were younger lol. Who was the last person to have to deal with you having an attitude? My Mum xD If you had $100 dollars, how would you spend it? I'd buy some Converse at the outlet store. What’s something you would love to have happen right now? Being given a billion dollars lol. You were given the opportunity to get a new cellular device, what do you choose? New laptop probably. Which of your classes in school is most capable of killing a good mood for you? - How nice of a person are you, honestly? I'm nice, but don't push me. What good things have happened today? It's the weekend so I didn't have to go to work xD Is there anyone of your preferred sex who tends to mess with your head? No. What have you recently gotten the most compliments on? My hair and the other day a guy recognied my Mox hoodie and said it was cool haha. When you get to go shopping for new clothes, where do you go to find your clothes? Kmart, Warehouse, H&M etc. Do and your best friend(s) act the same, or are very different from each other? We have the same sense of humour, that's for sure lol. On a scale of 1 to 10 how shy are you? 6 or 7. Have you ever fallen for your best friend? No. Is there something you should be doing right now, besides this survey? No. Who was the last person you made plans with? My boyfriend.

List your favorite TV Shows (in no order) and answer the questions. (I won't put WWE or AEW cos it messes up the questions lol)

Simpsons

Friends

Big Bang Theory

Shortland St

Emmerdale Who is your favorite character in 1? Homer, Mr Burns & Maggie. Homer is so classic and is so quotable it hurts, Mr Burns is hilarious and an amazing villain and Maggie is adorable and a badass. Who is your least favorite character in 2? Ross, but I still love him, he's hilarious. But he's got so many annoying moments too. What’s your favorite episode of 4? It's a soap opera so it has thousands of episodes, so I couldn't say. What is your favorite season of 5? - What is your favorite ship in 3? Leonard & Penny, I love them together. Who is your anti-ship in 2? I like all the couples in it. How long have you watched 1? Since I was a kid, it started the year I was born so I've always been around it. How did you become interested in 3? Cos it became the big thing and everyone was watching it, so I checked it out. Who is your favorite actor in 4? TBH, they're not great actors on Shorty xD What do you prefer out of 1, 2, or 5? Simpsons. Which show have you seen more episodes of, 1 or 3? I've seen every episode of Friends multiple times, and the entirety of Big Bang a few times but I've missed some Simpsons over the years - though I am watching the entire series on Disney+ atm. So in the end, it'll be Simpsons cos it's still on. How would you kill off your favorite character in 2? I wouldn't kill anyone off. If you could be anyone from 4, who would you be? Hmm... dunno. Give a random quote from 1. "8:58, the first time I've ever been early for work. Except for all those daylight savings days, lousy farmers!" - Homer Simpson Would a 3/4 crossover work? Hahah, maybe. Pair two characters in 1 that would make an unlikely, but strangely ok, couple. They already did that when they put Flanders & Edna together lol. Overall, which show has a better cast, 3 or 5? Big Bang, easily. Which has better music, 2 or 4? Neither.

Are you currently wearing a charm bracelet? No, but I do own a Pandora one with loads of charms. Do you have any embarrassing usernames? Maybe from when I was a kid. Do you have a backpack in a shape of an animal? No. What’s your least favorite day of the week? Sunday tbh, cos nothing happens and I have to work on Monday so it just ruins it xD Have you ever wore pajamas a whole straight week? I've never even worn them a whole day lol. Do you still enjoy blowing bubbles? Yes. Have you ever taken a picture of your shadow? Probably. Do you believe in your horoscopes? No, but they're fun to read. Would you ever paint your bedroom walls lime green? Sure. Do you ever get called the quiet girl? Sometimes. Do you own any shirts with a peace symbol on it? No. Are you more of a taker or giver? Both. Have you ever itched yourself until your skin was raw? Yes. Do you always clear your history after using the computer? No, cos I'm the only one who uses my laptop, and I have nothing to hide lol. Do you hate hot coffee, but love iced coffee? I like both. Have you ever tried Smoothie King? I have, I had one when I went to New Orleans haha. Have you ever been chased by a cat? Yes, but jokingly. Have you ever had your food stolen by a bird? No. Do you have any Christmas pajama pants? No. Do you ever wear red lipstick? No. Have you ever dyed your hair light auburn? No, Have you ever did well on a test when you didn’t study? Yep. Do you take really good care of your feet? Sure. Does age really matter to you? It depends. Do you ever blast your music and dance when you’re home alone? Yes. Have you ever seen yellow snow? No. Do you still take hot showers when it’s hot out? Yes.

Who will you be spending Christmas with this year?: It's too early, but it'll prob be me and Mum, and my boyfriend will prob show up as well. What time do you usually go to sleep at night?: Around 1:30 unless I'm working the next day, then it's earlier around 12:30 or so. Did you go to high school with your current best friend?: Yes. Have you ever wanted to be vegetarian or vegan?: No. Do you park your car in a garage, carport or just in a driveway?: I don't have a car, but if I did, I'd park it outside our house, cos every house in our complex gets two spots. Have you ever been a passenger in a semi-trailer truck?: No. Have you felt sick today?: No. Whose was the last funeral you attended?: My Grandma's. Have you read The Hunger Games trilogy?: No. How many times a week do you wash your hair?: Twice a week, if I do it any more it goes all weird. Do you need to wash your hair right now?: No, I literally washed it like 2 hours ago xD Do you avoid using public restrooms?: No, if I gotta go, I gotta go. What is your boss' (or school principal's) name?: Oliver. Have you seen any extended relatives in the last month?: No. Do you like eggnog?: Never had it. Is there anything important you need to do today?: No. Who is the person you dislike the most?: Nobody. Girls, how old were you when you first got your period?: 13. Do you take part in paying the bills for your household?: Yes. What is your favourite way to eat rice?: With curry. Have you ever properly listened to classical music? Did you like it?: Yep. Do your parents know how to text?: Yes. Do you text your parents often?: Yes. Do you watch Youtube videos often?: Oh, all the time. What's your favourite type of cookie?: I love chewy cookies. When was the last time you were sick with a stomach bug?: Ages ago. Did you watch The Simpsons marathon that played nonstop episodes for a week?: It didn't air here. What television channel do you watch the most?: TV2 and Sky 5. Do you enjoy embracing the Christmas spirit or are you more of a scrooge?: I love Christmas, but not when it starts in September, leave that stuff till December xD In your town, what's your favourite place to get takeout?: I have Wendy's, KFC, McDonald's and Burger King near me lol. What letter does your middle name begin with?: S. Do your initials spell an actual word?: No. What will you do when this survey is over?: Talk on Discord. Do you know anyone with celiac disease?: No. How many siblings do you have? Are they all full siblings?: None. What's the weather like today?: It's cold, but sunny and cloudy. Have you ever eaten a cinnamon donut?: Yes. What is the longest relationship you've ever been in?: 2 years, my current one. How many times a day do you brush your teeth?: Twice. How do you usually celebrate New Years?: Depends what I feel like doing. Is the place that you're in right now quiet or loud? What can you hear?: It's loud cos I have music playing haha, also the TV is on downstairs and cars are driving past outside. Do you currently have any alarms set?: No, but I will set one later for tomorrow morning cos I have work. How many cars can fit in your driveway?: No driveway. Do you like whiskey?: Yes. When was the last time you ate, and what did you have?: An hour ago, I had muesli.

[Basics] What do people usually call you? In real life - Megan. Online - Mox Girl, Mox, MG, Moxxy etc. Is it your first name? One of them is lol. How tall are you? 5'3". How many candles were on your cake this past birthday? 36. What's your natural hair color? Blonde. Do you wear glasses or contacts? Glasses. Are you comfortable with your body? Most of it. Do you like how you look most days? Sure. Do you like your eye color? Yep.

[Friendships] Would you say you're popular? I don't care lol. Do you have a best friend? Yes. Has someone ever violated your trust? Yes. Do you forgive others easily? It depends. Where did you meet your best friend(s)? High school. Do your friends like the same kind of music as you? No, it's completely different. Have you lost a close friend recently? Yes - Zoe passed from cancer :( When was the last time you saw a friend? Last week cos Ngawari couldn't make the gym this week cos she had a stomach bug. Do you prefer to have a lot of friends? Sure.

[Romance] Do you get annoyed when asked about your personal life? No. Are you currently single? No. Do you prefer being single or taken? I like being taken. How old were you when you had your first kiss? 7. Do you ever want to marry? No. Are you saving your virginity until you get married? Hahahahaha. Do you currently have feelings for someone in particular? Yes. Would you say that you've been in love with someone? Yes.

[Music] Is music important to you? So important. What kind of music do you most enjoy? Pop, J-pop, K-pop, rock, dance, electro, classical, new age etc. Have you ever been to a real concert? Some. If so, who have you seen? Five (x2), Blue (x2), Girls Aloud, Lady Gaga (x2), Adam Lambert (x3 - twice with Queen, once solo), Melanie Martinez (x2), Atomic Kitten, B*Witched (x2), Liberty X, Aqua, Vengaboys (x2), Little Mix and more that I forget right now. Do you enjoy live music? Definitely. Do you have a favorite song? Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over Is there any genre you truly cannot stand? Country and screamo are not my thing. Do you have a favorite band and/or musician? Loads - just some are Ayumi Hamasaki, Blue, Five, Little Mix, Namie Amuro, Adam Lambert Are there any certain songs you listen to when you're upset? No. Are you a musician yourself and, if so, what do you play? No.

[Today] How did you feel when you woke up? Pretty good. Do you feel the same way now? No. If not, how do you feel currently? I'm hungry. Did you eat breakfast this morning? Yes, muesli. Do or did you have plans for today? No plans. Did today go well for you? Sure. What would you change about today? That it wasn't Sunday xD Is there anything you're avoiding doing? No. What're you going to do after this survey? Talk on Discord.

#survey #surveys #random survey #personal survey

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greensparty · 5 months ago

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2024 Fan Expo Boston - Day 2

This weekend was the 2024 Fan Expo Boston convention at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston from Fri. June 14 to Sun. June 16. Here at Green’s Party, I’ve been covering the convention! Read my coverage here.

On Saturday, I stopped by in the afternoon. Loads of cosplayers, gamers and fans were out in full force.

Some of the fun cosplayers out at Fan Expo Boston.

Actor Ethan Supplee has become quite a "that guy" actor over the years. He has become a big part of Kevin Smith's Viewaskewniverse appearing as Willam in Mallrats and a number of his other films. But he's also become a reliable character actor notably in American History X, The Wolf of Wall Street, and TV's My Name is Earl.

Suplee and Johnny Depp in Blow (2001)

I first met Mr. Supplee in 1998 at Kevin Smith's Vulgarthon in Red Bank, NJ where he was in attendance and signed an autograph. Later in 1998 I was an intern at Spanky Pictures, the production company of the late great Ted Demme. One of the films that was in development at the time was Blow and when that was released in 2001, Suplee played Johnny Depp's friend Tuna. I asked Mr. Suplee about working with Ted on that film. "He was a lot of fun. He was a very gregarious, sweet, kind man. When we went to Mexico he had dinner every night with the cast. It was cool. He was a good guy" he said.

ASL translator, Barron (in red), D'Angelo, Quaid, Chase and moderator Victor Dandridge

Among the attendees at this year's fest there was a reunion of the cast of National Lampoon's Vacation: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid and Dana Barron. The 1983 comedy written by John Hughes and directed by Harold Ramis about family's road trip vacation has become a classic and it spawned several sequels (some good, some bad), but always highly quotable. All of the actors joined together for a conversation panel. Chase was kind of a wise guy (I wonder if he's leaning into his reputation) but they all had some fun stories. They talked a lot about improvising in the films, using cue cards, and the lasting impact of the franchise. There were some funny moments of them talking over each other too.

Watch for more of my coverage of Sunday's Fan Expo Boston!

For info on Fan Expo Boston

#fan expo boston #convention #ethan suplee #ted demme #blow #national lampoon's vacation #chevy chase #beverly d'angelo #randy quaid #dana barron #film geek #cosplay #star wars #the jetsons

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ficrections · 3 years ago

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Three Days in February by: mercurial-madhouse/ @mercurial-madhouse

Summary: How close is too close? Harry and Louis are about to find out after a drunken night leaves Louis cursed. With only a week before tour starts, the race is on to fix things before they lose Louis forever. Oh, and Harry has to keep his long-time crush on Louis a secret while the lad can literally hear his thoughts. Easy, right?

Featuring ridiculous amounts of banter and angst, a healthy dose of OT5 friendship, and one very magical weekend.

Review:

*Content warnings for fic at the end of the review for anyone who may need them.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were so thankful that your crush couldn’t hear your thoughts? What would happen if they were suddenly in your mind, hearing your thoughts all the time? This is what Harry faces in Three Days in February.

After a night out with the boys, he wakes up in the morning (after kipping at Liam’s) with Louis’ voice in his head. At first, he thinks he’s just making up what Louis would say to him, but then no one can get a hold of Louis and the voice in his head is very insistent that Harry return home to the flat he shares with Louis.

It turns out that Louis is in his bed, right where he should be. But he won’t wake up. Because his consciousness isn’t in his body. It’s in Harry’s head.

Louis has somehow been cursed, and now Harry and the others have to figure out how to break the curse and bring their bandmate back into his body.

Personally, I love this kind of story. The kind that forces you to stretch your imagination to allow you to experience things that we tend to believe aren’t possible in real life. Psychic connections, magic, and dreams are so much fun to speculate about, so seeing a story that covers all three is a real treat.

It’s not just the fantastical parts of the story that excite me either. There are so many intense, passionate emotions in this fic that just spill out on the page, carrying you along in their current that’s too strong to resist. I laughed and cried and had the most cathartic time doing both.

Another thing I loved about this fic was just how much OT5 we were given. I love fics that display the friendship and camaraderie between our boys, and this one does a really great job of balancing the OT5 and the Harry/Louis moments. The moments with Niall, Liam, and Zayn didn’t ever feel like filler, they felt like real friends, just being there for each other and working to help Louis and Harry figure out how to break the curse.

There’s a lesson to be learned in this fic too. It’s oft repeated, but with good reason, and it’s definitely something I need to keep in mind in my own life. Are you ready? Here it is: Don’t let your mind trick you into thinking a problem is too big to overcome. Some problems are bigger than others, but don’t let them become bigger than they actually are. Though put into far more humorous and quotable words in the story (I won’t ruin that discovery for you by stating what it is here), it’s still a valid point. And one I was grateful to be reminded of.

This story is epic for a number of reasons, not even including the impressive word count. I hope you’ll read it, if you’re able, and enjoy all of it’s epic moments for yourself.

Warnings: I’m not sure what kinds of things might trigger people so, warnings for Louis’ physical body being unresponsive for a large part of the fic and the ingestion of drops of blood in relation to the curse.

If you also loved this fic, please share you thoughts with me or send your love straight to the author!

#a year of epic reads #epic reads #larry fic #fic rec #magical realism

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all-hail-the-witcher · 4 years ago

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the most notable and quotable parts of john mulaney’s kid gorgeous special (on order) in my own personal very biased opinion

-SAY MORE RIGHT NOW!!

-my dad is so weird, i’d love to meet him one day

-and then my mom said “i made a salad with crasins!”

-now we don't have time to unpack alllll of that

-the inside part??? tell him we’re here!

-i used to smoke crAck

-weekends? that's Nunzios time

-i want to talk about what happened yesterday!

-what was so funny when she couldn't fit the box of puppets into the back of her dodge neon?

-none of that matters but its important to me that you know that

-he was a man most acquainted with misery

-shut up you're all gonna die! street smarts!!

-you want it?? go get it!!

-and our teachers were like “write that down”

-the man with the mustache told me to do it!

-something hinky is going on

-and we were like, “we know but h e y”

-he was not a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down kinda guy, we was like “brush your teeth now BOOM orange juice, that's life”

-now ive thrown him off his rhythm

-when you get kidnapped. not if, when

-nah nah nah sister! you’re not getting me to no secondary location!

-i gave you more money than the civil war cost, and you fucking spent it already?!!?!

-college was like a 4 year game show called “do my friends hate me? or do i just need to go to sleep??”

-how dare you, how dare you clap for the worst financial decision i ever made

-and then i didnt!

-of course i did, but on an unrelated note im gonna walk out the front door right now

-i don't even have a joke for that!!

-strange the passage of time

-like “uuuuuughhh” you know, life?

-i don't know what my body is for other than taking my head from room to room

-im like an iPhone, its gonna be worse versions of this every year

-tonights no good how about wednesday??

-it would be like if you went into your childhood bedroom and joe damaggio was there. like yeah he's joe damaggio, he's a legend, he had sex with marilyn monroe, but only you know where the bathroom is

-ummm does anyone have a laptop charger i can borrow???

-alright, next sentence. space bar, indent, sPACEBARRR

-because It Is The Forties

-may i see my stuff please?? “ehhhhh i smell a Robot. prove prove prove, prove to be youre not a robot. look at these Curvy Letters!!!! far curvier than most letters, wouldnt you say? no robot could ever read these, you look mortal! (if yee be), you look and then you type what you think you see! is it an E or is it a 3?? that's up to yeeeee. the passwords of past, you've correctly guessed, but now its time for the robot test!! I’ve devised a question no robot could ever answer! which of these pictures does not have a stop sign in it!” fUCKING WHATTTT????

-think about that for two minutes and tell me you dont wanna walk into the ocean!

- “josiah, you had something?”

-but then.....laST NOVEMBER the stRANGEST THING HAPPENED!!!

-now i dont know if you've been following the News, but ive been keeping my Ears Open

-get out of here with that shit!

-i didnt know he knew how to do that

-were Well Past That!!!

-those dont match up At All

-and all of us are like okay okay okay okay okay okay okay

-i dont remember That in hamilton

-just because youre accurate does not mean youre interesting

-hey hwy dont you take your sleeping back and gET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!! take your epipen, take your goddamn epipen and gET OF MY HOUSE!!!

-you might think that's an ignorant answer, its not its a great answer

-i dont care for these new nazis, and you may quote me on that

- “do you want a best buy rewards card?”

-anyway this is a long winded way of saying that we bought a stroller for our dog

- “he’s sick” *laughs*

-and i was like “wait, what did you just say??”

- “oh, no no no no, we all know that”

- “you’ve only had a week to work on it, and you've had the book for 2000 years!”

- “where's that pamphlet where's that pamphlet, move the jackets! move the jackets!”

#john mulaney #this has been a post by me #these are my favorites

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gstqaobc · 4 years ago

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CBC THE ROYAL FASCINATOR

Friday, November 20, 2020

Hello, royal watchers and all those intrigued by what’s going on inside the House of Windsor. This is your biweekly dose of royal news and analysis. Reading this online? Sign up here to get this delivered to your inbox.

Janet DavisonRoyal Expert Fact, fiction and The Crown

The last time Arthur Edwards took a photo of Prince Charles with Lord Louis Mountbatten, the heir to the throne had his arm around his great uncle. Similarly, Mountbatten had his arm around his great-nephew. They both seemed to be in fine form that day, not too long before Mountbatten lost his life to an IRA bomb in the summer of 1979 off the coast of Ireland. "They were laughing together," Edwards, the longtime royal photographer for the Sun newspaper, recalled over the phone from the U.K. this week. The recollection came to mind as controversy swirls over the newly released Season 4 of the Netflix drama The Crown. The show takes viewers into the reign of Queen Elizabeth, with the latest season moving the action into the 1980s. In the first episode, Mountbatten is seen just before his assassination writing a letter to Charles saying he could bring "ruin and disappointment" on the Royal Family with his pursuit of Camilla Parker Bowles, who in real life is now Charles's wife but at that time was married to someone else. There's no evidence — again, in real life — that such a letter was ever written or that Charles and Mountbatten quarrelled before he was killed. It's just one of many moments in the latest season that have set off debate over how fact meets fiction in the award-winning drama created by Peter Morgan. "Many people will think it's the truth ... but it's not," said Edwards, who snapped his first photo of Charles feeding sugar to his polo ponies in the mid-1970s, just after he'd left the Royal Navy. "Much of it … comes out of a scriptwriter's brain, which I can understand because … it's drama.” What bothers Edwards, he said, is the portrayal of Charles. "I've worked with him now for over 40 years, and I don't recognize that man in it." And therein lies a challenge of turning history into drama. "Certainly, in every season [of The Crown], there's a blend of fact and fiction, but it stands out in Season 4 because we are getting closer to the present day," said Toronto-based royal historian and author Carolyn Harris. Because so many in the audience will have their own memories of how what is portrayed in Season 4 turned out in real life — how Charles's marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, collapsed in spectacular fashion, for example — there is perhaps further potential for the controversy now swirling. "It's always a challenge with historical fiction that the people who are being portrayed do not know what's going to happen next, but the audience ... does," said Harris. In some instances, the episodes present events that played out in the public eye and reflect the historical record. "An example is that engagement interview where Prince Charles famously said, 'whatever in love means,'" said Harris. But there are many other examples of events being fictionalized or put together to create a narrative. Take Michael Fagan's break-in at Buckingham Palace, a focus of Episode 5. That actually happened, in 1982. He breached security and made it to the Queen's bedroom, where he spoke to her. "But Michael Fagan describes it as a very brief conversation before he was arrested, whereas for the purposes of the series, he has a more extended dialogue about [Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher's politics in order to tie this event to the series's critique of political developments while [she] was prime minister," said Harris.

CBC Archives: The leadership fracas that forced Margaret Thatcher from power

Edwards worries, however, that people will believe The Crown's version of what happened when Fagan broke into the palace that night, which isn’t true, with its portrayal of a longer chat with the Queen. "That's what really irritates me," he said. And he remains troubled by the thought that the portrayal of Charles, pilloried for a bad marriage, doesn't reflect the driven and hard-working man he has seen up close, whether he is visiting and offering support to schoolgirls in northern Nigeria or the Jewish community in Krakow, Poland. "You won't see that on Netflix." Edwards went with Charles when he returned in 2015 to the site of Mountbatten's assassination. "I watched him … and he was remembering it." As aware as Edwards is of The Crown, he has stopped watching it. "You've got to remember it's drama; it's not necessarily the whole truth."

Just let loose and dance Peter Morgan may be the creative mind behind The Crown, but in the current season, at least one moment playing out on the small screen came straight from the actor. At one point, Diana — played by Emma Corrin — dances by herself with wild abandon inside a very well-appointed room at Buckingham Palace — or in this case, a stately home filling the role of the palace where Diana went to live after her engagement to Prince Charles was announced in 1981. "It was one of my favourite scenes to film," Corrin said in a recent interview with the Royal Fascinator. "I loved it because they wanted to choreograph it, and I said, 'Do you mind if we don't ... I don't think we can choreograph a moment like that. I'd love to just let loose and dance.'" So she did, and she chose the song that was blasting over the speakers during filming, a bit of musical time travel to 1998, and Cher's Believe. Corrin's love for the song dates back a few years. "There's a theatre company in Britain called DV8, and they do this show called The Cost of Living, and there's an amazing dance scene," she said. "A guy does this dance to Cher's … Believe…. It's like the truest form of expression I've seen." In Corrin's research for the role, she was surprised to learn how important dance was for Diana. "It was quite a private thing," said Corrin. "You see her dancing and what that does, how that is such a mode of expression and release, and I thought that was really interesting."

Looking ahead — and looking back

Every so often over the past few years, there have been rumblings about whether Queen Elizabeth, now 94, might step aside from her role as she gets older. And as soon as those rumblings emerge, other royal observers are quick to note how that is unlikely for a variety of reasons, including the dark shadow cast by her uncle's abdication as King Edward VIII in 1936, her deep devotion to duty and how she has always considered her role as one for life. So it wasn't too surprising to see that scenario play out again in recent days when one royal biographer suggested Elizabeth might "step down" when she turns 95 next April. But soon after, there was also a very strong signal from Buckingham Palace about looking ahead in her reign. The first plans were announced for celebrations in 2022 to mark her Platinum Jubilee, or 70 years on the throne. It would be an unprecedented milestone — no British monarch has reigned as long as she has. In the United Kingdom, it will culminate in a four-day bank holiday weekend in early June. Oliver Dowden, the British culture secretary, said it would be a "truly historic moment" worthy of a "celebration to remember," the BBC reported.

Royally quotable

"Let us reflect on all that we have been through together and all that we have learned. Let us remember all victims of war, tyranny and persecution; those who laid down their lives for the freedoms we cherish; and those who struggle for these freedoms to this day."

— Prince Charles,

during a visit to Germany

to attend events commemorating its national day of mourning, which focused on British-German relations this year.

Royals in Canada

While members of the Royal Family have made numerous trips to Canada over the years, The Crown hasn't turned its dramatic attention to them yet, even though the show has featured several foreign visits.

"It's a shame," said royal historian Harris, because during Queen Elizabeth's reign, "there have been some very interesting Canadian tours."

Sure, there's been a brief glimpse of a Canadian flag at a table during a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting portrayed in The Crown.

"But we don't see Canada assuming a prominent role, whereas the series has had at least three tours of Australia," Harris said.

One episode in the current Season 4 focuses on Charles and Diana's 1983 trip Down Under. Shortly after that visit, Charles and Diana came to Canada. Had that been portrayed in The Crown, it would have backed up a developing theme, Harris said.

During the visit, Diana celebrated her 22nd birthday on Canada Day.

"There's press footage of Canadians giving Charles birthday cards to give to Diana, and a scene like that would have supported the theme of that episode of Charles feeling overshadowed by Diana," said Harris.

Edwards, the Sun photographer, was along for that trip, and has been to Canada about 15 times with members of the Royal Family.

The 1983 trip lasted 17 days and was "fantastic," he said. "It was just brilliant. I can recall it like it was yesterday. We criss-crossed the country."

During the opening of the World University Games in Edmonton on July 1, the crowd sang Happy Birthday to Diana.

"The whole crowd. It was phenomenal," said Edwards.

Harris sees potential plotting for future seasons of The Crown possibly playing into how the series has portrayed foreign visits so far.

"We see a stronger Australia focus, and it's certainly possible that the 1999 Australian referendum [on the monarchy] may come up in a subsequent season so some of this may be building towards that.

"But definitely in terms of the Commonwealth, certain nations are emphasized more than others in the series."

Royal reads

1. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip

celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary today

, and a photo was released of them reading a card from their great-grandchildren. [CBC]

2. In a rare statement, Prince William has said he

welcomes an investigation by the BBC

into circumstances around the controversial Panorama interview his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, gave to Martin Bashir in 1995. [CBC]

3. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex,

did authorize a friend to talk to the authors of Finding Freedom

, a biography of her and Prince Harry that was published his summer, court papers say. [ITV]

Cheers!

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GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦🇬🇧🇦🇺🇳🇿

#@skippyv20 @sandiedog

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otterknowbynow · 5 years ago

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@23rdhunter tagged me with instructions to post my seven favorite comfort films.

I'm interpreting this as "films that feel like home" and that I will literally watch at any time, because they're familiar in such the literal sense that they feel like family. Here we go.

1. Galaxy Quest -- One time when he was home sick from school, my brother watched this movie on repeat for three days. The fact I find this highly relatable and was, at the time, quite envious probably says everything that needs to be said about my relationship with this film. My entire extended family quotes it regularly like some kind of shared echo. You can always count on "look around you..." with no need for the follow-up or "I've got ONE job on this ship. It's STUPID. But I'm gonna do it" coming up at least once in any group conversation (runner-up status to: "the floors are so clean" and "DO I?"). It's the epitome of comfort food in film form. Space dorks who play space dorks on TV and weird villains that say tiSSUE paper in an eminently quotable way? That's all it takes, friends.

2. The Perfect Score -- I first watched this movie with one of my best friends, and I swear we watched it probably 5 times in one weekend at her house. I will literally watch this movie at any moment. I don't care about its objective quality. I can't even assess its objective quality at this point; it's been in my life too long. I care 0% that the SAT doesn't work like that anymore. I care 100% that Roy was conversing with crows before it was cool.

3. The Lion King II: Simba's Pride - Sometimes I'm just going about my day and then notice "We Are One" has been in my head for the past forty minutes. We had this on VHS when I was a kid (we still do), and I watched it wayyyyy more than the first one. For a long time, I wanted to name a daughter Kiara. I still might. Make of that what you will.

4. Miss Congeniality - Do I just have a thing for Sandra Bullock in any and all of her romcom roles? Maybe so. But this was the first PG-13 movie I ever saw (I was 12. Scandalous.), and I've watched it an inordinate amount of times. The training scenes. The water harp. The self-defense improv. The exploding scenery. Iconic, and deservedly so.

5. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl -- for all intents and purposes, when it comes to this movie, I am Travis McElroy. I probably don't need to elaborate on that, but I will. The first time I saw this movie in theaters I literally could not sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about it? The imagery! The score! The e v e r y t h i n g. I don't know how many more times I saw it in theaters, and it's honestly probably for the best. I have spent untold hours of my life watching this movie and will spend untold hours more.

6. Hunchback of Notre Dame -- it's the score more than anything else that puts this movie on this list. Yes to watching it several (hundred) times. Yes to childhood staple. Yes to all. But most of all, yes to those kyrie elaisons in Bells, yes to Quasi sliding down the gargoyle spout and belting the "if IIIIIII was in their skin Iiiiii'd treeeasure eve.ry. in.stant." of Out There and leaning SO hard into the dipthongs. Yes to so many lines of "God Help the Outcasts" that I can't even write them all out here (or rather, I CAN, but I want this to be somewhat readable). This was also the first movie I saw where there was no main hero/main heroine endgame romance, and gosh I'm still just. Living for this movie. Every time I get to play in any orchestra that does the instrumentals I lose my entire mind. That's all.

7. National Treasure - I don't even. Know how to describe my feelings about this movie. It's absurd. It's fantastic. It's terrible. It's ridiculous. It's everything 2 me, and I will watch it at the drop of a hat (or any other accessory of your choosing). Riddles make me happy. Stupid little spectacles make me happy. Riley Poole being an absolute dork makes me happy. The amateur spy shit they pull this entire film makes me happy. Anything that gives me an excuse to yell about daylight savings makes me happy. It's a guaranteed mood-booster and that's really all I ask of any film.

Tagging: anyone who wants to do this, but also specifically @afoxnamedmulder, @tamablepumpkin, and @resplendentreveries

#(not tagging more of you just because I don't know for sure who'd be into it!)#(do this and tag me in your response if you wanna!!!)#shush keep it down now #about the otter #It was originally tough for me to get to seven but I stand by all of these #and have the creeping feeling that I'm forgetting some #oh wow honorable mention to the emperor's new groove #which really has just about the same status in my family as galaxy quest

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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30 Rock’s Best Running Jokes

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When 30 Rock drew its final breath in 2013, yards of column inches were devoted – deservedly so – to praising the work of creator Tina Fey. Article upon article applauded the characters, cast, performances and seven seasons of energetic, inventive, satirical comedy.

More than anything else though, 30 Rock was always about the gags. It was fruitcake-dense with jokes, regularly fitting in more quotable laughs before its opening credits than many shows manage in a full half-hour. As it returns for a one-off reunion special, join us in celebrating the many, many running gags of its seven-season history, from the fake movies, to the terrible yet incredibly catchy songs, Frank’s hats, and those godawful TGS sketches…

The fake movies

The presence of Tracy Jordan (a bonafide Martin Lawrence meets the Wayans Brothers-style movie star) in the TGS cast opened up the world of film parody to 30 Rock.

Admittedly Jenna Maloney also enjoyed a movie career of sorts, but while she was being offered the part of “any blonde actress” in torture porn flicks by the producers who watched and rented Saw, Tracy was turning down the lead in Garfield 3: Feline Groovy to pursue his serious acting career. The latter climaxed with the release of spot-on Precious parody Hard To Watch (Based on the novel Stone Cold Bummer by Manipulate), for which Tracy received the O in his EGOT plan. Sheer class.

Over the years though, who couldn’t not smile at Tracy’s blaxpoitation-filled back catalogue, from the timeless romance of A Blaffair to Rememblack, to Sherlock Homie, Who Dat Ninja?, The Chunks 2: A Very Chunky Christmas, and last but by no means least, Honky Grandma Be Trippin’. The man is a chameleon (in that he’s always a lizard).

Two of Jenna’s TGS projects however, bring back the fondest memories of 30 Rock’s stinging movie satire: small-town legal drama The Rural Juror (based on a Kevin Grisham novel), and her GE-produced life rights-avoiding Janis Joplin biopic, Sing Them Blues White Girl: The Jackie Jormp Jomp Story.

The TGS sketches

The quality of TGS’ output was never under question in 30 Rock; the sketch show was unremittingly bad (when the absence of their star meant a ‘Best of TGS’ series had to be run in lieu of live shows, Legal objected to their use of the word ‘Best’, and when a review dubbed it the worst comedy ever made, Liz was thrilled they’d defined it as a comedy). Liz Lemon’s opus was a fluorescent collection of fart gags, dodgy caricatures, Jenna’s songs, and misjudged celebrity impressions.

Beginning life as, in Kenneth’s words, “a real fun ladies comedy show for ladies”, TGS was Saturday Night Live’s idiot brother, the unsophisticated thorn in NBC’s side, under constant threat of controversy and cancellation. Forced to synergise backward overflow, advertise parent company products and promote GE interests, 30 Rock’s show-within-a-show satirised both the TV industry and tired trends in comedy (the always hilarious combination of a fat woman who’s sexually confident! Old ladies are crazy! Farts!).

Lemon may have seduced pilot Carol (Matt Damon) with her Fart Doctor skits, but TGS failed to win many hearts. With sketches like Pam the Overly Confident Morbidly Obese Woman, Ching-Chong Man Who Loves to Play Ping-Pong, Fat Hillary Clinton, Bear vs. Killer Robots, Me Want Food, and Gaybraham Lincoln, why it wasn’t more successful is a mystery.

Astronaut Mike Dexter

Lemon may have ended up with James Marsden’s Criss Chros, but fictional boyfriend Astronaut Mike Dexter will always hold a special place in her heart. Handsomer than Dr Drew, less British than Wesley Snipes, less living-in-Cleveland than Floyd, and a million times better than Dennis Duffy, Astronaut Mike Dexter had it all… except of course, a corporeal self.

The fake songs

Over the years, Jenna Maroney’s singing career has vomited up some truly dreadful creations, and topping the list has to be Muffin Top (a big hit in the king-making music markets of Israel and Belgium). Seguing from its pop insanity chorus “My muffin top is all that, wholegrain, low-fat” into a Madonna-style spoken-word rap “I’m an independent lady, so please don’t try to play me. I run a tidy bakery. The boys all want my cake for free”, the song is a battery assault on the senses.

But is it worse than Jenna’s summer dance jam, Balls, which earned her the princely sum of $50 in royalties? Or her computer generated, generic benefit song in aid of an unspecific natural disaster, which urged viewers to donate to “help the people the thing that happened, happened to”? How about the Jackie Jormp Jomp performance she gave of Chunk Of My Lung, written by Jack five minutes before the show, containing the classic line “You know you’ve bought it if life makes you sweet food”? Or Fart So Loud, the un-Weird Al-able song she and Tracy wrote after he parodied the theme to Avery Jessup TV movie Kidnapped? Such riches…

It’s not only Jenna who’s provided 30 Rock’s musical intervals of course. Season three finale Kidney Now! welcomed an eclectic collection of stars including Sheryl Crow, Mary J Blige, Elvis Costello, Moby, two of the Beastie Boys, Wyclef Jean, and Cyndi Lauper to perform a We Are The World-style anthem at the Milton Green benefit gig. Angie Jordan famously released a fifteen-second single My Single Is Dropping, to ride on the wave of her reality-show fame, Frank and Pete’s Sound Mound came up with unforgettable rock anthem Weekend Woman, and in the very same episode, even Tina Fey got in on the action by providing excellent Joni Mitchell parody, Paints and Brushes.

The legacy award though, as in the 30 Rock fake song that will continue to bring joy to the hearts of fans decades from now, has to go to one song, and one song only: Tracy Jordan’s Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.

Frank’s hat slogans

Off-set, stand-up Judah Friedlander favours his ‘World Champion’ trucker hat, the one he claims to have been awarded as the winner of the World Championships of pretty much all sports, martial arts, and that time he karate kicked Chuck Norris’ beard off his face and forced him to legally change his name to Charles.

On-set as Frank Rossitano though, Friedlander wears a series of self-designed trucker hats, each bearing a different gnomic slogan. Often incongruous, sometimes suggestive, and always odd, Frank’s hat slogans are part of the bricks and mortar of 30 Rock. In terms of favourites, we’re quite fond of ��Alabama Legsweep’, or the laconic enigma of ‘And’, though ‘Shark Cop’, ‘Half Centaur’ and ‘Space Gravy’ also caught our eye over the seasons.

Jenna’s Mickey Rourke sex stories

Like Dot Com’s intellectualism, this running gag may have been introduced late into proceedings, but Jenna’s torrid sexual history with putty-faced beefcake Mickey Rourke gave J-Mo some of her best lines. Jenna’s allusions to Rourke’s sexually deviant and murderous attempts on her life paint a fascinating picture for 30 Rock fans. Here are some of the finest:

“Your new vibe is a double-edged sword, much like the kind Mickey Rourke tried to kill me with”, “Nice try Hazel, but you made the same mistake Mickey Rourke made on that catamaran. You didn’t kill me when you had the chance.”, “I’m going to have to reinvent you. Break you down completely and build you up from scratch. Just like Mickey Rourke did to me sexually.” “Next time you’ll tell me Mickey Rourke catapulted you into the Hollywood sign.” “You know what they say, if you can’t stand the heat, get off Mickey Rourke’s sex grill.” Wise words.

Kenneth the immortal page

To this day Kenneth Ellen Parcell remains something of an enigma to 30 Rock viewers. In later seasons, Jack McBrayer’s character went from being a simple country rube from Stone Mountain, Georgia to the flesh vessel for a mysterious immortal with no reflection, no age, and links to a world beyond our own.

Plenty of reference has been made to Kenneth’s ageless and supernatural state over the years, including the suggestion that not only is he unable to die, but he’s also an angel, sent to oversee the transition of souls from one world to the next.

The fake TV shows

It’s either a credit to the 30 Rock team or a condemnation of our times that Jack Donaghy’s hit reality viewer vote show, MILF Island, no longer feels like a parody. In generations to come, time will no doubt erode the boundaries between fact and fiction, and we 30 Rock fans will be telling our kids about the time we watched Deborah beat her competitors and claim MILF victory in the same breath as educating them about those people who ate kangaroo anuses for public approval.

MILF Island stands head and shoulders above the rest of 30 Rock’s fake TV shows (including TGS itself, lest we not forget), but that doesn’t mean that Gold Case, Los Amantes Clandestinos, Black Frasier, Homonym, or the inimitable Bitch Hunter deserve any less respect. Our fallen brothers, we salute you.

We could go on indefinitely listing the recurring jokes that made 30 Rock great, from Liz’s sandwich lust and desire to go to there, to Jack’s gloriously thatched head of hair and Republican conspiracies. As the show prepares to return, which of the above will live again?

30 Rock: A One-Time Special lands on NBC on Thursday July 16th at 8pm in the US.

The post 30 Rock’s Best Running Jokes appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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momtemplative · 5 years ago

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Watching My Diet.

Of Words and Images, That Is.

As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested.—Oscar Wilde, from The Picture of Dorian Gray.

When I was pregnant, I was astounded by the amount of shit-advice people felt entitled to force upon me, thanks to the visual whistle-blower of my growing belly.

I kept the book, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin next to my bed like a sacred text. The second half of the book contains a collection of empowered women sharing inspiring stories of their natural birth experiences. I read at least one story every night to off-set the deflating stories that were pushed at me. (One, still clear as day in my mind over a decade later, came from a woman who had never had kids! She said, in low tones and with concern in her eyes, “It’s the most painful thing you will ever experience. You WILL NEED DRUGS.”)

I would often fall asleep with Ina May’s book on my chest, thinking maybe the positive messages would cause seep into my being, like a topical treatment.

Now, during the era of COVID19, the news is an IV drip of mounting catastrophe into all of our collective veins. And the way we receive news during these current times is 24-7, on screens, visual, relentless and without limits. (PS: as said in Time, “media images can be so intense that they can cause symptoms of acute stress or even PTSD.”)

Like many, I find myself falling into the habit of using my few-far-between windows of space to either read updates from the Post and the Times, or to check social media. While informative at best, these word-venues are, nutrient-wise, anemic crumbs not suitable for a bottom-feeder.

So why the impulse to keep going back?

According to Time Magazine, “The human brain is wired to pay attention to information that scares or unsettles us—a concept known as “negativity bias“. Meaning, our brains are predisposed to go negative, and the news we consume reflects this.”

On a personal level, my intake of news is rising by the day—sometimes seemingly out of my control. I’ll just be grabbing my phone to check the weather and suddenly I’m well into an article on the pandemic, as if in a trance.

Without clear boundaries and a bit of mindfulness, the news and media we are ingesting can be far more toxic than beneficial. The effects of constant negative-news consumption are real and complex.

And I feel the wear-and-tear in my mental state, to be sure. I’ve been taking in the news every night, just before bed, via my tiny phone screen as if that makes it less potent and more manageable. Not the case. I can easily slip into helplessness, along with tasting the vinegar of potent rage in the back of my throat, even as I’m trying to settle in for sleep.

Anxiety and stress create cortisol, which can wreak havoc throughout the physical body and beyond. My neck and shoulders feel like they are clutching with white-knuckles for some unseen disaster, pretty much all the time. Yoga and breathing provides a world of help while doing it, but the muscle memory is so deep, that the bad patterns often return within moments of back-to-life.

This is not to say the solution is to bypass the news entirely. But if we are in this for the long haul, deliberate choices need to be made, for the stability of everyone.

Last week, my dear friend, Steph, mailed a box of crafting goodies to my girls. An eclectic mix of junk-drawer extractions and art things—things that have the potential to clutter up a house. But, when assembled in a package with intention and love, feel like vintage treasures from another world. Girl scout patches, circa the early 1990’s, ribbon in original packaging from the Carter administration, an untethered bouquet of white plastic glitter flowers. And in the midst of this treasure chest: a hardcover copy of the Oscar Wilde book, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

It was a fancy, old-timey edition that I had read through and written-in during college, using the same red ink from the same red pen the whole way through. My handwriting is young—an un-mastered version of my current script. But my brain is searching and inquisitive. I’m not sure why Steph wound up with the book, but there was a time when I passed out Oscar Wilde books like a communist would pass out propaganda and I likely forced it upon her.

Back then—over twenty years ago, more than half my current age—Oscar Wilde spoke to me in a way I was not accustomed to being spoken to, and brought about feelings that literature rarely provided. I indulged in Him, collected photos, quotes, and bought multiple used copies of his books. He became an unwitting spiritual guide of sorts. I carried the story of his tragic incarceration and subsequent death with me the way a god-fearing man would hold the image of Jesus’ crucifixion close to his heart. If they sold Oscar Wilde on a necklace, I’d have bought one, for sure.

Placing my hands on the cover of that book—while my girls squealed and unpacked the rest of the boxed treasures—was not far from the feeling of placing my hands on a body to massage. Flesh—living, breathing flesh. Cracking open the book brought with it not only the slight sigh that takes place in the inner ear during a good stretch, but also a swell of emotions. I flipped through the pages, feeling saved.

The article, What You Read Matters More Than You Might Think, in Psychology Today discusses the difference between “deep and light reading.” Deep reading is defined as reading that is slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity. It is distinctive from light reading, which is little more than the decoding of words. The author continues by saying deep reading is great exercise for the brain and has been shown to increase empathy, as well as inspiring reflection, analysis, and personal subtext to what is being read.

A passage from The Picture of Dorian Gray—”Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there is in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”

Another passage (how can I resist?): “In this country, it is enough for a man to have distinction and brains for every common tongue too wag against him. And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.”

How I missed that man. And what a time for him to pay a visit.

Last weekend, I was feeling particularly ill-at-ease. My speech had edges like so many sharp river rocks. Tears and sadness rotated through in unpredictable gusts.

On the particular day I refer to, a book called Ordinary Magic, Everyday Life As Spiritual Path all but did a swan dive from my bookshelf and landed at my feet. The cover-image was dated and sun-bleached. The font and spacing came directly from the early 90’s, which is when it was published. I have a vague memory of buying this book at Half-Priced Books in Columbus, just before I made my move out west, in 2002, eighteen years ago. It’s a collection of Buddhist essays that focus on sectioned-out, topics—creativity and community, for example. It did not take long to realize that the editor, John Welwood, steals the whole dang show. His intros to each chapter sparkle with the quiet wisdom of one who is not the headliner, but knows his own worthiness.

(As with Oscar Wilde, I could include countless quotable phrases, but a taste is all you need.) In his introduction to the creativity essays, Welwood said, “By being still and receptive, instead of busily trying to find solutions, we give our intelligence the time and space it needs to find an appropriate way to proceed.” I read that line and gently set the book on my lap to take pause and think to myself, Thank god.

Another account of being liberated by the right words.

The Unknowing. Yes, that is the landscape we all inhabit now. How do we work with such potent feelings of lack-of-control? A classic solution would be to distract the hell out of ourselves so the low hum of anxiety doesn’t seem as loud. Or, we could try to re-frame our reaction, teach the brain that there could be another approach.

Our lives are, in many ways, on hold as we await a vaccine to protect our collective physical health. But our mental health is not on hold. Our intellect is under non-stop media siege and our sanity begs to be nourished and protected now more than ever. An essential piece of that puzzle (the puzzle of avoiding going clinical insane, that is)—more so than what’s contained in a bottle or that can be purchased online with a credit card—may very well already live on our bookshelf.

John Welwood also said, “What is fresh and alive comes only from the unknown.” I’m pretty sure I’m going to have that phrase tattooed on my forearm in old-english script after this whole thing is over.

May 17, 2020

#momtemplative #mindfulparenting #COVIDwords #DietOfWords

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obtusemedia · 5 years ago

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The best songs of the 2010s: #25-1

#25: “SICKO MODE” by Travis Scott feat. Drake (2018)

When music historians look at hip-hop’s late-’10s dominance, I have no doubt that “SICKO MODE” will be viewed as the pinnacle of the era.

Let’s just go through a checklist of what makes “SICKO MODE” an instant classic: The weirdo multi-part structure. Travis Scott’s nearly two-minute long verse with quotable lines galore. Drake somehow managing to make falling asleep on an airplane sound cool. That spooky two-word Swae Lee refrain. Multiple Jamba Juice name-drops (inspiring a hilarious meme video). An iconic, striking music video with whacked-out imagery galore.

But most importantly, it’s a stone-cold banger that will get any dance floor moving. What more could you want?

#24: “Dance Yrself Clean” by LCD Soundsystem (2010)

You might have noticed that one of the decade’s biggest musical trends — EDM — hasn’t shown up much on this list. That’s because a majority of it has already aged badly, even just a few years later. Songs like “Don’t You Worry Child” or “Wake Me Up!” certainly have their charms, but unlike the more enjoyable, trashy electropop that preceded it, most EDM hits were plodding and self-serious. And its best artist, Calvin Harris, made his best work when he drifted away from the subgenre’s rigid structure and just made pure pop music.

But my passiveness towards EDM doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a great drop. There’s been plenty of songs on the list with incredible drops up to this point, and there’s still a couple more to come. Hell, I even halfway considered putting some Skrillex on the list just because some of his early stuff still can get your pulse pounding (even if these songs REEK of the early 10s). But there will never be a drop more bonkers than “Dance Yrself Clean.”

Indie legends LCD Soundsystem kicked off the decade with a bang with this song — but they made you wait for that bang. More than three minutes, to be exact. But those who were patient enough to sit through the quiet, drawn-out opening were treated to frontman James Murphy wailing like a madman over a shuffling beat, bouncy bass and a cascading, randomized symphony of analog synthesizers. Although I’m sure Murphy calculated every second of “Dance Yrself Clean,” it sounds like absolute anarchy. And in the moments when his screaming vocals go hoarse over the slamming synths, it’s unreal.

#23: “Born To Die” by Lana Del Rey (2011)

This was the first Lana Del Rey song I heard, back in my junior year of high school. I was immediately floored. The vocals, the cinematic orchestral sweep, the spaghetti western guitars, the tragically beautiful lyrics — it was an instant masterpiece. There was no way Lana wouldn’t be the world’s biggest popstar within a year.

A couple months later, Lana infamously bombed on Saturday Night Live, which some thought would derail her career entirely. Even after her career has survived and she’s become a critical darling with a cult fanbase, her debut album, Born To Die, and its title track still have a bit of the stink from that SNL performance. Well, no more.

“Born To Die” is a haunting gothic-pop masterpiece that’s aged much better than much early-’10s pop (although I love the corny club stuff from that era, don’t get me wrong). Lana’s smoky voice is unparalleled, the trip-hop production is untouchable.

And although her pinnacle wouldn’t come until 2014 with her sophomore album Ultraviolence, “Born To Die” is still Lana’s most perfect single to date.

#22: “Green Light” by Lorde (2017)

In 2013, Lorde completely upended the pop universe with “Royals,” a minimalist tune chastising radio hits for their un-relatable opulence. By 2017, the culture had fully gravitated towards Lorde’s moodier sound, with greyscale acts like Post Malone and Alessia Cara writing monster hits about being angsty and sad (and not in the artsy, brilliant way that worked for Kurt Cobain or Kanye). It was a far cry from the neon, bubbly world of Katy Perry and Carly Rae Jepsen from a few years prior.

The New Zealand prodigy could’ve cashed in on being ahead of the curve and continued down her minimalist moody path. But she did the opposite with the defiant and proudly energized “Green Light.” Yes, it’s a breakup anthem, but Lorde doesn’t wallow in her sadness here (she saves that for other Melodrama cuts). Instead, she wailed away into the night, playing off of the thundering drums and bouncing pianos of Jack Antonoff’s production (his best-ever).

With “Green Light,” Lorde let her ex, and the world, know that she isn’t going anywhere. She might not ever reach the commercial heights of “Royals” again, but she’ll be an icon as long as there’s heartbreak that needs overcoming.

#21: “If You Know You Know” by Pusha-T (2018)

Pusha-T’s magnum opus, “If You Know You Know,” is a masterclass in cocaine rap with its effortless wordplay, sinister-yet-charismatic flow and blaring Kanye West beat. It deserved to be the song of the summer in 2018, but the masses chose a C-tier Drake single instead (despite Push absolutely ENDING Drake that summer).

But that doesn’t diminish the achievement Push made with this song. It’s quite a feat to record your best-ever track 17 years after your breakout. It’s even more of an accomplishment when that track kicks as much ass as “If You Know You Know.”

#20: “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry (2010)

Teenage Dream-era Katy Perry is one of pop’s all-time juggernauts. The five consecutive #1 hit singles that album racked up is a feat matched only by Michael Jackson. Of those five singles, one stands out as the clear masterpiece of the group: the album’s title track (although “T.G.I.F” is also incredible).

I remember feeling a little underwhelmed by “Teenage Dream” when I first heard it in 2010. Her last single was a goofy, bombastic summer jam complete with a ridiculous video. “Teenage Dream” is a much more conventional, timeless pop jam. The chord structure is shockingly simple and the lyrics are lovestruck notes from a ‘50s ballad.

But that simplicity is what makes the song work. “Teenage Dream” has aged well because sometimes, all you need is three chords, a monster hook and yearning lyrics. This song will be Perry’s biggest legacy.

#19: “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” by Car Seat Headrest (2016)

“Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” has to be the only uplifting, U2/Nirvana-style power ballad about DUIs.

Landing smack in the middle of Car Seat Headrest’s indie rock concept album/instant-classic Teens of Denial, “Drunk Drivers” is about the main character taking stock of his entire life and emotional instability. And yes, it all centers around driving drunk — or in this case, refusing that temptation as an impetus to change one’s life.

Naturally, in the very next song on the album, it’s revealed that the narrator drove drunk and got arrested anyways. But for a cathartic six minutes, “Drunk Drivers” provides a fleeting escape from the constant loop of self-hate and depression. Not to mention that it’s a grinding ‘90s alt-rock throwback that probably makes Billy Corgan jealous.

#18: “Harmony Hall” by Vampire Weekend (2019)

I’d never guess that Vampire Weekend’s second-best song (after “Oxford Comma,” of course) would be a hippie-friendly tune combining the Grateful Dead and Screamadelica. But here we are. And awkward combination or no, Ezra Koenig knew exactly what he was doing.

In a very dark, uncertain year, Koenig decided to write a song that doubled both as a blissed-out reprieve and a nervous warning. The music is utopian, but the lyrics detail the anger, confusion and constant obstacles of life in the late ‘10s. Koenig takes a lyric from one of his previous songs — “I don’t want to live like this/but I don’t want to die” — and makes it a rallying cry for anxious Millennials around the world, paranoid that the world might not stick around much longer.

It’s a heavy topic, but the gorgeous instrumentals, breakbeat drums, lilting guitars and bouncy pianos certainly ease the stress. “Harmony Hall” is a late-career masterpiece for the ages.

#17: “Marvins Room” by Drake (2011)

Never before has a booty call sounded so sad.

Way before he ruled the pop universe, Drake was just hip-hop’s resident mope. And “Marvins Room” is peak sadboi Drake. Using a real voicemail message in the hook (that he was later sued for using), “Marvins Room” is a six-minute phone conversation in which Drake drunkenly begs his ex to come back.

On the surface, what Drake discusses are what most rappers brag about — sex, money, wealth. But in “Marvins Room,” Drake seems to view them as obstacles to his ex, who he clearly still isn’t over. When he said he had sex four times this week, he sounds disgusted with himself, not proud.

Drake doesn’t look remotely good in this song; it’s more than a little pathetic. But it feels real and raw and revealing in a way that few R&B ballads are willing to get.

#16: “Pedestrian At Best” by Courtney Barnett (2015)

Courtney Barnett’s grungy masterpiece, “Pedestrian At Best,” is appropriately angsty given its crunchy guitars and yell-y vocals. But the Melbourne singer-songwriter touches on a different kind of angst here than Pearl Jam usually tapped into: the pressure of living up to sky-high expectations.

In the early/mid ‘10s, Barnett was earning lots of hype after witty (and excellent!) early singles like “Avant Gardener” and “History Eraser.” She clearly assumed she’d screw up her debut album following up those breakout songs, as she declares herself “a fake” and “a phony” in “Pedestrian At Best.”

Arguably her generation’s best lyricist, Barnett nails her expectation to squander the public’s expectations: “Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you/Tell me I’m exceptional, I promise to exploit you.” The ironic thing is, she did the opposite. “Pedestrian At Best” is one of the most successful songs about failing.

#15: “Ni**as in Paris” by Jay-Z and Kanye West (2011)

There was some close competition, but I don’t think there was a more quotable rap song this decade than Jay-Z and Kanye West’s crowning achievement from Watch The Throne, “Ni**as in Paris.”

The classic lines don’t stop coming throughout the minimalist banger. Jay’s verse is smooth braggadocio perfected: “I’m liable to go Michael, take your pick: Jackson, Tyson, Jordan, Game 6.” Then Kanye comes crashing in with some truly bizarre bars that are both the dumbest and greatest thing you’ve ever heard. After hearing the song, I never felt the same way about fish filets ever again.

And then, the piece de resistance — Kanye’s inspired Will Ferrell sample from Blades Of Glory. It’s one of the most left-field and iconic moments in hip-hop history, and perfectly described the song itself. “NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS. BUT IT’S PROVOCATIVE. IT GETS THE PEOPLE GOING.” Amen.

#14: “Run Away With Me” by Carly Rae Jepsen (2015)

Carly Rae Jepsen deserved to be one of the biggest popstars of all time. She should be selling out the same arenas that Taylor Swift and Beyoncé fill. But, in what is a true tragedy, the British Columbia native is only remembered as being that singer with that one earth-shattering hit and a feverish cult following.

But despite how adorable and fun “Call Me Maybe” is, Jepsen’s true magnum opus is her 2015 album, EMOTION, and its bombastic opening track, “Run Away With Me.”

The single is a masterclass in blending ‘80s flourishes with modern production. On the thunderous chorus, the EDM synths and roaring saxophone riff work in harmony with Jepsen’s passionate vocals to create pure pop bliss. Combined with the intimate verses, the single perfectly encapsulates that butterfly-feeling of a relationship’s honeymoon stage.

“Run Away With Me” is only one of many, many Jepsen singles that would’ve been #1 smashes in a perfect world. But the lack of chart success for this one especially hurt.

#13: “Formation” by Beyoncé (2016)

Where were you when “Formation” dropped? I bet you probably remember (I was writing an essay in my college’s library).

Sure, Beyoncé’s self-titled 2013 album is the surprise drop that gets all the attention. But “Formation” came out of nowhere too a few years later, and let’s be honest — it was much better. (side note: 4 is also much better than the self-titled)

Mike Will Made It’s beat for “Formation” incorporated some Texas twang into his trap-pop production — a fitting match for a Houston legend like Beyoncé. And Bey takes heat-check shot after heat-check shot here: declaring herself the next Bill Gates; casually dropping a “swag” ad lib and magically not sounding corny as hell; making a trip to a mediocre chain seafood restaurant sound like a cool post-sex reward.

It all works. And that’s because on “Formation,” Beyoncé was as untouchable and fearless as her cutthroat stans had always proclaimed her to be. The fact that it was the triumphant coda to one of the decade’s best pop albums just cements its legend.

#12: “Old Town Road (Remix)” by Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus (2019)

It’s the longest-running #1 hit in U.S. history. An unstoppable juggernaut that held titans like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Drake from the top of the charts. And, oh yeah — it’s perfect.

There are probably a few party poopers out there who hate “Old Town Road.” I am not one of them. By 2019, pop’s grayscale, Post Malone-fueled gloom had gotten out of hand. Then out of nowhere, this teenage Nicki Minaj Twitter stan writes a goofy novelty song that’s both a parody of country clichés and a sincere celebration of the cowboy lifestyle. (It’s also the greatest country song ever written, and the entire city of Nashville can fight me on that.)

Lil Nas X has a pure charisma other artists would kill for, from his warbly, infectious chorus to his endlessly quotable verse (WRANGLER ON MY BOOTY!!). And pulling Billy Ray Cyrus away from Hannah Montana-funded retirement to drop a shockingly fire verse about living the luxury lifestyle in Beverly Hills? There’s no way this wouldn’t be one of my all-time favorites.

Sometimes, when it comes to predicting future classics, you’ve just got to trust the screaming elementary schoolers.

#11: “Midnight City” by M83 (2011)

“Midnight City” sounds like what Space Mountain feels like.

The decade’s best electronic song is so perfect as to be almost alien, yet also remarkably warm and human. And just when you thought the song couldn’t get better, the second-greatest sax solo of all time (only behind “Jungleland”) bursts out of the neon layers of synth.

M83 has a catalogue stuffed with stunning retro synthpop bangers. The fact that “Midnight City” towers above them all is a testament to the song’s sheer majesty.

#10: “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift (2012)

Yes, I’m aware that this is the obvious Taylor Swift pick for this list. But Swift’s literary masterwork, “All Too Well,” hits me too hard to deny it.

“All Too Well” is so packed with vivid details and intense emotional swings that it feels like more like a short story backed by arena-rock instrumentation more than a pop song. From her an abandoned scarf tucked in a drawer, to her ex’s mother embarrassing him with his dorky child photos, to the phone-call breakup that was “casually cruel in the name of being honest,” Swift didn’t leave anything out.

Coupled with her songwriting, Swift’s vocals also make “All Too Well” her pinnacle. She reaches into her upper register so rarely that it sends shivers whenever she does, like on the emphatic climax here.

If it catches me in the right mood, Swift’s performance, the lilting guitars and cutting lyrics in “All Too Well” brings a few tears to my eyes. (Yes, really.) It’s only fitting that one of the greatest breakup anthems of all time is sung by a master of the artform.

#9: “Ivy” by Frank Ocean (2016)

I was very tempted to put Frank Ocean’s 10-minute synthpop epic “Pyramids” on the list instead. Make no mistake — if it wasn’t for my self-imposed one-song-per-artist rule, both it and “Ivy” would’ve placed highly.

But “Ivy” is a heart-stopper. It’s a fairly simple song, with just Ocean’s raw vocals playing off the languid guitars. To pull a song like this off, you have to be a double-threat, a genius lyrically and a stunning singer. Ocean fits that bill.

“Ivy” is the decade’s greatest R&B song, a heartbreaking ode to a slowly crumbling relationship.

#8: “The Edge Of Glory” by Lady Gaga (2011)

Lady Gaga’s best songs hit you like a brick to the face. Gaga — the greatest pop star of the 21st century, don’t @ me — has plenty of pop bangers that do this, particularly on the wildly underrated Artpop (shoutout to the insane and insanely fun “G.U.Y.”). But arguably none of her singles provide as much maximalist pleasures as “The Edge Of Glory.”

The track reeks of trying too hard in the best way possible. Gaga reaches into her upper vocal register frequently, scratching her upper limits every time she reaches the chorus. The production is a messy-but-beautiful jumble of slamming synths and drum machines. And that Clarence Clemons sax solo — one of the last musical contributions he made before his death that same year — is just the icing on top of the gloriously sugary cake.

Gaga’s over-the-top synthpop from her early years isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But for someone like me, who wants pop to feel as massive and inescapable as humanly possible, “The Edge Of Glory” is still a towering high-water mark.

#7: “Pay No Mind” by Beach House (2018)

This spot could’ve been taken by any number of Beach House songs, the modern masters of dream-pop. “Space Song,” “Myth,” “Take Care” — the Baltimore duo honed in on a specific musical style and perfected it.

To me, “Pay No Mind” is the culmination of those years of Beach House subtly tinkering with their hazy, nocturnal sound. It’s like a gothic wedding slow-dance song: the right rhythm and with a romantic feel, but maybe a bit too gloomy for your grandparents. But regardless, “Pay No Mind” is breathtakingly beautiful, like seeing neon lights through the fog.

#6: “m.A.A.d. city” by Kendrick Lamar feat. MC Eiht (2012)

If you haven’t tried to memorize the nearly two-minute uninterrupted opening verse of “m.A.A.d. city,” were you even alive in the early ‘10s?

Kendrick Lamar has written many hip-hop epics in his career so far, but so far none have topped the semi-title track from his major label debut, good kid, m.A.A.d. city. In that concept album about Lamar’s teen years growing up amidst the gang warfare in Compton, “m.A.A.d city” marks the point where the gangsta dream shifts into a horrifying nightmare.

The song is a blur of murder, violence and police sirens. Lamar sounds positively terrified on the track, his voice cracking while he confesses. And bringing on old-school rapper MC Eiht to play a veteran gang member snapping Lamar out of his haze was a brilliant move. “m.A.A.d city” is an exhilarating tour-de-force that proved how much raw talent, in both flow and storytelling, Lamar had.

#5: “Somebody Else” by The 1975 (2016)

If Vampire Weekend is the most important band of the early ‘10s, then The 1975 is the most important band of the rest of the decade. Their transformation from (really good!) simple pop-rock to tacking incredibly dark subject matter while successfully taste-testing their way through nearly every musical genre was unexpected. And brilliant, seeing as they pulled it off.

But The 1975′s best track is much less capital-I important than most of their epics about Trump or suicide or heroin — it’s a synthpop song about complicated post-breakup emotions. But “Somebody Else” earns its keep as the band’s pinnacle through sheer relatability. It nails that complicated feeling of being over someone...but not really. Or as lead singer Matty Healy puts it bluntly: “I don’t want your body/but I’m picturing your body with somebody else.”

The shuffling drum machine groove and icy synths complete a perfect song for wandering aimlessly at night, longing for a lost love. And although The 1975 might switch sounds endlessly in their career, their sweet spot will always be this moody ‘80s update.

#4: “TiK ToK” by Ke$ha (2010)

“TiK ToK” is still easily the peak of the 2009-12 pop golden age. It has a bit of everything you’d want in a single from that era: Gloriously grimy synths! An uber-catchy chorus with plenty of demands to party! And of course, a charismatic and unforgettable star who can deliver the song. I don’t think anyone would argue Ke$ha fit that role to a T.

When “TiK ToK” first arrived around the turn of the decade, I couldn’t stand it. I thought it was too sleazy. Nearly 10 years later, Ke$ha’s performative sleaziness is exactly what makes this song so fun. Yeah, the hook is bulletproof and the production is buzzy. But Ke$ha’s slurred, drunken delivery and ridiculous lines are what have kept “TiK ToK” in the public consciousness. She single-handedly made P. Diddy and especially Mick Jagger relevant again. She made brushing your teeth with Jack Daniels seem cool (and not insanely nasty, like it actually is). Every single ridiculous line, sung through Ke$ha’s fake valley girl accent, is a gem.

I can understand how someone wouldn’t like the unfiltered debauchery and greasiness of “TiK ToK.” But to me, that’s the entire charm of it, and what makes it stand out amongst a sea of similarly-minded club jams from its era.

#3: “Runaway” by Kanye West feat. Pusha-T (2010)

I was going to ask all of you to forget about Kanye West’s recent stumbles, be it his association with Donald Trump or his insistence that slavery was a choice. But the power of “Runaway” is that it is a semi-apology from a man who knows he’s deeply flawed. Every one of Kanye’s gaffes and terrible decisions makes “Runaway” even more relevant today.

But “Runaway” was originally a response to Kanye’s infamous “Imma let you finish” rant at the 2009 VMAs, where he interrupted Taylor Swift. The song basically operates as a semi-apology to the world for being, as he puts it, a douchebag. An asshole. A scumbag. A jerkoff. He’s somewhat bragging about his misdeeds, while sheepishly asking for forgiveness.

And yet, it’s an extremely vulnerable song. The bridge — “I guess that you’re at an advantage/Cause you can blame me for everything/And I don’t know how Imma manage/If one day you just up and leave” — initially feels like something Kanye is saying to a lover. But really, he’s saying it to all of us. And it’s arguably the most moving moment in his whole career.

#2: “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk feat. Pharrell and Nile Rodgers (2013)

Don’t think about it too hard, folks.

Considering that Daft Punk are the greatest dance-music artists of all time, it only makes sense that they’d dip their toes into disco and absolutely KILL it. And that’s all “Get Lucky” is. Two French masters making their grand comeback by recruiting one of funk’s finest guitarists and one of the 2000s’ most charismatic vocal presences.

“Get Lucky” will be a wedding dance staple until the sun explodes. And it deserves that status. It’s a flawless dance track. Just embrace the groove.

#1: “Archie, Marry Me” by Alvvays (2014)

My favorite song of the 2010s wasn’t a part of some major trend. It wasn’t particularly influential. It doesn’t have any profound meaning, and it didn’t try to tackle a major event. “Archie, Marry Me” just happens to be the greatest indie pop song ever written.

Every little aspect of Toronto band Alvvays’ debut single works, from the surf-y guitars to lead singer Molly Rankin’s monotone-yet-yearning vocals. With its lo-fi ramshackle charm and monster hook, “Archie, Marry Me” is all you could want in a dream-pop single. It even has the nice touch of echoing a Neil Young classic in the chorus.

The whole intention of this list — as it is with any of my year-end lists — is simply to measure which songs made me the happiest; which songs never wore out on me. And no single this decade puts a bigger smile on my face than “Archie, Marry Me.” It’s simple, achingly romantic (in a Wes Anderson-esque half-ironic way, but still), and I wouldn’t change a thing about it.

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actufarley · 5 years ago

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Heisman Watch: Chase Young, Justin Fields remain in Heisman Trophy race following Week 10

Editor’s Note: since publication, Chase Young has been suspended for the Maryland game due to what is being reported as a minor NCAA infraction due to a loan taken from a friend. There is a possibility more comes about from this story and it affects Young’s Heisman chances or that it is a blip during his run– think Cam Newton.

Even following their second bye week in four weeks, the Ohio State Buckeyes made plenty of headlines this week. The first of which was being named the No. 1-ranked team in the College Football Playoff rankings for the first time ever, with the new top 25 being released for the first time this past Tuesday. The second is with Chase Young somehow moving up in the Heisman Trophy race even though he which this past weekend’s college football games from the comfort of his own couch.

The defensive end moved from No. 3 to No. 2, jumping ahead of Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts, in the ESPN’s latest Heisman Watch.

Notable: Young is now on the board for Heisman odds at Caesars Sportsbook. It took a little while, but the general public is finally noticing that he’s pretty darn good — and dominant (29 tackles and 13.5 sacks) for the undefeated Buckeyes.

Quotable: “I think he’s got a tremendous chance [to win the Heisman], especially because Ohio State is going to be on so many big stages.” — ESPN’s Paul Finebaum

While Young climbed one spot, Justin Fields remained at No. 5, much like he has been over the last few weeks. The quarterback has dominated for the Buckeyes but is seemingly not playing enough to put up the stats of the other quarterbacks ahead of him in the race due to Ohio State blowing out many of their opponents.

Notable: Like everyone above him on the list, Fields had the weekend off. Also like everyone above him, Fields has put up video-game numbers through 10 weeks of the season. He has thrown for 24 TDs with just one interception.

Quotable: “He just extends plays,” a defensive coordinator who faced Ohio State said. “All of a sudden, you get everybody covered, you’re blitzing, it doesn’t matter. He finds ways to extend the plays and make big plays with his legs and his arm.”

Although two Buckeyes remain in the race, J.K. Dobbins fell out of it, at least for now. The running back made his first appearance in the Heisman race last week. Even though that’s the case, it’s still quite impressive that the scarlet and gray have two of the top-five players in the Heisman Trophy race nonetheless. Their dominance has been key, and it’s the reason they are considered the top team in college football with plenty of talent on both sides of the ball.

Much like he has since taking the top spot a few weeks ago, former Buckeye and current LSU quarterback Joe Burrow remains atop the rankings. His Tigers have a huge test this weekend against No. 3, which will be the biggest game of the season to date. If Burrow dominates the Crimson Tide like he has much of the opposition so far this season, it might be tough for anyone to catch up to him in the race, but there’s still plenty of time left in the season for a player to prove their worth for the most prestigious individual trophy in college football.

Heisman Watch:

QB Joe Burrow, LSU (47 points, eight first-place votes): 205-of-250, 2,805 yards, 30 touchdowns, four interceptions; 52 carries, 125 yards, three touchdowns

DE Chase Young, Ohio State (32, one): 29 tackles, 13.5 sacks, five forced fumbles, 15 tackles for loss, one pass defended

QB Tua Tagovailoa, Alabama (29, one): 145-of-194, 2,166 yards, 27 touchdowns, two interceptions; 18 carries, 30 yards, two touchdowns

QB Jalen Hurts, Oklahoma (26, zero): 133-of-180, 2,469 yards, 21 touchdowns, three interceptions; 103 carries, 801 yards, 13 touchdowns

QB Justin Fields, Ohio State (13, zero): 128-of-186, 1,659 yards, 24 touchdowns, one interception; 76 carries, 319 yards, nine touchdowns

QB Justin Herbert, Oregon (two, zero): 200-of-288, 2,329 yards, 24 touchdowns, two interceptions

RB Chuba Hubbard, Oregon State (two, zero): 236 carries, 1,604 yards, 18 touchdowns; nine catches, 40 yards

Bovada‘s top-10 Heisman odds:

Joe Burrow: 10-to-11

Jalen Hurts: 5-to-2

Tua Tagovailoa: 15-to-4

Justin Fields: 15-to-2

Chase Young: 19-to-2

Jonathan Taylor: 50-to-1

J.K. Dobbins: 80-to-1

D’Andre Swift, Justin Herbert, Sam Ehlinger: 100-to-1

Jake Fromm, Shea Patterson, Trevor Lawrence: 125-to-1

Travis Etienne: 150-to-1

Some key things to notice in the odds:

The top-three players in the odds haven’t changed, including the odds. Fields’ odds improved from 15-to-2 to 11-to-2 this week.

Young makes his first appearance in the odds, coming in at 19-to-2. Took long enough, right?

Remember when Lawrence was the favorite to win the Heisman prior to the season? His odds are now a dismal 100-to-1.

Dobbins’ odds dropped from 50-to-1 to 80-to-1 during the bye week.

source: https://waitingfornextyear.com/2019/11/ohio-state-buckeyes-heisman-trophy-watch-chase-young-justin-fields-week-10/

#chase young state

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stephhannes · 6 years ago

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if you love something, give it away

it all boils down to one quotable phrase: if you love something, give it away

i’ve been writing about nathan since i was 13, and this has been the hardest piece i’ve tried to write. as soon as nathan died, i knew that i wanted to have something special to publish on our anniversary. originally, that was a book of essays- i made a little headway on that, but grief made it hard to actually accomplish anything of substance. it took a lot just to try to get out one blog post a month. but now that i think about an entire book of essays- i think maybe that wouldn’t have been the right move.

here’s the thing: nathan and i have had a long and dramatic history, and when we started actually dating, i put a lot of our past stories in a vault. i threw out journals, i deleted old blog posts, i got rid of a lot of the bad stuff because it was unhealthy to hold onto it, to carry it into our relationship. we (obviously) both grew up a lot since we met when we were 11. thinking about all of the years of chasing each other and being terrible to each other was so detrimental to my mental health, and after (a decent amount of) therapy and just growing up in general, i got over it. there’s enough drama just in the month leading up to us getting together, that there’s really no need to focus on all of the drama from high school.

i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about if we would have ended up together if we had met in a different timeline. we were incredibly similar in the sense that our morals and general beliefs aligned, but the way that we interacted with the world and processed events and saw things were so incredibly different. our relationship was a dream, but was it so great because we were genuinely inherently compatible? or were we so compatible because we had grown up together?

but maybe that’s just how it works.

we stuck to each other because in abilene, we were the same. we were both too smart for our own good, we were both kind of arrogant about that fact. we were the only people who were like that so of course we gravitated toward each other. but if we had met in austin, or in new york somewhere down the line when we weren’t kids- would we have ended up together?

on the other hand, even though we initially were brought together by circumstance, we still spent time apart. i left abilene for college, we both dated other people, we both went through our respective garbage human undergrad phases- and we still came back to each other after all of that.

that was always the beauty of our relationship. we always came home. we always came back to each other.

i said goodbye to him so many times. junior year of high school, we kissed for the first time and we both read the situation completely differently. after that first kiss he was like “i’ve always wanted to do that,” and i was like “yeah, i know.” not trying to be dismissive, i was just so in shock and didn’t know how to use words. i left that day thinking “oh holy shit we’re finally going to be together, dope!” and he read it as “oh she’s definitely not interested.” we never discussed it, he just started dating someone else a couple of weeks later, and that was when i told myself i was never going to talk to him again. at that point, i’d spent a couple of years on the backburner in his life. it was this weird place because we were so insanely close- we were absolutely in love with each other, but he was always in another relationship. that was my last straw. i didn’t make a big deal out of it, i just quietly cut him out of my life. and surprisingly, i was thriving.

and then at the end of junior year, something terrible happened in his life. and i remember having a small moral dilemma of “i know that he needs me but also i told myself i’d never talk to him again and that’s actually been going pretty well for me,” but me, being the good friend that i am, took one for the team and texted him. “hey, i know we haven’t been the best of friends lately, but i love you and i’m here for you if you need anything.” to which he replied, “oh my god. you’re the one person i’ve wanted to talk to today. it’s my fault things have been bad between us. i’m so sorry.”

we saw each other a few times after that, but he dropped out of high school and went to college a year early after that event so for the most part- we lost touch.

my sophomore year of college, back in 2015, we reconnected. i texted him out of the blue after telling one of my friends all about our history and feeling inspired, was like “hey i miss you” and that weekend he came to austin to see me. and that weekend was so special. leading up to that point, we actually really hadn’t spent much time alone together. in high school i think we saw each other outside of class approximately three times, i visited his dorm once when he was in college, but other than that this was really our first time spending quality time together. i lived right near campus, which was a hell that weekend, because it was round-up, which meant the drunk frat stars were out in full force, but i showed him around campus, took him to my favorite thai place (where he ordered something that was so spicy it had the word ‘cry’ in the name) and fell asleep next to him for the first time. it was perfect.

and then after that weekend we didn’t talk again for eight months.

i saw him again when i was in abilene for thanksgiving. this was the first time i’d seen him since my dad died and i remember going to his apartment, drinking a bottle of moscato and just sobbing like a weirdo for 30 minutes at one point.

january 2016 was the first time i spent the night at his apartment, and then as patterns have shown, we didn’t talk for a few months after that.

spring break 2016 was when we became inseparable again. we were constantly texting, especially when he came to new york to commit to columbia. we were functionally in a relationship but without the actual commitment, which is the thing that i wanted. i was still trying to keep my distance emotionally at this point, partially because i knew that he was about to move and partially because by now, i’d found out that he had a girlfriend and i wasn’t about to play the “i’m in love with stephanie but i’m also going to have a girlfriend and put stephanie on the backburner sometimes” game again. i couldn’t do it.

and then i caught feelings and things got a lot more complicated.

by this point, nathan had already been like “blah blah blah i’m so in love with you” “blah blah blah you make me really happy” and for awhile i was just like “ok that’s cool my dude, but i’m not getting involved again” until i caved and was like “yeah shit, i’m in love with you again too.” i remember about a week before that convo, i was sitting in his room literally watching him fill out the columbia couples’ housing form for him and someone that was not me. i was falling right back into our same bullshit. in the middle of april 2016, he came to see me again, for the second time, in austin. he was sick that weekend so we mostly hung out around the house. and that weekend was great because i loved spending time with him, but i was also in the middle of a huge existential crisis. i knew that i deserved better than someone that saw me as second best. i deserved all of someone’s attention. as soon as he left, i texted him and said something that started the worst fight we’ve ever gotten into: “i’m sorry. i can’t do this anymore. we can’t keep doing this.” he texted me pretty shortly after that to ask what i meant, “like what about it? every time i get more than ten feet away from you you decide you don’t want me anymore.”

i elaborated to say, “i deserve more than someone i get to see once every few months. every time you leave it’s just another reminder that you’re not really mine and it’s not fair. i love you so god damn much and it’s so hard to have this weird quasi relationship.”

and at this point, i could tell he was hurt, he responded with, “you should have just told me to go home the second i showed up. you better be fucking sure this is what you want.” i wanted to backtrack and take back what i had said, but i knew that i had to keep my feet planted on this decision.

however, i did eventually say, “at least it finally felt like you chose me for once.”

and he responded with something that sounded nice in the moment, “of course i did, it’s more than that, i’ve always been at a point of destroying everything for you. every step i take with you makes it harder to leave. i did pick you, i love you. i picked you even though i knew it had to end and it would make things harder.”

but that wasn’t the point i was trying to make. technically, what he said was true, in that moment, he chose me, but he wasn’t ultimately choosing me, so i said, “you say that, but it’s not really true. i have always been and will probably continue to always be a second choice. that’s not really picking me.”

this is his response i think about the most, “i can’t do this. at least not until i’ve had time to think before i say anything. you better know that i care about you because i would never let anybody else make me feel like this. i don’t know if i want to cry or throw up. honest to god, you fucking broke me today. i wanted to be yours and you’ll never see it as more than being some side piece. if i wanted to be in abilene, i would have been there. i wanted to be in austin so i could be yours.”

finally, i left off with, “can you really blame me for feeling that way though? it’s not unjustified. i love you so fucking much and that’s why this is all so hard for me to deal with. i really did feel like you were finally mine. but at the end of the day, you have someone else that’s not me. i don’t have anyone else, and every time you leave, i never know if you’ll come back to me or not.”

after that, we took some time to cool off and didn’t talk for a few days. it felt terrible. i felt constantly nauseous. it was the week before finals and i couldn’t focus on anything. i remember sitting in a private study room in the library and sobbing while trying to write essays. that weekend, i drove to abilene because i knew that we needed to resolve this in person. we had vaguely resolved the issue over text over the course of that week, but things still didn’t feel great. we had talked about trying to be friends when he moved to nyc, but i knew that wasn’t realistic. i was planning on moving to LA and at one point he asked me if my job would ever bring me to new york, and if it did then could we hang out when i was in town. and yes, it would have, but that’s not what i want. i didn’t want to see him once every few years. i wanted to see him every day. it was all or nothing.

that week was the first time that i came face to face with the concept of losing nathan in a permanent way. if we didn’t resolve this, we would have never spoken again. i was in shock when nathan died, but i honestly don’t think anything compares to the absolute pain i was in that week.

at this point, i knew a few things to be true. 1) nathan was about to move to new york. 2) i didn’t want to lose him. 3) we were definitely very much in love with each other.

so i went to abilene and left that weekend giving him an ultimatum. “if you still want to be with me in a year, i swear to god i’ll fly to new york the second i graduate.” and when i gave that ultimatum, i expected this to happen: i expected him to move to new york with his girlfriend, forget that i exist, we both move on. but i think we both knew that that’s never what would happen. to my surprise, immediately after that, he broke up with his girlfriend. that was april 28th, 2016.

on april 30th, my roommate and i went to 6th street for my birthday and i got totally obliterated. i don’t remember much from that night other than a) i ended up trying to walk home from 6th street, got lost and ended up on I-35 and then was like “ok maybe i should call a car” and b) that every single time a dude tried to hit on me i played the “i have a boyfriend” card in the most obnoxious way. the second they tried to ask me about my life i would just be like “OK SO I’M MOVING TO NEW YORK AFTER I GRADUATE because my BOYFRIEND is getting his masters from COLUMBIA.…” i also remember at one point my roommate and i were talking to a pair of friends, and the guy i was talking to was getting a little bold and said, “ok so are we all going to go back to y’alls apartment?” and i was having none of it and responded, “well, us three (me, my friend, and the guy she was into) are going back, i don’t know where you’re gonna go…” anyways, shortly after that my roommate and i got into some weird drunk fight in the middle of 6th and went our separate ways to go home (which makes no sense because we live in the same home but whatever, i digress) when i made it home at like 3am, i immediately called nathan and told him about everything that had happened that night. then i passed out. the next morning i looked through my phone and saw we had talked for like 3 hours so of course i texted him and was like “uhhhh what did we talk about for three hours” and he was like “mostly you complained but also you kept calling me your boyfriend” and i was like oh dope.

and that’s how we officially ended up together.

things were a lot easier when we were together. it felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders because i didn’t have to worry about how things were going to end up between us.

i remember texting one of my friends after we had gotten together to tell her i was moving to new york in a year and she was like “uhhh are you sure you wanna move in with someone so soon? especially because y’all are going to be long distance for most of that time?” and i was just like “yeah definitely, i’ve never been more sure of anything before.” there was never a question of “is this the right choice?” it was the only choice. it was the only choice that i wanted.

we waited until may 6th to tell people we were together. mostly because we wanted it to be just ours for a little bit, but also because i was going to be in abilene that day for his undergrad graduation and we wanted to be together when we did it.

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because nothing can truly ever be easy for us, we spent the first nine months of our relationship long distance. we got through it by daydreaming about what living together would be like, and how much we wanted to just be able to fall asleep together and like….our wedding… and stuff. when he left for new york, we both cried. it was tough. but it was going to be fine because we knew it would be the last time that we would have to say goodbye, finally.

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and technically, that was the last time that he had to say goodbye. which is probably for the best. nathan had this deep fear of losing me, so much so that he would have these nightmares of me dying where he’d wake up so incredibly upset. in the early stages of our relationship, he was so in shock that we were together, mostly because for once he wasn’t in a relationship with a garbage monster and he couldn’t fathom a stable, healthy relationship. for a little bit, he was convinced that everything was too good to be true and would inevitably end terribly. after a few months and a lot of reassurance, this stopped being an issue. nathan was dependent on me in a way that i wasn’t necessarily on him and this fact always made him so nervous. i’ve always been too independent, in a way that’s absolutely hindered my life and for the first time in nathan’s life he had someone that he could actually be vulnerable around and lean on.

i’ve talked about this before, but when we got together, i started actually taking care of myself. i started to look both ways before i crossed the street, i got more careful and mindful. and i think the reason that i did this is because it was impossible for me to imagine leaving him. the other day i was watching “after life” on netflix, and there’s this one quote that stuck with me- “i’d rather live missing him than for him to live missing me. that’s how much i love him.” every once and awhile i find myself in a train of thought, “how would nathan be adjusting if he was in my position,” and i think i know the answer to that. the answer is, not well. yes, my life is inconceivably worse since losing him, but i’ve also spent the last 24 years coping with tough shit on my own, i have the tools to move on. i’m not quite sure he would have fared as well, and thinking about him trying to do it makes my heart hurt so much. it’s a burden i’m willing to bear because i’d rather it be me than him.

re-adjusting since nathan’s died has been so hard. a couple of weeks before he died, we were driving to get cheesesteaks and on that drive, we talked about our 15 year plan. we were on the same page. we’d stay in philly for three years, (but maybe move further out into the suburbs after a year), and then consider relocating to a different office. we wanted to move around as much as possible. we would get married in the winter of 2019, the wedding would be in texas- we’d figured out who would be our groomsmen and bridesmaids. we’d get a cat first and then maybe get a dog if our schedules allowed it. we would pay off his student debt.

it was weird allowing myself to plan a future. that’s something i’ve never done before. i’ve truly been winging my life for the last 24 years.

having to rewrite that future has been hard. but i’ve been doing it. i’ve been moving forward because i have to- and there are some days where i am so hesitant to do it. there are some days where all i want to do is relive my favorite days, and i let myself have those days. there are some days where i am so desperate to feel close to him again. i read old texts, i sleep in one of his shirts that smells like him. there are some days where i’m so afraid of losing memories, of losing what we had. but it doesn’t consume my life any more in the way that it used to.

the other day i read something where a girl was talking about how she refused to move on after her husband died- her friends would describe her as “being in love with a ghost,” and as soon as i heard that, i knew that’s not who i wanted to become. that was the saddest thing i’d heard. i still love nathan, i always will, but i’m not in love with him anymore.

getting engaged means planning a life together, but the last year has been about learning how to build back my own life. i’ve had to ask myself, “what do i want?” rather than, “what do we want?” i never realized how we really did become a unit- i still find myself using “we” instead of “i” when i talk about things. i never imagined my life without nathan in it, that was always unfathomable to me, but now i’ve started to adjust to it.

there are times when i’ll ask myself “well, what would nathan want me to do in this situation?” and then i have to remind myself that it doesn’t matter what he would do, he’s dead. this is my life. on a less harsh note, i do still hold onto all of the work we did trying to make me a better functioning person. one of my biggest problems is that i love to worry about things that i can’t change, so much so that it was really taking over my life. now when i find myself getting too worked up, i take a deep breath and ask myself “is there anything i can do to fix this? do i need to be this worried about this situation?” and if the answer is no, i let it go. i used to get so anxious right before bed, which may have been one of nathan’s least favorite things about me. i would hold onto everything bothering me, and then right before it was time to go to sleep i’d start trying to unpack it, and every time nathan would catch me as i started to spiral and force me to go to sleep instead of staying up all night freaking out. when i’m doing well, i try to enforce a strict bedtime. at 9pm i close my laptop, read for two hours, try to not think about things, fall asleep by midnight. the problem is, i’m very rarely doing well enough to keep up with that. but i try, and that’s all i can do.

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part of moving forward is having to remind myself of the things that i used to believe in. y’know, before i got blinded by being in love. a month after nathan died, i wrote this on my blog:

How do I navigate a new relationship with someone when I know that they will never know me as well as Nathan did? I can spend all day talking about who I was in high school, I can explain with detail every moment of my collegiate years, but no one will truly know who I was during those times because they weren’t there. Eventually, I’ll stand on two feet again, but how far can those feet carry me when the concrete underneath them is fractured beyond belief? Eventually, someone will walk beside me, but is it fair to them when I know that there will never be anyone that can compare to Nathan? There are like 8 billion people in the world and I would swipe left on every single one of them because they’re not Nathan. I was in relationships before Nathan, and they all ended for more or less that same reason, I was always waiting for something better, I was always waiting for Nathan to come around. I don’t see this problem getting any easier to navigate, especially now that we had been together for a few years.

but now, with a little more distance, and a little more clarity, i’m able to go back to my critical roots. like i talked about earlier, we were a product of our circumstances. so at some point in the future, i’ll inevitably find another circumstance. there’s this tim minchin song that’s like “and look, i’m not undervaluing what we’ve got when i say that given the role chaos inevitably plays in the inherently flawed notion of fate, it’s obtuse to deduce that i’ve found my soulmate at the age of seventeen / it’s just mathematically unlikely that at a university in perth i happen to stumble upon the one girl on earth specifically designed for me.” and that’s very similar to how i feel. what nathan and i had was dope, and loving him is my favorite thing i’ve ever done, but also it’s just statistically improbable that our relationship was the end all, be all. i definitely felt like that for awhile, and there are absolutely days where i’m like “oh i can’t believe i’ve lost the best thing that will ever happen to me,” but logically, i know things will work out. i think the issue is that i’m a taurus. i’m stubborn and i’m a creature of comfort. loving nathan was easy because we’d been doing it for twelve years. our relationship was familiar because we’d been confiding in each other since we were in middle school. for awhile, i think i got too wrapped up in the notion that “i can never find someone that knows me like he did,” but i forgot that at the beginning, we knew nothing about each other. there was a square one, i just forgot what it was like because it was so long ago.

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there was a period of time when i was having an emotional crisis because i got trapped in this mindset of “moving forward for me means moving on. everyone else gets to keep him in their life, that’s normal. but i’m expected to move on, have a new partner, leave him behind.” but then i realized, that’s absolutely not true. it’s possible to balance a new relationship while also not completely severing ties from the past. i realized this because i’ve been in this position before, but on the other side of things. add it to the list of things nathan and i have in common: we both have a dead partner. the loss that he had suffered back in high school wasn’t something that he ever let go of. it was something that was deeply ingrained in who he was, and was subsequently something that was always built into the patchwork of our relationship. the things that were important to him in our relationship were colored by his past trauma and i learned how to adapt to that- i learned how to take care of the things that he emotionally needed more help with. i let him feel the things he felt and i never made him feel bad for those emotions, even when sometimes those feelings hurt me.

so when it comes to me moving on, i still don’t exactly know how my trauma is going to manifest- but what i do know is that i have high standards for how i expect my partner to take care of me. i know that it takes a lot of sacrifices and a lot of compromise and a lot of effort to be with someone that’s suffered a loss like this- but i also know that i’m not willing to compromise on someone that can’t do that.

may 4th was always a bad day for him, and i knew that. in 2016, we were both in the middle of finals when that day rolled around. when he woke up on the 3rd, he had a terrible day. in the afternoon, i asked him how his day had been and he told me how upset he was. i told him to call me that night, we stayed on the phone until 5am, until he finally fell asleep. when he woke up on the 4th, he was feeling a lot better. later that day, he told me that me staying on the phone with him so he could calm down and go to sleep was the kindest thing anyone’s ever done for him. to me, it seemed obvious. of course i would do that. it’s such a low-effort thing that i knew would mean a lot.

my version of that was the way that nathan would put up with my terrible sleeping. when i was in college, i briefly dated someone who could not hang with the way that i wake up all the time in the middle of the night. it got to a point where he asked me to either just go home or sleep on the couch if i was spending the night because i kept waking him up and he was tired of it. after that, i was always super insecure about my sleeping patterns. when nathan and i were first dating, i would profusely apologize for being so annoying at night, but he never complained about it. he just got used to it and eventually would tell me that he was totally cool with me accidentally waking him up in the middle of the night because it gave him more time to cuddle with me at night. i’d usually fall asleep as the big spoon, and then we would separate once i was asleep. then i’d wake up at some point in the middle of the night, and so would he, and he’d turn over, put his arm around me, tell me that everything was okay, and then we’d go back to sleep. the tiniest gestures always meant so much to me. i think that’s one of the things that i’ll miss the most. his attention to detail was impeccable. he was never a grand gesture type of person, and that was okay, because superficially i think everyone wants those large gestures, but realistically, it’s the smaller things that mean more. like the time before he left for christmas vacation and he texted me to tell me that he’d bought chicken and left it in the freezer so i wouldn’t have to worry about grocery shopping because he knew that i was about to have to work a bunch of 12 hour days over the holidays. or the time that i had mentioned a candle that i really like very vaguely in passing, and then two years later he gave me that same candle for my birthday. or when he’d wake me up from my depression naps at an appropriate time so i’d still be able to sleep at night.

nathan’s memory was terrible when it came to remembering anything that happened prior to the year 2013, but sometimes he surprised me. like one day, he randomly texted me to ask “hey, you were wearing a pink shirt that first time we kissed, right?” to which i responded “it was coral but yeah” and he was like “shut up. those are the same thing” i actually couldn’t believe that he remembered that tiny detail. i felt the same way when he made a playlist for me right before we started dating. it was a mix of songs that reminded him of me, but there were two in particular that i was shocked to see. when we were in high school, on one of the three times we hung out outside of school there was one time that i remember his parents driving us back home after doing whatever it was that we were doing. we were sharing his headphones, listening to his ipod. in the duration of the drive- two songs played. of course i remembered which two played because i’m a psycho that remembers the tiniest things but when i saw those songs surface on the playlist, i couldn’t believe it. he really was good at remembering the smallest things.

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for awhile, i felt plagued by the fact that because of this situation, a lot of things immediately became clearer to me- i know that in the future i will be a better partner to someone that’s not nathan- and that concept is sometimes upsetting to me. after nathan died, i told myself that i wouldn’t keep falling into my old habits. i would fix my issues immediately. when you get engaged, you think that you have forever with someone, and i leaned too hard into that fact. i was trying to get better about the things that i was bad about, but i was doing it at this glacial pace. partially because i thought i had the time, and also because i knew nathan had the patience to put up with it. i was terrible at communication. i would play this game where i acted like everything was fine until nathan would realize that everything was not fine and then he’d have to sit and poke at me until i shared that i was feeling some sort of human emotion. in my head, i knew exactly what i wanted from him at all times, but for some reason i had this block where i wouldn’t just ask for it. he wasn’t a mindreader, but i treated him like he was, and even though it was infinitely frustrating, he would do it. the only thing nathan ever wanted to do was make my life better, and i refused to let him do it. part of me didn’t want to seem inconveniencing or like a burden- but i know that he would have been happier if i had let him help, and i know that my life would have been better if i had let him help. the week before he died, i finally reached out in a real way and i think he was so taken aback that he didn’t know how to react. it was the most progress i’d made. if i could go back in time, the only thing i would have changed is myself- i would have just forced myself to ask for help more often.

i’m still terrible at expressing emotions, talking about how i feel, in an interpersonal situation. writing about my feelings feels like a cop-out and that’s why it’s so easy for me to sit and be honest in a blog post. when you talk to someone one-on-one, they immediately react, they try to help, the focus is all on me. that makes me uncomfortable. sitting and throwing 6,000 words into the void is easy- there’s no face i have to watch react to me when i say i want to walk into traffic half of the time.

but i’ve been trying to not make everyone read my mind.

it’s hard realizing that nathan would have given me anything i wanted- if i had just asked for it. but now, moving forward i have to make myself comfortable with asking for what i want. i have to focus on taking what i need and not apologizing for it or being afraid.

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it’s almost been nine months since nathan died, which means this is the longest we’ve gone without seeing each other. april 30th would have been our three year anniversary and there’s nothing i wish that i could have had more than just spending the day with him.

when we first got together, nathan said to me, “i wish that we could have already been together for a few years but i still wouldn’t change how anything worked out.” i wish that we could have had 20 more years, but instead we had two and a half really incredible years and i wouldn’t trade that for anything. i was always so touched when he prioritized me over other things in his life. my plan was to always stand off to the side while he did what he wanted to do. when he was applying to phd programs, i knew that meant we probably wouldn’t see each other much for like five years, but i was willing to do that because all i ever wanted to do was support him and make sure he was able to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish. i always spent so much time compromising on my own happiness to ensure his- because i felt like he deserved it more than i did. i’d always known academia to be the most important thing in his life, yet he constantly kept me in mind- making sure i’d be ok with living in any of the places he was applying to. and yeah, i guess that’s what you’re supposed to do but it still meant so much to me. i think it was surprising to me because i knew that this was kind of uncharacteristic for him, he loves to avoid people. any opportunity he got to be alone, he would take. i remember once, he told me that the reason he started going to the gym so much was so he could avoid his girlfriend at that time. (this is the ONLY reason that i would work out with him when he asked me to go to the gym with him, because i knew he used to use that as an avoidance thing).

when he decided to not pursue a phd, i remember how relieved he was, which was surprising to me. but he came to this point where he was just like “look, i just want to be able to spend as much time as i can with you.” when we lived in philly, he worked from 7-3 instead of 9-5 just because it shaved a good chunk of time off of his commute home, and it also meant we were able to spend more time together when he got off of work. i am so thankful for the time we got together. for the second half of our year in new york, he only had class two days a week so we got to hang out all the time. some of my favorite memories from new york involve me getting home from work at 11, us going to the halal cart and then drinking and just talking until we went to bed at like 6am.

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when we first got together, i felt like i was dating way out of my league. nathan’s a genius, who’s good at literally everything he does- sports, music, the whole thing. i’m a goblin with an english degree. and then one day, nathan told me that he felt like i was out his league. which was shocking to me because i’m like community theatre and he’s like broadway (if we’re sticking with a sports theme though, i guess it’s like little league and the MLB or whatever). i always thought he said it just to be nice, but after time i realized that he genuinely meant it. he’d always verbally reassure me that he thought i was one of the funniest, smartest, kindest people he knows, but i found that hard to believe because he knows a lot of brilliant people. i realized he genuinely meant it because of the way he’d ask for my opinion on things. or when he’d ask me to proofread his papers. or on the off-chance when i’d let him read something i’d written and he’d be like “oh, you have a great voice.” he’s someone that only asks for help or advice from trusted sources. if he couldn’t find an answer himself, he was great at finding the most reputable person to ask, so it was always flattering when he considered me to be the most reputable source.

i think another thing that always took me aback was when i’d meet someone from his life and they’d be like “oh i’ve heard so much about you!” or when people would mention these incredibly kind things he’d say about me when i wasn’t in the room. it’s because i knew that he wasn’t someone who shared a lot with others, so knowing that he chose to genuinely share how he felt about me with other people meant a lot.

anyone that knows nathan knows that he loves to argue. he mostly loves it because he knows that he’s right and will just talk circles around anyone- but i never gave him the opportunity to talk circles around me. he was a great bullshitter, but i could always see right through it, which meant one of his greatest arguing tactics was null and void. i eventually learned that there were things i was knowledgeable about that he knew nothing about, and i definitely would try to skew debates toward those things because i loved to watch him squirm. i think he loved the challenge, and that’s why we had so much fun debating. he was so accustomed to being right that i reveled in when he was wrong. i also reveled in the opportunities i had to teach him things- for some reason, he had no common sense, so i’d spend time explaining things like “how to send mail,” and “why you can’t use dish soap to wash clothes.” sometimes he would be genuinely surprised when he’d learn how much i knew about certain topics, or when he’d make a reference and i knew exactly what he was talking about.

perhaps the most satisfying and/or frustrating example of a time when i was right but he refused to accept it was when we were planning our wedding. when we were having the first discussion about it after getting engaged, i brought up the fact that i didn’t necessarily care about having an actual wedding. neither of us are religious and there’s not any traditions that i’m particularly drawn to- in all honesty, a lot of wedding traditions kinda gross me out. also, i really hate being the center of attention and that’s the definition of a wedding. the only part that was vaguely important to me was our vows- but once again, i hate being the center of attention so my plan was to write a long letter that i would give to him before the wedding, and then have a less extensive speech to give in front of everyone. so when it came to what my ideal wedding looked like, i suggested we just elope. my issue wasn’t with having people there, i was totally down to invite our close family to a casual courthouse situation wherever we were living for the actual getting married part. and then a few months down the line having a reception in texas to celebrate with all of our friends and family. like, realistically we couldn’t afford a wedding, and it also wasn’t something incredibly important to me. but he refused to listen to my suggestion. people always talk about a bridezilla, but i was totally chill when it came to wedding planning- he was the one with all the opinions. he was like “no, we have to have a real wedding. i can name like 200 people off the top of my head that we’d have to invite.” so i was like….okay dude i’ll see what i can do. i started putting together spreadsheets with venues and prices and dates and every time i presented the data to him he’d be like “we can’t afford that!!!! what is this??? also i hate the hill country and we have to have the wedding in abilene” and i was just like YEAH I TOLD YOU. it’s almost like i knew what i was talking about the entire time. i suggested trying to pare down the guestlist but he was dead set on having every person he’d ever met in his life there so i tried to accommodate that. eventually i was so frustrated with him shooting down all of my options that we were at a stand-still for wedding planning. and then one day, in the lamp aisle of target he turned to me and said, “you know, i’ve been talking to some of my friends about wedding stuff and a lot of them are saying they wish they’d just eloped instead of doing a full wedding. would you maybe want to do that? we could just use the money we would have spent on a wedding for a honeymoon” WOW THANK YOU for just regurgitating my original idea, i’ll let you pretend that you came up with this if it means we’ve come to an agreement.

we were both so surprised that we never really actually fought. but we very rarely had conflicts, and when we did we were really good at navigating it. i can only remember one time once we had started dating where i was genuinely upset with him and it was the only time where i really lost my temper in an argument- mostly because he was absolutely in the wrong but refused to admit it. but even then, by the next morning, he apologized and we had resolved the issue. other than that, the closest we got to fighting was the time that i was on the phone with my mom and was yelling at her because she was stressing me out so much and then the next day our neighbor stopped nathan in the hall to ask if he was okay because he “heard you and your girl arguing” and nathan was just like “oh no we’re good, she was just on the phone with her mom” loving him was definitely a choice sometimes, but even when it was tough, it was always worth it.

all of this is to say that being with him made me a better person. the way that he believed in me made it more possible for me to believe in me. the way he prioritized me made me feel like i deserved to be a priority. the way that he challenged me made me less afraid to speak my mind and more willing to stand my ground. we left things in a really good place, and that’s been one of the greatest gifts to me. it’s hard having to leave a relationship at its peak, but it’s also comforting having no regrets.

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i see him everywhere, in the weirdest places. sometimes when i look at myself in the mirror, i think of him. when i went to work i would do my makeup one of three ways: no makeup on a bad day, filled in eyebrows and mascara on most days, and full glam on important days, and without fail, he’d always stop to tell me that i looked nice on the days when i’d do the eyebrows and mascara. it’s a very specific way that i would look, and when i see myself looking like that, i think of how much he loved when i looked like that. every time i see cilantro, or pickles, or spearmint gum all i can think of is how much he hated those things. when i see a cute gif of an animal, i think of the little sound he’d always make right before he turned his computer screen to show me whatever cute animal he’d seen on the internet. when i’m in my bedroom and i laugh too loudly at something, i think about all the times when he’d be working in the living room and i would laugh from another room and he would text me to tell me that i have a cute laugh. when i go to the grocery store, or the liquor store i remember the dumb way he’d refer to both of those places (the chicken store, the vodka store). when i see froot loops, i think of eating breakfast in his abilene apartment when he was in the middle of moving out. or like, sometimes when i’m particularly sweaty, i think about how he used to describe me as having a “moist personality” right before he died, i bought a pajama set from walmart that i was obsessed with and his reaction was “oh, so this is the new outfit i’m going to see you wear for eight days straight” and now every time i wear the pajama shirt as a real shirt in public, that’s all i can think about.

+++

it’s hard to accept that things are over, but i know that i served my purpose. we accomplished so much in those two years. i watched nathan grow into himself and regain a lot of the confidence he had lost since high school. i watched him go from being a high-school drop out to getting his masters from columbia. i watched him get excited about his future. i’ve been so invested in his happiness for the last thirteen years, and seeing him find that happiness has meant so much to me. at the end of the day, i think the point of marriage is to have someone there when you die, and being able to be there for him when he died was an honor and a privilege. here’s what i learned from our relationship: i know that i am the luckiest person in the world to have been chosen by him. being with nathan has made me a better person. because of everything we’ve been through, i know that i have all of the tools- the confidence, the stability, the coping mechanisms- to move forward. even though i lost nathan, i gained a sense of community with everyone from his life that’s now become a bigger part of mine and that’s pretty dope.

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surveysonfleek · 6 years ago

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1185.

have you ever been to an animal shelter? i have. they were giving out free microchips so we brought our dog there. how long is your hair? up to my boobs. does any part of your body hurt right now? where? nope. what is your mother’s maiden name? i’d rather not say. does it rain a lot where you live? nope. but it been raining the last few days.

are you tired right now? oh yes. do you live in the suburbs? yes. what’s your favorite thanksgiving food? i don’t celebrate thanksgiving. do you know anyone named Bruce? nope. what room of the house are you in? my bedroom. how far away do you live from the beach? about an hour drive. what is the last letter of your middle name? n. have you ever smoked a cigarette? yes. when was the last time you took a photo? what of? today at lunch. it was of my club sandwich lol. do you listen to charted music? whenever i turn the radio on i guess. who is the worst actor or actress in your opinion? not sure. are you subscribed to any magazines? nope. have you ever bought yourself or someone else lingerie? i’ve bought it for myself and my close friend for her bridal shower. what scent is your shampoo? it’s fruity. do you go out every weekend or just stay home? i do both. where are your parents right now? sleeping. what does your username mean? it’s pretty straight forward. no one uses ‘on fleek’ anymore though haha. if you have a dog, does it bark a lot? yeah he does. when you stay at hotels, do you sign the guest book? nope. describe your favorite pair of jeans? acid wash. how many lights are in the room you’re in? three. have you ever seen a magic show? yes. what are your 3 top favorite movies? mean girls, white chicks and 40yo virgin. none are that enlightening but they’re all quotable af. can you juggle? nope.

#survey #surveys #quiz #bored #questions

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gstqaobc · 5 years ago

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CBC NEWS THE ROYAL FASCINATOR

Friday, March 06, 2020

Janet DavisonRoyal Expert

Harry and Meghan's farewell tour

Nearly two months after Prince Harry and Meghan’s seismic revelation that they want to step back as senior members of the Royal Family, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are back in London for what some are calling their “farewell tour.” The “tour” offers an eclectic mix of events — from support of charitable endeavours to Harry officially opening a motor racing museum to their attendance on Monday at the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey. There, much scrutiny will be placed on their appearance with other senior members of the Royal Family, including Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, his father, Prince Charles, and his brother, Prince William, and his wife, Kate. “They are taking a huge step in giving up royal life — it is all Harry has known — and I would think that he in particular will have very mixed emotions” over the next few days, said royal biographer Penny Junor, author of Prince Harry: Brother Soldier Son. On Thursday night, it was all smiles as Harry and Meghan attended the Endeavour Awards. “One of the main thrusts of Harry’s work has been motivating injured ex-servicemen and women, and this is what the Endeavour Fund Awards are all about,” Junor said via email. “Interestingly, they were set up by the charitable foundation he and Meghan used to share with William and Kate, but from which they broke away before leaving royal work entirely.” Meghan is also expected to attend an event Sunday marking International Women’s Day. “Meghan taking part in International Women’s Day is very much a reflection of her personal and strongly held interests,” said Junor. This weekend’s events are widely thought to be their last official royal appearances before they step back from duties as senior members of the Royal Family on March 31. Whether the events were chosen specifically for that or were in their royal diaries long before their decision to step back was announced isn’t clear. “Their engagements are usually planned months in advance,” said Junor. “Either way, these are causes close to their hearts.” The Commonwealth Service will see them at an event that is also very close to the Queen’s heart. “Both Harry and Meghan were given really central roles within the Commonwealth by the Queen, and I think it’s important to her that if they’re going to be in the U.K., they turn up for this,” said Philip Murphy, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London. Some of those roles will be given up. Others have been retained as the couple steps back from official duties but keeps some of their private charitable interests. As much as there may be a sense of finality about the weekend’s events, there is also a sense that the Queen is leaving the door open for a return if they wish. The arrangements for stepping back include a review after 12 months. “Clearly the way is being left open for future conversations concerning their role,” said Toronto-based royal author and historian Carolyn Harris. “There have been a number of unexpected developments in the Royal Family in recent months and there may well be more going forward.” One thing is more certain, however — it’s unlikely their new life, which has seen them settle on Vancouver Island, will rid them of something that had clearly been a difficulty for them. “While they may be hoping that they will be able to lead a more private life in [the] future, so far there is no indication that the tabloids plan to leave them in peace,” said Junor.

Soft diplomacy on display

While the Royals may try to avoid any overt public displays of politics, they don’t shy away from soft diplomacy. That’s been front and centre this week as William and Kate visited the Republic of Ireland, and will be at the heart of trips Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, make later this month to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus and Jordan. All of this comes in the shadow of Brexit, which included much concern over what would happen with the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. And it was hard not to see the spectre of the U.K.’s departure from the European Union in the speech William made in Dublin on Wednesday night. “As we look ahead to some changes in our relationship, we must never forget how far we have come together in recent decades in transforming the relationships across our two islands,” he said. The Queen made a historic visit to the Republic of Ireland in 2011, which Harris said “was seen as key to addressing the difficult historic relationship between Britain and Ireland.” Charles has also visited, including a 2015 trip to the site of the murder of his great uncle and mentor, Louis Mountbatten, at the hands of the Irish Republican Army. “There’s some evidence there’s a growing interest in Ireland in Irish unity, so certainly this is a delicate time for the members of the Royal Family to visit Ireland,” said Harris. But it was a warm Irish welcome all around for William and Kate during their three-day visit, which included sombre moments as they laid a wreath at a memorial to those who died for Irish independence, and lighter moments as they sampled Guinness and tried their hands at everything from juggling to hurling. “‘I just love them’ — hundreds welcome British royals to Galway,” read a headline in The Irish Times on Thursday. Cyprus is another member of the European Union, so that visit by Charles and Camilla later in March falls in line with a recent trend of European visits by members of the Royal Family. “In terms of the visit to Jordan, the British and Jordanian royal families have a warm relationship and Prince Charles has a lot of interest in interfaith dialogue,” said Harris. “It’s an opportunity for Charles and Camilla to serve in a diplomatic role and to be able to assist with relations between the United Kingdom and Jordan.” While such trips are part of the regular royal routine, they may be receiving more scrutiny right now because they stand in marked contrast to the other more personal royal news dominating the media lately — the departure of Meghan and Harry from the senior ranks. “Now, what might be seen as routine royal visits are attracting a lot of attention, as there’s a lot of interest in how the roles of senior members ... are being organized,” said Harris. “It’s been noted Charles has 51 engagements in nine days — so are their schedules going to grow busier or will we simply expect to see fewer overseas tours going forward?” One other question still outstanding: Will there be a high-profile visit to Canada this year? No official word on that yet.

Not on the taxpayers' tab — after March 31

It was a question that loomed over Harry and Meghan and their time in Canada for weeks: Would taxpayers be covering the costs of security for the couple while they are in the country? Finally, the federal government had an answer the other day, and it was multi-pronged. Yes, the government had been helping out with security since they arrived in November. But no, there won’t be any more support after March 31, when Harry and Meghan are no longer carrying out official duties as senior members of the Royal Family. The decision left the Canadian Taxpayers Federation “pretty pleased,” federal director Aaron Wudrick said. “There are not a lot of issues where I get a lot of proactive phone calls and emails from people who are upset, and this was one of them,” he said. “So I think those people are going to be pleased they’re not going to be on the hook for the Duke and Duchess after the end of March.” People wish the couple well, he said. “It’s not personal.” Harry and Meghan won’t be here in any official capacity, and that makes a difference, Wudrick suggested. “They’re essentially viewed by most of the public as wealthy celebrities, and like any wealthy celebrity that moves here, there isn’t really any obligation for everybody else to pay for things like their security.” Wudrick said it was “a bit surprising” to learn how long the government had been paying for their security. While the couple had arrived in November, their presence here was not publicly confirmed until just before Christmas. “As much as I think some people might still be upset about the fact we paid at all, I think what’s more important is that … Canadians are not being asked to pay indefinitely for them.” Royally quotable"

“It is right that we continue to remember those who suffered as a consequence of our troubled past. And whilst many wrongs have been done, it is important that we are not bound by these." — Prince William speaks at the Museum of Literature in Dublin as he and his wife, Kate, visit Ireland.

Royals in Canada

Harry and Meghan may be seeking a quieter life on Vancouver Island, but other Royals received a rousing welcome when they came for official visits to British Columbia.

An estimated 15,000 people were on hand when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip arrived in Victoria on March 8, 1983, the Globe and Mail reported. A “bathtub flotilla” and a crowd estimated at more than 10,000 welcomed Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip when they arrived in Nanaimo a couple of days later.

“The security all but vanished and children ignored rope cordons when nearly everyone who lives in this Vancouver Island city turned out yesterday to see the Queen,” the Globe reported.

The four-day visit to British Columbia also took Elizabeth and Philip to Vancouver, Vernon, Kamloops and New Westminster, and came at the end of a month-long tour to the U.S. West Coast.

Royal reads

1. Harry

teamed up with American rocker Jon Bon Jovi

at the studio made famous by The Beatles. [CBC]

2. Is something going on

behind the scenes

at two royal Instagram accounts? It’s a very interesting question. [New York Times]

3. Seeds from wild carrot, clover and orchids and other plants in Prince Charles’s garden at his country residence are being

added to a "doomsday vault"

in Norway. [Daily Mail]

4. Queen Elizabeth went to the headquarters of MI5 the other day, and praised intelligence workers for the

“tireless work”

they do. [ITV]

5. Just

what is life like for the personal protection officers

who are with members of the Royal Family? [ITV]

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