#however it allows us to stay up later than on work nights which is nice

[guinevereslancelot]

starting to kind of date someone right before christmas is so stressful fr. do i get him a gift or what we've been on two dates but i'm seeing him tonight n it's christmas eve.....but what if he didn't get me anything then it will be weird.....

[fairyhaos]

⌑ damned chivalrous captain // lee chan

knight!dino x knight!gn!reader, 1.5k words

tags: medieval fantasy au, both yn and chan are knights teehee, kinda rivals to lovers, only one bed trope,,, gone wrong

notes: ib the idea chan is wayyy too nice for the only one bed trope to work bc he is wont impede on ur personal space if you made it clear that you'd be uncomfortable with that. get urself a man who respects ur boundaries like knight!lee chan

“I’m sorry,” the innkeeper says, her face apologetic, “But we only have a one-bedroom room left.”

You kind of want to fall to your knees in exasperation right then and there.

It’s been a long, tiring day of riding with the rest of the King’s knights and having a long, tiring, magical fight with a gaggle of evil wizards (which would have been a lot easier if they’d listened to you and brought the Court Sorcerer along too) and you really, really want to just go to sleep. In a bed. By yourself.

But of course, the Three Fates hate you, so you’re going to have to share a room with the man next to you as you both anxiously talk to the owner of this inn.

You’re just contemplating whether you have enough energy to grab the woman by her collar and threaten her into getting you separate rooms when the man next to you places a hand on your shoulder, placating.

“We’ll take the room,” he says, and now you’re contemplating whether you should grab him by the collar instead. “Thank you for allowing us to stay.”

Lee Chan smiles, as gracious as ever, and his fingers dig into your arm slightly, warning you to be civil. You roll your eyes, grit out a ‘thank you’ to the innkeeper as Chan pays, and he directs a small smile towards you, as if pleased with your show of manners.

Lee Chan.

Captain of the King’s Order of Knights, the Crown Prince’s most trusted friend, two-time dragon slayer and an all-round incredible, kind, chivalrous guy.

God, you hate him.

“If you could have just let me threaten her a little bit,” you complain some minutes later, the two of you seated around the small table in the room you’ll be sleeping in. “I could have gotten us a deal. Two separate rooms. Or at least, a room with two beds.”

Chan just smiles thinly, and he looks more exhausted than you’ve ever seen him. “Maybe,” he says. “But what about the people who were originally in those rooms that you’d be kicking them out of?”

“Yes, well—”

You huff, crossing your arms. It’s one of his many irritating traits. Always being so good.

“This room is so small,” you say instead, looking around the room. There’s a small window on the farthest wall, overlooking the starry landscape of rolling hills. The curtains aren’t drawn, and the light from the fireplace is dim enough that you can see both your reflection and the darkness of the world outside.

You’re an awful long way away from court. It’s the reason that you’ve all lodged at an inn for the night, the fight with the wizards having drawn the knights further into the rural areas than originally intended, and everyone far too exhausted to bear making the three-day ride back home whilst setting up small camps in the middle of nowhere. 

Because of this, you were initially overjoyed when Chan suggested that the knights take refuge in an inn that was on the way back. Now, however, you’re reconsidering that joy, given the fact that you have to sleep in the same room as him.

A room which is awfully small, with an awfully small bed.

“You don’t have to share a room with me if you don’t want to, Lieutenant,” Chan says, raising an eyebrow as he stands up to take off his heavy cloak. “If you’d like, I could send you back down to the stables with the rest of the nights. I just thought that, as Lieutenant, you’d prefer to be treated with a little more respect.”

You wince, and uncross your arms. “No, sir,” you say dutifully. “And I'm very grateful for your esteemed kindness.” 

He smiles, lips twitching upwards at your exaggeratedly formal tone, eyes dancing with mirth in the flickering warmth of the fireplace light. It makes you smile too, despite yourself, before you turn to look back at the bed and frown. 

“However, I'll obviously be the one sleeping on the floor,” you say matter-of-factly, and look over at him again. “You can take the bed.”

That makes Chan raise an eyebrow, and he begins to unbuckle the metal arm braces of his armour. 

“No, you’re not. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“What? No. I will.” 

The wooden floor is covered by coarse fur rugs, but they’re all a little too threadbare for comfort, and sleeping on them would give Chan backache for days. You are, if anything, an excellent Lieutenant, so there’s no way you’re subjecting your Captain to something that painful, even if him and his perfectly kind gentlemanliness always get on your nerves.

Chan waves away your words. “I paid for the room, so I get to choose. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you scoff. “Like I’ll let you do that.”

He tilts his head. “It wasn’t something to be debated. You’re taking the bed.” He sets the pieces of armour into the table, and jabs a finger in your direction. “And that’s certainly not a way to talk to your superior.”

“Captain,” you emphasise, annoyedly. “I’m not letting you do that.”

“Lieutenant,” he says back, mocking your tone with a smile. “I’m not letting you do that.”

You frown. “Fine. Let’s both sleep on the floor.”

There’s a short pause, as you both survey the floor. The bed is pushed up against the wall, and with the tiny size of the room, if you both sleep on the floor, you’ll probably end up lying as close together as if you’d both taken the bed.

“Nevermind, I don’t want to be that close to y—”

“No, it’ll hurt your back—”

You blink at his statement, but Chan doesn’t even bat an eye.

“I can't have my best knight getting back pain from sleeping on the floor when there's a perfectly good bed,” he argues, and then gestures to the offending piece of furniture that you've been bickering over. “I, on the other hand, will be fine on the floor. Come on, Lieutenant. Have the bed.”

There's a part of you that still wants to protest, weirdly annoyed that the Captain is making such sacrifices for you. “But you're the superior officer. Surely you should take it.”

Chan just smiles, seemingly at ease even though you're fighting him so insistently over such a small little thing. Any shorter tempered captain would have blown up at you right now.

“Just take the bed, Lieutenant. And that's an order. I know how tired you get during long quests like this,” he adds, gentler, and the tone makes you blink. 

Sure, you know that Lee Chan is kind, but it's surprising to hear him be so… soft. Caring. Especially towards you, seeing how your relationship has, up until this point, been one mostly consisting of constant bickering and eye rolls and snarky smirks in an attempt to rile each other up.

A Captain and his Lieutenant were fierce allies, of course, and you would stay loyally by his side during any battle at all, but that didn’t mean you were exactly friends.

Right now, though, as he smiles at you, hair gently tousled and jawline turned soft in the firelight, you can’t help but admit that he’s, well. He’s something. He’s something enough to make your heart squeeze weirdly in your chest as you concede with a sigh.

“Since it’s an official order, I suppose I have to take the bed,” you say, in the most long-suffering voice you can muster, and Chan laughs.

It takes you a while to register his next words, your pulse thrumming far too loud in your own ears at hearing his laugh.

(Why is your heart acting up like this?)

“Glad to see that you’re able to follow orders as well as ever,” he says drily, but there’s a warmth in his voice as he takes off his cloak, and places it down on the fur rugs on the floor. “Now get some sleep. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

You watch as he settles down on the floor, and you can immediately tell from his face that it is not comfortable in the slightest. Before you can even think of protesting, however, he shoots a pointed look at the bed, and the message Get into that bed before I make you is clear in his eyes, so you grudgingly comply.

Damned chivalrous captain, you grumble to yourself, settling under the covers. He can’t even let you feel irritated at having to follow his words. You pull the covers up over your cheeks, as if that will help you hide their warm flush from yourself.

“Um… Capt—I mean, Chan?”

It feels weird, to address Chan by his first name, but you’re making your next statement as his… well, his kind-of friend, not as his Lieutenant. And thankfully, despite your awkwardness, Chan’s voice is still as kind as ever as he replies.

“Yes, Y/N?”

“Thank you,” you say, the words carrying softly through the small room. “You know. For just being nice, all the time.”

Above the peaceful crackling of the fire, his responding laugh is quiet but, oddly, fond. 

“For you? Always.”

fics tags: @jeonginssa @weird-bookworm @minhui896 @bunnyiix @slytherinshua @haowrld @belladaises @moonlitskiiies @mirxzii @zozojella @kawennote09 @a-wandering-stay @abibliolife @doublasting @wonranghaeee @icyminghao @sweet-like-caramel @your-yxnnie @odxrilove @kyeomyun @crackedpumpkin @jeonride @kellesvt @sakufilms @eightlightstar @onlyyjeonghan @aaniag @starshuas @raevyng @isabellah29 @hrts4hanniehae @mcu-incorrect @dokyeomkyeom @suraandsugar @melodicrabbit @kikohao

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

Would Blanche like it if darling wants to celebrate his birthday? If he would ever allow them to find out that is

Unlike Yves, Blanche seems to overshare. You knew his birthday in the first meeting, it's on the 22nd October.

He would be giddy during the week of his birthday, already planning a nice little party between him and his (only) dear friend, you. Blanche has been yapping about how wonderful and fun his birthday will be, he wants you to stay the night before, so he can receive his midnight birthday kisses and cuddles.

Later in the morning, he would already start baking his cake using metal trays and including only his freshest eggs from the coop. Preparing the frosting, cream, and toppings for you and him to decorate the sweet treat with. Of course, he will have some savory dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the two of you.

The actual celebration will only happen late in the afternoon when the cake is all assembled and his kitchen is a mess. It wouldn't be this chaotic nor would it take this long if you weren't there, he is actually a neat and almost clinical baker, but you brought out the jolly side of him. He doesn't mind cleaning up a lot more after, because he had fun and it's with you.

Oddly enough, he doesn't remember how old he is. But upon seeing his government-issued identity card, you count that he was celebrating his 52nd birthday. You're surprised because he looks fifteen years younger than he actually is, save for the greying hair.

You were the one who told him that you don't think it's a good idea to fit 52 candles on a cake. It is by no means small, but that is just a ridiculous amount of melted wax on something edible and beautiful. That is why you bought him candles that are shaped into the numbers '5' and '2'. He found it funny to swap it, so it says '25' on the cake instead, Blanche would be giggling and clapping his hands at his joke.

You and Blanche would have his birthday cake with a cup of his herbal tea, chatting away about your day and his while a gentle and soothing, old-fashioned birthday song plays softly in the background. The box of Jolly and Joy would be brought out, allowing you and him to enjoy the day away with such jollity. Blanche would be tenderly bobbing his head towards the music that's playing out of his gramophone while he knits, crochets, paints, or completes a puzzle with you. Even if it's his special day, you get to choose what to do from his wooden box. You need not worry, as it almost seems like it contains an unlimited variety of items and games. However, you must slow dance with him at least once, to the song of his choosing. It's always pleasant to listen to and easy to follow.

In the end, you will be completely tuckered out, resting your head on his lap as he hums a birthday tune to himself. Blanche would be raking his fingernails through your hair and scalp, allowing you to fully relax on him. Eventually, you will fall into a deep, deep slumber with all the coziness and snuggliness of it all.

Usually, he would let you rest on his lap while he knits or crochets something for you to bring home. But he's a bit worried. So he would retrieve his notebook and pencil from somewhere and read through his notes all over again.

Yes. He's 52 this year on (legal) paper. However, Blanche is wracking his brain trying to figure out how old he actually is. Could it be, that his memory is failing him due to aging? He was sure to drink his ginkgo and do some sort of mental exercise every day.

He would release a quiet sigh. Blanche needs to refer to his past notebooks which are stashed in his "Suitcase of Secrets". Or simply, receptacle #3467 for Blanche's personal cataloguing.

But as of now, he is just going to enjoy the remainder of his birthday in peace. Blanche would put his notebook away and pick up a pair of knitting needles. He pressed one last kiss on your forehead, making you stir a bit before sitting up straight to work on his birthday gift for you.

[imeternallylove]

Don't grow up, it's a trap - Brian May; pt.1

Pairing: Brian May x Reader

Warning: none

Word: 2.7k

main mastetlist  | request & ask | prompts

Chapters index

prologue | part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part night | part ten | epilogue

The nightmares gradually disappeared for Brian and Betty. Miss Y/L/N wasn't giving them enough money that he could afford to waste it. The boy strives to be as thrifty as feasible; sometimes his sister describes it as worse than stingy since he attempts not to spend any money at all.

Brian is still quite considerate, and he is frightened of being perceived as an avaricious kid who is greedy for the money of his benefactor. He reprimanded Betty, his naughty sister, several times; however, her staying by his side inspires him to persevere in difficult times. And now she begged for a pricey new Ken doll to be part of her Barbie collection because the one she had was outdated, which is totally nonsense for him.

Their father and mother now live someplace in the UK, making use of work in return for money for rent in a small room that was previously used as a hiding spot for escaping creditors. The kids only had to hope for their call back to be certain whether their parents had stayed healthy.

What was it like to face terrible times? Brian, of course, has vivid memories of what happened. If he were a money gabber, seeing a cheque and useful supplies in Miss Y/L/N's shopping bags on a monthly basis for two years wouldn't be shocking to him. It was because he was too empathic, and he and his sister couldn't refute the fact that they were too young and undoubtedly helpless at times.

And then Miss Y/L/N surprised him once again. One day, after he returned home, he spotted a present package wrapped in ordinary cream-coloured paper and fastened with a white ribbon.

An eighteen-year-old lad stood in front of his house, unwrapping what was inside. His younger sister appeared on either side, holding stuff for him, until they both widened their eyes in shock. It was immediately apparent that within were collections of books from Brian's favourite experts in astronomy and then he noticed the man doll, which had the name 'Ken' printed on the vibrant pinkish packaging box set laid aside.

Well, if he wasn't mistaken, it was a Barbie doll man, as his sister had been chanting for lately. Betty shrieked and yelled throughout the house as he moved his attention to her, while the cheeky sister snatched the pink box from his grip and began to play with it. The older May only grinned sheepishly since he was still stunned by Miss Y/L/N benevolence, and he began reasoning that it was more than enough.

The young man took the white card and flipped it to see what was written. Its mild fragrance made him feel pleasing right away. Brian had no idea that letters might make someone feel better. Even though he had never met the owner of the black ink, who penned a brief note expressing.

'Happy birthday, and I hope you both love your presents.'

Yes, definitely. Miss Y/L/N is overly nice to them.

Two or three years later, the rotary phone marked the formal start of conversation between him, his sister, and their benefactor. It appeared awkward starting out; every word that he spoke was reviewed before deciding whether it was appropriate for him to talk to her. He avoided allowing her to be disappointed if Brian acted unpleasant one day.

Talking becomes less stressful after a while has passed. Brian never imagined his benefactor would be paying attention to all the weird things that went on in his day at college, or at the library, or at the lab, or- at his house. Before going to bed, he promised to repeat the story again the following day, and the next day, and every single day after that.

From the time he used to only work as a part-time teacher, Brian has gone back with his old lady, Red Special, to showing on the tiny gig on music that he loved again. The boy with black, thick curly hair felt like he was back in kindergarten, trying to get the attention of his parents when she mentioned it would be superb to see him perform music with his handmade guitar on stage with his pals.

Brian craves to know what Miss Y/L/N looks like, but he lacks the nerve to approach her more closely enough to ask. The boy feared that she would reject him and feel disgusted about his silly fantasies. Will it be terribly naive? Will she think that he's nosy? His pals chastised him for being absurd about the worries he had. At the end of the day, Brian doesn't even ask her out; all he wants is to get to know her. Is not it?

On this particular school fair day, nineteen-year-old Brian May and his friends prepared an astronomy and scientific project booth, complete with a neat suit and long, courteous tie. To accommodate everyone who attended the event—mostly professors—the room was set up into four sizable groups and arranged in various locations.

Brian believes that today is another enjoyable day, whether it is spent with parents or students from different colleges.

"This is a joke; it's bloody hot." With an understanding look, the tallest boy gave his groupmate, who was whining about the humidity, a pat on the shoulder. Without taking a break from his security duty, Dave had been at the booth since the morning, leading each visitor through the project they had been working on and researching for weeks.

Even though the astronomy and scientific booth wasn't as well-liked as the others, they still had great fun listening to their extensive lectures about their subject matter. The boys were thrilled, even if it felt like they were speaking to no one or that only a handful of people were listening.

On the table was a printed rating sheet that booth attendees could fill out and comment on. When Brian noticed that someone else was now observing on the research board, he grabbed one.

"Hello, Miss. Please take this." Making a turn, a woman of adulthood grinned, grabbed her evaluation form, and held it. She bows to him first, then Brian bows slightly in manners while her grin continues to highlight her exquisite features. After reading the evaluation report for a few minutes and scanning his eyes, the boy lifted his head to look at the board once more.

“May I ask who drew this?”

Brian smiled broadly and replied, "It's me; I draw it all." Nobody has mentioned the naiveté he slathered onto his drawing since the morning. The first is this woman.

When she grins, all the boy can see are her eyes, which narrow to a single, curved line, and her voice, which sounds familiar. "You know, it's kinda cool. It looks fascinating when used as a drawing."

Brian listens as she speaks to him; her voice is soothing, like a lullaby. Her petite hand, making an attempt to give him an explanation in her own words. He captures sight of the expensive watch clung to hers and extracts a pen that had become lodged in her skirt's pocket.

Her eyes snapped up, peering directly into the boy's, and for a moment, Brian felt like a deer caught in the headlights as he watched her begin to write on the top of the paper he had given her moments before. Her lips parted, causing his mind to explode. "Your arts are easy to understand. I like it a lot."

In a move to lessen the shame he feels, Brian scratches the back of his neck. "Thank you. But I think it still looks absurd." He pointed at the magnum opus, which he had spent countless hours curled up on his back and drawing, and wiped the tip of his nose apologetically. His pals, though, agreed it was ridiculous. despite the fact that the periodic table should have the graph placed on it.

"Absurd?" When she recounted what he had said, Brian was taken aback. She gave him an icy smile after recognising that what he had said was far more foolish than what he had actually done.

He took a deep breath, gazing attentively, and the evaluation was positive when she marked the page. He felt relieved by it. Brian said, gawkily smiling, "I sometimes say stupid things like this." Gazing at her face, he realised that she was likely ten centimetres higher than him, partly because of the height of her stiletto heels.

Oh. She is so small. In that white lace collared black minidress, it made her seem so smaller.

"What makes you feel so negative on yourself? Now tell me what you are good at..." The older woman questioned as she lowered her gaze to his shirt level and read the name tag on the shirt, "Mister May?" Just before getting back to eye contact with his.

The way she looks truly appealing, the way the way how envious he is of her gorgeous straight ginger hair with a bang is so gorgeous and he only had ugly black curly hair, and the way her scents remind him of a fairytale—Brian can tell plainly from being this close.

With bafflement, the boy swiped and gestured to the board and himself. "Me? orㅡ or the project?" The small woman started chuckling at his foolish expression before realising that, and she responded in jest. "I'm talking with you. And, yes. I mean you."

Brian answers her dramatically, trying to clear his throat and gather himself back together. "I'm good at playing guitar, I think. I formed a band and wrote a few songs but still in the process."

"What else?" She flashed him a nod while folding her arm across her chest, and her captivating eyes encouraged him to keep going.

"I can cook."

With a broad smirk and a faint whisper, she asks. "Oh, what's more?"

"I'm single."

The thing he had been saying had stunned him. As soon as Brian noticed he'd done something dumb again, he glared at the woman, who appeared to be equally startled as Brian.

"Is that what you called 'good'?"

"Oh, I have no idea, maybe it will work out well." Sheerly, he scratched the back of his neck. Unbelievably, he knows this woman across from him is going to think Brian May is an idiot for sure.

But all she does is glance upward at the board once again, still grinning. "You're the opposite of what teenagers want—girlfriends."

"I find it difficult to like people. I think that living this way is better than dating someone." How come from science projects become a love story? When did it change? Isn't it time for him to explain what's on the board?

"There're a lot of things waiting for you to find out. Don't miss out because you're satisfied with what you already have." Brian watched the older woman bend down and put a check mark on the score sheet again.

"Like… dating someone?"

"Dating is just another chapter in life; if you really don't want it, there are plenty of other things to do."

"Then I will try to date someone from today on."

She started giggling at Brian, then her eyes sparkled, flashing all around, and since he always overslept in order to keep an eye on the skies at night with the dynascope, Brian reasoned that her eyes may be brighter than the moon.

The boy noticed something had been concealed there, inside her lovely eyes. And he didn't have any idea how to guess it at all. "Uh, I mean-  'starting to think about it.' I didn't think much beyond that."

"Don't waste much time; you can't go back to youth once you grow up."

Brian stood silent while having the conversation. It was almost like the remark from just seconds before was replaying itself in the back of his mind. He's thinking, in line with her statements, which could be accurate, that he hasn't done many of the things that teens ought to do.

He straight away recognised that Tim asked him to join to record additional songs, which he wants to, but unfortunate that he has a lot on his plate, and the band may already be recording without him.

“Hey! Bri! Come here, mate!”

As the boy shifted his gaze towards the source of the sound, he saw that four pals were now standing, discussing.

"I'll handle this. I don't know what the hell is wrong with Richard's group, they need you to help them." Dave scowled and gave a disgusted shake of his head.

Brian glanced at the woman, who continued concentrating on the board. It seems likely that the scoring evaluation will soon be finished. He may most likely return in time if he only takes a little diversion to see his friends before returning to her. She grinned and gave a nod as the boy lowered his head briefly.

The boy turned around roughly a few seconds after he had started discussing booth setup with another group of pals. When he spotted that the woman he was leisurely talking with had left, his two legs remained still, unhappy.

"Is she gone?"

"Oh, just now." Dave handed the score sheet to Brian, whom he acknowledged before seeing the results.

The boy had a sudden numbness across the entirety of his body after he noticed that this evaluation's owner's name appeared.

Y/N Y/L/N

34 years old

"You know, it's kinda cool. It looks fascinating when used as a drawing."

"Hey, Bri?"

"What makes you feel so negative on yourself? Now tell me what you are good at."

"What's going on, mate?"

"There're a lot of things waiting for you to find out. Don't miss out because you're satisfied with what you already have."

"Brian?"

"Don't waste much time; you can't go back to youth once you grow up."

'Oui! Brian!"

Dave yelled after his closest friend, who bolted outside of the room without saying anything. Brian is rushing among the huge crowd of visitors to the fair.

His heart pounded in his chest; it was beating stronger than ever. The boy repeatedly brought it back, not expecting it, but each time he did so, it reinforced Brian May's desire to meet his benefactor at least once.

He remembered telling her that he was attending a college event today and that he had set up a science booth a few weeks ago. At the time, Brian was jokingly inviting her to come visit him and his sister here.

If that woman was Miss Y/L/N, the conversation that just happened… reveals that she already knows who he is.

A tall, slender boy made his way through the crowd again. Where is the woman with ginger curls and a black velvet minidress right now? Brian's close attention was drawn to the person he had been dying to see for years.

Brian began running again, with the throb of his heart. He glimpsed the back of the woman, who matched Miss Y/L/N, moving gracefully past the mass of people. The boy's gaze was fixed on her, a woman he wasn't certain was who she seemed to be.

"Miss Y/L/N??"

The boy grabbed her arm and twisted her around towards him; only it made him displeased to see that the woman frowning at him was not the woman standing in front of the scientific booth, conversing with him.

Brian bends his head in apology. He lingered in that posture without looking up, and he ended up missing out on the opportunity to meet her.

His muscular hands raised his hair, eliciting a weary grumble. How often has he told himself not to expect it?

"Excuse me," and before Brian could turn around, he felt a finger poke into the middle of his back.

"I believed that you were just shouting out my name."

Brian finds himself wondering stupidly how quickly his heart is pumping by standing towards the woman he'd been talking with next to the board earlier, with a beaming grin on her face. The boy shifted his gaze away from her to see Betty standing next to her, chuckling at the silly face he had made.

"It's wonderful to meet you, Mister May."

oh hai, im new for this hehe

[comfort-writing]

Crayons and Cassettes

Chapter 6: Party at Harrington’s

You are a kindergarten teacher. Eddie’s daughter, Sage, is in your class. Eddie helps you relax after a couple grueling months.

warnings: smoking and drinking. mental health- anxiety- is depicted. this fic will be 18+ in later chapters- minors DNI!! no use of y/n. (please let me know if I missed anything)

a/n: I feel much better about this chapter. btw I totally wanted to get it out last night but I fell asleep after work oops. let me know in the comments or my asks if you want to be added to the tag list! requests are open!

word count: 2.9k

Chapter 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 9 || 10 || 11 || 12 || 13 || 14 (coming soon!)

Once school was back in full swing, you were busy, to put it lightly. Spring semester was always filled with setting up IEP and 504 recommendations for your students to be analyzed for in the first grade, as well as trying to have every student achieve mastery of all of the state standards. You had to make sure all of your students could write their name without mistakes, tie their shoes, know numbers one through fifty and the alphabet, knew a lot of sight words, and most, if not all, should be able to read basic books.

You were working hard to try and make sure that all of your students achieved. But that didn’t come without sacrifice. You and Eddie still called, but the calls were usually less than twenty minutes, as you needed to grade assignments and lesson plan for the days ahead. You still saw him at pickup line, but instead of those days where you were stressed being few and far between, they were growing more frequent.

You could tell he was getting worried about you. He’d even said it on your last phone call.

“Are you doing okay? You seem really stressed lately.” He cautioned, sounding genuinely concerned.

“Oh, I’m fine. The spring semester is always like this. I’m just not used to having such a large class size is all. They said that next year won’t be so bad. Apparently everyone decided to have babies at the same time that you did.” You joked, trying to downplay your anxiety.

“Is there anything I can do to help you out?”

“I’m not sure… just- being able to talk sometimes is nice. Allows me decompress a little. But if I think of anything else, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Okay..” He said warily, still not quite sure about where your head was really at.

You didn’t want to burden him with anything. You’d always had pretty bad anxiety, but you had learned to manage it pretty well on your own over the years. However, when life got stressful, it was more difficult to deal with, especially due to the fact that you didn’t have much time for yourself.

He’d invited you out to a little get together with his friends the other night. You said you weren’t sure, mainly because you felt like you had a pile of work that needed to get done and taking one night off might put you back. But he mentioned that you didn’t have to stay if you didn’t want to. He just wanted you to meet his friends- it was a casual hang out, nothing serious. You hesitantly agreed, thinking that maybe this might help you chill out a little bit.

It was tonight. Eddie said he’d drive you, which you appreciated, as despite you living in Hawkins since the summer, you still didn’t know your way around town outside of the main roads. You were standing in your closet, trying to decide what to wear.

Casual. Cute. Nothing too sexy or serious. Just- regular clothes. You should have something like that, right? You dug through your closet. It didn’t help that the majority of your wardrobe consisted of colorful dresses you wore to your kindergarten class. Honestly, dressing for five year olds was easier than dressing for adults, in your opinion. You decided on a pair of jeans and a light, comfortable sweater. It was nearing March, so it wasn’t snowing anymore, but it was still cold out. You put on your everyday makeup that you wore to school and tied back your hair, pulling out a few strands to frame your face. Earrings, bracelets, watch. Easy. Cute, comfortable, casual. You grabbed a pair of white sneakers and threw them on. Just as you were finishing tying your left shoelace, you heard a knock at the front door.

You answered the door, “Hey, Eds, come on in. I just have to grab my purse.” You said, letting him into the entryway.

“You look nice.” He smiled genuinely.

You were in a bit of a rush, the anxiety still having a hold on you, “Ah- thanks.” You said quickly, rushing to the living room to grab your bag. You walked back to Eddie, eyes looking a little worried, “Ready to go?” You asked, almost walking past him to head out the door.

He stopped you, placing both hands on your shoulders, “Hey.. Take a breath. Relax.” He said, taking a deep breath, eyeing you to follow suit. You did, relaxing your shoulders a bit. “This is supposed to be fun. You deserve a break. You’ve been wearing yourself out. One night off isn’t going to cause your kids to fail.” He reassured you.

You took another deep breath, “I know… I know. It’s just been a bit much is all. I want my students to succeed.”

“And they will.” He insisted. “But they can’t do that without your help. And how can you really help them if you’re so stressed all the time? You have to take care of yourself in order to take care of them.”

You sighed, “Yeah.. you’re right.” His words were reassuring enough for now.

“Okay. Let’s go have fun, yeah? And remember, if it’s too much, we can just leave. There’s no pressure for you to stay. I’ll drive you home and you can work or relax.” He said, squeezing your shoulders gently before letting go. You nodded, and he opened the front door for you, locking it behind you guys before walking you to his van.

Before you had the chance to open your own door, Eddie jogged over and opened it for you, taking a grandiose bow. You laughed, for what felt like the first time in at least a week. Ever the gentleman. He walked over to the drivers side after shutting your door, and the two of you pulled off to drive to Steve’s.

The moment you arrived at the cute little corner lot house, Eddie jumped out and opened the car door for you, taking your hand and helping you out of the car. He gave it a quick squeeze before letting it go.

You guys walked up to the door, and Eddie just waltzed right on through the door. You felt bad just walking into a strangers house, so you stood in the doorway for a moment. “Sup Harrington, you big lug.” Eddie laughed, wrapping an arm around Steve’s shoulder and bending him to ruffle his hair. Steve laughed and shoved him off, then noticed you in the doorway.

“Hey, come on in, don’t be shy.” He smiled warmly.

You stepped further into the entry way and shut the door behind you. Steve walked over to you and stuck his hand out, shaking yours politely, “Steve. Nice to meet you.” You told him your name and once you’d been introduced, Steve and Eddie walked you to the living room to meet the rest of the group. Everyone seemed warm and welcoming enough.

The younger bunch were back for spring break, so everyone had a lot to catch up on. You mainly listened to the conversation, just taking everything in. You sat at the end of the sofa, with Robin next to you and Eddie squatted on the arm rest. You’d been chatting with her, finding out the two of you had a lot in common.

“You want a drink?” Robin offered, getting up to go grab one for herself.

“Uh, sure. What do you have?” You asked.

She reached her hand out, you took it, and she helped you off of the couch, “We’ve got a lot, and I’m not even sure what all there is.” She chuckled as you followed her to the kitchen. She swung open the fridge like she lived there and reached in the back, grabbing a beer before leaning on the freezer and allowing you to scan the contents. You grabbed some premade cocktail in a can before shutting the door.

“So.. you and Eddie, huh?” She asked, wiggling her eyebrows at you.

You couldn’t fight the red tint that flooded your cheeks, “Ah- well.. not really?” You said, shrugging your shoulders.

Robin frowned and cracked open her beer, taking a swig, “What’s the holdup? He’s like, toootally into you. And if I could bet on it, I’d put down money and say that you’re into him.”

You sighed, “That’s already been established.”

She gave you a confused look, “So.. why aren’t you two a thing?”

“My job. Unfortunately, it’s like, illegal for me to date a parent. Plus, in this town, it’s not like we can be secretive about it- gossip runs rampant.”

“Ah- yeah, I guess that makes sense. Don’t worry., my lips are sealed”

“Thanks. But it still kinda sucks though.” You chuckled, bumping her shoulder

“I feel that. When I was in college, my girlfriend and I had to be like, mega-cautious around everyone. I know it’s not the same, but I know what it’s like to have to hide how ya feel.” She reassured.

“Thanks Robin.” You smiled, taking a sip of your drink.

She nodded and the two of you walked back to the couch, finding Eddie laid out where the two of you previously sat. Robin groaned and shoved him, trying to get him to move off of the couch. He rolled off, hitting the ground with a thud, and you and Robin quickly scrambled over him and into your seats, giggling. Eddie laughed and pointed an accusatory finger, “I knew I shouldn’t have introduced the two of you.”

You and Robin shared a knowing look and laughed, watching as he got up off of the ground and moved to sit on the armrest once again, leaning against the back of the couch and resting his arm on the cushion above your shoulder.

After a while of sitting and listening to his buddies laugh and tell old stories, with you chiming in at certain points, Eddie leaned down to whisper in your ear, “I’m gonna go out back for a smoke. Want to come with?” He asked.

You nodded and followed him through the house and onto the back patio. You sighed into the cold March air, seeing your own breath. He took a cigarette and a lighter out of his jacket pocket. He offered you one, to which you politely declined, before lighting it and taking a drag.

“You having a good time?” He asked, leaning over the patio’s railing and looking into the backyard.

You matched his position, “Yeah. Your friends are really nice.” You smiled.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. You deserve to.” He told you, leaning over and bumping your shoulder with his own.

You hummed and looked up, seeing the starry sky. It made you feel small, but not in a bad way.

“Just think, only two more months and you’re home free.” He mused.

You giggled, “You mean we’re home free.”

He smiled, “Well yeah, but I was mainly talking about you. You’ve been so stressed lately with all the hard work you’ve been doing.” He paused, looking over to you, “I’ve been worried about you. I mean, I haven’t known you that long, but I can tell that all of it has had an effect on you.”

You sighed, turning around to face the house. You placed your hands on your face and dragged them down, “I know.” You grumbled, your voice muffled by your hands. You let them fall and rested your elbows on the railing, leaning back. “I just feel like I haven’t had a moment to breathe since January. Spring semester is normally stressful, but it’s usually not this bad.”

Eddie nodded, taking another drag of his cigarette, letting you continue.

“I just- anxiety is a bitch, you know?”

Eddie laughed at that, coughing through it as the smoke spilled from his lungs. “Boy do I know it.” He said, once he’d gained his bearings. “But like I said, only two more months. You’re almost there. And really, I know I’ve already said this, but if you need any help with anything, you let me know, okay?”

You nodded and leaned your head on his shoulder, “Thank you, Eddie.” You whispered. He smiled and kissed the top of your head before laying his own on top of yours. The two of you stayed like that for a few minutes, enjoying each others silent company as Eddie finished his cigarette, making sure to blow the smoke away from you.

He snubbed out the end of his smoke in the little ashtray on the railing before looking down at you, “Ready to go back in?” He asked quietly.

“Do we have to? This is so nice.” You pleaded.

“You’re shivering. You’re going to freeze to death.”

“Ugh, fine. If we have to.” You groaned dramatically.

He laughed and wrapped his arms around you, rubbing your arms quickly to warm you up, “Come on, cutie.” He said, walking you back inside.

You laughed as you two walked back into the house, feeling yourself begin to defrost as you walked back to the living room together. You plopped back down next to Robin and she gave you a silent wink, to which you rolled your eyes and smiled.

Around ten, everyone was heading out, so you and Eddie followed suit. You said goodbye to everyone, you and Robin exchanging numbers, and Steve giving you a big bear hug. Eddie walked you out to his van, opening the door for you before climbing in himself. The two of you drove home, laughing and recalling funny things that people had said that night, listening to the radio on a low volume.

Once he pulled up to your house, he walked you to your door. “Hey, thank you for tonight. I had fun.” You smiled, leaning against your door frame.

“Me too. I’m glad you came along.” He had one hand in his jacket pocket as he used his thumb to fiddle with the rings on his other hand.

You looked up at him. He looked so handsome in the moonlight. You looked around for a moment, taking in that nobody was on the street and the neighbors’ lights were off.

“Are they planning anything like this again soon?” You asked.

“Not that I know of, but I’ll let you know when we do.”

You nodded, taking a step closer to him. “Really.. thank you.” You said sincerely as you wrapped your arms around him in a hug. He was a little surprised, but he hugged you back, wrapping one arm around your waist and using the other to rub your back.

To an outsider, the hug may have look like it lasted too long, but neither of you cared. You just enjoyed each others warmth and physical contact in that moment. You could have been there forever and neither of you would have noticed.

You pulled away slightly, looking up at him. He smiled softly down at you. You glanced around one last time before looking back up at him. You could have cut the tension with a knife.

After a moment, Eddie bent down and whispered in your ear, “You’re making it very hard not to kiss you right now.”

You squeezed him closer, taking a steady breath before whispering back, “I never said you couldn’t.”

He pulled back and looked around like you had already done, making sure nobody was around. Your porch light was off, so nobody could really see you guys anyways. He looked back at you for confirmation that this was okay. You nodded.

He didn’t waste another moment before leaning down and capturing your lips in his own, moving one hand to hold your cheek as he did so. His lips were warm and soft and he tasted faintly of cigarettes, but you didn’t mind. You felt like you were surrounded by him: his lips, his hair, his tall and lean figure. He smelled like smoke and some sort of warm and spicy cologne.

He kissed you gently, not looking for anything more than this. You melted into it, your arms wrapping around his shoulders lazily. Neither of you knew how long it lasted, it could have been a second or it could have been an eternity. But when he pulled back, the both of you feeling a little breathless, it felt too soon.

The two of you shared a look before smiling at each other. He leaned down and kissed your temple sweetly before he pulled away, your arms falling to your sides and feeling empty. “I’ll see you tomorrow at pickup?” He whispered.

You nodded dumbly, and watched him step off of your front porch. “Good night, beautiful.” He said with a wink, heading back to his car. You wanted to say good night as well, but you felt as though your voice would betray you in that moment, so you silently unlocked your door and walked inside your house, locking it behind you.

You leaned against your front door, taking a moment to let it all sink in.

Man, you felt like a teenager again.

Tag list: @mcueveryday @bebe0701 @emma77645 @edsforehead @manda-panda-monium @nina211544

[theretirementstory]

14/04/24 I AM HOME, I came back on Thursday after my MRI scan and a transfusion of platelets. Was I pleased? I guess you could say that, Anie called with my shopping, I had a wander around my garden, got the car out of the garage and went to do more shopping, saw my friend Liisa and had a little chat then came home and prepared chorizo pasta bake and garlic bread.

My neighbour sent me the above photo showing the blossom on the cherry tree. I was so pleased to see my garden.

On Friday I had to go back to the hospital for what turned out to be two transfusions. I thought I would have been home by lunchtime but it was 16:30 when I got home.

So I am hoping against hope that I will be home until April 25th when I will be going up to Paris for a long stay, while the next round of treatment is carried out.

Monique had been in touch, she wanted to come down on Thursday but I needed some time to just chill. So she said she would come on Friday. However by the time she could get away it was too late. She did say that one of her twin granddaughters had got scarlet fever so you just know it won’t be long before the other one gets it.

I messaged my cleaner with the dates I am available to have her clean my home before the next hospital visit. She replied that she wasn’t available. That’s ok, hopefully we will get back to normal once all my treatment is completed.

The cough that I was starting with when I went into hospital, has now developed! My nose streams and then I start coughing, it is worse if I have been talking. The medicine they gave me in hospital contained codeine and it said not to use it for too many days. Well in my book, my wariness of medication, meant that I took it for three days then stopped. I didn’t want to become addicted!

The music this week, is really from my youth! I begin with “Love Hurts” by Jim Capaldi from 1975. Going even further back than that it’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” from 1965. The video shows Alan Price on keyboard, he will be celebrating his 82nd birthday at the end of next week, Eric Burdon, vocals, who will be 83 years old on a date in May which is the birthday of someone dear to me. Plus Chas Chandler, bassist, who later managed Jimi Hendrix and Slade. Unfortunately Chas passed away in 1996.

“The Trainee Solicitor” has met up with a few Uni friends this week and is going to see another couples new house today. He has been training the new guy at work and although he would prefer to get on with his own work, ensuring someone gets the training they need is the best way to moving onto your own work. Making sure they understand ensures less disruptions to your day.

“The Reconnect Navigator” has had to go out and buy a pair of Dr Marten boots for work. The boots she had bought previously have only lasted 5 weeks. I guess she is getting those “steps” in. It is great that they both have the weekend off as it allows them two days to do things together.

“The Photographer” and “The Jetsetter” spent a nice night in York on Friday evening. The platter they had with the wine looked exceptionally tasty. Then it was time for the “The Photographer” to head off to Boston, to photograph the match with Scarborough AFC. Although it was a 0-0 draw it was a good match (apparently). Plus he was the only photographer, for Scarborough, at the match and the photos have been in the local newspaper. That’s a feather in his cap, for sure.

“The Jetsetter” is busy preparing for her next jaunt (can’t remember where that is to). She does however spend the week in York which is a “getaway place” for a lot of people.

I have had a message from a friend in the UK, her grandson was born on the 17th February at around 26 weeks! Bless him he is still fighting and getting bigger which is such wonderful news.

Nadine (a friend here in town) has messaged to say that she will try to get down to visit at the weekend.

My neighbours have just popped in bringing a piece of flan. They always ask about my sons and grandchildren, I have shown them recent photos this morning and they think my grandson looks like his Daddy.

Now I am going to start getting food prepared. I am hoping that I will enjoy my roast chicken dinner. Then as we are due 22c today I would like to go out into the garden and clear a few weeds.

However you intend to spend your day, have a good one.

I am hoping that the hydrangea paniculata (pictured below) will have a growth spurt and put out some lovely flowers this year.

Bon dimanche!

[ase-trollplays]

It Happened So Suddenly (Part two)

Part one

Part three

It’s been six perigees since the night you allowed the cloaked stranger to stay with you. She told you her name was Yarrow Celfie, and she actually wasn’t a bad hiveguest. She only stayed with you about a week that night you met her, but every few perigees she shows up again. Thankfully she doesn’t come in through the window anymore (Which you now check at least three times a night to make sure it’s locked).

That first week, you and your lusus made sure at least one of you was watching her at all times unless she was using the bathroom. You’re extremely relieved she figured out the toilet on her own. You also showed her how the shower works, which she was absolutely floored by. It was actually kind of funny seeing her reaction.

Then she asked if you were going to join her since in her clan everyone bathes together, and you got embarrassed and sputtered that city trolls don’t do that. Which she thought was funny, so you’re even.

She kept writing in some kind of journal, but when you asked about it or tried to sneak a look she immediately hid it. Word of what happened that night spread through the fanbase like wild fire, and there were already memes filling your reddit and twitter feed only one night later.

You were relieved when she eventually went back to her clan. Having another person in your hive to keep an eye on wreaked havoc on your schedule, and she was all anyone wanted to talk about even a week after she left. Eventually, though, things went back to normal, and you all but forgot about her.

Then she came back for the second time two perigees later, though this time she knocked on the window. You were editing the latest “Try Not to Laugh” video you finished recording about half an hour ago. When you heard her at the window, you were surprised to see her again. You decided to let her in but told her to knock on the front door next time. You didn’t want your neighbors gossiping about you letting people in through the window.

Your lusus was practically glued to her much like he was the first time she stayed, but you were a little more lax. You even invited her to say hi to your fans, which she declined. You didn’t mind much, but your fans were disappointed.

That time around, you taught her how to use your old palmhusk. The bottom corner or the screen was cracked, so you couldn’t trade it in when you bought your new phone. It still worked, so you just had the number on it changed and gave it to Yarrow since apparently she was going to be a recurring guest.

She didn’t understand how any of the apps worked, but texting and calling went much better. By the time she was ready to leave again, she was basically a pro at it! ... Well, sort of. Okay not really at all, but she was getting there.

Now it’s her third time visiting, her last visit having been four perigees ago, and you find yourself actually looking forward to seeing her. This time around she actually joins you in a video, and your fanbase goes nuts. Within the hour there’s shipping art and memes with the two of you. Yarrow asks you what they mean, but you simply tell her your fans are being dorks.

Unlike the last two times, however, she doesn’t simply leave after about a week or so. She wants to take you to her home in the forest since you’ve been so nice teaching her about the city.

This is not a request. You’re going.

You spend the next two weeks roughing it in the middle of nowhere, and it’s easily the worst two weeks of your life. You spend the whole time sweaty and dirty and jonesing for internet access like an alcoholic going through withdrawal. There’s so many bugs, and every night you wake up with something crawling in your clothes whether it’s ants or a beetle or, on one occasion, a snake. Washing up in the lake is disgusting. All you can think about is all the fish poop and animal backwash you’re wading in.

Oh God, and the undead are worse out here than in the city. Yarrow’s cave is dank and dark, but the undead don’t go near it for whatever reason so it’s the best place to be. You can’t sleep well out here, and waking up during the day and hearing the groaning and shambling of the mindless undead is incredibly unnerving.

In short, you hate it here.

“You need to toughen up, Hyleem! You’re as soft as a newborn wriggler,” Yarrow teases as she guts a large creature she hunted. You can’t bear to watch, so you stand several feet away with your back facing her. Sure, you know where meat comes from and all, but you prefer it already butchered and neatly packaged so you don’t have to think about where it comes from.

“I’m not soft! I’m plenty tough! This place just sucks!” you complain and grumble under your breath. On paper it makes perfect sense she’d want to show you how she lives since you showed her how you live. However, you live surrounded by convenience and ease, and she lives completely off the land with all the difficulty that comes with it. You miss your hive.

“You should be watching so you can learn better survival skills,” she chides. You look back at her and shudder.

“Noooo thank you! Even getting over how disgusting that is, do you know how hard it is to eat something after seeing it alive first?? I might do the vegan thing after this,” you whine, but you know you’re still going to eat it. Honestly, fresh meat tastes better than the stuff in the store, but the trapping, killing, and carving you have to do to get it isn’t worth it.

Once your impromptu camping trip to Hell is over with and you’re back home, you pray she never makes you do that again.

[dcvilhimsclf]

Please allow me to introduce myself — I'm a man of wealth and taste I've been around for a long, long year — stole many a man's soul and faith

Hey, hi, hello!!

First and foremost, this portrayal is probably gonna be a little different than you would expect. Max still has his sharp tongue and sometimes rude manners, but that's only when he feels attacked or tries to make a sarcastic joke. He learnt a while ago that the way he used to talk to people didn't bring him much happiness in real life. But to keep his gimmick alive, he uses social media like twitter to support it. However, here he will be much more tamed, actually trying to have friends.

I am aware that this is a non-au but at the same time I not only wanted to try something different and have some nice connections for him, but I also think some people would like to talk to him without him snapping. So I'll try this version and will hope that you'll like it.

A L L p l o t s a r e b a s e d o n c h e m i s t r y . But with that being said, I love a good plot and writing.

Pleased to meet you, hope you can guess my name.

CREATED PLOTS BELOW

→ ship plot w/ Anna Jay

background story: not much to add except that Max absolutely adores her. They met here and their relationship is moving fast, currently moving in together.

→ ex plot w/ Alexa Bliss

background story: when Max was still in his a**hole era, he met Alexa and they had a fling going on for a while. He knew he couldn't commit to a relationship, which he told her, but ended up treating her poorly because he was scared of feelings. When Lex couldn't take it anymore, she ended things with him and they didn't speak until they met here, years later. Meanwhile Max changed, became an easy-going guy and apologised to her. Their relationship still isn't ideal, but they're working on it.

→ ex plot w/ Wesley Jaydon Addams

background story: when Max realised he had to change his attitude, it was already too late. He had no real friends, he was alone most of the time. Some of the nights he'd be sitting alone at the bar, tired of being alone in his apartment and searching for an escape. That's when he met Wes. Over the next few months, the two became close and started dating. When Max got an offer from a wrestling company, he decided to follow his dream and move. Wesley stayed and they tried the long distance relationship, however, that unfortunately didn't work out and so the two broke up.

[jodilin65]

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2004 Today should be our last motel day. We hope anyway! Then our 6-month duplex sentence can begin almost exactly to the date of the sicko’s sentence. However, I hope this will hardly end up being a “sentence” as opposed to 6 months in jail. It’ll mainly depend on the neighbors. With dogs being such a popular pet, I’m hoping the fact that because 3 people all under the same management don’t have them means they’re not allowed. I don’t know, though, because Pam never said anything about dogs not being allowed, and neither did the write-up about the place. Besides, almost any place will let you have dogs with a decent deposit, as Tom said.

I just hope we can get in, and, since it’s going to be years before we can own anything, if we ever do, I hope it’ll be nice enough there to stay put for a long, long time. I’m really tired of having my life turned upside down. It’s been nearly a year and a half now since that sick fuck fired Tom and we’re still paying for it. I’m beginning to wonder if we’re going to pay for it for 7 years just like with the sicko’s shit. Why can’t our problems ever be short-term? Days, weeks, even a few months, for that matter. Instead, they’re always years.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2004 There’s both good news and bad news. The bad is that for the millionth time, we’ve been put out, thanks to other people fucking up. The stupid shits at the satellite company had billed our credit card even after we canceled with them. We got the money back, but while they were busy taking what was supposed to be our storage money, the storage people couldn’t get their money, so they put an extra lock on our door. See what I mean about others always, always making life hard for us, fucking us over, putting us out, hassling us to death? Because of some stranger we don’t even know in another state, we couldn’t get the dolls yesterday. Tom wrote them a check and they say they’ll take the lock off. So today’s attempt #3 to get the damn dolls. If he doesn’t return today with them, I’m going to seriously wonder if something up there doesn’t want me selling them. It definitely hasn’t wanted me to sell much of anything as of yet.

The good news is that we decided we are getting into this duplex either way. Then, if God could stop sending people to fuck us over, maybe we’ll get ahead at least for a little while.

He’s going to sign a 6-month lease instead of a year, though if it’s going to be years before we can own again, I’d rather just stay put. However, I know God will see to it that it gets noisy sooner or later to keep me on the move. I’m also still hesitant about ever owning again. It’s a lot easier to get evicted from an apartment than it is to lose a house/land.

Got a Bob letter yesterday. Now here’s something that’d be too good to be true. He has a court case pending, which I assume pertains to his case that could net him $65,000,000, and a malpractice suit that could net him a million. I know he’ll never win a dime, but it’s nice to know that if he did, he’d give us a huge sum of money after getting himself a lung transplant. But I thought he said he’d been turned down by everyone regarding his case. I asked him to tell me more about it, and also not to get his hopes up either. The prisoner almost never wins. Since we don’t live in a perfect world, every case has its magic button that would be an automatic release from jail/prison or even a huge settlement, but finding that button and proving whatever point needs proving, is next to impossible. Still, it’s nice to know he’d be generous enough to see us set for life if he did win big.

No one’s been next to us the last couple of nights. It’s been pretty quiet.

Later…

I sold both Ciara and Samantha! I only got $130 for them, but that’s better than nothing, and any little bit helps. It took us a while to prep Ciara. I had to get her dressed, work the ponytail holder out of her hair without messing up her curls, and Tom had to fix her necklace. Its elastic stretched really bad, so he had to break the clasp off, break off the excess thread, then tie it back on.

When we first brought them over, all 4 of them came out and lined up behind the counter like a panel of judges. I didn’t realize they’d make it a family event, but Tom, who knows a bit about Indian culture, explained to me that that was part of their ways. Tina can’t buy anything without Raj there or go cruising around by herself to stores, which I don’t think is fair. He also told me that they teach them English in school, and the reason the parents don’t speak it is that they didn’t teach them English back then. It didn’t become part of their education until around 30 years ago. That explains why Tina said her sister-in-law’s English wasn’t too good for being in the country for only a year. I had thought it was actually pretty damn good for just a year and was wondering how she could’ve learned it so fast.

Anyway, when they entered the office, they began talking in Indian. How I wish I could’ve understood! I was a little worried by their expressions at first, thinking they weren’t all that impressed, but then she asked if I’d accept the $130 and I readily agreed. As much as we need money, I wasn’t about to argue, even though I paid a total of $250 for them. I enjoyed Ciara during the Maricopa years, so she’s pretty “used.” Meanwhile, she took up too much space with her wide-skirted gown, and like Samantha, wasn’t that great.

I was also worried they might not take them both, thinking they were too much the same – blond hair, blue eyes, light blue dresses.

So we get to leave the motel and Ciara and Samantha get to stay. God help her when that kid is able to get around and knock them over!

In other news, I got a letter from Paula. Wow, 3 letters in less than 6 months! I’m impressed. She says Miguel’s still history. I don’t understand why she asks how the land and RV are. Hasn’t she been getting my letters? Nonetheless, her letter was very nice. She asked how Tom was and all that, too.

Anyway, I can’t wait to get into the duplex and get settled and get our stuff off the land and out of storage. As it is, Michael sent a letter ordering us to pay up or else! Tom’s going to send a letter with a bogus story saying that Bob threatened us off the land, then accuse Michael of running a scam of having people buy his land, then send someone to run them off in fear for their lives. That’ll serve his ass right too, if he was the one who complained about us, though nothing ever happened pertaining to that. Either someone else complained and got ignored, or he was just playing with us to ruffle our feathers. Some people are like that. They wake up and say to themselves, “Let’s see who we can rile up today.”

We’re still cursed with leaks, sluggish toilets and foul smells. Their pipes here run under the rooms. There’s a wet area by where I’m sitting that always smells damp and mildewy. The question is what will leak/stink in the duplex? They gave us a checklist sheet so we could do a walk-through and make sure everything was okay, but with my shit luck, there’ll be problems that someone will have to come over to tend to for God knows how many days.

I can’t believe my plants are still alive. Not after the cold spells we’ve had. I just don’t see how they could have survived it. I decided that with all the moving we do, I’d rather buy this really nice fake palm I saw at Fred Meyer at some point. It’s $105, but it won’t need light, won’t shift, won’t die, won’t need watering.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2004 I still don’t know if Tina will want the dolls because Tom couldn’t make it to storage yesterday. He needed to call Pacific Power to find out how much of a deposit they require. The good news is that just like back east, they require nothing. This still doesn’t mean we’re going to get the duplex for sure, though it’s what we’re shooting for. We did, however, look at some of Tina’s kitchenettes, in case we don’t get what we want, as usual. I thought there was only one layout, but I was wrong. The room on the very end had 3 beds, so that’s out. There were a couple with 2 beds that aren’t quite in separate rooms, but more like separate areas. It also has a tub in its bathroom. The rooms stunk like hell and were filthy, thanks to all the little Mexies, so I couldn’t stand to be in them for long. It’s going to take poor Raj and his dad ages to get all those rooms cleaned and the stench out of them. The bathrooms smelled like the disgusting animals pissed on the floors and walls rather than in the toilet. They’re coming back too, in December. According to Tina, they come every few months. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to us if we got trapped here for a few months, since we’d save a fair amount of money, but not only did I not come here to live in motels, I don’t want to do what I did down in Arizona and live with a bunch of shitheads all over again. They weren’t as wild as I thought they’d be, but they weren’t always quiet either.

Later…

Looks like it’s snowing again. It did that yesterday too, leaving a light dusting on the ground. It was visible when I went to the store this morning, then it melted, and now it’s coming down again. Tom was standing out in it yesterday evening, saying how cool it was. You’re insane, I told him!

Blondie’s been out since early this morning. He’s spent most of his time sleeping on the bed and the nightstand.

I wish I knew what was going on! Are we going to the duplex? Staying here? Questions, questions, questions, but never any answers! How I miss the days of stability and security! I’m so sick of struggling! I tell myself to learn to live with it because that’s just what we’re meant to do. I know we’ll always be scraping pennies and having to do without this and do without that, so I guess I better get used to it. I just want a place to live is all. Then I’ll get used to struggling.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2004 We were both quite impressed with the duplex. It was bigger and in good condition for its age. We’re guessing it was built in the 60s or 70s. It’s on Shasta Way, a nice street name as opposed to all the numbered streets they have which are boring. It seems like it may be ideal for us, but the catch is that we may not be able to come up with the money by the weekend so we could move in this Saturday. They want more of a deposit up front than Tom thought they wanted. I don’t know if Pam, the woman who showed us the place, withheld this from him or if there was a misunderstanding or if she decided she didn’t like me now that she had a chance to meet me and came up with a higher sum as a deterrent or what. We need another BOA check since the immortal queen bitch isn’t about to help! Besides, it’s too late. We needed her 7 weeks ago. Even if the selfish fuck sent out a check today, we wouldn’t get it in time.

I don’t want to get into describing it too much in case we don’t make it in, but it was nice, alright. And huge, too. Maybe about half of our old house, at close to 1000 square feet. It looks smaller from the road because it’s sort of L-shaped, though each line of the L is the same length, and part of it stretches out towards the back. As I said, if we have to be stuck in the city, it seems ideal. I just wonder if God’s going to be like, “Nope, I’m not going to let you find the money to get in, it’ll be too quiet.” On the other hand, He could make sure we didn’t get in just because it’s a nice place since there is the potential for trouble. Again, it all depends on who the surrounding tenants are. Right now, no one in the immediate area has dogs, but if the neighbors decided to get one, it’d be literally right outside our window. More so than in Phoenix. There are two duplexes. The backyard of the one to our left faces the bedroom and bath. They’re on the corner, facing whatever the nearest side street is. This one’s currently rented by a mother and her daughter, the daughter being on one side with the mom on the other. They have cats that were in the window at the time we went out back, but no dogs. Of course, it goes without saying that if next door got a dog, it would be worse, because if it was big and mean it could run up to us when we went out back. There’s a grid fence, however, blocking off the yard that the mother and daughter share. The front isn’t fenced, but because it’s on a slight incline, there’s a short concrete wall dividing the front yards that tapers off towards the road as the land levels out. There are trees and shrubs by some of the windows. One tree in back is an apple tree! I’m not big on apples, but it’s still cool to have. There’d be plenty of places in front and back to hang the wind chimes, and there doesn’t appear to be a cellar or a crawl space under the place, so that’s good. The other duplex clearly has one because we could see vents. It’s also laid out differently and they don’t have garages. The backyard isn’t square. It’s sort of wider by the duplex. There’s a clothesline on the other side and an old shed that no one uses. It’s pretty rundown without any real doors or windows anyway. I couldn’t tell if there were other backyards behind this one or if it was the fronts of other houses. The two duplexes are on the same lot which is about a third of an acre.

The exterior is a peachy pink color or more like a dark coral. The color I’d have painted the dome.

Inside, the carpet is brand new and very nice for a neutral color. It’s a sculpted carpet in shades of tan and brown. It’s better than plain brown, even carpet. The kitchen floor was nice too, with little rosettes. It’s pretty much laid out where the garage, bath and bedroom form one part of the L, and the living room, kitchen and utility form the other, though not back to back. When you walk in the front, you’re at the left end of the long living room which extends towards the right, where the neighbor is. Behind the living room, from left to right, is a small dining area, the kitchen, then the utility where the back door is located. There’s a washer/dryer hookup in this area, too. If you walk in the front door, walk forward towards the dining area, then hang a left, you come to a set of linen cabinets just outside the bathroom. The bathroom’s pretty nice, from what I saw. I didn’t run any faucets or flush the toilet to see how they worked, but what I liked about the bathroom was that there were not only cabinets under the sink, but drawers, too. In the back, stretching straight back towards the back of the property is the enormous bedroom. Its back wall has closets with built-in drawers underneath! Something someone with no furniture could definitely use.

The kitchen was small, though bigger than Phoenix. I just can’t believe it’s all just $435! It’d be twice that much in Phoenix and Massachusetts.

The garage was nice too, because it had shelves along the back. The neighbor doesn’t seem to park in her garage, from what we’ve seen. Maybe she’s got a lot of junk in it. One thing we already do know about her is that she is a complainer. Pam said the people who last lived there played loud music and that she complained about it, though that’s a legit complaint. The question is, will she complain about my singing, too? I wouldn’t think she could hear it with me in the bedroom, though she would if she were out back when I was singing. I would seriously have to wonder about anyone who complained about that because there’d be no obnoxious bass or drums thumping along with it since I’d have headphones on, and it’s not like I do it for hours at a time. She is, though, described as “very nice,” and she does appear to be home all the time. She obviously doesn’t do no 9:00 to 5:00, because her car was out front when we arrived just before 5:00. I get the feeling she’s either retired, living off a pension from a deceased husband, or maybe even alimony. If she’s like most people, she has the TV going whenever she’s up and about which would help to mask any sounds we may make. As long as we don’t have to hear her TV and she doesn’t pester us, we’ll be okay. I just hope she won’t move if she is a good neighbor. All the good ones always move! We didn’t hear a peep out of her while we were there, but that may’ve been because she turned her TV off so she could eavesdrop out of curiosity as we still don’t know how thick those walls are. He thinks they’re pretty thick because the roof levels are a couple of feet off in height due to the little incline. I’m surprised she didn’t come out when we pulled up the driveway. The driveways are at opposite ends, but still, I’d think she’d have heard the doors. Especially if she were in her living room.

Tom and I were laughing at how Pam had said the neighbor was his age. Well, he looks a little older than 47. He looks early 50s. Pam, who appears to be right around 50, said she thought the neighbor might be older than her, so that would put her in her early 50s. Tom doesn’t think she’ll be as quick to move if she is.

I like how there aren’t a million huge windows throughout the place, which have mini-blinds. Instead, there are windows that are higher up on the wall and wider than they are long. I also like how each room has its own wall heater and thermostat.

The back doors are side by side, but I figure she won’t be going out back much. I hope no one in these two duplexes will for that matter, and that they’ll be more front-yard oriented to lessen the chances of my singing being heard and them starting trouble.

In the garage were trash cans. They do a pickup every Friday so long as you don’t put out anything more than a 32-gallon container.

The owner takes care of the lawn, though we have to water it (there’s a hose in back). Not now, though, with the snow and rain. I don’t know if I’ll like lawnmowers buzzing around once a week for half a year as I don’t know if the fan could drown that out if I were asleep.

There is fairly heavy traffic on the street, but it’s no problem at all. It’s actually sort of soothing like the highway traffic is here. Plus, there’s no light for them to have to stop at. They just whiz by. There are a lot of car stereos, though.

The only dog in the area we’re aware of is across the street. It was fenced in back and could get around to the side. We wouldn’t hear it in the house, though, unless it was out barking in the dead of night and we were in the living room. I guess it’s just a Western thing, but people with dogs simply won’t take them indoors unless they absolutely have to, so that’d be my biggest concern living there; someone getting a dog that they wouldn’t take inside unless it was under 20˚. The good in it, though, is that we’d know who to call if they did, though I don’t know if it’d do us any good. For now, I just hope we get in there this weekend!

Later…

Maybe we will get in this weekend, thanks to Tina. I’m excited to say that she may be interested in both Samantha and Ciara, but almost certainly Ciara. I went down and filled Tina in on our current predicament, then I told her about my big Ciara doll I was willing to sell for $100. Remembering I could access my online photo album, I showed her and Raj (that’s her husband’s name) pictures of her after she spoke to him about it, since he handles the finances. She explained the situation to him in Hindi. They were impressed with her picture. They seem to really like blue-eyed blondes, which I guess makes sense. Most people seem to like/want what they don’t have. I guess that’s why I like darker eyes, hair and skin. After they checked her out, Raj’s parents checked her out, too. They also liked what they saw.

I also told them a little about the incense. Of course, I had trouble understanding them at times because of their accent, and they had trouble understanding me at times, not just because I’m American, but because of the traces of Bostonian in my accent. Even growing up on the other side of Massachusetts, we still get touches of that side’s accent in some of our words/vowels. Anyway, Tina likes the smell of roses, so I think that once we’re settled and I make an incense order, I’ll grab a 20-pack of Rose for her for just a couple of bucks, plus offer her some of the acrylic and wire pop-up burners we have.

Blondie was climbing up my leg and onto my lap for attention from time to time, but now it’s time for a nightstand nap. He loves to lounge on smooth, hard surfaces.

Tina is very excited about the idea of us staying in one of her rooms with a kitchenette for $650 a month, saying I could choose any room I wanted, but as I told her, we really do hope to get this duplex because we need more space. It’s nice to know it’s an option, though, for if worse came to worst. At least her kitchenettes are roomy, in good shape, with internet access and good people running the place. However, we need more room, I’d like to have at least more than one room that isn’t a kitchen or a bathroom, and I’d like a place to sing without an audience if I can help it. Still, I told her we’d keep it in mind and that I’d get her incense to her eventually, wherever I am.

Then I remembered Samantha. She’s of the same coloring as Ciara. Even wears light blue, too. I left a message for Tom to get both dolls out of storage and they’re going to check them both out. I’m going to offer them both as a package deal for $150. We know right where Samantha and Ciara are, but hopefully, he won’t have to tear the place apart too much to find Ciara’s gown and stand. Their certificates are in the truck.

I realized what was taking them so long to clean the rooms yesterday; they wanted to do a thorough job after the farming scumbags no doubt trashed them and left them filthy.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2004 I don’t know if I could kick myself more for checking Maricopa’s weather like I just did, or for moving here! It’s 23˚ here right now yet it’s 59˚ in Maricopa. Their 10-cast is to be much like the summer was here. Some of their lows are higher than our highs! Tina’s father-in-law is bundled up warmly and even has a knit cap on. If I were still friends with Andy, he’d be laughing at me like we’d laugh at others, assuming he’s still in Arizona.

Anyway, I slept well last night. After the initial crash-in next door, all went quiet.

They got the electronic door locks fixed, so we don’t have to keep getting our key cards reactivated. I guess it was unfair of me to blame that one on their stupidity. For one, the more I get to know them, the more I see that they’re not stupid, they just don’t know a lot of English. Secondly, the problem the locks had wasn’t their fault.

I see and hear bigoted messages everywhere lumping same-sex marriages with school violence, poverty, etc., and it’s like – why are people so dumb and blind?!?! They’re picking on the wrong group of people. They’re not the ones running around rioting, shooting people, selling drugs every chance they get while they collect welfare checks and disrupt as many lives as they can.

The Mexie farmers are gone, so that’s good. It’s totally dead out there. Not one car in sight. The grills are gone, too.

I’ve really got to cut my calories again. I just can’t eat what I want and get away with it, even if I exercise. I can feel it in my pants. My pants are tighter, my ring is tighter, and I look like shit. I’m huge around the middle with a neck practically down to my chest. I just don’t see how people late in their pregnancies stand it. How do they get around? How do they breathe? I saw a woman on TV that was so fat, she appeared to have no neck. When you looked straight at her, her neck was as wide as her cheeks. Now that took guts; going on TV like that.

If people would stop turning our lives upside down every few years, maybe I can finally stick to a good regimen. I know it’s going to mean being hungry all the time, but I think the results will be worth the hunger. For a while I didn’t care, but I’m getting rather sick of being a blimp. As soon as we get settled and can finally fall into a routine, I want to step on the diet and exercise thing. Well, I’m already back on the exercise routine, so just the diet needs to be added in. I want to do it to save money, too.

Later…

I’m both excited and apprehensive about seeing the duplex today, but hey, we gotta live somewhere. For now, we go wherever God puts us till we can finally get some control over our lives for once and for all and get land and a house we can’t lose. At least not in 5 years like in Maricopa or in a few months like with the land here. I don’t know what state it’ll be in or how many years it’ll take, but not even God can keep us in rentals forever!

Still, I get the nagging feeling we’re here for a special reason, but what that reason is, I do not know. Sure most of it is simply because I don’t want to be here and because I don’t want to listen to other people, but there’s some other reason, too. I just hope it’s good, whatever it is! Anyway, whenever we do get a house, we’re just going to make sure we don’t go overboard. We’ll get 1-5 acres instead of 10. We’ll get a 1000-1600-square-foot house instead of a 2100-square-foot house.

Anyway, it’s been a quiet day here so far, but I don’t like how they’re taking all day to do the room. At 8:30 they got my sheets and at 10:30 they made the bed. Meanwhile, they still have to vacuum and put liners in the pails.

I hope the woman who’s going to show us the duplex isn’t one of those who’s always late, leaving us to wait for an hour for her to show up.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2004 Tom came home from work Friday with a wonderful treat for me. A handful of incense sticks from a store he stopped at to ask about selling pieces of turquoise that we got from the queen years ago. It’s a little smoky, but it lingers well and is way better than your department store crap. Not quite as good as Incense Galore, though, but certainly good enough. He got Patchouli and Jasmine, which he knows I like, along with Opium and Kiwi. I wasn’t at all impressed with the Kiwi, and the Opium was just so-so. Still, the place smelled so stale and I missed my nose treats, that his timing was perfect. I always love having incense around.

When I awoke the next morning (yesterday morning), it was like, oh my God! The people who Tom said arrived next door before he crashed, were slamming shit up against the wall like crazy. It was about as close to the NHA as one could get, sound-wise. I had to wonder just what the hell were they doing in there. Were they fighting? Rearranging furniture? It was weird too, because there’d be a fit of scuffling and banging for a handful of minutes, then it would go dead quiet for a while, and back and forth like that from when I got up at 5:00 until we decided to leave a few hours later. It’s just that for all I knew, they could’ve signed on for a week and there was no way I was going to put up with that shit for even a weekend. Why oh why am I so destined to dodge other people’s rude racket?! The damn banging people do! They just cannot sit still! Why can’t we ever be next to one civilized person who’s as much of a mystery to us as the existence of whoever’s living in the freeloader’s old house? Nonetheless, his place may be quiet when no one’s next door and I may dig the separate room, but other than that, it was cold, dark and spooky (lots of spiders) and I still don’t think the guy’s all that friendly. Service with a smile is still preferred, even if I’m not looking to be buddies with these motel owners.

So I called Tina, friendly Tina who’s cheaper than the La Vista, and after confirming that it was indeed Tina I was speaking with, I asked if we could return. She said she had rooms at weekly rates now available, but the trash is still here till tomorrow. The weather delayed them, I guess. They’ve been ok, though. Just a couple of quick car stereo shows. As always, though, they love to cluster outdoors no matter what the temperature is which has been cold! High 20s. There was even snow visible on the tops of some of the higher mountains in the area. The webcam showed about an inch of snow on the land. Tom, growing up in the desert, thought it was oh-so-cool, but I found it cold, boring looking and even a bit depressing. I wish it were summer again! Summers here are nice as long as you’re not in an old shit of an RV.

Tina has a pretty impressive memory compared to most people. She told me that if I wanted two beds, I could have the room (106) we were first in on Monday if I wanted it. We decided to stay here, though. She also remembered the rat and asked if I still had him, though she asked if I had my “mouse.” This time she only charged $15 instead of $25, so that was nice. Still, I wish she had a garbage disposal for a memory like most people.

So we got settled in here, and of course, we had to listen to next door’s bumps and bangs for a while, but it was tame compared to the Arab’s dive. We actually went to McDonald’s and to that incense store first, because the room wasn’t ready right away.

It’s an Indian specialty store. I’m surprised there were no dolls in it. Just some figurines, dream catchers, candles, beads and incense. There were a few other odds and ends as well, like T-shirts and lotions, but anyway, she had about 25 different fragrances. Some I’ve gotten from Incense Galore, some I haven’t heard of. I got 20 sticks for $2, and Tom showed her the turquoise, which he later said she rejected because I came off as being homeless (I guess people worry about buying stolen things from the homeless). If this is true, it’s her loss. I had even offered to dip and sell her some incense and she was all for it, then she mentioned checking into Incense Galore, which I think he shouldn’t have mentioned, but oh well. There’s a no-making-money-allowed rule on me anyway, so I’m not even going to bother bringing her anything.

He also talked for about an hour with a couple that owns a coin store the other day. The lady collects antique dolls and has a lot of Barbies.

The reason I chose to come back here (and Tom doesn’t mind where I choose to go so long as we can afford it) was so we could go online. It’s not like we’ll be able to do that the instant we move into the duplex, which we drove by as some light flurries fell upon us. I won’t be able to tell how it’s going to be until we’re in it. All I know is that there’s a noise curse on me, so I don’t expect it to be peaceful. It’s a matter of finding the least noisy place we can afford because I’m not allowed to live in quiet places. We’ve got an appointment tomorrow afternoon to check it out. They were putting in new carpet and cleaning it, last he knew. I didn’t think to look for a cellar when we drove by it, but cellars are common in older areas. I’d rather there not be one, though. I’d rather be on solid ground if that lady next door turns out to walk like an elephant, but slab foundations aren’t common in cold climates. The owner of the Indian store said she lives in a duplex she owns and never hears her neighbors. Ah, but are they quiet due to good, solid wall construction, or are they quiet cuz they know they could easily be evicted if they weren’t since they live adjacent to their landlord?

I was surprised to find an email waiting for me from PG regarding e asking how long the fashion dolls will be on sale, but that’s PG for you – they take a year to respond to you and a year to send your dolls. They said the sale’s on while supplies last. Yeah, I’m sure this means that the day I have money, they’ll sell out.

Someone just checked in next door (it’s always a full house here and they check in so early here, too) and of course they had to let me know it, and of course it’s not just one person. I can hear their voices and TV, along with the banging everyone seems so compelled to do. They just better let me sleep this evening!

The best news of all is that I was mistaken in assuming we could never own a house again. Tom explained to me that the credit will be repaired eventually. The only thing is that it may be years before it is.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2004 Tom, who woke up at midnight for a while, said someone came in with loud music around that time. That is so, so rude to come into a motel blaring music late at night! I know who it is, too. Some cock a few rooms down. It’s just lucky it didn’t wake me up.

Anyway, Tom said the duplex has a single-car garage and that its entry doors are not right next to each other. He also said the front yard is not only fenced, but it appears divided in the center too, giving each house its own yard. I hope it’s like that in back too, if there is a yard so that if this lady does turn out to be quiet enough to end up moving (the quiet ones always do), some obnoxious kid that may move in next with its mother won’t go running up screaming by our windows. Particularly the bedroom window on a day I may happen to be asleep.

We don’t know if there’s an alley in back and you use a community dumpster like we did in Phoenix, or if each house has its own barrel they bring to the side of the street once a week.

I’m hoping my schedule will be suitable for going to check the place out with him on Monday. I also hope God’s willing to compromise with me. Meaning, if I can never live where I want to live, then at least don’t let me be unhappy there! The way Tom describes it, it doesn’t sound like it could be as bad as Phoenix. The only sucky thing is that it’s way out of the way, so if the shit truck broke down, he couldn’t just walk to work. At least he’d be where there were buses and taxis.

There’s one thing Tom said the lady said that bugs me, though, and that’s when she said our prospective neighbor stays home a lot. Unless she told her that herself, how would she know this unless they’re meddling in their tenant’s affairs? And what does “she stays home a lot” mean? Does it mean she doesn’t work? Does it mean she works part-time? Or does it just mean she’s home whenever she’s not at work?

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2004 Tom looked at the triplex, and it doesn’t look like we’ll be taking that after all. He said they’re so old and ugly that it’s no wonder they can’t rent them. They’re not worth the $350 they’re asking. The main issues were the condition of the bathroom, the layout (there’s not even a closet between the bedroom and next door’s kitchen to dampen the sound), and the fact that it’s not on solid concrete. Tom said there’s a spooky-looking cellar (or basement as they call them here) that runs underneath all 3 units, and that means that if we got someone who walked like an elephant next to us, we’d feel the vibration as if we did have people above us. Also, the only room that’s heated is the living room.

What we are probably going to be moving into is a much newer, bigger duplex with a garage in a nicer residential area. I just wish the garages were between the units! Tom, who drove by it, has an appointment to see it on Monday. The only potential problem with this, besides dogs and car stereos, is that the neighbor, who seems to have been there for a long time, may be a pest. From what the lady who showed the triplex to Tom said, she’s Tom’s age, stays home a lot, and may want a buddy cuz she asked the lady to “send someone nice.”

So that’s it? That’s why God dragged me back here, besides to torment me; to use me to buddy up to some lonely older lady? I don’t think so! I’m not obligated to be anyone’s buddy, though I’d rather a lonely older lady over an unruly pack of freeloaders that are totally out of control. If I can find a way to be nice enough to her to keep her from complaining about my singing (though I’m hoping she works during the day when I do my singing) and get her to not bug us by knocking on the door all the time (I’ll give her my cell phone number if I have to), then we’ll be alright. I also hope the bedroom, which is said to be huge, isn’t adjacent to her place, though if it is, I’d assume her bedroom would be on the other side and not her kitchen. Also, a newer place should have a closet bordering dividing walls if the bedroom really is on that wall.

I don’t know how big the garage is or what the square footage is. Tom guessed it to be about 800. Also, they’re putting new carpet down. It’s more expensive ($435 with nothing included), but Tom was hoping that going for a nicer place that was more expensive, would mean us not having to move around so damn much. I just hope the neighbor isn’t a pest or a complainer and that management doesn’t give us any hassles and that the neighborhood dogs, kids and stereos aren’t a problem. As for dogs outside barking, he says that seems unlikely, though it was hard to tell if there were yards in back that could accommodate dogs. That reminds me, there’s an enclosed yard in front. I like that much. Also, there’ll be places to hang my wind chimes, unlike in that triplex. As for stereos, he said it’s a main drag where the street is wide and they go cruising by at 35 MPH, so we may hear them going down the street, but they can’t park outside our wall to sit and blast the damn thing for hours at a time. I’m sure there’ll be occasional outbursts of various noises, but if I can at least have my sleep and hear myself think most of the time, I’ll be ok till I get fed up enough to take the poison Tom says he’s going to research and get for me as soon as he can for the next time the shit hits the fan. I’ve been fed up, believe me. It’s just that I didn’t have a sure way to kill myself without botching it up and making my life worse. It’d be all I’d need to throw myself in front of a car just to end up paralyzed and in a funny farm that’s no better than jail. I know good and well that most funny farms don’t help. They punish.

I just hope the toilet works ok and that the shower doesn’t come out in one fiercely concentrated stream like the one in here does. A part of me hopes he does move us come Saturday. Then I won’t have to change the sheets either.

I just wish we didn’t have to have a lease! Ok, so it’s only for 6 months, but if that nice lady moves and is replaced with trouble right after we move in, it’s going to be an awfully long 6 months.

I was right in assuming we wouldn’t be able to save money so easily, and that we’ll pretty much be living paycheck to paycheck, but that’s ok. I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that we’ll never have anything we want. No house in the woods, no house by the beach, no house in a retirement community, no successful eBay store, no nothing, so why save? Also, if they fire Tom after a few more months, he’ll be eligible for unemployment, so there’s no real need to save for that either. I am, however, going to still be able to have a monthly allowance! At least it looks that way. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but if I have to have a second-best life, at least I can go shopping while I’m at it!

I hope that after all this time, the cold weather that’s settled in doesn’t finally kill my plants off before I can rescue them and get them indoors. It’s only 28˚ out there right now – yuck! The fog looks pretty cool, though. There are some huge mountains boarding the town and you can see clouds of fog shrouding the tops of them.

Another con to being in cold climates is that you get a lot of engine-gunning cuz you can’t just start up the engines that fast unless you have a new and expensive car.

Another night of no one to the right. I was worried they were going to put someone in there, though, cuz I could hear them in there talking loud and clear over my sound machine, as I was nodding off yesterday afternoon.

A few times a day I hear a dog barking in back, but it’s nothing. It’s just a few scattered barks. It doesn’t go on and on for hours like in Arizona.

Well, I should go do my workout now.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2004 I spoke with Mr. Semi-Serious, as he’s now become, and from what he said, this place is notorious for druggies. He kicked the people next to us out a few days ago for that and showed me a room across the way where someone smashed the table and threw the microwave on the floor. This is exactly why I wouldn’t want to be a motel owner on top of the constant demands and huge responsibility it would be.

One of the room keys didn’t work in this shit of a dump. He gave me another one, but it’s just as worthless. Oh well. I shouldn’t be going out too often, and when I do, it won’t be for more than a few minutes. Besides, this is an unlikely place for a break-in.

Again there was no one next to us. It’s been quite dead, actually, so it’s been quiet.

I wonder if he’s going to move us when we sign up for another week. He said something about having to do that every week the last time we were here, but he also said he couldn’t rent by the month. He’s one dumb-ass Arab, that’s for sure! But with the separate room and his place being the quietest, I’m willing to put up with a little stupidity.

I guess Shelvin didn’t take the rabbit they let run around loose, cuz I just saw it.

I must be getting more psychic again, cuz I told Tom the other day that I didn’t vibe us pulling out of storage by November. Also, this morning I woke up knowing we’d be here another week, and once I talked to him, that does look like how it’s going to go. It appears we’re on for moving in on the 29th, so 9 more days in motels. What an ironic coincidence that our 6-month sentence is going to occur almost to the date of the one I got on account of the sickos. We still don’t know for sure that we are going to take the end unit of the triplex, but we probably will. Unless the neighbors are really a killer of a nightmare or there’s a problem with management, we’ll probably renew the lease too, cuz where else would we go but to another rental somewhere?

Got a card, but no money, of course, from the immortal queen Marjorie yesterday, telling us how wonderful everyone’s doing there, how much fun she’s having doing puzzles, all about the kitten, etc. She was glad to get my letters, she said, and I was like, she was glad to get my letters saying how miserable we are? Gee, thanks!

Then the bitch says she hopes our luck has changed by now. Now how can it change that fast? We’d have to hit the lottery big time to get out of this kind of jam that fast. As the saying goes, it only takes a second to hit rock bottom, but quite a while to climb back up. With the way the motels eat so much of his checks, there’s no way we could recover from this one that fast. It’ll be months before we do. I may not even get to have a $100 allowance, though I’d gladly take $50 - $75 to be in a bigger, quieter place if I had to. It’s Wednesday, the day they come out with new listings, so maybe they’ll have a small house in a decent enough area, though I doubt God would be nice enough to let us have that. That would defeat the whole purpose of Him dragging us back to the city unless he put a pack of freeloaders next to us all over again. Still, it’s the banging that’s got me worried. That’s the biggest issue when you live adjacent to others, so maybe I’ll take the damn freeloaders. They can’t be outdoors year-round like they can in Arizona.

I also got to thinking about this kitten shit, and if Miss Perfect’s supposed to have such bad allergies, what’s the stupid fuck doing with a kitten? See, I really think she and the queen lie or exaggerate when it comes to their wide collection of chronic illnesses. I really do.

We joked about me sending a note with no return address or stamp and saying, “I’m so sorry to make you foot the postage, but we’re so broke we can’t even afford stamps and I didn’t want to be rude by ignoring your letter.”

Fuck the bitch, though. Just fuck her and her perfect little daughter and Dave, too! Oh, how a part of me hopes she doesn’t send birthday/Christmas money just so I can tell her off. I’d love, love, love to give her a piece of my mind, though that’s another thing I doubt I’ll get the opportunity to do. I mean, I have plenty of reason to as it is, but that’d really give me an abundance of reason. At this point, I haven’t got a guess as far as that goes. At first I thought she probably would send the money, then I thought she wouldn’t, because if you don’t care that one’s homeless, why would you care about their birthday/Christmas? Now, though, the woman is so warped that I can’t even predict what she’ll do as far as that goes anymore. On the one hand, we could always use any extra money we get, though I want that final straw to motivate me to tell her off. I’m not going to tell her off if she’s going to send money on birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas. Naturally, I wouldn’t write anything threatening if I did end up telling her off so that when she goes running to the pigs like Arizonans love to do, they won’t have shit on me. Especially with me up here. However, what I’m going to say will surely enrage the hell out of them, but that’s good. That’s what I want. I want them to feel some of the fury I’ve been feeling lately. I hope I do hurt their poor, poor fragile little feelings. I’m not just out to vent pent-up feelings that date back to when Tom and I were newlyweds with the queen stealing our time and money and being more of a daughter to us than a mother or a mother-in-law, I’m out to piss them off and break their little hearts any way I can! Really, this card has done nothing to cheer us up in any way. It was nothing but another demonstration of Marge S’s true selfishness. If anything, it only infuriated me more. Nonetheless, that’s my current plan. If she stiffs us, I let her have it, and fuck the inheritance. All 20 grand would do is provide temporary relief, then we’d return to the day-to-day struggling we were meant to do. I’m not going to discuss the fuck-you letter with Tom or else I’ll end up letting him talk me out of it, though I did mention it briefly. It’s just that I’ve let him talk me out of too much over the years as it is when it comes to handling others or just various situations. I succumb and give in to him too much. A person has to handle things their own way every now and then, so no more relenting. At least not when it comes to her. Meanwhile, he totally agrees with my blowing her off like he blew off Miss Perfect’s email. Besides, it’s nice for them to see how it feels to get ignored. Miss Perfect and Dave ignored my email, so now they can get a taste of their own medicine for a change and see how it is. They’ve all got their heads buried so deep in the sand, though, that they’re not going to have a clue as to why we’re ignoring them, but that’s the least of my concerns right now. I have more important things to contend with than them.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2004 I finally have some good news for a change, and that’s that we’ve been officially approved for the triplex and even a more expensive duplex with a garage that’s said to be attached to a lady in her late 50s. If she wasn’t a complainer, how I’d love to have a neighbor like that! It’ll never happen, though. I know we’re going to get younger people next to us with small kids, and if it is just one parent that works during the week, them and their brats being home all night and all weekend will make up for any times they’re not there. Anyway, we’ll probably end up in the triplex, which someone looked at not too long ago, not surprisingly. The triplex would be more affordable, so we’ll probably go there and I’ll just deal with the neighbor’s bumps and bangs. He has an appointment to look at it tomorrow.

If only the Phoenix house wasn’t such a dump and we had normal neighbors! We owed so little on that house and our expenses weren’t overly bad.

It looks like we’re not going to be able to get to the Chinese place this weekend either, and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s even meant to be. After all, women never are where I’m concerned, and just maybe she would’ve made us a little money on the side and that’s why I’m being kept away from her. Well, I’m not going to “fight” to get to a damn restaurant, so if I don’t make it back within a couple of weeks, I’m not going to bother.

In other good news, Tom’s virtually certain they’re going to keep him at work, although he’s going to try to find a better job. I doubt God will let him find a better job anytime soon, though I’m at least glad He didn’t hate us enough to let the sickos hinder us from an apartment or to let him get fired. This doesn’t mean I still don’t hate His guts just because He only pushed us to the edge of a cliff and not off it. That’d be like an abused wife forgiving her husband simply because he broke her arms and not her legs, too.

It just bothers me that the things we try to escape keep coming back to haunt us. Like the bills we thought we’d escaped forever. Most of them are back all over again.

There’s no one on either side of us, so that’s good.

Later…

Tom and I talked and our tentative plan is to go to the Chinese place on the first Sunday of November and take our first clump of play money on the first payday of December. Things have a bad habit of not going our way, though, so I won’t count on these things happening. We don’t even know how many more weeks we’ll be here at the motel.

This little scavenger of a rat manages to find goodies in every room we stay in. This time around it was a piece of black licorice. He’s been matching my schedule more so these days. Now that I’m sleeping throughout the nights, he’s up well into the mornings.

My allergies are a little fritzy. I can tell they don’t do a great job cleaning here. Who knows when the last time was that they vacuumed under the bed? Who knows how old that licorice was?

It’s cold, damp and cloudy out right now. The kind of weather that puts you in a lazy mood. Actually, I’m in the mood to write, but write what? Perhaps I ought to dive back into No Escape. It’s just that I had been hoping to wait till we were in someplace and I could get the bulk of it for reference, which is stored on my desktop. All this laptop has is the last page and a half of the story, and the last 30 pages of journaling.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2004 It wasn’t until this early morning that I finally caught up on my sleep. Friday night at the La Vista I woke up at 10:30 after barely 5 hours of sleep, making the next day tiresome for me. We went up to the land first. Nothing’s been messed with. I was amazed to find the plants looked even healthier, though the big leaf one finally gave up. That’s okay. It looked horrible and its pot was chipped. After grabbing a few more things and leaving the land, which of course, I did not want to do, we went to look at the triplex again.

It’s really squeezed in there by trees and other buildings, that’s for sure. There’s a duplex right next to it. I was wrong in saying the housing situation was different than Arizona because it’s not. You’re either all jammed in close together or you’ve got hundreds of feet in between. There’s really not much of a happy medium here either. There were also a few yards in the area with dogs, one being across the street.

The hill it’s on is so steep. It’s on 7th Street, and I guess the summit is on the next street over on 6th Street. We peered through the windows and saw some immediate pros and cons. The living room is huge and appears to have new carpet, so that’s good. The kitchen and bedroom appeared adequate, but the bedroom wasn’t carpeted. We couldn’t see all of the bedroom or any of the bathrooms. What worried me the most was that next door’s kitchen was right next to the bedroom of the end unit we want, and we don’t know if there’s a bedroom closet and if it’s between their kitchen and the bedroom if there is. My biggest fear of moving in there, obviously, would be God jumping to take advantage of that by sending me some cabinet-happy neighbor. As it is, I picture us with someone who’s home all day. If we don’t get stuck with freeloaders, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if we got a couple with a little brat and one of its parents stood home all day with it. Tom, though, thinks it’s less likely because of the location and the fact that it’s not the cheapest 1-bedroom, saying that it’s usually when you get the cheapest of whatever that there’s trouble. Again, though, noise curses find a way to get through anything, and that dividing wall looked awfully thin. They build them thin because the builders don’t care since they’re not the ones who are going to have to live there, and most people are the opposite of me; they want to hear what’s going on around them. You know how people are, always loving to stick their noses into other people’s business. This is a complaining state too, so I wonder if I’d be able to sing there without anyone giving me any shit about it. I would think I’d have an easier chance of singing there without any hassles as opposed to a motel where there are more people milling around. Tom has a point, though, in saying that there wouldn’t be much traffic along that street. The road actually forks, and while they’re allowed to park in front of their houses on the opposite side of the street, which is higher than the other side, they can’t park by this duplex. I just don’t like that it’s $350 with only water/sewer/trash included. Heat and electricity, which are the two biggies, aren’t included. I’d like to think, though, that that and the fact that it’s on such a steep hill (not even Jehovah’s demons should be wanting to climb up there to bug people), will keep the middle unit empty for a while, but I doubt it. I think that if we get in there, God will send us neighbors right away. People, people, people. Why does He want me with them? Why is it so damn important to Him that I don’t isolate myself from others??? Why can’t I have my own quiet, private little corner of the earth where no one bothers me?

We also hope the area’s wired for cable, or else we’ll be stuck with an old dial-up modem that takes forever!

We also looked at a strip of studios, though I thought the location looked horrible. It may be convenient, but it’s practically right off of a gas station which is off a busy intersection. I’d think the car stereos there would be in abundance.

There’s also a house available, but it’s in Mills Addition (a shabby area) right by a school.

Anyway, this triplex is in sort of a dumpy area off downtown, though it’s pretty ritzy compared to places I’ve lived in Springfield.

I don’t know how long we’ll be in KF, period. This place has no hold on us now that we can’t live in the woods, which was why we came here in the first place. Because we’ve been surprised lately with finding out that things we thought were so really aren’t so, perhaps coastal land isn’t as expensive as we thought. Particularly in southern Oregon or northern California. Washington would be too expensive cuz that’s where Microsoft is. Plus, I think I’d hate that climate. Too Massachusetts-like with nothing but rain, rain, rain. Too much rain gets as old as too much heat and sunshine.

We checked in with Mr. Serious, who seemed a bit nicer this time around, into a 2-room for $175. That’s better than the $210 at the La Vista we were paying and what the Mexicans cost us at Tina’s when they were here. I’m so glad they’re gone now! Sure enough, Mr. Serious said I missed out on some good money while they were here. Of course I did. There’s a no-making-money-allowed rule on me.

He offered us a room with a kitchenette for $650 a month, saying that if we decided to stay the winter, he’d make us a better deal. While this is a smoking deal, considering the fact that you’d have no bills to pay and don’t do your own cleaning, there’d be no internet access, and the room is so small I’d surely go insane of claustrophobia. Plus, the bathrooms suck here. The only good thing about it was that it didn’t have any rooms adjacent to it. It would be a last resort if the Arizona sickos did end up hindering us from getting a place.

They’re up now next door. Yeah, it was pretty quiet until they came banging in last night. These walls are pathetically thin. So much so that I could make out a few words here and there. Someone just went into the bathroom, which is next to the enclosed room I’m in and coughed. Then they flushed the toilet. I don’t know why he put them in there when he knows I don’t like that. It doesn’t appear to be a full house, leaving him no choice. Oh well. I slept well, and hopefully they’ll check out today and no one will come in tonight. At least they check in later here than they seemed to at the other places.

The only thing I don’t like about this place, besides the fact that it’s so rundown, and they’re banging and slamming God-knows-what over there, is that there’s not one single outlet in the separate room. Therefore, I’m running the sound machine on batteries. Because it’s quiet most of the time here, though, I can usually just wear an earplug.

It feels nice to feel rested after going so many days without enough sleep. I know to enjoy it too, as it’ll be a while before I sleep this well again. Especially if there’s someone next to us again tonight. It wouldn’t really make much of a difference if someone were to our left, what with the way the place is laid out, but those on the right can be heard really well.

As I’ve said before, another area we’re cursed in is with toilets. The toilet at the last place clogged up twice, and this one didn’t want to flush. Tom fixed it, then offered to fix the shower for me so it wouldn’t pour out in such a fierce concentrated stream, but I assured him I’d deal with it. Part of having to live in places you don’t own means you don’t play fix-it nearly as much. Then all we have to do is hope God doesn’t go breaking our personal things like the computers more often to make up for the lack of other responsibilities.

I miss the comfort of routine. It’s just that every time I get that, I lose it. Circumstances always come up to tear down whatever it is we settle into or achieve. I know better now than to throw out boxes after they’re unpacked when we get to wherever we’re going. No matter how much I may want to stay put, we’ll be moving around again soon enough. I just don’t get it, though. In Phoenix we wanted to move so badly for so long yet we were stuck there so God could use his precious little freeloaders as instruments of torture on us. Now, we can’t stop moving!

We’ve both gained some weight back. I’m in the low 130s. I brought my exercise ball back with me since there’s room in here to bounce. I’ll settle for just a 5-pound loss since I know circumstances will just throw me back up to where I am sooner or later. That’s another one of the many lessons I’ve learned that pertain to my life – don’t bother to lose weight, it only comes back. I’m only going to diet to keep from gaining and to make myself feel better, treating myself to whatever about once a week. I also like to be in shape, so I’m going to do a cardiovascular workout on the ball, then some basic exercises to work my major muscle groups.

As much as I’d have liked to investigate “Kate” more, we skipped the Chinese place yesterday to save money. We couldn’t have picked a better day to do it too, since it was cold, blustery and rainy.

The RV’s insurance is due in December, so before that comes around, we’re going to try to either part it or sell it whole.

I miss my incense. It ran out two days ago, lasting me just a month and a half.

I got a letter from Bob. He sent his support and encouragement, unlike Tom’s wonderful family who doesn’t even care to call to find out what’s up with us and offer assistance and is still having lung problems. He’s still not sure if they’re going to move him or not.

Someone just left next door, but only one person. I know someone else is still over there because I heard two voices.

Tomorrow marks 6 weeks of motel-living. Thanks, God, thanks a real lot. This is just what we needed. Just what we always dreamed of in life.

Later…

Maybe no one is next door after all, since Mr. Serious is over there now and I don’t hear voices. Maybe the guy that was there just likes to talk to himself.

Working out with the ball felt great after not doing so for over a month. Now, though, I have nothing to do but be bored silly until he gets home with what I expect will be either good news or bad. He said he thinks they’ll give us a place, but he always thinks things will work out. He’s one of those who’s very seldom pessimistic and who thinks that ignorance is bliss and that silence makes problems go away.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2004 Yesterday was a shitty day, but there was some good to it in the end. The sleep curse has gotten ever so bad. Like NHA and jail bad. I’m more convinced than ever that I’ll have problems with sleep all my life, some times being worse than others. If I could just have a day in my life with uninterrupted sleep, though, that would be just wonderful. I knew there was only so long I could keep the schedule going. I just had hoped it wouldn’t roll till we got in the apartment since a hotel is no place to roll schedules. If I were here alone it would be a bit easier, but whenever he comes in or needs to use the phone, I wake right up. So yesterday, after just a few hours of sleep, he came in and had to call to play round 3 of trying to get our money back from the satellite people, since we can’t use the system. I felt like shit. My head and stomach ached and my heart was racing.

However, the shrimp he got was way good. For just $4, he got shrimp for me, potato wedges for himself, and biscuits for Blondie. So after a few hours, I fell back asleep and managed to sleep till after midnight. This helps for going up to the land tomorrow so we can get more stuff and I can wish we could stay there in our imaginary dome house, rather than have to return to the city and its people and noise. I also hope to go to the Chinese place on Sunday, but that’s up in the air right now. We don’t even know where we’ll be tomorrow night. I just hope to get a room with a separate room in it at Mr. Serious’s (the Arab guy) if we were going to be forced to play motel for another week or two or more. Then we can be back listening to neighbors just like old times. I dread it as much as I look forward to it. I dread the bumps and bangs I’ll have to deal with, but I also want out of these fucking motels! I want to be able to at least try to save money, try to shop, try to get back into fitness, etc., and of course, I miss my stuff. I’ll be damned if I’ll pack Bailey away again like this, once I do get her. I didn’t pay $300 just to have her sit in a fucking box!

Tom filled out the application for AAA Property Management, but the black sickos may be a problem. Yes, even after not having them in our lives for a year and a half now, they may be back to haunt us yet again. This is because this place does criminal checks. Why, I don’t know. I mean, I can see the credit checks, but as long as they’re getting their money, why should they care about records? What I wonder, though, is will we ever be 100% free of the fucking sickos? Or maybe at least 90% free of them?

I have mixed emotions about the queen sending birthday/Christmas money. On the one hand, I want the money. On the other, I want an excuse to really give the bitch a piece of my mind, along with her daughter, just because I can and because it would make me feel so good to do so. They’ve offended and insulted us enough that I’m more than overdue for a good telling off to them!

I don’t understand how I could make his coworkers and others sick without even trying, yet no matter how much I try to mentally throttle this bitch, she won’t even sneeze! This pathetic piece of shit is going to live another decade easily. The more I think about it, the more I believe she feigned most of the illnesses she’s claimed to have since Dad died. Yes, she was misdiagnosed by some of the quacks she’s seen, but I still think a lot of these chronic and or terminal diseases were complete fabrications on her part. After all, I was right in suspecting the selfish bitch could write, and well, it’s just a gut feeling that goes along with being better and better aquatinted with her selfish personality over the years. I think she could even live alone if she wanted to. She’s slow, but she’s not disabled. She’s only living with Miss Perfect because it’s easier and because she’s a sympathy junkie.

I learned part of why this place is packed so much of the time. According to the owner, there are workers here who are working on the new Walmart Supercenter, some bridge somewhere, and some other thing.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2004 God’s little bum here, signing in for another round of bitching. Not only am I furious at God for letting this happen to us, but oh how I’d love to get a hold of Tom’s mother! Oh, what I could do to her right about now, and I don’t give a shit how old and feeble she is! I never thought she of all people would cause me to be as disgusted and ashamed as I’ve come to be of her. I don’t give a shit that she doesn’t give a shit about me, but certainly it’s got to hurt Tom somewhat to see his multi-thousand-dollar mother sit on her lazy, hypochondriac ass while he barely keeps his head above water. If we don’t get anything for Christmas, she’ll hear from me one last time if I’m still alive. With nothing to lose, it’ll at least make me feel a little better to tell her off. Really, she makes me sick! And so does her shit daughter!

Anyway, it appears I’m still very much a doom psychic since I’m going to be right about us not making it into an apartment this Saturday. Tom thinks I’m still more than a doom psychic, though, because he’s already better when he shouldn’t be. What with the symptoms he had, he should’ve gotten worse than he did, and for 7-10 days, too. Being a doom psychic is fine, and I’m glad he got better so quickly, but why can’t I psych out the lottery?! Stupid question, I suppose, since the answer’s obviously because God wants us to suffer and to struggle. They won’t even let Tom see places till he fills out an application, and of course they’re going to want to pull a credit report, which thanks to the bastard back down at BOA, is going to be less than perfect.

Again, I can’t believe how one man’s spite could turn people’s lives upside down and inside out! It’s scary to know how others can have such a hold on us and that they can make us or break us at will. All this shit for over a year now, thanks to this one sick cock. And as always, it goes without saying that there’s not a damn thing we can do about it to fight back in any way. No, our wonderful God has this sick fuck well protected.

The events of my life do nothing to help my self-esteem, either. Normally, as an adult, I don’t care what others think or say about me, but just like a child loses confidence and self-esteem when their parents are always cutting them down, God’s apparent lack of concern for me has a way of making me not give a damn about what happens to me any more than He does. It’s making me think of turning inward and against myself. It’s like…if he doesn’t give a shit and if he thinks I deserve to suffer, then maybe I do. Perhaps I should abuse myself right along with Him and with others. Yeah, let’s all pick on the horrible Jodi S, why don’t we? Let’s make sure she and her husband live like poor-ass bums with nothing to live for but hopeless dreams. Let’s make sure she never even has money to buy another doll, for Christ’s sake! Even life’s simple pleasures are gone for me. I can still take a bubble bath, but I can’t get dolls, I can’t get more incense, I can’t get new clothes, I can’t get shit! I’m tired of wanting things I can never have, goddamn it! If I ever want to feel like something up there is on my side and gives a damn about me, all I’d have to do is get down on my knees and pray to scrape pennies like hell, miss out on doing/having the things I want, to be woken up constantly and to have to listen to noisy neighbors. Now those would be prayers/goals that are totally achievable.

Why does Tom want to continue living this way anyway? What’s it going to take for him to see that things are never going to improve but maybe for 5 minutes? Why does he want to go on living while God sits up in the sky and laughs his ass off at his expense? Does he want to be God’s little fool?

I guess the next step is to get a loan against the truck and the RV since God would never let us get away with stealing. Before we know it, we’ll be getting loans against our fucking lives! I mean, really, what do we do when we run out of stuff to sell? Should we sell our souls?

As for my schedule, I couldn’t hold out past noon yesterday, but sure enough, I woke right up 5 hours later when he got in. Then I fell asleep for a few hours in the evening and awoke again at 10:30. Now if I could just stay up for 16-18 hours, I can finally be up throughout at least most of the daytime.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2004 Tom is going to fill out an application and hopefully check out apartments too, after work. Typical Mr. Optimistic, telling me that logically speaking, the noise/sleep curses will be off once we get in someplace. Yeah, right! I wish to hell he could be right, but I know I’ll be cursed in these departments for the rest of my life, especially with the sleep. Some curses simply just don’t go away. Not overnight, not slowly. All I can do is just suffer through it and live with it, for once again, God’s got me trapped in a situation I can’t escape from anyway, so what choice do I have but to kill myself? And damn Him to hell for not allowing me the ability to keep a schedule and for giving me insomnia. Being in the city, I could work and double our income, but that’s another thing we’re cursed with – money, which is probably why I don’t have what it takes to work. Until they come up with real home jobs, and I know they won’t, I won’t be working outside of the house. I’m totally convinced that God made sure I’d be sleep-cursed not only to keep us from making extra money now but to make sure we end up struggling after Tom’s retired.

Financial struggling. Can’t imagine life without it. Tom still thinks we’re going to save a ton of money and have a life while we do so, but I know better. I’m sure all kinds of emergencies will come up to steal whatever we save. If we were meant to have money, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. I just look forward to the day his mother finally goes belly-up so we can at least have a temporary respite from the everyday scraping of pennies. That’s how I figure our lives will be – mostly struggling with occasional bursts of comfort. I know my allowance and shopping will be temporary like last time, too. If I were meant to have the dolls I’ve been wanting, I wouldn’t have wanted them for as long as I’ve wanted them. Do you know how many years I’ve had my heart set on some of these custom-made dolls? Too many!

Anyway, I’m not going to give God the satisfaction of seeing me break down in tears while He’s laughing his ass off when the neighbors get door-slammy on us, stealing my peace when I’m trying to read or work on the computer and waking me up every other day. Also, I’m so sick of bouncing around like a fucking basketball, so no matter how bad it gets, I’m staying put with no tears! Every time the bumps and bangs get to me, I’ll think of how I can enjoy the easy convenience of mailing mail from our door, receiving mail at our door, ordering pizzas if we want to, dumping trash with no problem, not having to worry about wells or having to spend a fortune on things that break. When the hot water tank blows or the roof leaks, it’s not our time and money gonna be spent on fixing it!

I wonder if Pa ever pleads with God – Give the poor girl a break! You’ve taken so much from her, so must you take her sleep, too? It’d be nice if he’d at least let me have that much if He’s going to make me live in the city, but I know I’ll never get that, so why bother to hope?

Tom’s cold hasn’t turned out to be too bad, so that’s good. He hasn’t had to miss work.

Speaking of the usual sleep curse that’s very much a part of my life, as always, well, I’m dealing with that right now. Couldn’t imagine life without it. I had hoped to sleep into the evening yesterday, but sure enough, he woke me up when coming into the room. I didn’t hear him enter, but the room brightened so much with the way the sun shines on the door at that time and that’s what woke me. I took Benadryl and crashed last night from 11:00 to 3:00, and am bound and determined, as hard as I know it’ll be, to stay up till this evening. I want to not only be available to move this weekend if that’s what’s going to happen (though I’m beginning to have my doubts), I want to be available to go up to the land to get some more things and water the plants, and maybe to the Chinese place too, unless he doesn’t think we should spend the money just yet by going there.

That triplex we looked at still has two vacant units, and I can’t help but think, wouldn’t it be nice if I could talk Kate into moving into one if we do? I know that’ll never happen, but I can dream, can’t I? Dreams are about all I have at this point. Like the one where I magically fall on schedule and stay on it while I work at the Chinese place when Kate does so, she can drive me to and from the place, honored to do so, happy to get whatever time and attention she can from me.

I’m amazed at how often this place is filled up. Again, it makes me wonder if it isn’t cuz we’re here and if this isn’t another classic example of how we do so well at making others money. I bet business will die down when we leave. I don’t hear voices or the TV next door, but they never fail to let me know when they come and go. Whether it’s cuz of our presence or not, I still can’t believe there are so many people traveling at this time of year! I thought they were mostly truckers, but there are an awful lot of cars around for it to be mostly truckers.

I am so, so tired. This is totally the middle of the night for me and my body wants so badly to sleep! However, I know I’ll be glad I did it if I stay up. Then all I’ll have to do is hope I don’t get banged up by whoever’s going to come slamming in next. Meanwhile, I’ve got to try to keep myself entertained and busy somehow. It’s just that TV bores me, reading tires me out, and there’s only so much writing and listening to music I can do. I sang a bit earlier. Maybe I’ll do some more.

Later…

I’m still awake, though barely. I just went to dump some trash in their dumpster here. Those Mexies love to loiter outdoors, no matter what the weather. They really hate being indoors. What the hell are some of them doing there at this time anyway? Aren’t they supposed to be slaving away on the farm?

The number of pigs I see here really annoys me. We weren’t even out an hour yesterday evening when we went to Safeway and to KFC, yet we saw 3 squad cars. I questioned Tom as to whether or not they’re as crazy as they are down in Arizona since the place is constantly swarming with them, but he saw something that made him think they’re not as quick to jump on a person for every little thing they do. Some cock was panhandling when a cruiser went by. Tom saw the guy tuck his sign under his shirt and saw that the pigs saw it anyway but didn’t do anything. Well, I just hope I never have to find out just what the pigs and law are like here! If God could refrain from sending someone to provoke me into kicking their ass, I’d really appreciate it as that’d really help to ensure that I don’t get to know the local pigs/jail. It really frustrates me when trouble seems to come my way no matter how much I try to avoid it. Doing things to provoke others and asking for trouble is one thing, but what is this shit with me trying to mind my own business and go about my life in peace, yet I still get trouble? I keep trying to tell myself, relax, this isn’t Phoenix, what happened there was a fluke, history doesn’t have to repeat itself, but I can’t do that. It’s just too hard for me to think positively when the same old sorry shit happened to me over and over, year after year. As far as I can see, I have no reason to be hopeful and every reason to be fearful.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2004 Tom has a cold, I’m sorry to say. Apparently, I’m still immune to colds, but I’m no longer able to protect him and that worries me. All my powers are pretty much history, save for negative predictions and keeping myself from illness. As it is, I’m starting to wonder if we’re going to make it out of here this weekend. He’s trying, though. He got updated lists and spoke with the property management people some more. I would still prefer a house, but I can see he prefers a duplex. This is because they’re cheaper and would cost less to heat. He doesn’t want us to have to skimp and be uncomfortable when it comes to heat, but that’s all we do is skimp. Our whole life is skimping this, compromising that, and all kinds of sacrifices and settlements, so does it matter? House, duplex – they’ll all suck either way, so I don’t really care so long as we get the hell out of motels.

A lot of people think renting is bad because you lose the money, but look how easy it is for some of us to lose houses, so what difference does it make? I don’t want to own anything again as much as I’ll always wish I could.

This motel, as much as I want out, continues to be the best so far, save for the fact that it’s got no internet access or another room. They don’t bug us here, and the room next door is usually quieter than they were in other places. They get on my nerves occasionally with the door-slamming and attention-getting tactics like that, but I don’t hear voices and TVs like at other places.

I still think of suicide periodically, and that it may be best since we go through so much more shit than good. I’m more and more convinced that life will be one long-term problem after another as long as we live. At our age, I just don’t see how things could get better. I’ve at least agreed to give Mr. Optimist time to see that no, we can’t get a quiet place. Not even in the tiny town of Klamath Falls. A noise curse is a noise curse. It will get us wherever it can. It doesn’t care where we go. As long as it can stick next to us just one loud, rude, obnoxious asshole that just won’t shut up, it will. Meanwhile, when he can finally see and admit that old curses and patterns really do have a way of following us no matter where we go and that life will continue to be everything we don’t want it to be and nothing we do want it to be, he’s agreed to research poison online as a possible way of killing ourselves. There are too many risks with hanging and shit like that, so he’s going to investigate some form of poison. One would think there are some fast-acting poisons out there, though at this point, if I have to suffer 5 minutes of hell before I die, it may be worth it to get to nothingness in the end, rather than put up with 50 more years of hell on earth.

I don’t understand why God doesn’t take his mother. All she’s doing is taking up space and burdening others while we could really use her help, and the only way she could help us at this point is to get dead. I mean, damn that bitch! It just won’t fucking die! I’ve been putting spells on her like crazy yet I know it’s worthless. The selfish bitch has got God’s protection and many years left in her. On the other hand, does it really matter if she takes 10 more years to die? We’ll still need money then too, if we’re still alive.

We had a couple of cold days, but they say it’s to warm up to around 80˚ within the next few days. Not bad for mid-October.

Tom brought in my box of Barbies that’s been in the truck. That way I can personalize the place a bit and feel like we have something around that’s ours other than clothes. I’ve only got a few displayed, though, since there’s only so much room in here, and what with the rat running loose a lot.

We took a walk earlier. I just felt like I had to get out. I didn’t want Tom to accompany me. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate his company, it’s just that he was sick and I wanted him to rest. Still, he insisted on tagging along, so I let him.

I never did get sick, like I said, but I was so rundown. All I did was sleep for the last few days, though I’m still on nights. I just can’t seem to get onto days to save my life, but oh well. I’ll sleep when I sleep. If things could go our way for once – just for once – I should only have one more move coming up for a while and that’s to the apartment.

I can’t stop thinking of that waitress. I hope I get to see her this Sunday, but I might not if I can’t push my schedule up or pull it back. I won’t be able to give her my number this Sunday if we’re not in someplace by then. If I’m right about her liking me, just handing her my number should be enough of an incentive for her to call me, but I’d rather have dolls and incense as a hook, and I won’t have that till we are in a place. Still, I wonder, will she really call? And if so, just what kind of friendship could we have?

I guess I’d have to say I doubt we’ll get together in any way shape or form. Look how many times in the past I thought I’d be getting together with various people, yet I never did. Because women were always so not meant to be, not that I’d want a relationship with this woman, God will send her a girlfriend right around the time I get my number to her. I just don’t see Him letting me be even just friends with a gay or bisexual woman.

On the other hand, do I really want to have a lover on the side who gets off on me and whom I get off on? Nah. As exciting as the prospect of variety may seem, I don’t really need that. When Tom doesn’t cum, it’s for a reason, and as “abnormal” and as “freakish” as that may be, we both don’t want a child, so it’s okay. Again, I know it could be for other reasons that he doesn’t cum, but I still have a hard time buying Helen’s it-just-doesn’t-quite-feel-good-enough literature. I think he’s very much in control of himself, and I think he’d not cum in any unprotected woman. This doesn’t mean he’d get squirt-happy if I suddenly had a hysterectomy, though, cuz that’d be admitting to both himself and to me that I was right. Besides, he’s gotten himself so accustomed to not cumming, and when you don’t get that horny that easily or that often, holding back isn’t so hard to do.

I still don’t see what this woman sees in me anyway. Can’t she see how chunked out I am?

With Tom’s work probation period being up in just two weeks from now, we’re both anxious and nervous. It’s nerve-wracking to know that just like others have, they could take our lives and trash them, but at the same time, we want to hurry up and get the probation over with.

I’d like to think God can have the heart to say to Himself that these people have been picked on enough. They’ve lost so much that I’m not going to take the job, too. They’ve been taken for enough and their lives are in shambles, so I’ll at least spare them the loss of the job.

But I can’t count on this. It’s because of all He has taken from us that worries me. If He could take the things He has and if He could prevent us from achieving such ordinary goals, He could take our lives in His hands and crush the life right out of them if He wants us dead, and dead is just how we’ll get if He does strip us of what little we have left.

If we do live, we’re still going to save as much as we can, even though we’ll be in apartments for years, because we’ll need the money for if he gets fired or laid off in the future, and that’s bound to happen. It happens to the best of us. We also still want to go to San Francisco to get that mannequin I’ll have to move around like crazy, and on a cruise as well. You can bet your ass we’re going first class when we do! As in hotels with a capital H where they’ll wait on us as if we were royalty.

I decided not to bother getting the fillings I need. I just don’t want to put extra money in my mouth or go back to playing appointments, so if I let them just decay, there’ll be no teeth to have to worry about. We play fix-it enough outside of my mouth that I don’t need to play it inside of it as well.

Oregon is one “regular” state. I don’t think I’ve gone a day without shitting, except for when I took those anti-diarrhea pills.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2004 My schedule is all botched up now. I fell asleep at 5:30 yesterday morning and Tom woke me up over and over again. He went in and out a few times and woke me up each time he came and went, then twice with the bathroom door. So, I got up at noon and we went to Mollie’s. Then we returned to the room and he took off to run some errands while I had a fluent conversation in Spanish with the housekeeper (I was proud of how well I did!) Then he returned and I insisted he stay inside and sit still so I could go back to bed, and I did. I slept for 5 hours, yet ironically, I was still groggy. So after being forced to watch TV with him, I stood up for a few hours, then when 9:00 rolled around, I asked him to cut the TV so I could relax in peace, thus crashing for another hour or so. I got up to listen to music and then I laid around till now, and I’m wondering – what in the world has me so damn drained?! Just the usual sleep curse, I guess, plus the stress of motel life, never knowing from day to day what’s going on. I wish I could have some security and stability in my life and break free of the 13-year sleep curse that’s been put on me, but that’ll never happen. Oh, I may get temporary security and stability at some point, but a week in my life without having my sleep disrupted? Yeah, right!

I said I didn’t miss Arizona, and I don’t. However, if it was a choice between this life and the one back in Maricopa (minus the sickos), I think I would happily take that old life back and settle for the lack of privacy, the ferocious heat, the land being trashed, the place reeking of horse shit, etc. Even the occasional sonic booms beats life in the city.

I don’t know where my schedule’s heading. I’d like it to flip around, which would mean going to bed at around noon and hopefully staying that way for at least 8 hours if he could sit still and be quiet enough. He’s driving me nuts with the fucking TV. That’s all he does when he’s here and awake and I so miss having more than one room! Here, if I don’t want to deal with it, I can’t get away from it unless I hibernate in the bathroom. I feel like I have no space and no privacy, and it’s been worse lately, the later I’ve been getting up. I get up with the TV, I eat with the TV, I live with the TV! He rarely likes to play computer games or read, and of course, his sexual appetite is next to nil.

I still feel pretty out of it. It’s like I’m devoid of all energy and I can’t wake up. I’ve been taking my vitamins, so I don’t know what it is other than the stress and lack of sleep. The question is, why? Why is it so important to whatever put the sleep curse on me that I sleep so poorly? I’ve been asking this for years now, and the only answer I can think of makes no sense; because of the people I woke up during my years of prank phone calls. But I’ve only woken up one person for every thousand times I’ve been woken up, so if this is payback for that, then it’ll never stop punishing me for it!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2004 Tom read the short story I wrote with Tina and Kate as the main characters. Knowing he expected them to get it on, I had them meet just like we did in real life, then meet at Kate’s place and not be able to be more than friends in the end. Then I had her look-alike sister-in-law break the news to Kate because Tina didn’t have the heart to do so herself. In the end, Kate runs into them in a store and is hurt, angry and confused at first, with the story ending with everyone agreeing to be friends. It’s only 9 pages.

Tom read the story earlier tonight, too.

It was very windy this evening. A dust storm blew in, but no rain. Just a bit of drizzle. It’s a good thing I wasn’t trying to sleep because the wind was rattling the door in its frame.

Tom talked to the guy today at the desk and he said we could stay in this room for another week, also they want to service this room tomorrow. That’d be fine with me since I don’t like to sleep on the same sheets or use the same towels for over a week, and the room needs vacuuming. So, since I’m not going to fall asleep till close to dawn, I’ll have to have my sleep broken up. I’ll have to get up a few hours after falling asleep, but I can go back to sleep afterward.

Tom and I were reading some incredible land/house deals for just a couple of grand to about 20 grand, but I still think we’ll always struggle because we always have. I’m also going to be afraid to attempt to leave the city again no matter how noisy the apartment is because I’m going to fear getting stuck back here no matter how much money we save up. I’m at a tug of war, you could say, because I don’t want to stay in the city, though I’m afraid to leave it. Meanwhile, I can’t leave it, so we’re going to shoot for something in the $300 range. Tom thinks we’ll be here 6 months to a year, but at this point, I just want out of motels! I don’t care if it’s a pitiful 600 square feet at this point, I just want out of here. This motel is spacious and quieter, but it’s still a motel! I want a place where I can service us at my own convenience, rather than have someone else do it for me at their convenience.

I thought of something that may prompt the queen to send Christmas money, and that’s other people’s gifts. If other family members bring gifts there for us, then they may ship them up to us, and if they do, they may include crap of their own, including money. It’d be nice if they did, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t bother with Christmas or my birthday. If they don’t care that we’re homeless, then why should they care about that?

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2004 Last night I told Tom I’d work on making as many of his coworkers sick as I could to lessen his chances of getting let go in the end. Ironically, the mean-looking chick who stabbed her husband had to go to the hospital today. Pleurisy, I guess it was.

I cannot wait to get into an apartment! I know it’s going to be noisy as hell, but I want another room to retreat to other than the bathroom. As soon as he gets in, that TV goes on and I’m forced to watch it whether I want to or not. I can’t read when the fucking thing’s on either so I have to wait. I can’t get any space unless he’s either working or asleep.

Mr. Optimist thinks we’ll get an ok neighbor. Well, if we do, they’ll be out of there before we even get one suitcase unpacked, and in will come Mommy with an obnoxious little brat of a kid, or a partying college kid. Nah, I doubt either of those will be the case. We’ll get the freeloaders. We always do.

He says you’re less likely to get noisy neighbors or dogs in a 1-bedroom, but noise curses don’t care. I was in a studio, for Christ’s sake, and look what a nightmare that butch was at the Vista after I complained about her, not yet knowing what a crime that was in that state. Besides, there’s nothing to say the 1-bedroom duplex can’t be next to a big house with lots of people and dogs. In the end, I think banging and car stereos will be the highlights of the noises. When I say “banging,” I mean doors slamming, cabinets closing, etc. All it takes is one ferocious neighbor. After seeing that butch make nearly as much noise as the family next to me in the NHA did, I knew it didn’t matter. A curse is a curse is a curse.

They finally woke me up here. A couple of bangs woke me up midway through my sleep. I’m worried about my schedule. I can’t seem to back it up or push it forward, and if that Arab idiot was right about it being the law that one must switch motel rooms after staying in one that they paid to stay in for a week, then we have to move yet again! Will there ever come a day when we don’t have to move every few days to a few years?!?!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2004 Anyway, this is the second time the toilet’s clogged up, and I am not going to play fix-it with other people’s shit! If he wants to deal with it, he can, but I’ll stay out of it, thank you.

Anyway, I haven’t been woken up here so far. It seems I’ve slept better than I did on the land in this motel and in the Arab guy’s, but worse than on the land in the Townhouse and Tina’s.

Tom got a $4 and a $10 winning ticket. I just wish we could win thousands or even just hundreds!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2004 This motel is definitely the best so far. It’s quieter and the housekeeper doesn’t pester us. I slept from 6 AM-2 PM and not once did anything wake me up.

I was thinking of Kate and wondering if she was thinking of me, too. Perhaps not at this minute, since most people are asleep at 2:00 in the morning. As much as I’m still not even close to being a people-person, I must admit we’ve met some rather interesting characters in this tiny town, and Tom agrees.

I just wish I could go to the Chinese place alone sometime and be waited on by her! I’d love to see her behavior then. But I won’t unless we end up living really close to the place so I could walk there, cuz I’d feel weird having Tom drop me off there. That’s ok, though, cuz I really believe I can take advantage of her fondness and make an incense sale or two from her in time, and play my fun little game of chase-but-don’t-capture. I find it awfully hard to believe that if I gave her my number she wouldn’t suddenly love incense even if she never did before, if only for an excuse to talk to me. I just don’t get what she sees in me, although that’s what I said about a few folks back in jail. It’s just that now I have a few more years on me and a few more pounds as well.

I had an idea that Tom likes as well. When I thought of the fact that the only two times we sold incense were in person and not online, I realized that we were going about it the wrong way by using the net. We can’t expect people to come to us, we have to go to them. So, although I don’t expect to ever make any real money by selling incense, we may make up business cards to pass out to every acquaintance we have and are going to have.

You know you’re not with your typical male when you ask your husband if he’d sleep with a woman for 50 grand and he says no. I totally believe him, too.

We read naked in bed earlier, though we didn’t do anything. Neither of us was interested, I guess you could say.

Later…

Again we didn’t do it, and therefore, I gave Tom an ultimatum because I’m not going to keep going through this with him where I’m his occasional lay. We’re either full-time lovers or no-time lovers. I’m not going to be an object of convenience for him or else I will get it on with chicks on the side and I’d have every right to, too. He said he was worried I’d have cramps, and once again, isn’t it funny how it always comes down to me? Never can he admit he has no desire and not use me as a crutch or an excuse of some kind to cover for his own lack of appetite. Isn’t it also funny how he was all gung-ho over being able to screw in a real bed, yet we’ve only done it twice since we’ve lived in motels and only at my initiation? Well, like I said, he may still get off on these games, but I’m way sick of them and this is part of why I don’t have much desire of my own to get it on with him. His games and excuses really turn me off. Maybe tomorrow, if he “remembers” to hit on me, I’ll be like, “Nah, you’re tired and so I’ve got to be considerate of that and wait,” and see how he likes it. I mean, really! Why would he wait to see if I got cramps? If he put the moves on me when I had cramps, I’d tell him, but I don’t think that’s it. I think that like me, he just wasn’t in the mood, though unlike me, he couldn’t say so. Tomorrow, though, I’ll simply tell him, “Look, let’s just wait and see if we’re ever a bit more eager than we have been.”

Meanwhile, I’ll sit here and wonder about Kate, even fantasize a bit, too. Next time I see her, I’ll get a name. Who could she be? Hmm, she kind of looks like a Margot. Maybe even a Kathy or a Diane. Could be Susan or Joanne. She strikes me as the type to have an ordinary, common name, though I don’t sense her name to be Mary. Maybe Maryanne.

It’s been a year since I cut my hair. I’d say I got a good 7 inches over the last year, and my bangs are now long enough to pull back into a high ponytail. It’s just that I’m graying so fast! I may dye it either dark brown or dark red once we get settled somewhere if we ever do get settled somewhere.

Never has the loathing and disrespect for his mother been as great as it is now. Year after year I wish she’d just drop dead so we can be comfortable, if only for a short while, yet the immortal bitch just won’t die! She’s going to live another decade with our shit luck. It’s like, come on already! You’re 81 years old, you say you got all these problems, so die bitch, die!

Anyway, I get the sense that Tom’s more disappointed than he lets on over the fact that his mother couldn't care less that he and his wife are homeless, but I expected it. I mean, I’m disappointed too, to know that someone who’s supposed to care doesn’t give a shit, but that’s how it usually works. I’m sure Kate would be more sympathetic to our situation than his family is. Hell, even Tina was more sympathetic, for God’s sake! I don’t even think we’ll get birthday/Christmas money, though he does. That’s just optimistic Tom for you.

The gay-bashing goes on and I’m sure it always will. Those against gay marriage have bumper stickers saying, “One Man, One Woman.” Why can’t those of us who hate blacks have bumper stickers saying, “One Nation, One Color?” Well, the answer to that’s easy enough – because it’s only okay to hate gays, that’s why! Tom flips through channels and I catch this religious station saying that gays and lesbians have a higher rate of mental problems, which is bullshit, then another channel has a cock saying that not even the most caring, compassionate woman can be a “dad,” and on and on and on! I realize that if there’s still so much hatred towards gays in what’s almost 2005, it’ll never get better. Never. Instead, more and more people are going to keep throwing blacks up on this pedestal they don’t deserve to be on. It’s going to be blacks and Hispanics first, then other minorities like Asians and Indians, then whites, and then gays last.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2004 The Chinese place wasn’t nearly as busy as it was the last time, we were there two weeks ago. No, we weren’t waited on by “Kate” as I call the tall, slender, dark-eyed, dark-haired, somewhat loud waitress, though it didn’t make any difference. She still chatted with me anyway whenever she’d go by. Again, I’d be really surprised if she weren’t gay and attracted to me. You just don’t normally carry on with someone else’s customer as if you’re old buddies after you’ve only seen them twice before, once without ever saying a word to them.

Shortly after we were seated, she stopped to tell me I wanted the kids’ foo young if I wanted to avoid getting too much. Then she asked…wasn’t I the one who ordered it from her and got too much? I said yes, but that this time I was going to order pork fried rice, and then she went about her business, throwing smiles at me from time to time along the way. At one point, she walked past our table, then turned back to smile at me.

As we were leaving, the waitress who waited on us went to take care of us at the register while Kate bussed our table, saying something like, “It was nice seeing you again, hun.” Then she asked how the pork fried rice was. I told her it was fine. Then, as she was walking towards me, I told her we were looking for a duplex to rent and asked if she had any suggestions. She said there was a cute one on 9th Street (I guess downtown the streets are numbered and uptown the streets just have names).

Anyway, she definitely is older. Like late 30s, early 40s. Not the greatest-looking chick, but certainly not the worst. She has a nice body and I do like dark hair and eyes, though I don’t know if her hair is dyed or not. I dig the idea of seeing her and flirting with her. I always thought flirting was fun as long as it doesn’t get out of hand like it did with Teddy Bear. On the other hand, it’s not like I literally “flirt” with her. I know Tom wouldn’t appreciate that. I wish he wouldn’t care since it’s only another woman, but I’m sure he would. He wouldn’t sit on me and stop me, but I know it’d hurt his feelings so I take this into consideration. I wouldn’t want him doing anything to hurt my feelings so I respect his. As it was, he seemed more talkative than usual, as if he was trying to distract me from what was going on around me. Would I go with her if I were single? Definitely. Like I said, she’s no Kate, Gloria or Linda, but she’s not half bad either. She doesn’t have the nicest speaking voice, though. It’s loud enough to be easily audible, but it’s a bit hoarse-sounding, suggesting she may smoke. She always wears her hair in a ponytail which is a little below the middle of her back.

Today’s experience shoots down Tom’s theory that she was only being nice the last time we saw her to get a good tip, because why would you go out of your way to be so nice and kind and chatty with someone you aren’t even waiting on that you barely know?

In other news, Tom got a scratch ticket and won $8. To save money, we’re going to eat in the motel room more often. Since they have a refrigerator and microwave, we figured we might as well use them.

I like this place a lot better than Tina’s, as nice as she was. I met the regular housekeeper today and let her know that due to my being a late sleeper, I’ll go to her when we need something. She assured me that’d be ok.

I can’t believe how nice the weather is here! Maybe it isn’t as bad as Massachusetts, though I still think that at least December - February will be bad.

Later…

I cannot believe how much quieter this motel is, not that I’m complaining, and I know there’s someone next to us. An older couple, I think.

Anyway, I tried to read, but I can’t concentrate. My mind keeps wandering to “Kate” and I wonder – is she thinking of me, too? Just because nothing can ever happen between us doesn’t make me any less curious. Again, she isn’t half bad when you consider how ugly most gay women are.

But what could she possibly see in me? She certainly can’t like me for my body, and since I still don’t yet have much in the way of hair, it must be my face, mainly my eyes. They’re the only asset I’ve got going for me at the moment. Also, just as straights seem to go for those who look like them, women tend to go for opposites. Except for the fact that we both have brown hair, she’s tall, brown-eyed and thin.

I wish we could at least be friends, but I think even that may make Tom uncomfortable. Especially when I remember how jealous he seemed to be over Kim and Kim and I were nothing to each other in that way. Still, it’s frustrating to know I could simply hand her my number and that she’d almost certainly call me, whereas I couldn’t have gotten a woman this easily when I was single if I tried, but see, that’s just it. More often than not, it’s when I don’t try for something or even go out of my way to avoid it that I end up getting it! Here I’ve got this woman I like who seems to like me, even though she may smoke and be a bit moody, maybe even airheaded, and I can’t even have a friendship with her! Oh well. There are worse things in life like being homeless and living in motels with no one in the world who gives a damn about us, including Tom’s own family. Maybe that’s another reason I want a friendship with her; so I could feel like there was one person, just one person, who gave a damn that wasn’t on the other side of the country.

I don’t want to work on my stories until I can do so on my desktop, so Tom suggested I begin another one, perhaps a short story. A very short story. Maybe I’ll do a funny story with Kate and Tina as the main characters.

Speaking of stories, here’s another uncanny case of art imitating life. One of the stories I began in Phoenix starts off with a couple who meet in a restaurant. The FBI customer likes the waitress who likes her back, though what transpires between these characters certainly couldn’t transpire between Kate and me!

I just can’t believe someone who looks like this restaurant chick could like me. Anyone who knows me knows I’ve been notorious for getting women who were so-so-looking, if not downright ugly. Only Anne Marie, Kacey and Teddy Bear were attractive, but look how long they lasted, and of course Teddy Bear and I never did more than flirt. Anyway, If you showed me a picture of everyone who works there (or at least who I know to work there) and asked me to guess which one likes me, I’d probably guess that big fat ugly blond chick that’s been there ever since we started going there. Then if someone had said I was wrong and pointed to the one that really has a crush on me, I’d have been like, “Really? No way!”

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2004 Well, here we are. We’re at La Vista. The owner’s Indian as well, and seems pretty nice. I don’t get the impression the housekeepers will be pests from the way he said he doesn’t have the rooms serviced every day in order to keep the costs down. I assured him I’d go to them when I needed something.

This room is much nicer than Tina’s and the Arab’s. It’s much roomier and even has two beds, a plush chair and a tub. We’re also on the end for once, which is nice. That is, so long as the people next door don’t go making up for it by slamming doors like they did earlier when they went out. Like I said, I can’t fathom why people feel so compelled to slam doors. And why can’t they sit still when they’re in their rooms and not keep going in and out so much?

They have a heated pool here, though I doubt anyone would want to use it. It looks pretty disgusting. It’s green like our pool in Phoenix would often be.

The Mexicans didn’t party hearty like I thought they would last night, but I can’t say I’ll miss all their bumps and bangs. Also, the ones to one side of us often blasted their TV.

I can hear the housekeeper next door now, but that’s nothing compared to when Tina’s husband and his dad would go crashing into the rooms next to ours to clean. Every day they’d wake me up, though I appreciated the favor at the same time because it helped keep me on somewhat of a schedule. Getting up at 10:00 this morning was hard after not crashing till 4:00. My body’s crying out to go off schedule. It wants to push forward so bad! I’m hoping I’ll be able to let my schedule be whatever it wants to be in an apartment, but that’ll all depend on how often they wake me up. Like I said, I’ll always be sleep-cursed, always.

I’m enjoying the modern conveniences of city life. I don’t miss the long drive up to the mountain. Neither does Tom. I realize it’s easier said than done to say we’ll escape the city the first chance we get. Why bother when we’d only end up right back in it again in a matter of time? If we can find a tolerable place here, why not stay here?

I look forward to going to the Chinese place tomorrow, though it wouldn’t surprise me if God made sure whatever-her-name-is was either not there or not able to wait on us because she’s a woman. Women weren’t anymore meant to be than rural living, and when they are, they’re never for long!

Later…

The nap I tried to fight off won me over after all. Tom went to take a nap in his bed, so the rat and I climbed into the other bed after he climbed up my pant leg for attention. With Blondie under the covers at my feet, I drifted off. It was light out when I fell asleep and dark when I woke up, telling me I must’ve been out for 2-3 hours. The fact that I slept with only the AC/heater on ‘fan only’ should tell you how quiet it is here. Those obnoxious door-slammers were actually late check-outs. Whoever’s over there now has been quiet so far. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if they signed up for a week, but I know they’ll be gone tomorrow. I wonder how often there’ll be someone over there.

When Tom got up close to 8:30, we went to Mollie’s for dinner. I got a huge shrimp salad and he got his usual hotdog and fries.

I’m going to be up all damn night for sure. If I can sleep from 6 AM-2 PM, though, I should still be on for the Chinese place. How I hope she’s there and that she waits on us! I can’t get her off my mind. There’s just something about her. Why oh why are they always famous, taken, or available only after I’m taken? I’m not saying for sure that she’s gay/bi or that she’s even single if she is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she was. Gay/bi, I mean. Taken, I don’t know. I just get a hell of a strong feeling she’s both gay/bi and attracted to me by the way she smiled at me so much the first time around, then hugged me the last time while telling Tom how nice he was to bring me there. I don’t know why she’d be attracted to an overweight 38-year-old, but I wish Tom was more like your average guy sexually. I don’t mean in bed, cuz I just don’t care about that anymore, but I wish he was ok with the idea of me seeing women on the side just for sex. If my heart is with him, should it matter who I give my body to? But it’s like he wants me celibate or very close to it. I can’t have much sex with him, I can’t have it with women, and so who can I have it with? Already it’s been over a week since the last time we got it on. I knew this would be the case too, but that’s beside the point. My wanting to get to know this waitress better has nothing to do with him or how often we do or don’t do it. I just don’t think it’s fair of him to expect me to be celibate just because he’s got no appetite.

I also wish he wouldn’t spend so much time with the TV going. We do everything with the TV, so it seems, and I have to wait till he’s either working or sleeping so I can concentrate on reading. I put up with it, though, cuz I know he loves TV as much as I love music. Plus, we usually read together at night, and I know he’ll be without TV for a while once we finally get settled somewhere.

I just hope I can hear myself think wherever we end up and that the neighbors don’t go waking me up like crazy or complaining about me singing. If they do – tough. I’ll be using only the headphones, or mostly the headphones, and I won’t be singing at night.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2004 Blondie’s sleeping on the bed right now, and Tom should be in soon.

Because I slept till 1:00, getting up at 10:00 tomorrow is going to be hard. At least all we’ll be doing is zipping across the street.

Last night was quieter than the night before as far as the banging goes, but I’m afraid that tonight, being a Friday night, will be rocking. Then again, I’m hoping they’ll either be too tired to raise hell or that they’ll go get drunk in bars and come back to sleep it off till we leave.

Tina (yes, it really was Tina) said that we’re welcome back in two weeks when they’re gone, but I hope we won’t have to come back and that we’ll be in an apartment somewhere for our final 6-month sentence in the city by then. I just want to stop starting over and having the life I build up torn down!

Later…

Here’s an interesting update. Did we get a check from the queen? No, but we sure did get one from BOA! It’s for $262, and supposedly, it’s because we had money in the escrow account we closed long ago. With the way they’ve ripped us off and fucked us over, and with the way we need money, it was a great surprise. As for the queen and Miss Perfect, I want nothing more to do with them and neither does Tom. Not till that bitch goes belly-up anyway if she ever does. How many years ago was she supposed to die? Something like 10? She always has a new disease yet she lives on. I don’t know if the doctors are just quacks who are telling her she has things she doesn’t have, if she’s a hypochondriac, or what, but I wish she’d hurry up and drop dead!

In other news, I got a letter from Paula, which was nice. She didn’t make any references to us being motel bums. Hasn’t she gotten the letters I’ve sent? I hope so! She did get the incense, though, which she thanked me for, and says she’s done with the Puerto Rican guy but is seeing her black pig.

I sent both her and Bob what I hope will be my last of the motel letters! I may not be able to print right away, though, if the ink is all dried up. If not, it shouldn’t be long before I can pick up some new piece of shit to print with. At least we’re now 95% sure we’ll be in someplace in a couple of weeks, rather than 50%. I just hope that it won’t be noisy there and that they don’t wake me up, but I know better. There’s no way we’d get decent civilized neighbors. Tom says that being one-bedrooms, they’ll be less likely to raise hell, but I’m sure we’ll get some form of trouble. A drunk who loves to blast music and has a zillion drinking buddies over all the time. So while we may not get screaming kids and barking dogs, I’m sure there’ll be music and lots of banging. There are pros and cons to both houses and apartments. In houses, you’re less likely to have noise/trouble, but the lease is longer. In an apartment, you can at least complain about problem neighbors, though it’s also just as easy for them to complain about you, and that’s what they do here. That bitch that complained about my stomping at the Townhouse; that never would’ve happened in Arizona, though Arizona had many other faults to make up for it.

Meanwhile, I’ll just hope that La Vista’s reasonably quiet and that the housekeepers aren’t pests.

I’m excited about this Sunday. We’re going to the Chinese place. I hope you know who will be there, but there are no guarantees she’ll be there or even be the one waiting on us if she is. Still, I look forward to my pork fried rice.

[dsandrvk]

Monday, September 29 - Anaa, Tuamoto Islands, French Polynesia

We have left the hustle and bustle of the big city (and island) behind and are now in the Tuamoto archipelago to the east of Papeete, which is a large group of atolls. We didn't arrive at our destination until around noon, and it was quickly established that it was going to be too rough to allow snorkeling. Anaa is an enclosed atoll, with no channel into the lagoon, so our ship and Zodiacs had to stay outside, and we had a fairly good swell. They have built a couple of small breakwaters here and a good-sized pier, which made transferring to the island simple.

Anaa is a good deal more prosperous than the small islands in the other countries we have visited. Not only is there the dock, but there are several concrete streets that run through the village here, including one that runs from the dock about 3/4 kilometer to the lagoon. There are a few cars and small trucks here, as well as many bicycles and quite a few e-bikes. "Quell surprise"!

We had hoped to do a little birding on the island, but it was pretty quiet. There was a cultural performance, which we saw just a little part of before wandering away to find more "wild" paths. In addition to the paved roads, there were many dirt tracks and we followed one back to the outside of the atoll, looking (unsuccessfully) for a grotto that fills with rainwater, and birds (also unsuccessfully). We had seen a sign about it, but whatever path may have existed was so overgrown as to be invisible.

Like many of the atolls, the actual island is surrounded by a ring of shallow coral on the outside, which creates a sort of lagoon around the island that partially protects it from waves and tides. However, it is not enough in the case of typhoons, and all these islands are extremely vulnerable to storms. That said, the construction here is sturdier than in previous countries, being primarily concrete.

Atolls are basically the last remnants of volcanoes that have completely eroded away. When the volcano was still above the sea, the coral formed on the outside, and after the volcano was gone, just the coral ring remains. The best snorkeling is usually on the outside, where the coral ring is on the edge of the deep, but that area is also vulnerable to the weather, and that's why after the performance we were only able to swim in the lagoon, which had a shallow, mostly sandy beach and shallows. It also had the most amazing shades of blue. There were several crumbling piers sticking out into the lagoon which offered a vantage point back to the beach.

As usual, we were given beautiful floral necklaces - this time an arrangement on a leaf. We always wish we could bring them back on board, but of course they wouldn't last the night anyway. But they are beautiful and reflect a lot of work. There was also a table set up with lots of different foods to try, and coconuts for coconut water, which was refreshing after our birding excursion.

There is a small runway that we arrived at on one of our walks looking for the grotto - they get one flight a week that brings in supplies, etc. They also receive things by boat, but that may be less frequent. All in all, it is quite idyllic, and the people here were lovely and friendly. It would be nice to stay for a few days, but I fear I would go stir-crazy if I lived here.

Russ and I spent some extra time after swimming wandering around on the dirt roads and enjoying the cooler later afternoon, since we had a fairly late last Zodiac time, and were almost the last ones back on board. Tomorrow we will be at another atoll, but we won't be allowed to land, so this was our last chance to do a proper walk without going around in circles on the deck.

Notes on a few pictures. There are several little vanilla "plantations" here - the shade cloth helps protect the vanilla orchids. The bulldozer was parked by the dock and is used to "plow" the roads when the dead coral is washed ashore. Getting it to the island must have been interesting. We only saw the one church, but there is another smaller village a little way around the island which may have another. We don't have far to go tonight and tomorrow we will have an early morning, so early to bed!

[invisiblefoxfire]

Perfect Tuesday!

Been trying to do a weekly positivity thing called Perfect Tuesdays where I am determined to have a good day, no matter how I have to twist things in my mind to justify them being good. It's been pretty useful! I missed a couple weeks because I had some Tuesdays that really couldn't be salvaged (and hey, that happens sometimes), but this week I'm back on my bullshit, bitches.

Original post complete with disclaimers for what this is and isn't: https://invisiblefoxfire.tumblr.com/post/749823249934860288/im-initiating-a-new-weekly-tradition-called

And now for this week! 25th June 2024

Woke up nice and early! Been doing that for over a week actually, thanks to the help of some new medication. I have methylphenidate for my ADHD focus issues, but now I'm also taking a low dose of clonidine for the hyperactivity and emotional dysregulation. I'm astonished by how well it's working. I'm able to fall asleep at night with very little struggle, without a need for alcohol to settle my nerves, and then I'm able to wake up at a pretty decent hour, usually between 7 and 9, without any need for an alarm. (I work from home, so I don't have to get up at any specific time.) It's been amazing getting up, doing my morning routine, getting a bunch of stuff done, then realizing it's still only like 1 pm!

Saw the allergist after not being allowed antihistamines for 4 days so we could do a skin test. This allergist remains possibly my favorite doctor of all time. He is very autistic about his job, very kind and friendly, and has never once so much as suggested that even my weirdest, most invisible symptoms are anything other than real and, at worst, not yet understood.

Seriously, today I told him about a symptoms no one has ever heard of (some of my medications stopped working after I had covid) and instead of suggesting it's psychosomoatic or anxiety or whatever, he said someone should study me because I'm surely not the only one desperate for answers, however rare this thing might be.

Anyway, blood tests so far show no sign of MCAS, but he assured me that doesn't definitively mean I don't have it, it's just hard to test for and we'll keep checking. It did show signs of histamine intolerance, which might also explain a lot of my symptoms, so he's inviting me to try a low-histamine diet for a bit just to see if I feel better (and if so, it's up to me whether I want to keep that up long term or not).

Skin test confirmed grass pollen allergies are pretty serious, and while I'm not allergic to birch (which is why tree pollen blood tests have been negative), I am allergic to other trees in the spring. Dust mites only reacted a tiny bit, but he's letting me try dust mite allergy innoculation tablets anyway just to see if they help.

At the end of the appointment he gave me permission to start my antihistamines again, and I made a big show of immediately taking them out of my backpack and victoriously swallowing the pill without water, which made him laugh.

I stopped at a pet shop on the way home because the animals are cute! And bought my cat a fun new toy. I hope he likes it!

Also stopped on the way home at a medical supply shop which is apparently the only place you can buy PH test papers in this country. So now I finally have those! Will make it easier to check that my pickles are safe and good to eat.

Final stop was the greasy burger shop around the corner. Their lunch menu gives you a huge burger, a pile of the most delicious fries that have ever graced this earth, and a cup of their very nice homemade iced tea. It's so much food (and so delicious) that I typically eat the fries for lunch, am too full to continue, then eat the burger for dinner. (The fries aren't good later but the burger stays great, hence the split). Been trying to avoid eating there too much because my cholesterol is a little high, but sometimes you need a little treat! Delicious!

Today is injection day (hell yeah for HRT, trans rights forever) and I started preparing by taking my clonazepam (to chill me out) and putting some numbing cream on the injection site which takes an hour to work. It's still doing its thing right now. But the incredible thing is, the pill is actually working! I can feel it! This is one of the medications that hasn't worked properly since I had covid last year, and it's giving me hope that maybe others will finally start to work too! Absolutely life changing if I can rely on tramadol to help with pain when I really need it... (Please note I only use it on occasion and have no risk of dependence because I carefully track how much I take.)

It's really hot out but I got all my errands done before the temperature got out of hand, and now I'm inside and the fan is actually doing a pretty good job of keeping me from overheating. (We do not have air conditioning generally available in this country.) It's still not a comfortable temperature, but I'm appreciating how much worse it might otherwise have been if I hadn't mustered up the energy to dig out the fan from under the bed and put it together last week.

Had a really super stressful situation the last few days, looked at an apartment which seemed perfect but the location was awful and the owners were being a little pushy and kind of shady. Ultimately I decided not to take it, worried the whole time that I might be making a bad decision. But I'm feeling so much better today! I know it was the right decision. And now I'm finding a new appreciation for where I live now. There's a lot that sucks about living here, but there are shops and restaurants and fast food joints all very close by, people I know who live in the building, and several types of public transport that can take me anywhere in the city. I really could be living in a worse place. I still do want to move for a lot of reasons, but it's nice to take a moment now and then to focus on the good instead of the bad.

That's all for now! Might update later if I get the time. Still have plenty more day left!

Join me in sharing your Perfect Tuesday if you like! Tag it with #perfecttuesdays or #perfect tuesdays so I can see what you've been up to!

[sesmantelar]

where has the time gone? why have I not been journaling and pouring my emotions here? lately, I have been doing a lot of shadow work so I can stop being in denial and get to the root of all the issues I face. I ensure that I do it in my physical diary because someone somewhere or some website had mentioned how it encourages a deeper connection with the mind and body as opposed to just digital. I still want to update here regularly though. life has been whatever lately. i'm looking to get a stable/consistent job in my city so I can relax and stop doing these crazy long drives. I work here again tonight, which I am not looking forward to, but I'm allowing myself a nice easy and restful day to set me up for success later tonight. I really want to cancel the 4 hour shift tomorrow. I have zero desire to ever come back to this place if I had a say. and to be honest, outside of these final few shifts, I do not believe i'm going to be picking up here again unless I end up in extraneous circumstances again. it's time to put myself first even more, and than means maximizing ice, exercise, and me time aka working closer to home. this coming weekend, I have my first harp recital! my harp instructor is telling me to engage in positive self talk to get through this because I do not feel ready. but im going to do it. it's at a nursing home ironically, so hopefully this may lessen the sour taste I have and give me a positive outlook. im going to go for it, and if I mess up, at least I tried. I need to find an appropriate Dres for this event however. I'm planning on testing bronze and maybe canasta tango this week on the ice. I'[m also hopping back into my OMAD. the last two weeks had two dates. I went on a beach camping trip, and then I met up with the cute coworker I used to work with at that old hospital. both dates went well, and I am proud of myself for not allowing myself to get super attached to knowing the outcome of this situation. I give up trying to know everything and give it all to the universe. I no longer have control. however, I have a gut feeling something is going to come of the situation with the coworker. im trying to think of any new crazy updates but I don't think anything super monumental has happened lately. however, I do know that I have been in a bit of a slump again. my period came twice in a month, after bumping my protein intake up to around 170g. I'm at a point in my fitness journal where every. single. day. makes an aesthetic difference. some days, you can see my 11 line abs - other days I look soft and like a teddy again. I obviously ate out at the beach, and this new guy took me to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. and I have been having some wine lately. Im not forcing myself to not have it because I enjoy it, but it must fit into my macros for it to be a weekly thing. so I need to stage another mini intervention. it now seems that every single week is an intervention for me. number one I keep skating. my weekly lessons serve as a stark reminder about my progress or lack thereof during the week. number two I MUST START STAYING HYDRATED. I need to stop "leaving" It for work because it never happens and I know do not know the last time I drank enough water number three STRICT STRICT STRICT 170g protein 50 net carbs, calories below 1400, 22 hour fasting outside of dating! stay ready so you don't have to get ready number four attend the CODA meeting on Monday night in person! number five sign up for shifts this week and start catching your finances up number six MUST READ EVERY SINGLE DAY. FIRST THING I DO UPON WAKING UP. number seven get your manicure on Monday. for some reason, when every little thing about me is together, I feel much more together in the larger aspects of my life

stay ready so you don't have to get ready.

[milo-hypno]

Milo, your Fanfic Q&A reblog - would you do 3 and 14 for Married AU? there's definitely some black magic happening ^^

Absolutely, I'll do my best!

3. If this work is an update/new chapter, how do you stay motivated on multi-chapter works?

I mean, a lot of things are at hand! The satisfaction of bringing an idea I had to life is certainly nothing to sneeze at - and since I like to print my works, knowing that when it's done I'll be able to hold a finished product in my hands is a nice motivator.

I also can't lie and say that the feedback I get from readers doesn't help - I do my best not to write for it, but all the same, knowing that people enjoy what I do is a nice drive.

But I think the thing that keeps me most motivated, actually, is sprinting (will touch on later) and sharing the nights work with a close friend. We both write in-fandom, and every night we sprint (well, she's certainly more dedicated to it - I do my best to be daily, but I miss sometimes) and then afterwards, we will send each other what we wrote, and then give feedback.

It gets me more excited to write every day, and gives me a gentle external pressure to work something out when I'm stuck. I can talk about my works, get advice, and give in turn - which is great for me! It also has a quicker deadline, so I can't just procrastinate and go "Ah, I have another 3 days to get it done, I don't need to write tonight."

14. Explain your writing process for this work.

I can't say I have a massive like, 12-step program, but the routine I've found works best in the past year is:

1 - initial plan, which usually involves writing a scene out that has Just Come To Me, or messaging a friend to talk about it with. For Married Au, it actually started with talking to a friend about a wholly separate AU, where we were trying to think of a reason why two characters might get married without being in love. (I had... a certain fixation to the trope at the time.) I was also juuust recovering from covid at the time.

That quickly turned into "Hey, what if Grian and Mumbo got married for like, an internal compass"

After that, I first talked about the idea more with said friend, and THEN I wrote a solid thousand words of outline.

When I outline things, I'm careful to make it more like guidelines/reminders, instead of say, "Grian breaks down in front of Mumbo in the middle of the night, Mumbo says "Hey don't worry I've got you."

My first 3 chapter outlines look like this:

Which is really nothing more than planning pacing, and enough of a reminder to jog my memory - anything too detailed, and I find that writing the scene can be exhausting - though, I do have notes with more details the further in and more plot-ridden a chapter is.

Other than that... all I do is:

Sprint (semi-)nightly - a writing sprint being a set amount of time where you write as much as you can. Discord has a bot available that allows you to do so with friends, which is very fun and a good motivator!

The habit is easy to break, but rewarding. When I was working on my DSMP fics, I used to average 100-200 words a night. Now, I average 500~, and sometimes I'll get a massive amount of inspiration for the scene, and will get up to 2k usually. (The most I've ever written in one night is 5k words - and man, my wrists ACHED at the end!)

Write consecutively - I used to write scenes like I was throwing darts at a dartboard, going to whichever plot point I wanted to at the time. It worked for me back then, but now, I've trained myself to the point where I barely write scenes before their time in the story. (Co-writing a fic with Ski helped a lot in that regard, because you're forced to keep it linear.)

I don't stop myself from doing a scene, however, if I'm in the mood - often times, I end up grateful I did so, since the scene could be a lot different with even a few hours between when I wrote it, and when I could have.

And finally, like I said above - exchanging the day's writing with a good friend, and sharing the excitement for it, is a massive motivator and key step for me.

I think the one thing that I trip on, however, is if I get to a scene where I didn't have enough planning - mentally, or in an outline. Usually, I don't improv story beats, just how it plays out exactly - but I have a vague shape in my mind for everything. So I guess my best advice is... if you have a spot in your story where it's just a "fill in the blank", maybe do so sooner than later.

[libertarian-druid-ny-separatist]

Further update: Found an 8 acre lot with a stream for about the same price and a monthly payment I can pay off just using the extra from the new paychecks.

In other words, even more land to tell people to fuck off from and blare Mongolian music from. The cost comes down further once you realize that I can still live in my van once I've had the property logged, while using the earnings from that to invest in gold or (if there's enough) just buy the yurt and rabbits/pay off more of the loan all at once/give myself some financial security while saving for the yurt.

I'll still have to work for 2-3 years for a company, assuming I'm doing this solo, but as long as I can work it out I'm set.

This is looking less like next year and more like in the next couple months. If I use the earnings from logging for a yurt, I'll be more or less without power for awhile (while I cannibalize the parts from Floyd and save for upgrades) but I'll be living far more comfortably. Plus, if I were to do that, I'd only need to save roughly $4000 for the power supply I'd need, which might take 5 months at max, however I'd also have water rights, and the ability to hunt and forage on my own land. A single hunt can get me meat for a couple months if successful, and I'm not above accepting help from a church I don't believe in the god of.

Not to mention the idea of a druid living out of a giant tent while raising giant rabbits is absolutely marketable, so I could easily make a YT series out of my daily life. And 8 acres is a shitload of land for farming and hunting compared to what I'm used to (no more than 2 acres).

All in all, this property, which has been listed for almost 2 years, seems like the perfect idea. It'll be the first time in my life I've been in debt, but it puts me close to family, in an area with a population density I like, and able to raise profitable meat and veg while catching fresh dinner from the stream I also generate power from (much later as it's a massive investment of time and money for a turbine house I'd be building myself)

And then I start collecting firearms I like rather than just what's practical and cheap. All I gotta do is not be in the yurt once a month, so on the 15th of every month, I just gotta get a motel room. Oh no. In all reality there's a really nice hotel not far from where I work, so I'll just stay there for one night in absolute luxury the weekend of the 15th or the one before it.

In the off season (not summer) it's cheap as fuck. So in the on season (summer) I'll just do what I've been doing daily and stay in my van. Perks of portable solar gennies, they'll work wherever you are.

As far as eating, a few cans of soup or stops at some fast food places can keep that cheap and easy.

Sure, for a year or two more, I might be living like a Luddite, but that's at max and only a possibility. In reality it's more like a few months after I've got the property.

Because it's such a pain in the ass to build in the Adirondacks, nobody does. But nobody's thought to be in an isolated area with a codeless, impermanent structure up there.

I keep to "code" while also not legally needing permits for any of it beyond the turbine house, if that.

If I collect and purify rainwater from the solar panels, I end up saving more and having a secondary, reliable source of water.

Once I'm all set up, I'll need less electricity than I'll be producing, be able to grow food for myself that's entirely organic and sell food that's entirely organic, all while also being able to film it and sell my soul to YouRube.

I become profitable after roughly a year at most of it all being set up, assuming I don't sell my soul to Google. If I do, it could be mere weeks.

I can eventually expand the farm by buying neighbors properties, saving more woodland by logging responsibly and allowing ethical hunters on the land.

If I get real lucky and the counties I want to join Vermont do, then literally everything would be perfect. Unfortunately, as it sits, I can't just pack up and move back to ({somewhat}Libertarian Left) Vermont and am stuck in ({increasingly}Authoritarian Left) New York for various reasons.

Till then, my goal is $12k for startup. $4k down and 8 into the yurt, which comes with a wood stove and chimney that can be disassembled for cleaning.

Okay, so I've done the math for how much a yurt and rabbit farm startup would likely be, and it's half the cost to start saltwater fishing in Florida, roughly.

The yurt size I'm looking at costs between 5 and 8 thousand for a brand new production. Used are actually more expensive it seems, perhaps due to generally having better wood stoves and including the platform. The highest cost for the size I was looking was $18,000 and came with everything including solar panels and a battery for them.

The only additional building I'd have to do is a greenhouse and shed. Coming out to around $10,000. The hutches can easily be built into the shed, which allows for more easy protection of the rabbits.

Rabbits and seed comes in at about $500.

Land is about $5000.

Total bill, on the high end is $32,000. On the low end it's closer to $20,000.

In theory I can make up to $30,000 a year off of the meat from two rabbits. Breeding trios go for an extra $50.

Rather than shorting myself by going for it all at once and praying for the best, I'm buying the land as it sits, then the yurt/platform, then greenhouse, then rabbits.

But that's a year's wages. Meaning that this is well within the realm of possibility, and I can probably secure a loan for it.

After that, I'd just be giving myself upgrades to my electricity. High end of $5k on that.

So at max, I'm looking at $10,000 less to do this than Florida on the low end.

Then it's just a matter of getting several NY counties to join Vermont. Well, 4, but still.

[messers-moony]

Secret Boyfriend | R.B

Paring: Regulus Black X Lupin!Fem!Reader

Summary: Keeping secrets seem to run in the Lupin family but one of the two twins has a bigger secret than the other can imagine. 

Pitter-patter could be heard inside the Gryffindor Common room. The Scotland weather never really seemed to make up its mind during the period between winter and spring. Nevertheless, it brought a calming atmosphere to the red and gold common room. The five Marauders sat in front of the fireplace, speaking to one another. Remus, Y/n, and Sirius sitting together on a couch. James on an armchair, and Peter sitting on the ground in front of the sofa. 

“So, Little Lupin.“ James drawled, “When are you getting a boyfriend?” 

Remus chuckled, quickly putting an arm around his twin sister, “Hopefully, never.” 

“Maybe I already have a boyfriend, and you lot just don’t know.” Y/n snipped as she elbowed her brother in the ribs slightly, “Oh, come on, paws!” James exclaimed teasingly. 

Paws was Y/n’s Marauder name. Her animagus was a Siamese cat, which resembled her personality quite well if you asked Remus. Y/n was quick-witted, independent, intuitive, curious, and affectionate when comfortable. She and Sirius were known to flirt all the time but recently - meaning a couple of months - they hadn’t done it at all. Perhaps Y/n was actually avoiding his flirtatious remarks. Nevertheless, Y/n’s animagus was a direct correlation with her personality. 

“Yeah, paws, you’ve been neglecting me recently. I’m not too happy with it either.” Sirius added with a fake pout, “Oh hush it, you two. Leave my sister alone. She’s got no hidden boyfriend.” Remus defended, looking at his sister. 

“Right, Y/n?” Remus coughed, and she jumped out of her daydream, “Mhm! Of course.” 

Conversation went on as usual. They began discussing new pranks, but Y/n’s jumper pocket felt heavier than usual, knowing what’s inside. It was a cream-colored envelope with the Black family crest as a seal. Y/n knew more than anyone that Sirius wouldn’t be happy to see the familiar logo, but this wasn’t from his parents. It was from his little brother, and Y/n was anxious to give it to him. So when James, Remus, and Peter went upstairs, Y/n pulled him aside before he could leave. 

“Padfoot, wait.” Y/n called, and he turned back, “What's up, paws?” Sirius queried, turning to face her. 

She sighed and pulled the envelope from her pocket, “Please, read this. It isn’t what you think it is despite the seal.” Y/n stated, handing him the parchment. 

“Where did you get this?” Sirius asked as he opened the packaging, “Regulus.” Y/n’s answer was firmer than expected. 

Nonetheless, the letter inside seemed essential to his fellow Marauder, so he opened it. Inside he was met with his little brother's prominent handwriting. The black ink treaded so seamlessly across the brown paper. Y/n remembered watching him write it at his desk, desperately trying to collect his thoughts while his hand shook relentlessly. She couldn’t do anything but sit from his bed and watch. Regulus needed to do this alone. 

After reading, Sirius slid the letter back inside its packaging, “Well, it’s his fault.” 

“Actually, it isn’t.” Y/n quipped, “Listen, Sirius, Regulus is trying. He really is.” 

“You would know this how?”

“Because we’ve been friends for a long time.” 

“Oh really?” Sirius questioned sarcastically, crossing his arms, “Since when did you and Reggie become so close?” 

“He began tutoring me in third year for Potions.” Y/n answered, “You couldn’t have asked Remus?”

“No. “ Y/n shook her head, “Slughorn wanted Regulus specifically.” 

“Well then. Full moon tomorrow, hope you’re prepared.” Sirius chirped as he began walking up the steps to his dorm, “I’m always prepared.” Y/n replied to essentially no one. 

She sighed. It was apparent Sirius didn’t want to believe what Regulus had written. It would’ve been hard on anyone. But Regulus wanted it to come from him instead of Sirius finding out. Since Y/n’s third year - Regulus’ second year - she felt attracted to him. He always made time for her. It wasn’t until their fourth year when she realized it. In her fifth year, they made it official. Regulus Black and Y/n Lupin were a couple but hidden beneath an invisibility cloak. 

Seventh year wasn’t easy. The upcoming war, her brother's lycanthropy, N.E.W.T.S, and Regulus getting the dark mark. Nothing seemed to be working in her favor. Books didn’t even seem to please her anymore. Her eyes wandered while she began to daydream about anything rather than reality itself. People began to notice how lost the girl appeared. 

Especially her brother. 

Study sessions with her weren’t the same. Some days her eyes would appear glossier than usual as if someone put a coating of lip gloss over them. Maybe they were rimmed with a pastel pink seeming tired and unhappy. The tremors in her hands were hard to ignore as she wrote with her quill. If there’s one thing Remus Lupin was good at, it was being observant; however, there wasn’t time, and he didn’t have the patience to deal with this right now. The full moon approaching meant that Remus’ patience tolerance was down to about none. 

There was one thing that brought her clarity. Regulus Black. The Gryffindor common room was always a warm and welcoming atmosphere. In contrast, the Slytherin common room was cold and damp, but it brought her comfort because of the person inside. Y/n padded quietly inside of his prefect hallway, which was beside the Slytherin common. She walked into his bedroom, which was dark. 

No candles lit. Just dark. Regulus always felt comfort in the dark, but it wasn’t dark because of that. It was dark because he was absent. Y/n peered over to his desk, where letters sat from his mother and some cousins. Andromeda seemed to try and reach him, but the letter looked unopened. There was one that caught her eye. It was Remus’ handwriting, and it was from him. It was also opened. Y/n knew she couldn’t stay all night. The full moon was due to rise in just two hours. 

Picking up the parchment, she began to read:

“ To Regulus Black, 

You need to step up. I get it. Sirius has been disowned, but he tries to make an effort. Can’t you see that? Sirius really needs you, and I know that you miss him too. This whole stubborn game of not wanting to talk to each other has gone on long enough. 

I know what it’s like to argue with a sibling, and it isn’t pleasant. Suck it up, swallow your pride and talk to Sirius. You don’t have to ultimately make up, but please, he’s trying. 

From, Remus Lupin. “

Y/n swallowed down her anger. Who was Remus to get involved in their affairs? If Sirius and Regulus didn’t want to interact, that was their problem, not his. It infuriated her. But she didn’t have time to babble around. Y/n pointed her wand at her and became a cat. Perks of her animagus being allowed at Hogwarts, she could roam around freely without suspicion. Quickly she sprinted down to the Whomping Willow, where she was met with her three Marauders in human form. Y/n transformed back. 

“Where were you! I was worried sick!” Remus scolded, “Nowhere, but we need to talk later.” Y/n answered. 

They got Remus in the shack and changed into their animagus forms. A stag, a rat, a dog, and a cat. The dog and the cat had the most interaction with the werewolf. Sometimes the dog and werewolf would cuddle up beside each other, whereas the cat would sleep on its own along with the other two animals. The following day Y/n and Sirius lugged Remus up to the hospital wing. Y/n sat beside him the entire time while the other three went off. Sirius and James were off to Quidditch practice. Peter was off to see his girlfriend in Hufflepuff. 

Y/n tapped aimlessly on Remus’ hand, “M- Morning.”

“Morning, Moony.” Y/n greeted, “How are you feeling?” 

“Phenomenal.”

“Sorry.”

“What did we need to talk about?” Remus questioned, and Y/n tilted her head, “You said we needed to talk before going to the shack.”

“Yes, I did. Um- uh- did you send Regulus a letter by any chance?” Y/n stammered, “I did. Why?” 

“I saw it.” Y/n replied shortly, “You saw it?” Remus repeated incredulously. 

She nodded, “How did you see it?” 

“Regulus and I are friends. Sometimes we hang out in his dorm.” The words seemed like nothing as they rolled off her tongue, “You hang out in the Slytherin dorms? Is that why you always know the password so we can do pranks?” 

“Of course.” Y/n chuckled, “I use my privilege to its advantage.”

Remus began to get up but grimaced, causing Y/n to jump up to help him. Gently she eased him to a sitting position. A new scratch on his cheek and multiple on his arms. It’s evident that the cat and the dog had to stop him. The thin scratches on his arms were a cat's nails. The thicker scratch on his cheek was a dog's nails. Remus looked down at his arms. 

“I’m sorry.” Y/n muttered, “Not your fault, paws. Who was it this time?” Remus asked. 

“Prongs. Apparently, you wanted Prongs.” Y/n answered, and he kissed the top of her head, “Thank you for stopping me.” 

“Anything for my brother.” 

“Just like anything for our Moony?”

Y/n laughed, “Yeah.”

Paws began to tap on his hand again, until a voice echoed through the hospital wing, “Y/n?” 

“Y/n?” The voice called again, and Remus quirked his eyebrow at his sheepish sister, “Y/n!” 

Suddenly a black-haired, grey-eyed, pale figure was beside her. He didn’t realize what he was doing until he had already kissed the top of her head worriedly. Y/n turned pink at the affection and the embarrassment of it happening in front of her brother. Remus coughed, and the male stood straight. 

“Regulus, what a surprise.” Remus retorted, “Didn’t think you’d ever visit me in the infirmary.”

“Remus, please-“ 

“I wouldn’t.” Regulus snapped, “Then why are you here?” Remus inquired. 

Regulus’ hand was playing aimlessly with the ends of Y/n’s hair, “Moony….” Y/n began at a whisper, “Regulus is my boyfriend.”

“This-“ Remus pointed at them both with a laughing smile, “Is funny.”

“Nice prank, paws, but it isn’t going to work.”

Y/n sighed, “It isn’t a prank, Rem.” 

“We’ve been together for about two years now.” She confessed, and Regulus stiffened, “Friends, my ass.” Remus scoffed bitterly. 

“Remus, please-“ Y/n began, “No, please just leave. We can talk about this later when I’m in the right frame of mind. Because if you don’t leave, now I might throw a punch.” Remus replied. 

She sighed and reluctantly left with Regulus trailing behind her. Y/n didn’t want to cry. It was pitiful. Regulus never had a good relationship with Sirius since Hogwarts, yet he didn’t seem to care. Thankfully, after building the Marauders Map, she knew every little crevice and hiding spot. Pulling back a tapestry, she sat down on the cement floor. Regulus doing the same beside her. Hesitantly he pulled his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his chest. 

“This is pitiful.” Y/n chuckled bitterly, “I’m sorry, Reggie.”

“It isn’t pitiful. You and Remus have a close relationship. It’s okay to be sad about him telling you off.” Regulus replied, placing his chin on the top of her head, “Sirius and I are different. Don’t compare you and Remus with us.”

Y/n nuzzled into his chest, “I saw the letter Remus sent you.”

“I- I saw the way he spoke to you, and I’m sorry.” Y/n stated, “I hope he comes around.” 

“I do too, love.” Regulus kissed the top of her head, “ I do too.”

It was quiet for a moment until two figures pulled back the tapestry, “Oi! Get off, little Lupin!” James exclaimed, and Y/n sighed, “Sirius, James, please just leave.”

“What are you doing with my mate's little sister, Regulus?” Sirius interrogated, “Comforting her. She needs me.” Regulus retorted, tightening his grip on her shoulder. 

Y/n stood up and pulled Regulus with her, “Come on. We four need to talk.” 

The four of them walked into a broom closet. It was a quiet walk. Eerily quiet. It brought shivers down Y/n’s spine at how silent the walk was. The tension was so thick you couldn’t cut it with a knife. The pressure felt like sludge. It was thick and mush. But when Y/n opened the door, the lot of them walked inside. James and Sirius stared expectantly. 

“Regulus and I have been dating since my fifth year.” Y/n began, and Regulus intertwined their hands. 

“Little Lupin!” Sirius exclaimed, “You weren’t lying when you said you had a secret boyfriend!”

“You scandalous little thing!”

“I can’t believe this.” James stated after running his hand through his hair, “How did Remus take it?”

“Not very well.” Y/n replied, “He kicked me out of the hospital wing when Regulus showed up. “

“He’s- He’s not in the right mindset, though. He’ll come to. I know he will. He has to.”

Sirius’ eyes softened, “Moony will come around. It might just take him a minute.” 

“Regulus.” James called, and grey eyes stared at him, “Y/n is a Marauder.”

“I know that.” Regulus interrupted, “She is my little sister as much as she is Remus’” James continued. 

“And mine!” Sirius added, smiling brightly, “Y/n is our little sister. The lot of us depend on her. We can’t, and we won’t have her heartbroken.” James explained sternly, suddenly looking a lot like Mrs. Potter. 

Regulus’ cheeks flushed with pink, “I love her, I really do. I don’t plan on breaking her heart anytime soon.” 

“You’re gonna be my sister-in-law!” Sirius squealed, hugging Y/n forcefully, almost knocking her over, “Oh, little Lupin.” He cooed. 

“You’re all grown up!” 

They laughed, and Sirius kissed her forehead, “Take care of him, will you?” He whispered so only she could hear, “Of course.” Y/n smiled. 

“Alright, alright, I’d like my girlfriend back,” Regulus replied, taking her away from Sirius’ arms. 

Sirius gulped, “How’s mum going to take this, Reggie?” 

“I don’t care.” Regulus retorted, “Mums gonna have to deal with it.” 

The smile on Sirius’ face was brighter than the sun, “Oh, Reggie!” He wailed, pulling Regulus into a tight hug. 

The two brothers smiled as they hugged each other. Regulus sleeve slipped up, and James stepped back, pulling out his wand. The two Black brothers pulled apart, and that’s when Sirius saw it. The dark mark on his brother's sleeve. Y/n stiffened as Sirius lifted his sleeve up further to see it clearly. 

“Reggie…” 

“Sirius, please, I didn’t want it.” Regulus pleaded, “She- They- Please.”

James watched intently at them. Sirius’ eyes had filled with tears as he embraced his younger brother. For the first time in a long time, Regulus felt protected in his brother's arms. James walked closer and joined them. Hugging both Black brothers as close as he could. James Potter, the man who never stops giving. They pulled apart, and James took Reggie into his own arms. 

“You need anything, you come to me, okay?” James informed sternly, and Regulus nodded, “Ye- Yeah.”

“Remus and Y/n always come for the holidays. You won’t be alone.” James stated smiling, “My parents already have one Black; they won’t mind another.” 

The Black brother smiled, “Thank you….”

The days went on, and Regulus still avoided the Marauders altogether. Remus glared at him from the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall. Deep emerald green eyes were flashing at the grey ones that sat at the Slytherin table. Until Y/n jabbed him in the ribs, taking his attention away from the younger Black brother. 

“Remus.” Y/n scolded, “Stop it.”

“I think you’re too hard on him, Moony.” James began, “He loves your sister. Maybe talk to him.” 

“No.” Remus snapped, “You guys can accept this, but I can’t.” 

They didn’t push any further. Y/n and Remus had been distant from each other. It was weird to watch the twins who were typically attached at the hip to be so - abroad. Regulus didn’t like that he was now the cause of their fussing. After all, they were the reason Sirius and him were on speaking terms now. So Regulus and Sirius made a plan. It involved them being locked in a broom closet, and so it happened—one night after dinner. 

Remus was shoved into a cupboard, not by his own liking either, “Come on, Sirius! This isn’t funny. I have prefect duties to do!”

“Actually, someone else has taken them over.” Regulus informed, and Remus whipped around, “What are you two doing here?”

“Remus, explain it to me.” Regulus began, “Why you don’t approve of me with your sister.”

“Because! You’re a bloody death eater! You probably forced her to be with you.” Remus exclaimed. 

Y/n scoffed, “A pureblood forcing himself with a half-breed? Doesn’t seem likely.” 

Remus ran his hand through his hair, “Okay, he’s still a death eater!”

“I was forced!” Regulus exclaimed, “They strapped me to a chair and embedded the mark into my forearm. You don’t think I wasn’t thinking of her the entire time?! I was scared out of my mind!”

“The entire time, all I could think about was ‘How is Y/n gonna take this.’” Regulus admitted, “My heart aches for her. I didn’t want her to be scared.”

Remus’ green eyes turned soft, “Does she accept you? Does she love you? Do you love her?”

“Yes, Remus. I love him for who he is. James offered him a place to stay at the Potters.” Y/n replied, “And yes, I love her.” 

Tears filled her eyes, “Remus, please. I don’t want to lose either of you.”

Remus held out his arms, and she walked right into them. He placed one hand on the back of her head and one on the small of her waist. Holding her close to his heart, rubbing his thumb through her hair. Regulus’ grey eyes stared at the two siblings before him. Remus’ heart softened at his crying sister. He never wanted to hurt her, ever. 

“Paws.” Remus began as he pulled away slightly, “Does he make you happy?”

Y/n sniffled and nodded; Remus wiped her cheeks, “Okay.”

“Does he know you, for you?” 

“Mhm.”

Remus turned to Regulus as Y/n parted with him, “Where’s paws favorite place to be scratched?”

Regulus chuckled, “Behind her ears.”

“Take care of my little sister.” Remus pleaded, “Please, Regulus.” 

“Of course. I wouldn’t expect any different.” Regulus answered. 

Remus walked forward and put out his hand. Hesitantly Regulus shook his hand. Grey eyes met green ones. Remus couldn’t help the smile that placed itself on his face. Without hesitation, he pulled Regulus into a tight hug.

“Take care of my sister, and I’ll take care of you.”

“Always.”

[artzee-bee]

Not going anywhere | Lucifer Morningstar x reader

Fandom: Lucifer

Request:” Hi i have request for you ,Lucifer and the reader have a big fight they are married, and this fight it's lucifer fault The reader leaves home and Lucifer decides to give her space After a few days, he goes to the reader and realizes that she has been missing for a few days,When the person behind all this claims that the reader is dead and gives them a her body . Everyone thinks that the reader is dead and Lucifer He gets depressed and thinks it's all his fault , and after a few days, the thieves release the singer and the reader goes to Lucifer.Lucifer first thinks it is an imagination and then apologizes to the reader Thank you so much”

Genre: Angst with happy ending

Warnings: kidnapping, death

~~~

Your intention had never been to start a fight. All you wanted an explanation (preferably one that also made sense) and an apology, but apparently that was too much to ask, because as soon as you voiced your opinion, Lucifer went up in flames

“Don’t start this again!”

“I dislike it just as much as you do but what I hate more is being cancelled on, AGAIN, through a text message no less!”

“It was an emergency!”

“It’s always an emergency Lucifer! It’s starting to sound a lot like work means more to you than I do!” “The detective needs me, damn it!” your husband yelled

“And she has you! Every day of every week! All I ask for is one date night and for the past month you’ve done nothing but avoid committing to one or backing out at the last second! I’m tired of being your second choice Lucifer! I’m your wife and you are my husband, I love you to the ends of the world, I just wish you'd say no to Decker from time to time...”

“I’m saving people’s lives Y/N. So if you’re not on your deathbed, other people are and they need me now!” as he said this, Lucifer walked right past you and into your bedroom, seemingly ignorant to the painful words he’d just said. You looked around the living room, vision blurry with tears, your chest heavy with anger and disgust. You rushed towards the elevator.

“When you find time in your busy schedule and feel like being my spouse again, let me know!” the elevator door closed before Lucifer could say anything

~~~

When Lucifer woke up the next morning to a cold and empty bed, he didn’t think much of it.Truthfully, he was still kind of pissed at the attitude you had given him a day before, so he got dressed as usual and went to the precinct, assuming you’ll be home by nightfall.

Except when he got home that night, he stopped by Lux first, which ended up like it always does: with him sucked into an endless cycle of booze and dancing, that lasted until well into the night. When he did enter the penthouse eventually, he found it empty. Exactly the way he had left it in the morning. Even the tie he had left on the floor, after deciding last minute that it didn’t go with his suit, was untouched. Now this was curious, but still, Lucifer felt like you must be playing hard to get. He sent you one text message, before going to bed

“Call me when you can!”

The day after that, he figured his part was done! By reaching out first, he had already made a big compromise, so now it was your turn! To reach out, come home! But that didn’t happen that day, or the day after that.

Three days after the text message,Lucifer was getting worried. He was looking at his phone every other minute. Always making sure he hadn’t accidently put it on silent or missed any texts. He sent more messages, telling you he was sorry and that he wanted you to come home. That he would listen and spend more time with you, promising luxurious dates and weekend trips, if only you forgave him. You didn’t even open the messages.

“Lucifer are you listening?” Decker was insanely annoyed at her partner’s lack of concentration

“Sorry detective. I’ve...I’ve got a lot on my mind”

“Well, better get it out of the way now, so that we can move on to our case!” she said, cleaning out her desk quickly, before resting back into her chair “Talk to me!”

“It’s Y/N. I’m worried about her!”

“Why?” “We...had a fight a couple days ago and she left. She hasn’t come back since”

“Have you heard from her at all?”

“No…” Lucifer said, embarrassed at his own lack of care for you. He should have called you earlier, reached out more! He should have tried harder!

“How long had she been missing for?”

“4...maybe 5 days…”

“Lucifer, are you sane? And you’re only telling me now?!” Chloe jumped from her seat, turning on her computer

“I thought she needed space! I thought she was avoiding me intentionally cause she was angry! I didn’t know…” Lucifer choked back a sob, not wanting to break down in tears in the middle of the precinct

“Lucifer!” Chloe caught hold of his hand “I’m gonna find her! I promise you!” A few days later, she did. Well, more like Y/n came to her, in the shape of a pretty little gift box left on Decker's doorstep.

“A lil too late on your case detective” read the note attached to it. 

Inside were Y/N’s clothes, all of them stained with dark, dried blood. Y/N was declared dead that day and the case was closed. At her funeral, only her closests friends were present. Lucifer wanted it to be as intimate as possible.

That day was also the first time anyone had seen Lucifer, since the news. His eyes were bloodshot and the dark circles under his eyes almost matched the black suit he was wearing. Throughout the ceremony he kept twisting his wedding band, a habit he’d picked up on since you went missing. He chose not to do a speech, but once the crowd disappeared, and he was left face to face with your grave, he pulled out a little piece of paper from his pocket and sat down on the grass.

“In hell, everyone feared me. There, I was nothing but another server of the universe, ruling over an empire I never really wanted, because I never had a choice. So eventually I left, thinking anywhere will be better than what I had, and I came to earth.

I ran into you about 2 weeks later, before I really even knew how to behave myself. Before I knew anything about who I really was besides ‘the devil’. I longed to know, grow and discovers different sides of me, where I could be something new, and you gave it to me. You made me who I never thought I could possibly be. You made me a lover. I never thought of myself as capable to love anyone, in any degree, but your light shone everywhere you went and your kindness touched me and everyone around you. It became impossible to not get infatuated with your person. I allowed you to see and feel around every dark corner of my soul and being and every time I thought it was the end. Everytime I would take in your touch as if it was the last, I would prepare myself for abandonment, but it never came. Through everything you stood by my side and when I felt my darkest, you gave me a fistful of your light and that was enough to keep me going. You married a broken man and called him perfect, despite everyone telling you how much of a foul you were. Even then, you shooed them away. Even then you chose me. I wasn’t worthy of your love or your trust and our last night together proved it.

You’re not here anymore to hear my apologies and I’ll never forgive myself for it. You’ve gone now somewhere I can not follow, but I know you are well taken care of there. I hope, someway, somehow, you’ll hear these words: I am sorry. I loved you with my entire soul. Not listening to you was the biggest mistake of my life and I’ll never forgive myself. I choose however, to remember you as you were, because I know that’s what you’d want. I’ll remember you and your laugh.I’ll remember our date nights and shopping sprees. Nights in Lux or on the penthouse balcony. I’ll remember all the meals you prepared for me and the flirtatious remarks you used to make, because you thought they were so silly. I’ll remember the little frown on your face whenever you worked on an important project for work and I’ll remember every evening walk around the block you’d make me accompany you on. I know I always complained about them, but they were always fun. Everything I ever did with you was always fun.

I loved you. I still do. You are my everything Y/N. Thank you for devoting yourself to me in all the ways that you did. I’ll forever live on in my heart.“

~~~

It had been months since your disappearance. After all this time, you finally managed to escape your kidnappers and report them to the New York police station, since that’s where you had been held hostage for so long. As soon as the paperwork was done and you were sure that the people who ruined you were getting the punishment they deserved, you jumped on a train and headed straight back home. Straight to Lucifer.

Lux looked exactly the same as you had left it. You were washed over by a wave of comfort that almost brought you to tears. Home. You never thought you’d get to step in here again. Overwhelmed, you took a seat on one of the couches, allowing your head to rest back on it, as you took in every detail of your surroundings: the feel of the leather on your fingertips, the cool breeze of the air conditioning, the warm lights. Everything was still here.

“Y/N?” you jumped at the sound

“Hi love…” your voice broke as you said those words. Words you never thought you would be able to mutter again. The sight of your husband, messy as he was, made you weak in the knees. He was standing at the top of the staircase, dressed in nothing but his robe, tied carelessly around his waist. He had probably just woken up. You wanted to say something again, but before you could, he laughed

“Nope” he said simply, before making his way down the stairs and to the bar “I’m not doing this. Not today, not ever!” Lucifer filled his glass to the top with bourbon, before turning around and trying to leave back to where he came from

“Lucifer, it's me!”

“Sure you are, except you’re not real! Nice of dad, taking my ability to stay endlessly sober, getting me drunk, forcing visions of my dead wife onto me to teach me another lesson about managing my emotions. Real clever, except this is too much! So I’m going to enter that elevator and I expect to never have to see you again, hum? Right, well, au revoir now!” he continued on his way, but before he could get far, you were clutching on the silk tie of his robe. Lucifer felt the tug around his waist and turned around slowly to look at you, this time a little more unsure. As if he was trying to figure you out

“Lucifer, I’m Y/N. I escaped”

“Escaped? But that’s impossible, she died! I saw it-”

“What you saw was a bloody shirt!” he looked up to meet your gaze, tears already forming “They lied to you Lucifer”

Finally, it seemed like he had connected all of the pieces of the puzzle. The glass of alcohol fell to the ground and your husband wrapped you in a big hug for the first time in months. He nuzzled his head in your hair and took in your scent, your figure, your warmth. Hell, you were even more perfect that he remembered! Silent tears fell down both of your cheeks as you collapsed to the ground, still holding onto each other for dear life

“I’m so sorry” Lucifer sobbed in your hair “I’m so so sorry”

“It wasn’t your fault Luci”

“If I hadn’t been a jerk you wouldn’t have left! If I would have simply listened to you, they wouldn’t have gotten to you! You would’ve stayed here, where you belong! You would have stayed with me but instead I was too busy with my stupid job and the stupid cases and I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry” he continued crying on your shoulder as you rubbed small circles on his back

“I’m here now my love” you whispered, kissing his cheek “And I’m not going anywhere”