#i am constantly stressed out both by my job and by living in texas and i want so much to get out of both places

[thomas-zane]

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[elldell1204]

Hair Me Out - Spencer Reid x Reader

Y/N wears her hair in many different styles, and her boyfriend, Spencer, seems to appreciate each one in different ways.

A/N: So, I just wanted to add, I try to make my ‘reader’ as ambiguous as possible, that way you can identify with them more. However, I struggled with this one, as I am a white female with straight hair and not much knowledge of (though deep appreciation and love for) natural or curly hair, seeing as I have little to no experience. Therefore, I have tried making this as inclusive as possible but I’m sorry if at any point seems too specific and you can’t put yourself into the story. Feel free to call me out on anything you aren’t comfortable with!

Warnings: Slight sexual themes, swearing, normal Criminal minds stuff (let me know if I missed anything)

wc - 3,217

Dutch Braids -

You and Spencer had just gotten off from work about an hour ago after a gruelling day with an equally stressful case. Which is why as soon as you were both showered, dressed in the comfiest clothes you could find and waiting for the takeout to arrive, you were both sprawled out on the couch in front of a movie, having no energy left to talk, let alone move when there was a knock at the door. Seeing as you were the one with less of the other person’s body parts draped across you, you got up and answered while Spencer didn’t move an inch. You couldn’t blame him; the poor boy was exhausted.

Around twenty minutes later, you’d both eaten, leaving your plates on the coffee table in front of you with the mental promise to wash them later, and were back to snuggling into each other, getting as close as you possibly could to soothe each other after the day you had. Your head was tucked neatly into Spencer’s chest, your knees drawn up to near your chin in the foetal position, making yourself as small as possible. Spencer was the opposite; spread like a starfish with his arm around your back and his head rested against the back of the couch.

If someone were to ask you what the movie was about, you wouldn’t have a clue where to start. Truth is, you felt like you were stuck in-between both the lands of sleep and consciousness, due to wanting to spend some time with your boyfriend (despite him being your work partner for the best part of sixteen hours) but also wanting to sleep for three days. In attempt to make yourself just a little bit more awake, you started trying to focus on different things around you. First it was the quote on the front of the main character’s t-shirt, then it was the Metro you could faintly hear as the last train of the night rattled by, then it was Spencer’s finger tracing up and down one of your braids that you’d done quickly after your shower.

“Spence?” You murmured the first words spoken in practically an hour.

“Hmm?” He hummed in response, his half-lidded eyes shifting to your face that you had lifted to face him.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?” His voice was merely a whisper, and if you weren’t listening for it, the only way you’d know he was speaking was from the vibration of his chest.

You gestured to your hair with your finger, and only when he realised did he stop what he was doing and chuckle lightly and dreamily.

“Oh, sorry, I’m not sure, it just feels soft, I guess. I’ll stop.”

“No, no, it’s okay, you can keep going.” You smiled at him, mustering up the energy to lean up and press a sweet kiss to his lips before retracting back to your previous position.

Ponytail -

To say you were having a bad day was an understatement. You usually like to try and stay as positive as you could be when chasing a serial, paedophilic murderer, but there’s only so many deep breaths and coffee breaks you can take before you really start to get pissed off. Not only had you been stuck in hot and sticky Texas for near a week, but you had also been put into single rooms at the hotel you were staying at. Now, not to sound ungrateful (because you very much are of the fact that you at least have a roof over your head), but only having one single bed to a room means that you can’t snuggle with Spencer after a long day, and these were proving to be very long days.

And to add to the problem, Hotch was constantly on edge since the start of the case, with the victims looking a hell of a lot like Jack, and when you were the closest person to him on that first day when his tensions finally boiled over, you had been the one in the firing line of his rage. Which you can take. You knew he didn’t mean it, and if he had to take his frustrations out on someone for a few days so he could do his job with a clearer head, you were happy to be the target.

But now after a particularly rough six days, your patience was wearing thin, and everyone on the team could see it, which is why they offered you and Spencer any jobs they were assigned that would get them out of the stifling police precinct. And you knew they had good intentions, but even that was starting to annoy you.

So now you were sat at the table in the conference room, a pen between your teeth as your eyes frantically search over the evidence you have piled in front of you, desperate for the answers to this case to fly off the page and hit you smack dab in the forehead so you could just go home and have a fight with a pillow or something, anything to destress.

You heard the footsteps coming from the doorway, but you refused to turn around. If it was Hotch, you swear to god you might actually lose your job with what you were thinking of doing if he was short with you one more time. If it was Morgan ready to hand you a first-class ticket to visit the slightly wrinkly and very smelly coroner again, you might actually flip the table.

“Hey, Y/N.” Spencer greeted you warmly, sitting on the table to your right as your eyes slowly lifted to meet his. No, not Spencer. Hold it together, Y/N, hold in your rage, he’s done nothing wrong. “Oh, I haven’t seen you with your hair tied back in a while. I like it.”

Such a sweet statement, and yet it broke you. You could see in his face the moment your eyes lit aflame with anger, and you couldn’t miss the harsh swallow he took to brace himself for your fury.

“Well, Dr Reid, let me teach you a lesson, shall I? 3 reasons. One, it is way more practical for kicking someone’s ass, and right now, I would love nothing more than catching the sleazy son-of-a-bitch who is deriving pleasure from this,” You gesture violently to the crime scene photos splayed out in front of you before continuing to spit your venom. “And beating the living shit out of him until he’s crying out for his mommy. Two, do you know how many officers have tried to flirt up a storm with me in the past week? Way too many to count on one fucking hand! One even went so far as to try stroking my hair like a goddamn cat, and so to avoid that situation, I have put it in a ponytail, because if anything of that nature happens again, I won’t hesitate to break someone’s arm. And three, I usually have it down because most men think you’re dumber when you play with your hair, or I can play seductive to get what I want without a warrant fifty percent of the time. But seeing as we have absolutely nobody on the suspect list right now, and the sheer fury I possess at this moment, I don’t foresee the possibility of me needing to be either of those things, do you?”

Your lungs were heaving once you were done, and poor Spencer looked like you just told him you were a Russian spy sent to kill him. Your eyes were locked onto each other’s, and when you came back to reality from your rant, you recognised the softness and love in his that you were grateful for every day. Granted, they were a little masked by fear right now, but you’d admired him often enough to be able to spot even the faintest hint of your favourite emotions.

You let out a deep sigh, signalling you were back to your normal self as much as you could be right then, before dropping your head into your hands to rub your eyes with the heel of your palms.

It was then you felt the unmistakeable warmth of Spencer’s hand rubbing soothing patterns on your back as you gathered yourself together, bringing tears to your eyes as you opened them once more to face him.

“Oh, Spencer,” You whispered, grabbing his hands tightly with yours, lifting them to your lips and pressing sweet kisses to his knuckles. “I’m so, so sorry. You didn’t deserve that at all.”

“It’s okay, my love.”

“No, it’s really not. I never should have raised my voice at you, especially when it’s not your fault at all that I’m frustrated.”

“Y/N, I understand.” He smiled at you, a small and sympathetic one, but it calmed you nonetheless as he stood, pulling you up from the chair to wrap his arms tightly around you. You gripped onto him like he might run away if you didn’t, breathing in the warm scent that is so unmistakeably Spencer. Your vision was now cloudy with the tears that so desperately wanted to spill, but you were adamant you wouldn’t give the local cops the satisfaction of seeing you with wet cheeks. Luckily, Spencer knows you better than anyone.

“There’s a park a few minutes’ walk from here with a small duck pond. Would you like some fresh air?”

You nodded frantically against his neck as you finally let go, allowing him to lead you out of the precinct, hand in hand, his thumb running softly over yours as you walked.

“I don’t deserve you.” You mumbled, leaning in closer to him as you carried on down the path.

“Nonsense,” He whispered, pressing a kiss to your hair. “We deserve each other. Just remind me not to get on your bad side; I like having both of my arms functional.”

Bed Head -

A blaring alarm at 6am has to be up there with one of the most annoying things on the planet, and I work with Derek Morgan. You let out a groan, your arm floundering around to find the source of the wretched noise. Groaning in defeat of not being able to do it with your eyes closed, you cracked one open, locating your phone, and finding sweet relief in the snooze button. A very overexaggerated yawn left your lips as you attempted to stretch your arms over your head in an effort to wake up, only to find one immobilised in the grasp of your boyfriend.

You took advantage the rare opportunity of waking up before Mr Alarm Clock himself (also known as Dr Spencer Reid) by allowing yourself a few minutes to admire his form in the golden sliver of sunlight escaping the outside world through the gap in the curtains. It was only when your alarm went off again after the five-minute snooze timer did you try to wake him up.

“Spence, baby, time to wake up.” You whisper, attempting to gently coax him from his slumber. When that didn’t work, you laced your fingers through his mousy-brown curls, scratching lightly at his scalp, just how he likes. Only then did you receive a response in the form of a muffled groan into his pillow.

“C’mon, my love. We need to get ready for work.” You spoke softly, pressing a delicate kiss to his forehead.

You chuckled lightly, wrapping your arms around his torso as your legs entwined. “Okay, my sleepy darling. But only five.”

“Mmm, five more minutes.” He mumbled, nestling his face into your hair as he pulls you closer than you thought possible.

Safe to say you took breakfast to go, just so you could bask in each other’s embraced for a little longer than five minutes.

Post-Sex Hair -

You climbed from his lap gently, unsure if your legs could hold yourself up as you panted heavily. Practically throwing yourself down beside Spencer on the bed, he took the opportunity to grab your hand, lacing your fingers with his as you laid your head on his chest. You were both still a little dreamlike in your post-orgasmic haze, and when Spencer began to press kiss after kiss into your hair, you didn’t hesitate to enjoy them.

“You’re so beautiful.” He whispered into your hair, punctuating his statement with a final kiss for good measure.

You looked up from your position, shifting slightly so you were face to face, and scrunched up your nose. “Really? Even with sweaty sex hair?”

He chuckled, and you followed with a giggle of your own as he leant over to capture your lips in a sweet kiss. “Especially with sweaty sex hair.” He whispered with a joking edge to his voice, his lips brushing with yours.

“Well, I’m pretty sure the team wouldn’t love my sweaty sex hair, so I better hop in the shower.” You smiled, kissing him quickly once more before climbing out of the bed and walking towards the bathroom, a sway to your hips.

As you reached the door, you turned to shoot a smirk over your shoulder at the blissed-out boy behind you. “Oh, are you not joining me?”

You swear you’d never seen the boy move as fast as when he clambered from the bed and chased you into the bathroom.

Straightened -

There was something about going undercover that equally excited you and creeped you out. Especially tonight, when you were having to go under in a club to catch a guy who was killing adulterous wives. You were the closest person in the team to his type, so it was a no-brainer to choose you, really. Didn’t mean you were happy with it, and it seemed that Spencer wasn’t either, if his clenched jaw was anything to go by.

Well, you were going to do it no matter what, so why not get yourself dressed up and try to bring some joy back to a less than ideal situation? That is why you were stood in the locker room of a precinct on the west coast in a red crushed velvet minidress with black heels, a fake wedding ring and straightened hair, and you couldn’t lie, you were totally feeling yourself.

“Woah, Y/N, you look…amazing.” You heard Spencer say as he entered the room.

You turned your head and smiled at him, feeling a little flustered as his eyes trailed over your form. You attempted to push your dress further down your thighs as he walked to you, his hands encircling your waist from behind and his head perched on your shoulder.

“It’s not too much is it?” You mumbled, looking down at yourself to do a final once over.

You felt his fingers under your chin, lifting your head to look him in the eyes through the mirror, ones filled with love and a hint of desire that set your skin aflame. He brushed your hair aside from your neck to trail kisses down the side of your throat, eliciting a breathy sigh from your lips.

“No, Y/N, you look badass.”

You giggled at the word that seemed so foreign coming from Spencer, but that was soon muffled when he spun you around by his hands on your hips and his lips hungrily met yours. Your lips moved against each other’s, his tongue coming to swipe at your bottom lip in a request for entrance. You granted it, and soon you felt your back collide with the cool metal of the lockers. You grabbed a fistful of his shirt as you explored his mouth with your tongue, relishing in the taste of him. You laced a hand up into his hair as you felt a hand that he had at your waist moving to your ass, gripping it roughly, causing you to moan into his mouth.

“Reid? Y/L/N? You two lovebirds ready?” You heard Morgan mock from the doorway and you both immediately jumped apart like some sort of invisible wall had shot up between you.

Looking around to see that Morgan wasn’t in your eyeline, given that the lockers luckily blocked you two from his view. But not from earshot, seeing as you could quite clearly hear his hearty chuckles as his footsteps got quieter and quieter.

You looked up at Spencer, his hair dishevelled and his tie askew, a look of both embarrassment and amusement at being caught making out like two horny teenagers adorned his face. A grin broke out on your lips, which he mirrored, and soon you were both laughing hysterically as you sorted yourselves out in the tiny little mirror on the wall, attempting to make it look like you weren’t a few seconds away from tearing each other’s clothes off, before re-joining the team in the conference room.

Messy Bun -

Ugh, cold and flu season. You swear you never make it through it unscathed. And it seems as if your battle was commencing today. You woke up feeling dreadful; runny nose, scratchy throat, constant sneezing, and red-rimmed eyes. Attractive.

There was no question in having to call in sick, so after throwing your hair up in the messiest of messy buns and locating the snuggest blanket, you dialled the number. You could practically hear the wince from Hotch when you started having a sneezing fit down the phone. Now you weren’t sure if you could look the man in the eye when you went back.

Once that torture was over and done with, you were feeling sorry for yourself and decided on a warm cup of tea and a dose of shitty daytime television. You were halfway through some over-enthusiastic talk show when you heard a knock at your door. Refusing to leave the blanket behind that you’d burrito’d yourself in, you shuffled over to the door.

You didn’t expect a very sympathetic looking Spencer on the other side of the door, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a welcomed sight.

“Hey.” You croaked out.

“Hi. How are you feeling?” You gave him a look that said it all, and he chuckled lightly. He lifted the bag he had in his hand. “I brought the best cure I could think of; chicken noodle soup.”

“I don’t want to get you sick, Spencer.” You whined, wanting nothing more than to curl up into his side but holding onto your selfless and rational thoughts by a mere thread.

You smiled at that, stepping aside to let him in. He passed you and went and got comfortable on your couch, grabbing a fork on the way. When you met him in the living room, he was ready and waiting for you with his arms open for you to snuggle into.

“Don’t worry about me. Now come on, your soup is getting cold.” He smiled, making grabby hands at you.

You made your way over, sinking into his embrace as he passed you the container and your fork. After a few mouthfuls and several minutes of listening to his steady breaths and thumps of his heart, you were feeling much better.

“Thank you.” You mumbled once you were finished and had placed your empty container on the coffee table in front of you, nuzzling further into Spencer’s chest. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Now sleep, I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Didn’t have to tell you twice.

[chrisevansszn]

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE PT 5 🔺️🔺️🔺️🔺️

Word count 1.5k

 

You both go lay in bed and have pillow talk. The entire time Chris’ hand is on your belly. He’s constantly kissing and making small talk to your stomach. Can I really live without this man?

It seems like you have a decision to make.

The next day, you and Chris both call into work and spent the day with each other. It was raining cats and dogs so the decision was to spend the day at Chris’ condo. You both literally laid in the bed all day making jokes, talking about outer space, and watching movies.

You heard your phone ringing and looked over at the screen. It was Noah calling. You just let it ring. You were completely focus on Chris and Chris only.

“You know Chris, this is going to get really ugly. People will judge us left and right, and what about work? Our coworkers will never look at us the same.”

“I know.” He took a deep breathe. “It seems like we have a lot to figure out. How are you going to handle the situation with Noah?”

“Not a clue. You have to give me time to figure it all out. Just a little. Promise? This is really heavy, and I don’t want to stress the baby out.”

“I understand. Y/N….”

“Yeah?”

“What if the baby isn’t mine?”

“I don’t know.” Your eyes begin to fill up with tears.

“Baby, don’t cry please.” Chris wraps his arms around you.

“I just feel like it’s your baby because I’ve never been on birth control with Noah. All these years and nothing! I really want us to have a baby.”

Y/N you may be over sharing just a bit. You look up to see Chris absolutely beaming! You can tell him being a father was more than anything he’s ever wanted, and honestly you wanted to make that happen for him.

“I love you Chris.”

“I love you Y/N.”

You spent the rest of the afternoon with Chris and then finally decide to head home. You didn’t bring any clothes are anything. You give Chris a kiss goodbye and drive home. Upon your arrival you notice a car in your driveway. As you get closer your realized IT’S NOAH’S CAR! Oh no! Noah wasn’t supposed to return for another couple of days.

You get yourself together as you get out of the car, but your stomach is in knots. You walk in the door.

“Y/N where have you been?”, Noah is really upset.

“I was just out and about. Why are you yelling?”

“I’ve called you; you didn’t answer. The Ring doorbell is disabled. And why are you not in work clothes?”

FUUUCCCCKKKKKKKK!

“Noah don’t yell at me. I am a grown woman.”

“My mother just died Y/N! I’ve been trying to get in touch with YOU!”, Noah is uncontrollable at this time. He is just screaming and crying. Oh man this is not good.

“Noah what! What happened? Oh, my goodness.” Your anxiety is through the roof at this point.

“A car wreck. I have to get home immediately”. Noah is crying uncontrollably. You give a hug and say that you will pack bags for both of you. Now you feel more terrible than ever. You been fucking around with your side piece all day ignoring Noah’s calls when his Mom had died.

You go into the bathroom to cry silently to yourself. Not because his mom died, but because this may prolong the separation process. You get yourself together and go back into your bedroom to finish packing. A few minutes later you hear Noah go into the primary bathroom. He comes bursting out.

“Y/N?”

“Yeah, are you ok?” He has weird look on his face.

“I’m fine. I found this.” He holds up the pregnancy test you took. You damn near fainted.

“Are you pregnant?”

You hesitate. “Yes, I am pregnant Noah.” You fake smile to see his reaction.

“Oh, my goodness.” He scoops you up off the closet floor and hugs you so tight. He sets you back down.

“Why didn’t you tell me? How long have you known?”

You can feel yourself getting lightheaded.

“I just found out a few days ago. I wanted to surprise you.”

You can see tears forming in his eyes. You look down at the floor.

“I can believe we are pregnant. All of these years and I never thought I’d see the day!”

Noah gives you another hug.

“Yeah, me too.”  Oh man, this is NOT good. What the fuck!

Noah walks back out of the room and you send Chris a text letting him know everything that just transpired. Noah’s mom, the pregnancy test…everything. He texts you back in and absolute panic, but you told him not to worry. You and Noah head to Texas for the week and get his mother’s funeral arrangements together, your job was nice enough to give you a few days of bereavement. The entire week you were texting Chris.

After the funeral, you and Noah arrive back to Boston. You try to be as supportive as you could during his difficult time. You schedule your first doctor’s appointment. Since Covid is crazy currently, Noah couldn’t attend so you facetimed him during the appointment. You are exactly 10 weeks pregnant. It could literally be Noah’s or Chris’ baby.

As soon as you got to your car, you called Chris and facetimed him to show him the sonogram photos. You are literally fucking up in the worst way possible. What is wrong with you?

After your doctor’s appointment, you went straight to work. You get to your office and open your blinds so you can have a direct view of Chris. You make eye contact with him and blow him a kiss. He smiled so big. An hour later, Chris walks into your office with files in his hands. You know he’s not there to talk about work.

“How are you feeling today baby?” He asked sitting across from you.

“I can’t keep anything down. As soon as I eat, I throw it all right back up.”

“Your first trimester will be over soon and hopefully that will end.”

“Hopefully. Do you want to see the pictures?”

“I thought you would never ask.”

Chris walks around the desk and bend over next to you. You remove the photos from your purse and show Chris the baby’s fingers, foot, and you can see the baby’s lips in one photo. Chris is absolutely beaming.

“Y/N…”

“Yes.” You reply while putting away the photos.

“I want to do a DNA test. I’m not trying to offend you in anyway.”

You knew this moment would come.

“I agree and let’s make that happen. I will look into it and let you know.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Chris kisses your hand and head back to his office.

You continue to work for a few hours, and you get a text. You really didn’t look to see who it came from because work had you slammed.

“I cannot wait to have our baby! I hope it’s a boy and comes out looking just like me!”

You smile and reply.

*I know! A handsome boy with beautiful blue eyes and that brown hair! UGH! Perfection! *

Send

“Incoming call”

“Hello”

“Who the fuck has blue eyes and brown hair?”

It was Noah who texted you, not Chris!

You dropped your phone in such a panic.

“ANSWER ME Y/N”

You couldn’t even get out a word. You pick your phone up off the floor.

“It was a typo. I promise.”

“You expect for me to believe that shit? I have black hair and black eyes Y/N. Who the fuck are you talking about because it sure isn’t me!”

You aren’t even breathing right now. You have FUCK UP THIS TIME!

“Get your ass home NOW.” Noah hung up.

You begin shaking uncontrollably. You look up Chris but he’s working and hadn’t noticed you. There are so many thoughts running through your mind, and you are terrified as shit. Chris finally looks up and over and you and immediately see the look on your face. He jumps up and comes into your office and close your blinds.

“What’s wrong?”

You can’t even speak.

“Y/N…what happened?”

“Noah text me and I thought it was you. I replied that I want the baby to have brown hair and blue eyes. Noah has black hair and brown eyes. I fucked up bad. He’s so pissed. He told me to get home now.”

“Fuck. Shit. Do you want me to come with you?”

“Hell no. Are you crazy? I’m a dead woman.”

“Don’t talk like that. If he does anything to you. Call me. I will drop everything for you.”

You give Chris you address and head out the door to face Noah. This is probably the last day of your marriage. 

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! 💞💞💞

[nothingtoseeherejajaja]

“Mija, si yo tuviera la oportunidad...yo lo hiciera”

As the Mexican-American daughter of two Mexican immigrants, I grew up constantly being told “Mija, si yo tuviera la oportunidad de terminar la escuela o darte todo lo que querías, yo lo hiciera”. It hurt to hear that because they have done so much already for me. More than I could ever repay them.  It hurt knowing that my parents were forced to migrate to the United States in order to help out their families back home, living in poverty, sacrificing their happiness. They were around my current age, 20, when they first came to the U.S and started working. I'm in my 20’s at college. My father worked on a ranch in Texas and then moved to New York. My mom came directly to her sister in New York and worked at a factory in Sunset Park. They met at a club one night, fell in love and my mom had my oldest sister in 1992. My second eldest sister was born 3 years later, and I was born 9 years after that at 2 am on  June 28th 2001. Growing up both my sisters were academically successful. I, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. Both my parents, full-time working class citizens and parents, stressed to me how important education was. “Tu educación es la cosa más importante en tu vida”. “Quiero que te graduas, porque sin ese papel diciendo que te graduaste, vas a tener un tiempo difícil encontrando trabajo”. My father gave up his dream of becoming a pilot to become a construction worker. working 16+ hours daily, 5 nights a week. He’s gotten into multiple work accidents and has lost a finger on the job. My mother also gave up her dream of becoming a flight attendant to become a full-time mom and housekeeper, working 40+ hours a week. Both worked tirelessly to provide my sisters and I, and family back home in Mexico, with the means to survive and succeed. As I’ve grown up, I’ve come to appreciate the labor of my parents. The labor and struggle to survive, passed down through family generations, to keep me and my sisters alive. The labor that made me realize how important school is for me, as a proud first-generation daughter of Mexican immigrant parents. School, despite being an institution created to produce working class citizens, has been ingrained in the minds of my sisters and I, as the ticket to success and wealth. While I hate school at times and wish that I could drop out, I remind myself of the sacrifices and hardships my parents and ancestors made to get me where I am today. Not many students of color, especially of immigrant or low-income backgrounds, have the privilege or option to drop out because their families financially depend on what their kids could become. For many friends of mine of immigrant and low-income background, school is the only way out of poverty. However, others, like my parents, sacrifice their education because going to college costs too much. It angers me when I hear that “If you work hard enough, you can do anything!” because people then deny the realities that people of color, of immigrant and of low-income backgrounds, experience. They underestimate the power and legacy of institutionalized racism and classism. Because if that was true and people truly were able to obtain anything through hard work, my parents, along with other people of colors’ parents would have the world.

[ohhoneato]

I remember being terrified of becoming depressed when I was younger, to the point where i asked my mom for counseling to assure I wouldn't.

I think that experience hurt me in the end, I didn't know if anything was wrong and since I lived in the bible belt of Texas, the counselor ended up trying to shove christianity down my throat.

I wasn't an avid Christian, but I did go to church, because I had friends there. I don't remember anything they taught. I don't remember any of the advice I was given in counseling. I just remember telling her I wasn't Christian and asked for her several times to not use it as her teaching method.

I ended up asking to stop going, not because I was better, but because she was shoving religion down my throat. My mom pulled me and gave them a piece of her mind while she was at it, but in the long run, I should have asked her for another person.

Thinking back about what I presented her with, I did have the beginnings of deeper problems. All of my writing was about suicide, my drawings all had blood shed and death, and here I was worried that I was getting depressed to the point where I couldn't sleep at night. This wasn't the start of my anxiety, but I can pinpoint that as the start of my downward spiral with it.

I never asked my mom for another counselor, I knew they were expensive and we were struggling constantly. She would have gotten me another if I'd asked, but I never wanted to bother her about it.

I stopped being able to get my own lunches at school. I remember clearly the first time I realized I was terrified to go into the lunch line. I got free lunches and barely had to talk to anyone, but I still ended up asking people to get it for me, or I wouldn't eat that day. I had people who would oblige, but if no one was eating with me that day or my regular friend wasn't there, I'd get paralyzed with fear thinking about the lunch line.

Then I stopped being able to talk to my own friends in a classroom setting. They'd all be talking to each other and I'd be scared to say anything at all. It wasn't my conversation I had no right to butt in. If they tried to include me, I'd try to exit as soon as possible. Talking to people was taxing and I had to save that energy for the teachers and my parents. I grew away from everyone, but tried to stay my usual sunshiny self.

It didn't work.

I don't fully remember the situation, but I had English one period and theater directly afterwards. I believe I'd gotten in trouble with my english teacher, though I can't remember what for, I believe it was because I hadn't done my homework.

I ended up yelling at my theater teacher. This man was a saint, I swear. He sent me out into the hall and I could have sworn I was in trouble. I was waiting out there a long time, crying. He pulled me back in and the whole class had recreated disney land to cheer me up. He taught me it's okay to have emotions, it's okay to get upset, my feelings were valid. High school is a stressful place and he knew this and instead of punishing someone who had one bad day, he cheered them up instead.

This was a positive interaction, but I began snapping at more people, mostly my parents and friends. I stopped doing things outside of school, my LARP friend had moved away without telling me anyways and there wasn't really anything else to do.

I started discovering my own sexuality and found out that some people didn't like homosexuality. My family never cared about those types of things. I began isolating myself from others, not really leaving the house unless I had to.

It's taken a long time to get where I'm at now. It got much worse before it got better. I had to drop out of college because the anxiety led to extreme depression where I couldn't force myself to go to my classes, despite genuinely enjoying them. I finally got a new counselor, at a church if you can believe it because they had a free clinic. Both of the counselors I had there were phenomenal and I'd go back if I was still in the area.

I've fought hard with my own mind to get where I can leave the house, where I can approach the cash register by myself and friendly chat with a stranger. Getting a job in customer service helped a lot. And I'm still not even close to better. I have my days of such bad anxiety that I can't even talk to my girlfriend. I have days where I just want to die, days where I can't get out of bed. Days where I give up, i think I'm useless, a toxic person, someone undeserving of life. I don't even know what to do with myself half the time.

But I did it. I didn't think I'd live past 17 y'all. But here I am, still breathing (albeit badly xD) at 23, turning 24 this year. This is an amazing feat for someone who wanted the world to end in 2012. And despite how horrible I feel sometimes, I can't actually deny I'm getting better.

I'm working on surrounding myself with a more positive atmosphere, my bathroom is going to be citrus themed (which is weirdly hard to find omg) and instead of the black and red I've always had my room, I'm making it sunset colored. Lime green and sunflower yellow have become my favorite colors, I never thought I'd love the color yellow, it always felt so grossly happy. Now I feel like I can't live without it.

I've started trying to use more positive language, if you see me say the word funky, I changed from something negative or self deprecating.

I never believed this until right now, I've always thought it was bullshit, but it does get better! This isn't some propaganda crap that adults are trying to fed you to make you keep forcing yourself to live.

This is me, someone who also wanted to and still do sometimes, give up. To throw in the towel. Telling you that it can get better.

I am living in that better for me. No it isn't perfect. I still have problems, I still find it hard to function.

But it does get better. Please, please remember that. It doesn't have to end bitterly, you don't have to destroy something you can build into a better tomorrow. Situations aren't forever.

I love you all and wish you all the best.

[fuck-customers]

Holy Shit Buckle Up Y'all

(TW: mentions of transphobia, racism, and self-harm)

A little backstory:

In November we hired three new people to help with our workload around the holidays, and we've kept them on. Two of them are very hard workers, have great personalities, and nice work ethics. The third, who I will be referring to as J.....does not.

She constantly asks to switch shifts instead of putting in for time off or changing her availability (said that its "inconvenient" for her to change it), if you're even a minute late to covering register for her when she's supposed to get off, she'll just abandon the register and clock out and then shop for thirty minutes, and she is constantly walking away from her post bc she's "bored" and "doesn't feel like working" when there are literally people in line.

So about two weeks ago, she scheduled for five days off. Sweet, shes learning. She then proceeds to call off the day before her five days and the day after. So now she has a week off. Dick move, but I can't say no one has done it before.

Her scheduled day back is a Wednesday. She texts one of my coworkers, P, and asks her to take her shifts for Wednesday AND Thursday. P agrees because she wants more hours, but all of us, including the managers, are irritated now. This is now nine days off she's gotten.

On Wednesday, I got a text from her asking if I could take her shift Friday. Now as of this point, I've been sick all week - hacking my lungs out, not able to breathe, but working bc we're short staffed (bc of her) and bc I need the money. I had Friday and Saturday off for the first time in MONTHS so no way in hell was I gonna take it. I just said no, firmly.

She continues to pester me, asking why, since I don't work Friday I should be able to, etc, and I kind of snapped:

Which, okay, maybe I shouldn't have snapped like that. But I was exhausted and frustrated and so sick of her getting to do this that I just couldn't take it anymore. I expected her to call me a bitch and then ignore me but hoooooo boy nope. (Names are blacked out) (and if this many photos aren't allowed feel free to delete this submission)

First of all, the racism comment:

She was buying cigarettes and even though shes a coworker, I have to ID her bc she's 19 and I can get fired for that shit. She told me she had lost her ID and asked to just put her birthday in. My manager said it was fine, so I did, and I made the offhanded comment about how she should get a new one so she didn't get pulled over by a racist dick while driving. We live in an area where the cops just looovvve to profile people (if you know Ohio, you know where) and I'd had that conversation with so many of my friends that I didn't even think about it, I was just concerned about her getting home safely to her kid. She didn't react negatively at the time, just said "oh I didn't think about that, thanks" and we moved on. If she had really had an issue with it she would have spoken to our managers, so clearly she's only bringing it up now to scare me. I just.....I mean obviously if I am being racist I want someone to tell me so I can fix my actions, but I didn't even think that came off that way in the moment. Maybe I was out of line, but the same thing has happened recently to my 16 year old cousin (he's fine dw) and so its been on my mind.

Second, no, I am not a manager. But aside from four other employees, two of which only work part time, I am one of the oldest members of staff (time wise, not age wise, I'm 23). So the managers put me in charge of a lot of shit, which means that I end up being in charge of people. Which apparently she did not like.

And third no, I do not have a kid. I'm not married, I don't have a partner, and I barely have the income to make half of rent with my roommate sometimes. I would not bring a child into this world if I could help it, and it pissed me off that she would imply that if I had a child, I'd be more mature. I wanted to scream at her and tell her that if having a kid makes you more mature, it clearly didn't work for her. I feel so bad for her kid; he's like two, and she's already constantly using him as an excuse for not doing things and not going to work. She lives with her mom and her boyfriend, so she has a support system (her mom is retired, and a very sweet lady). Like again, I don't have a kid, but all my coworkers who do don't pull this shit ever.

Anyway

I was physically shaking by the end of these texts, crying, because I HATE when people yell at me, especially when they know me IRL. And especially cause she was accusing me of some nasty shit. I sent them all to my manager in the least professional set of texts I'd ever written and then two hours later had to go to work.

My depression was up, my anxiety was through the roof, and as soon as our floater manager asked me if I was okay I burst into tears again. I showed her and the closing manager the texts and they were both appalled but then

They fucking started trying to "comfort" me by making racist comments!!! "Oh, thats just what her people are like" "you know she grew up in the ghetto part of town" "that girl is straight up hood" like!!!!

I was furious. I was so mad it wasn't funny, but they're my MANAGERS and i need this job and they're both old, so they don't think what they're saying is wrong. I tried desperately to derail it by saying things like "where she grew up had nothing to do with it" but they just kept going and I just....that made it so much worse tbh I just walked out of the office to do my fucking job.

A couple hours later, right as I've started to calm down, one of my coworkers started making really transphobic comments about one of our old coworkers who I'm still friends with, deadnaming her, saying that she's allowed to deadname her bc its part of her religion, etc etc.

Y'all I just....walked behind the photo counter and had a fucking meltdown on the floor. I dragged myself to the pharmacy to get their trash so I had SOMETHING to focus on and as soon as I got there the tech took one look at me and held out her arms and I just lost it again.

I go to my manager and basically just ask to do trash and go home. I was supposed to close, and I have left early only once in my life, when we were too dead to need me, but I had just mentally had it. I knew that if I didn't leave in that moment I wasn't going to make it to the end of the night without hurting myself.

She agreed, I finished trash, and got one of my friends to come pick me up.

My GM texts me the next morning (Thursday) and says she's giving me PTO for the hours I didn't work Wednesday night and for my day off on Friday. I almost cried again bc I was so stressed about the money.

Fast forward to a week later, today, and J still has a job, but she has now also called off 16 days in a row. Claiming she's still stuck in Texas with her kid (which was why she was asking to trade shifts last week).

I don't know how much longer my GM can hold out before firing her. I really don't.

Tldr; coworker asks me to take a shift for the hundredth time after calling out for a week, I say no (albeit a bit rudely), they start screaming at me via text, and I have a mental breakdown.

[foxnappings]

after procrastinating forever, i finally got this done ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿ pls excuse my writing i am not a writer

Real Name: Jisoo Seon Alias: Soo (nickname) Ji-Yeon (assassin persona) DOB: April 28th Age: 28 Nationality: South Korean Height: 5’4” Sexual Orientation: Bisexual Occupation: Assassin Affiliation: Blackwatch (formerly)

Backstory:

Jisoo was born in South Korea and spent the first 5 years of her life living with her parents until they lost their lives in an omnic attack. This left her in the custody of her strict great aunt, her only known living relative. It was decided that she would join the military when she turned 18.

When she joined the military, she began training as a sniper, something she picked up on fairly quickly, though far from perfect. Her greatest weakness was her tunnel vision, which left her vulnerable to an omnic attack and resulted in the loss of part of her left forearm.

Unable to continue in the military, she was discharged early and was approached by Overwatch after catching the attention of Jack Morrison, who offered her a new arm in exchange for her services. She reluctantly accepted.

Her new arm gave her a lot of problems at first, though constantly being in the lab of Doctor Angela Zeigler allowed her to better her English speaking skills.

 Jisoo trained under Captain Ana Amari, improving her skills as a sniper. She improved so much that it attracted the attention of the commander of the covert ops division known as “Blackwatch”, aka Gabriel Reyes, when Jisoo was 20 years old.

Reyes expressed wanting a sniper for his next mission in Venice, Italy, to which Ana objected to at first. It took a lot of reassurance and promises that she would be safe and made to leave if anything went wrong for Ana to finally, albeit reluctantly, allow her to go.

And so Jisoo joined Blackwatch.

She was fitted with a uniform and given a run down on what Blackwatch did, the policies and about the next mission. Reyes explained she would watch over them from the rooftops while he and his team did the ground work.

His team consisted of himself, Jesse McCree, Moira O’Deorain and someone he simply referred to as “the ninja”, and who she would later learn was Genji Shimada, of the infamous Shimada clan.

Time finally came to depart for Italy, and she was finally introduced to the other members of the team before strapping in for departure.

 The mission went as expected, at least at first; Reyes and his team stealthily making their way toward Antonio, taking out guards as they went, and Jisoo covering from nearby rooftops with her sniper. At one point Jisoo had saved McCree by the skin of his teeth, thus the gunslinger claimed the sniper was their “guardian angel”. When things went wrong, Reyes demanded that Jisoo meet them as the rendezvous point, to which she protested but was reminded that he made a promise to Ana.

After hours of waiting, the team finally reunited with Jisoo at the rendezvous point. Reyes, McCree and Moira all went off together to another room, while Genji opted to sit alone. Jisoo decided to join him and the two briefly discussed the mission.

Jisoo asked if Genji would sit with her that night, admitting she didn’t want to be alone and felt unsafe. He agreed, though was unsure as to why she asked him and not Moira.

The plan was for Genji to keep guard while Jisoo slept, however that didn’t end up being the case. The two talked about their close calls with death, showing off their battle scars and eventually ended up in the bed together.

They shared a night of passion, which Jisoo had claimed was to relieve stress, but it wouldn’t be the last time the two agents were intimate with each other.

Back in Switzerland, Jisoo met other members of Blackwatch and befriended a woman named Rose, and eventually developed a sibling-like relationship with McCree. McCree even gave her the nickname “Soo”, which their close friend group all picked up on. The three of them, along with Genji, constantly got up to mischief together and often acted like a group of teenagers.

Jisoo’s relationship with Genji in private, however, was a lot more serious and the two often had conversations about rather heavy subjects. He would vent to her about his rage and self-loathing, and she would comfort him and make attempts to validate him. She admitted to being afraid of him sometimes, but she couldn’t keep herself away from him.

Their relationship wasn’t healthy by any means, and they both knew it, but they made it work for a while. He never told her he loved her but she was sure he did in his own way.

Everything was going fine until the news got out that Ana Amari died. Jisoo lost her mentor and someone she trusted and really admired.

And then Genji left. He had announced he had things he needed to take care of and wouldn’t be back, leaving Jisoo feeling heartbroken and lost. McCree left not too long afterward, no longer wanting to be part of the infighting Overwatch was facing because of what Blackwatch had done.

Rose’s death was the breaking point and Jisoo was forced to leave Overwatch, being in no emotional state to continue to work. She moved back home to South Korea with hopes of living a normal life.

She would soon learn of the fall of Overwatch, and the deaths of Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes, but at that point she was too numb to mourn anymore.

After an attack in her apartment, which began rumours of her demise, she went underground. She changed her way of life and took up jobs as an assassin, putting her skills she learned from Overwatch and the military to use. She assumed the alias “Ji-Yeon” and trained herself to change her voice so that she wouldn’t be recognised. She got angry. Her once cheery demeanour became nothing but a memory. Jisoo Seon was gone.

Over the years her anger and heartbreak dwindled into bitterness, and she only kept living and doing what she did purely out of spite.

Eventually she got hired to kill some rich douche, which started out like every other job, and she came face to face with another assassin. As it would turn out, the other woman was Rose, Jisoo’s “dead” friend from all of those years ago, now going by the alias “mcgee”. This meeting was no coincidence, but neither woman bothered to figure out why.

Jisoo was furious, but the two women talked, about everything, and mcgee reluctantly invited Jisoo to live with her in her old family farmhouse in an isolated area of Texas. Jisoo agreed, just to finally stop running, stay in one place and to feel safe for once.

One afternoon Jisoo awoke to a note which read the following: “Since you’re freeloading, you may as well drive into town and order us some takeout from that one place I like. You know the one. Keys are in the truck. You scratch my baby and I’ll kill you myself. –mcgee”

Jisoo did just that, but she wouldn’t make it back to the farmhouse for a few days. She ran into McCree, who had heard rumours of her passing and had been tracking her down for a few years. She ended up going back to his home with him, with the promise of a surprise. She learned that the surprise was Genji, who had come to seek help from McCree after he, too, had heard of her passing.

McCree chose to leave them and give them some time to talk and catch up, which would result in Jisoo expressing her disdain for Genji for so long and Genji explaining to her why he left; why he had to leave her behind.

He explained his concerns for their unhealthy relationship, and how he depended on her too much to keep him grounded, and that he had hoped she would flourish without him. He explained his quest for purpose, how he had finally come to accept what he was, and who he was, with the help of an omnic monk, his master, Tekhartha Zenyatta from Nepal.

He apologised for leaving with no explanation, for letting her deal with so much loss on her own, and wished he had been there to support her. She forgave him and apologised for blaming him for everything, and expressed contentment for his personal discoveries.

Jisoo spent three days with Genji and McCree before finally going back to mcgee’s farmhouse. This gave her the opportunity to reconcile with the two men and get to know them both all over again. Jisoo and Genji both expressed their desire to continue a romantic relationship, though a much healthier one, but needed to overcome a few obstacles first.

She would eventually learn that both Jack Morrison and Ana Amari were also alive; having so many questions for them but received so few answers. She was happy to learn so many of her loved ones were still alive after everything that happened. She could only hope she could say the same for Gabriel Reyes.

[givemewinterpls]

The Homesickness Will Never Pass

You know when you're really excited for something like a birthday, a holiday, etc? You know how the days leading up to it just feel like filler days? Days that just feel like waiting? Pointless days. Days that you wish you could just skip. My whole life feels like that now. I feel like every day I'm just waiting.

I feel so disinterested in everything, all I want is for the days to pass.

What's frustrating is I don't know when I'm waiting for. Am I waiting for a year from now? Two or three? More? Maybe it would be easier if I knew when. Maybe then I could breathe and continue living my life instead of trying to fast forward it. But I have no idea. I have no idea when I get to leave here. I have no idea when I get to go home.

I feel like no one around me understands how much it hurts. It sounds silly to them, and, yes, a first world problem. I realize I could be dealing with much, much, much worse.

But it hurts. I can't deny that it hurts. All I've ever drempt of since I was barely a teenager was getting out of this state. I have hundreds of my writings about it, it was practically all I wrote about for years. I have never wanted anything more than to leave Texas. I have never felt comfortable here, I've always felt seperate. All I've ever wanted was to get out and I did. I felt the incredible relief, the freedom, of leaving. I got to see so much, take so many pictures (which is the 2nd thing I've always wanted the most, to be in a place I found beautiful enough to take pictures of), experience so many new things. I felt that and it got ripped away from me so prematurely. It wasn't fair. Sometimes I think maybe it would all be better had I not gotten to experience it yet; it probably wouldn't hurt as much as it does now. But ultimately I'd never trade my memories of Alaska for anything.

Otherwise, I feel so at peace with my life right now. Me and my boyfriend, having dealt with his ex girlfriend harassing us for the first almost 2 years of our relationship, are in a better place than we have ever been without her constantly causing both of us unnecessary stress or refusing to allow him to see his son now that custody has been legally established. We stayed by each other's side through all of it and have come out even stronger than we were before, which has always been strong. He's been my best friend in the world since the day I met him. He's hinted at marriage so many times and refers to me as his wife to many people. I'm so happy to have this baby together, whom I consider to be our second child considering the fact that he raised my son and I will always consider him his father. We have so many plans, so many things we want to do together. So many places we want to see. We make such a good team, really with anything. With parenting, with money. I know me and him can do anything together. We compliment eachother so well.

And this is why it is so frustrating to still be sitting here, sitting in the same place I was years ago. I have grown so much. I'm such a different person than I used to be. I feel so much stronger now, so much more independent. I'm an adult, in a healthy, mature relationship, as well as a mother. I feel like I've taken so many steps forward, and yet I remain in the same place. I've been ready to move on since I was 13 years old, imagine how I feel now. I hate even going outside, being reminded where I am. All I want in the whole world is to take the family that I have now and GO. I have nothing keeping me here. I've left my mom and family before, it is a natural part of life for a lot of people. It's normal to me. I personally can't imagine living this journey in the same place for the entirety of it. It drives me insane.

I have a new life but it won't feel complete until my surroundings are also new. Until my view is different. Until the people I see every day are different. It sounds so childish and I didn't fully realize I was doing this until recently, but I refuse to make friends or advance in anything for that exact reason. I avoid everyone at my job; I guess it's just that I want absolutely no more ties here. I don't want a new job that I actually enjoy until I'm where I want to be. I don't want to make friends until I'm where I want to be.

I have so many bad memories here, and I can't look anywhere without being reminded of them. I want that to go away. I don't want that anymore. I need things that are FRESH. I need things that are new. It felt so good feeling that freshness alone, I can't even imagine how it would feel with my family beside me. Getting to experience all of it with them. I know I'm not the best me that I can be right now, I feel like I can't be here in Texas. My depression is so, so heavy here. Life just feels darker here, it always has for me. My motivation was sky rocketed in Alaska. I wanted to be outside constantly. I got to take so many pictures every day, my biggest passion. I wasn't living in fast forward, I was just living. And that's what I want to be for my kids. I don't want to be so sad. I cry infront of my son so much; the concerned look on his face always breaks my heart. I don't know how to be happy here.

But I'll always be patient for my boyfriend. I know it isn't as easy for him as it is for me, we don't even know how custody would work with us being so far away. I have nothing keeping me here but he does, and I know that if he didn't, we would already be gone. He would have already taken me home. He tells me that when I'm sad, he says he'll take me home. But it raises the question again of when? I can't help but wonder how much longer I have to be here. Meanwhile, I don't know how to make the homesickness go away. I don't know how to stop thinking about it. I don't know how to pretend like I'm content. I don't know how to sit with this.

We're supposed to go visit Anchorage early next year before the baby is due, but part of me isn't even excited about it. It just hurts worse when I leave. It hurts to visit a place you already consider your home. Getting to feel comfortable for a week and then having to watch it all fade away behind you again, knowing where you're headed back to. Texas looks extra, extra disgusting to me right after a trip home. The depression hits extra hard, too.

I don't even know what to do. It's so much worse during this time of year, during the holidays. I want to be surrounded by my snow capped mountains more than anything in the world right now. I miss my trees. The colors. It hasn't snowed in Anchorage yet but I know it's coming soon. It always hurts worse during the Fall and Winter. Doesn't help that pregnancy hormones are making me extra emotion of course. Most days I just want to mope around and cry.

[austinpanda]

Spokane Diaries - 07072018

Because this plan to move from Austin to Spokane is so huge, relative to the size and shape of everything that comprises my life, the plan is something that continues moving forward constantly, assembling itself and aligning everything in the proper direction, regardless whether I’m actively thinking about it. This morning, for example, I wasn’t too conscious that my desire to get the kitty comfortable with car excursions had anything to do with Spokane. I just knew I needed to start getting the kitty used to being in the car and un-terrified at the same time.

And I catch myself wondering, what will be the soundtrack of this journey? Is it going to be more Brown Eyed Girl and summer of ‘69, or will it be more Nine Inch Nails and taking the train out of Dachau, but only because you’re being moved to Auschwitz? I’m aware I’m given to hyperbole, but this is going to fundamentally change the way I do EVERYTHING. It’ll change the way I buy food, the way I have a job, the places I drive, the people I see. Think about that: once I move to Spokane, the only person I can touch for 2,000 miles will be Zach. (At this point, I predict I will be grateful to Past Rick for all the effort he put into making his marriage one built upon solid friendship.) 

Therefore, this represents huge totals in both the positive and negative columns. On the one hand, I have to re-learn how to do everything. On the other hand, I can present myself as whomever I wish to be. I’m not a chunky underachiever who stayed with the same company for 22 years out of inertia. I’m the guy who left his life behind, because he chose to make it necessary, when a mountain of fear stood in the way. I realized today that I’m going to use that line in job interviews.

“Why did I leave Austin for Spokane? Because I realized I’d allowed myself to become too comfortable in a situation that wasn’t good for me, and the only thing preventing me from fixing it was...fear.” Then they’ll picture me, driving--so earnestly--my hooptie with only 3 tires and one shopping cart wheel bungeed on where the fourth should be, across the country to escape fiery Texas death, in the desperate hope of making my life mean something in the big city of Spokane, Washington.

Certainly the truth is somewhere in between, as it were. I’m also leaving because it costs too much to live in Austin any longer, and because, honestly, fuck you, Texas. Fuck your heat, and your intolerance, and your refusal to expand Medicaid, and your making me get illegally married because the Supreme Court hadn’t FORCED you to allow me to marry legally yet. Fuck your humidity, your hurricanes, and your concussion factory sports franchises. I know a few dozen awesome people here, and the deer are nice, but the rest of the state is sun-bleached garbage with prickly pears growing out of it.

I do not expect Spokane to be any kind of utopia. I’ve listed my fears about Spokane before. I get the impression it’s a fairly conservative community, without much in the way of a visible gay community presence. I usually dismiss this concern with the assumption that I’m not going to force my way into the most exclusive country club in Spokane and start tenderly caressing my husband’s butthole whilst reclining on the salad bar. In other words, I don’t act enormously gay in public anyway, and I certainly wouldn’t do so in any place too saturated with well-to-do honkies.

With regard to my fear mountain, fortunately, I don’t have to climb it, necessarily. I just need to get past it. And it helps get past the fear by focusing on details:

Just how in the hell am I going to get myself, my husband, our cat, both our cars, and everything we own from this apartment in Austin, Texas to a future, as yet unknown, residence in Spokane, Washington without either (a) spending too much of our savings too quickly and running out, (b) having some sort of serious psychological breakdown from the stress of all the life-improvements happening, or, (c)  that exciting potpourri category of everything else, the unforeseen things that are going to go horribly wrong?

So...onward, in the spirit of bold curiosity, I go. I’ve changed my Biggercity.com (where chubby gay fellows go to meet, and possibly make arrangements to perform the marriage act with, fellow chubbies, or unchubby people who admire chubby people) profile to say that I’m now a resident of Spokane, to see what happens. Husband wants us to meet some new people, and I suppose we both feel that, if we find some chubby homos that make good, witty banter like we do, it might be the door that opens us up to the whole gay Spokane whatever thingy. Yeah.

Immediate plans:

Keep updating resume

Take the kitty for a drive once a week

Learn to tell fear to go fuck itself

Continue getting rid of heavy things and replacing them with lighter things (e.g., wooden bookcases for lighter metal ones, hardcover books with ebooks)

Research ways of moving. Pods? U-Haul while towing one car? Ew?

Would it be cheaper to put everything we own, both cars, ourselves, and the cat, into a very large sack that’s carried by helicopter and dropped in front of our new home in Spokane?

One last note of concern: There’s going to come a moment, after the drive is complete, and we open the door to our new (possibly temporary) dwelling in Spokane, and we let the cat loose, and we take a breath, and realize exactly what we’re in the middle of, and we’ll look at each other. And I don’t know how I’m going to feel just then. If that feels bad, it won’t get everything off to a very positive start. But I’m so very hopeful that it will feel cautiously optimistic.

[chronic-confessions]

Confession #3,258

Part 1 - no support from family for boyfriend kind of

Ever since day one my parents never have supported me or thought I was “faking” my pain. I used to miss a ton of school because in the morning I would wake up and feel so nauseous and sometimes vomit, I would be so exhausted and still tired or wake up with headaches and be so tired throughout school id fall asleep in class, on the bus, and come home and sleep for five hours once I got home from school. They used to force me to go to school because I had to and the whole time they thought I was just faking it so stay home and sleep in. Then when my stomach problems started coming up my parents thought I was faking it again and complaining about my stomach to go to the doctors and get notes and excuses to miss school. Especially in the beginning when the doctors couldn’t find much wrong with me. Until they did an endoscopy and found gastritis and ulcers and eventually did a gastric emptying test and found I have gastroparesis. N guess what? The doctors diagnosed me with all of this shit in-front of my parents and even showed the pictures of the ulcer and gastritis in my stomach and my parents still think I’m faking it. 

They always tell me how if I “ate better I wouldn’t have any problems” or “ if you wouldn’t of had went vegetarian this wouldn’t of had happened to you” and all of this bullshit. It pisses me off so bad especially since now here I am 20 years old and still suffering from stomach problems having flare ups and now new symptoms where two of my doctors thinks I have some kind of autoimmune disease possibly multiple sclerosis. I sleep so much at least 10-13 hours a day and my boyfriend constantly calls me lazy to my face. I just don’t understand how people can be in the room with me while the doctors clearly is saying there’s something wrong with me and then they turn around and talk shit like they don’t know I have chronic illnesses. My boyfriend literally told me that in the future he’s not going to let me sleep in because I need to be productive and wake up early and cook breakfast and do all of this shit and I actually cried because wtf. I have a ton of anxiety my doctor thinks I’m depressed as well and having no support or anyone to talk to makes it completely worse. I can’t even have sex anymore because majority of the time I get these SEVERE cramps that make me want to vomit and my boyfriend has seen me collapse on the floor crying curled up in a ball in pain and then asks me to have sex again the next day. I stopped working and I know my boyfriend doesn’t like it because he says shit like “ it must be fun to sit around at home all day especially if you get approved for disability, shit lay around and get paid for it”. It makes me feel so bad especially since sometimes I have good days and sometimes I have terrible days. Especially when I have a flare up and I’m really sick for a week this is why I don’t want to get another job. It’s like when I’m sick my boyfriend takes care of me but then when I have a few days where I’m less sick and feeling OKAY to do things he’s like “ why don’t you get a part time job”. Idk like my boyfriend is better than my parents but he doesn’t get it. He has these severe chronic painful migraines and I’m so supportive of him and do everything I can to help him and he should understand how I feel because he misses a lot of school and work because of the migraines but yet when I used to stay home from work because I was nauseous and having abdominal pains he would sigh and just be like “ so you’re really not going to work today?” And just make me feel really bad. I especially can’t talk to my sister because she’s called me a “hypochondriac” multiple times even though she has fucking diabetes since she was like 6 years old she should understand too. I hate how my sister and boyfriend both think because they still push through work and school that I should just “suck it up” and try to live a normal life. Don’t even get me started with the shit people say to me when I mention I want to file for disability. My parents,friends, and boyfriend all say something along the lines of “ you’re fine just get a easy job” “ you don’t quality for disability you just ant to lay around all day” etc. it really breaks my heart and makes me feel so bad that I can’t talk to ANYBODY when I’m sick or feeling sad and want to vent. Something that kind of makes me mad if that my boyfriends mom has a virus that she is fine most of the time but sometimes gets really sick as has to go get blood transfusions and medications in the hospital and stuff and my boyfriends dad keeps her from working and everyone is all over helping her but yet when I have a flare up and having s lot of nausea and abdominal pains and all these other symptoms people tell me to take a tums and get up. Like I have a diagnosis of serious stuff too just because the doctors don’t ever want to keep me in the hospital doesn’t mean it’s not serious. If I’m being honest the times I go to the hospital for pain the doctors treat me like I’m looking for drugs or tell me that I’m “just constipated and drink some water”. Like the way everyone has been treating me has been bringing me down so much and there’s no way of escaping it. 

Part two: I don’t know why my health is so bad for more than half of my life

Ever since I was 9 I’ve been in pain starting with my periods. I was put on birth control and it’s helped a lot so that’s hardly one of my issues now. When I was around 13 that’s when my stomach problems started and now that I’m 20 years old two doctors think I have multiple sclerosis and I’m going to see a neurologist next month. It’s been really hard for me to deal with being in pain all the time since I was young but I feel like I’m almost accustomed to the pain that I don’t show it so much on the outside. Especially when it comes to my nausea I’m nauseous every single day and usually I don’t complain about it because I’ve been nauseous every day for years only when it gets really bad I’ll lay down or hunch over. At least every other day I get abdominal cramps or pains in my stomach or the urge to vomit. My stomach problems have lead to other issues like malnutrition and other stuff. Recently I’ve been having neurological problems that have been scaring me I’ve been getting a lot of numbness on anywhere on my body that pressure is applied. Even for less than a minute my body part won’t even get pins and needles feeling it’ll just go straight up NUMB like can’t move my fingers or my arm or leg feels really heavy shit even my butt goes numb when I’m sitting on a hard chair or if I lean over a table to grab something or do something for a few seconds my arm or hand will start to go numb. Even when I’m sleeping and I’m laying on top of my pinky it’ll go numb. I’ve been getting these shocks of pain in my left hand that make me drop stuff or even have to let go of the steering wheel when I’m driving. I have these lingering headaches mostly behind my eyes or like one side of my head. I have a lot of trouble sleeping and my vision isn’t blurry sometimes it’s hard to focus and I’ve been having these black specks in my vision and lastly I lose my breath really easily and my heart rate shots up for doing any little thing even just shampooing my hair I be breathing heavy and feeling my heart beat in my neck and chest like I feel like I’m going to pass out… and two of my doctors think it’s multiple sclerosis. I just don’t get why I can’t live a normal active life. I used to go kayaking on my good days and it used to make me soooo happy and relaxed even thought I’d be really fatigued from all of the movement kayaking in the springs was my passion and the only thing to completely take my mind off of how sick I felt. Now that I live in Texas and I’m almost having these neurological symptoms I don’t think I would even be able to go kayaking at all there’s no springs to go kayaking here anyways but and I just sit at home all day and feel depressed.

Part 3: worried about my future

I know I can’t go to school because I have a really hard time focusing,concentrating, or remembering things I would fail. In elementary school all the way through sophomore year of highschool( before I left to homeschooling because of my chronic illness) I’ve always had a really hard time with school with attendance and keeping up my grades. I’ve recently lost two jobs in a row because of my attendance because once again my chronic illness and I just worry what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. I’m not going to college because I know I can’t handle it and I don’t want to go back to work because clearly I can’t hold a job and my doctor himself told me it might be best to not work to keep my stress down. I just feel so lazy but when I force myself to try and be productive and do things when my body doesn’t let me I end up getting sicker for longer and it’s really frustrating. I’ve already mentioned how my boyfriend told me how in our future he’s not going to let me lay around all day because he wants me to get up and do things which i understand I don’t want to put the burden on him for everything but it’s like my BODY WONT LET ME. my dad is fully disabled and he lays around all day and watches TV and sleeps all day and people don’t bother him but when I mention getting disability I’m just “lazy” and “fully capable of working but just don’t want to” I just really don’t know.

Part 4: losing my job recently and wanting to get disability

So in November I started a receptionist job. I specifically applied for this job because I figured it would be low stress and I would be able to sit and basically have it accommodate with my illnesses. Well I was wrong because that job had me stressed out every. Single. Day whether it was rude clients, my rude and condescending co workers, having to wake up at 4-6am depending on the shift, constantly being called in on my days off, having to get up and run around the building looking for stuff for a client or one of the doctors, etc. every day I would come home pissed off and complain to my boyfriend and the almost three months I worked there I had probably around four panic attacks at work because of the situations and stress I was put under. Recently I’ve been having neurological problems on top of gastroparesis flare ups and before my 90 days I missed three weeks of work whether it was because I was sick and couldn’t make it to work or had a doctors appointment, in the hospital etc. Nobody ever wanted to switch shifts with me so I always just had to miss work and I brought a doctors note for every day I missed. Right before my 90 days ended they let me go which is kind of a relief but now I have no money coming in and bills to pay. I’m thinking about applying for disability but I’m waiting to get my possible multiple sclerosis diagnosed before I start going through the process. My last job was working as a technician in an animal hospital and it was wayyy too stressful and active for me a dog pulled me so hard my wrist and back were fucked up and I had to miss work for four days and go to the doctors and chiropractors. I had to lift up dogs that weighed up to 50/60 pounds and that also fucked up my back on two occasions because I’m really skinny and when I try to lift with my legs they shake and give out. I would be bruised up from restraining dogs and they barely bump into me and I get a painful red and purple bruise. I’m too “fragile” to handle the naughty big dogs that would pull me to hard and then once again rude co workers and rude clients that gave me a ton of anxiety and stress. My doctor told me himself I should leave that job and that’s when I went for the receptionist job and it was just as bad. I mostly want to get disability because I feel like I’m not reliable to keep a job with doctors appointments and flare ups that I have and I feel like at the reception job I couldn’t handle the easiest of shit my memory is so terrible I got in trouble for fucking up a handful of situations and was actually called “dumb” by a co worker. Not to mention the stress of having to somewhat argue with my boss that I can’t come to work on so many days because I’m going to the doctors or calling out because I feel so sick and having to tell them I’m going to the doctor tomorrow so I can’t come in or I’m in the emergency room and been here for nine hours and it’s already 2am and still here I won’t be able to come to work tomorrow etc. So yeah idk we will see but there’s no way I’m putting myself back in that situation. Now that I get to lay down and relax and a majority of stress is cut from my life I’ve been feeling better but still not by any means I’m completely fine I’m still sick everyday but the stress was making me way sicker.

[annieintheaair]

Love & Valentine’s Day

The last time it really snowed in Texas, that I remember, was in 2015 when I was in flight attendant training. I was scheduled to do a work flight that weekend and the snow came down instead, canceling flights, and keeping us indoors.

Everyone I talked to told me that in Texas, when it snows, you just stay home. Being from the northeast, that just seemed weird to me because life carries on when it snows.

I don’t know if someday I’ll wake up and re-download dating apps or miraculously meet someone while out and about but for the time being, I’m focusing on myself and doing my best to find new hobbies and make new friends.

Since it has been cold and snowy, I’ve been binge watching Firefly Lane on Netflix this weekend and I was watching an episode today where after Tully gets married, she flips out on her husband and makes him leave. He doesn’t want to leave at first but she screams at him that he has to go and as soon as he gives in and does, she falls to the floor in regret.

Have you ever done that? Have you ever asked someone to leave but deep down, you were testing them to see if they’d choose to stay anyway? This scene brought me flashbacks to November. I remember flipping out on James and telling him to leave. I thought he would go and I ended up falling asleep that night, only to wake up in the morning and find that he hadn’t left. At that point, I felt like I couldn’t change my mind. He packed up his things and in a more calm way (but not without tears) that morning, we said goodbye.

Without going into detail, we did patch things up a few days later but looking back, I think that was our breaking point. I should have been glad that he stayed that night on my couch and in the morning, I should have apologized and told him to stay. I think sometimes we just can’t let go of our pride.

In Firefly Lane, Tully finally gets up the courage to apologize but at that point, Max has decided that he wants a divorce. She tells him anyway that she wants a fresh start and if he wants one too, she will be at the spot in the park where they got married, the following day. Max basically explains to her that she wasn’t there when he needed her to be and that she wouldn’t talk when he wanted to talk with her. He doesn’t show up the next day and she’s heartbroken.

This story line tugged at my heartstrings really badly. I’ve been the girl crying on the floor and later trying to apologize and fix things to only be turned down. I’ve felt that pain of feeling like it was all my fault and feeling rejected and like there was nothing that I could do or say to fix everything.

It has been almost two months now since it ended and it was two months yesterday since I last saw him. My heart still hurts. I keep wishing he would show up and we’d figure it out. There are so many days that go by that I keep wishing we could have a fresh start. I feel like Tully, standing at the park, waiting for him.

The thing is, you can’t make yourself important to anyone. They have to choose you, each and every day. They have to want it as badly as you do and they have to be willing to work things out. I’ve learned that love isn’t easy. Love doesn’t mean that everything goes smoothly all of the time but that you work through things. Just like Tully realized, sometimes it’s better to hold on and keep pushing to work things out instead of running away but you both need to run in the same direction together.

I think about Valentine’s Day last year. The pandemic hadn’t really started yet, life was normal, and I went to Phoenix for work where I went on a first date with Kris, who I had met on Match.com. It was a great first date but for many reasons, it didn’t go anywhere beyond that day really. We became friends and that was about it.

A lot has happened in the last year. To think that after that day, I proceeded to go on more dates and have my heart broken twice, it’s no wonder that I’m feeling down about love and not at all interested in getting back out there to meet someone new.

I remember a couple of years ago after having been taking anti-depressants for a while, my therapist told me that she felt like maybe my dosage was too high. At the time, I thought that she was just saying that because she was afraid that I’d stop seeing her every week if I felt so numb that I didn’t need her help. There have been days, like in early January, when I felt like my dosage wasn’t high enough but lately, I feel like maybe she was right and maybe it really is too high.

I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t know how to feel anymore. I don’t know how to really put my feelings into words and the more I try to tell myself that I’m ok, the less I really believe it. Have I become so good at convincing everyone else that I can no longer convince myself? Am I ok or am I not ok? Has my medication made me too numb?

These days, I feel like I’ve run out of words, which is weird for me. It’s like deep down, I have so much to say, but the words don’t come out. I feel like I’m no longer heard so it’s no use to even try to get the words out.

With only a few weeks left until I return to work and my old life, I’ve decided to refocus all of my efforts. Instead of getting back on Bumble for dating, I’ve pursued new friendships. It’s incredible to me the new people that God has brought into my life. These new friends that I clicked with immediately have made me wonder where they’ve been my whole life and have filled me with excitement for what’s to come. I feel like we’re all going through similar things and while some people I’ve talked to are in relationships or married, those I’ve met in person so far are living the single life. At 31, it feels so good to finally have some single girl friends.

I’ve also been going to the gym frequently and trying new exercise classes, as well as cooking healthier meals at home to get myself back on track. I’ve been going back out for walks with my dogs (not 10 mile walks like I did in the spring but every bit helps!). All of this has made me realize that I think James and I made a huge mistake.

While I don’t think our relationship was a mistake, I think it was complicated because we jumped into it so fast and began spending nearly every minute of everyday together. I forgot about my own life and stopped trying to make new friends. Even when I was in Wyoming in December, I had plans to meet up with a girl from Bumble BFF but then didn’t for many reasons but mainly because I didn’t want to tell James that I wanted to go out without him when I was there visiting him.

Being with James had me giving up on my own life. I guess I lost my sense of self in our relationship. I stopped going out for walks or bike rides unless he wanted to go with me. I had even made friends with a girl named Emma but stopped hanging out with her because I always chose James over her. At the time, I thought that was a good choice but looking back, I realize that we probably needed to maintain our own lives in order to have a strong and stable life together.

I always hated the girls who gave up on their friends when they were in relationships and there I was, that girl, and I didn’t even realize it. Where did Annie go?

I know that James looks at my Instagram stories and I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking. Does he wonder where the girl he dated disappeared to since we broke up? Does he miss the old Annie or does he wish he was with the new Annie?

The other day I rushed to the hair salon because I swore I saw some white strands in my hair. White, yes, white, not grey. I’m pretty sure it was caused by stress and even though my mom tried to suggest that maybe it was a white blonde, I was still in a panic. I thought the girl would do my base color as blonde but something clearly went wrong and left my hair with a reddish tint. At home, I told myself that red (or anything) was better than white and maybe I just need to embrace this new version of myself. I never would have gone and asked for her to dye my hair red but maybe red is just the change that I needed. Maybe red is the beginning of the new Annie.

I’m tossing this back and forth-- am I the new Annie or the old Annie, before James and all of the heartbreak? Maybe I’m a mixture of both. I’m reclaiming parts of my old life before James but I’m also embracing this new version of myself.

Being alone has given me more time back since I’ve been working my part-time job right now and not flying. When I’m out and about, I don’t feel like I need to rush home to James because he’s not there but I stay out around town and I get things done. I love spending my evenings (and some mornings) at exercise classes, bible study, and serving with the students at church. I’m enjoying making dinner plans with new friends and even had brunch today (on Valentine’s Day) with a new friend.

All of these new things in my life are great but that doesn’t mean that I don’t miss James. Sometimes I feel like I wish we could have that do-over, just like Tully talked about on Firefly Lane. I wish we could meet up in person and talk about all of this and realize these things together. I wish we could start over and maintain our own lives but be together and go to sleep and wake up together everyday. I wish we could hold onto what worked and fix what didn’t work.

I feel like there is no end to missing him. I feel like I constantly put on this façade that everything is great but deep down, I’m still hurting. If you’d seen what my house looks like these days, you’d understand. I’ve always been the person who tries to keep my house tidy and I even “chop” the pillows on my couch and make my bed everyday. Lately, I don’t do any of those things. My kitchen seems to be an endless mess, my pillows don’t look nice, there’s papers on my kitchen table, my bed isn’t made, and I haven’t even put my suitcase away from my recent travels. The laundry is piling up, once again.

When does this end? Will there come a day when I stop missing him? If I’m not looking to meet someone new right now, how will I move on?

Maybe tomorrow (as I tell myself everyday), I’ll clean my house and get my life back together. Aside from my house, the goal these days has been to get myself back in shape and lose some weight (that I gained while we were dating). It’s not even that I want to look like I did when I met James but I want to look better than that and even better than when I was spending time with Ryan.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to focus on myself right now and even if we never get that do-over or I wake up and it’s April (like in my dream last week), I’ve learned to never let go of my own life. Never stop maintaining your own life for your relationship because you need both your life on your own and your life together in order to have the best kind of relationship. It has to be a good balance of both.

Happy Valentine’s Day! You are never, ever alone.

xoxo

Annie

[lizzizzie-blog]

d) all of the above

Today is a the anniversary of a significant event in my life. I am resultingly (I might have made this word up but I’m sticking with it) emotional, and instead of baking cookies or wrapping presents or taking a shower or doing laundry or actually getting caught up with my work-work, I am feeling my feelings and I’ve been reflecting on what has been an incredibly intense year. 

Things that happened in 2017:

In the last few days of 2016, I fell in love so hard with a TV show about Norwegian teens. I’ve made friends as a result who I talk to regularly and are super important to me. I’ve taken two trips to meet them (Boston and Philly) and I’ve planned my first real international trip/vacation (Oslo, Norway, January 2018) as a result. Honestly, nobody saw this one coming. 

January: I officially started my new job that it turns out is really really hard and stressful and exhilarating and kicks my ass. I mostly work from home (an adjustment in itself) but also travel frequently. This year I’ve been to: Monroe, Louisiana; Louisville, Kentucky; Atlanta and Newnan, Georgia; Selma, Alabama; Bay City, Texas; Austin, Texas; New York City; Freehold, New Jersey; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Las Vegas - some more than once.

In February, I experienced hot springs for the first time in Colorado for my sister-in-law-to-be’s bachelorette party.  

In March, I turned 30. My husband and friends threw a perfect, stupid, fun, whimsical, casual party for me and I felt so lucky. There were Harry Potter puns. There were buttons with my bitmoji on them. There was a dinosaur beer luge ice sculpture and many delicious beers. I got to play and dance to “I Feel It Coming” twice.

In April, I officiated the wedding ceremony of my brother and the aforementioned sister-in-law, in Maryland.

In May, the husband quit his job and we bought a record store. I mean, what?! What!!!

In June, the husband almost cut off his fingers in a hedge trimmers vs. hand incident, resulting in us missing another wedding. That was fun

In July, I married another of my best friends as a co-officiant with another of our best friends, in Michigan.

In August, I saw the total solar eclipse in St. Louis! It was the coolest, spookiest, most amazing thing. Bizarrely moving. During that trip, I also:

Met and held and loved on the baby of someone I grew up with/a childhood bestie, for the first time. Wow. 

Felt a fetus kick inside of a human tummy for the first time ever, and it happened to be my very best friend. A small moment of magic.

In August, I got a tattoo. My first. Possibly only. I’m not sure.

In October, I told myself, and then my husband, and then the internet / People of Facebook, that I’m pansexual, because it’s not a secret. And I was met with all the both incredible support and curious and/or confused questions that people who do that sort of thing are met with. This has been bizarre. 

A few times, I wrote things about myself and published them in a blog and told actual people I know about it. This one is still a struggle too. 

And that’s not an exhaustive list. Plenty of other significant and joyful moments happened with other people I love, as well, including 30th birthday parties and pregnancy announcements and engagements and even a anniversary / birthday / retirement party for the in-laws. I also learned that another of our couple-friends are getting a divorce. The point is... it’s been SO much of significance in so little time. I’ve never been so stressed and scared and tired, but I’ve also never been so thrilled and inspired and in love with other people. I’ve never felt more overwhelmed with life, but I’ve also never been this accepting of myself. It’s been a lot. It’s still a lot. It always is. When I was little, I think I thought that joy and love were the antidote to grief and pain. Or that sadness and stress negated happiness and laughter and light. That these things were mutually exclusive. Now, I’m still constantly struck by how MUCH life is. How many different things I feel during any given year, month, week, day, or moment. But when I reflect, I think I actually learned this early. Joy and pain don’t cancel each other out; they complement and amplify each other. They make each other real, and the reality of life is that we will experience both, and feeling one doesn’t invalidate feeling the other.   I learned this in October of my senior year of high school when I was having the time of my life with my friends in band, dance team, show choir, and the senior play, and then my cousin died, out of nowhere. It was awful and I was confused and angry and devastated, but life didn’t stop. It didn’t stop me loving my friends or having fun in my various activities or falling in love with a boy over the next several months. It was all of that, all at once. It affected me profoundly, every day, but life didn’t stop. My junior year of college, a friend of mine had a really intense health scare that involved passing out followed by emergency surgery, and eventual diagnosis with a genetic disorder that made it very dangerous to operate on her and would mean precarious health going forward. She was my “Partner,” as we were co-Morale-Captains of the Red team for our college’s Dance Marathon event in April, which raised money for Children’s Miracle Network. Planning and organizing for the event began with weekly meetings in the fall, and this committee was incredibly close knit, with Partners put together and assigned colors based on specific shared traits. So, this happened in February, the night before my boyfriend’s birthday. We found out during our weekly meeting, and we left to go to her apartment, where all her sorority sisters were, and essentially held vigil until the surgery was over. It was days before we really knew if she was going to be okay, including Valentine’s Day. I ate a Dove chocolate heart with the message “discover how much your heart can hold.” And that resonated with me so much. I was feeling so much. I kept the wrapper. Taped it to a piece of index card. I still carry it in my wallet. I turned 21 in March, while she was home recovering. I was so sad to be without my Partner on the committee and so worried about her. She, somewhat miraculously, did get to come to Dance Marathon, in her wheelchair. I was so happy she was there. It was such a relief. She got better, and graduated and got a job and got married and bought a house and got a dog. Then, years later, she had another complication, and after multiple attempts to save her, she died. This was a week after my wedding and the day after we got home from our honeymoon. It was horrible, of course, and right in the middle of one of the most loving and joyous times in my life. Again, it was all happening at once. More than I thought my heart could hold. (She was one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. Her humor was clever and quick and biting. So charismatic. Her attention made you feel special and people adored her.) To conclude this meandering, self-involved mess, I need to flash back again. To my senior year of college, fall semester 2008. Dance Marathon had finished the previous spring, and I’d tried out to be my college’s mascot, and gotten it. It was amazing. But it was a secret. Part of our tradition was that nobody is supposed to know who the humans inside the costume were. And so naturally that leads to much speculation about who they are, and we had to be careful to avoid being found out. I was dating a person who’d been the mascot the year before, and we didn’t have any reason to know each other in real life, so we were dating in secret, essentially, as well.

He happened to be best friends with a girl from my hometown, who I’d been friends with in high school, who also went to our college. She’d graduated that spring and was in Cincinnati for her master’s. She invited us down to see her perform in a play for the church she’d joined there - serious production value - 9 years ago today. We were going to stay with her for the weekend, too. At the play, she was flying around suspended on a harness high up in the air for her role as a wise man. Maybe 20 minutes in, at the end of a song, she struck a pose, her hardness malfunctioned, and she fell to the floor. I don’t remember much of what happened next, but our seats were very high up and we could not see at all what was happening. Somehow they stopped and everyone filed out and they called an ambulance. Somehow her friends found us and we got to the hospital with them. We waited hours. Eventually her parents arrived, met with doctors, and asked us to leave. We drove all the way back to our college town and crashed. A few hours later, her friend called my boyfriend, waking us up, to tell her they had removed her from life support and she had died. It was, of course, traumatic, tragic, and devastating. It was such a bizarre time. So hard, and so painful. Some of my worst days ever. But at the same time, set during the backdrop what was objectively the time of my life. I was a senior in college and I was the mascot. Literally living a dream of mine, having an absolute blast. Then this, in the middle of finals …  having to tell my professors what had happened and why I needed extra time. I skipped my only mascot event the night of the day we found out she died.

After that, mascotting became an escape from it. A place where I could go for a few hours and forget my shit. I could focus on entertaining others, on nothing but being an anonymous vessel of enthusiasm and joy and love, on the eventual physical exhaustion of it. A way to clear my head. And then Christmas was happening, and right back to the next semester. Life didn’t slow down. It was everything at once. Horrific and traumatic and devastating, but the love I experienced in speaking with other people who knew her after she died, of meeting people she knew who looked up to her the same way that I did, the joy of living my dream and escaping reality as the mascot, the way my boyfriend and I somehow got each other through that time ... all of it was real and valid and happening, too. Looking back on that time 9 years ago, I don’t know how I survived. But, that’s sort of what we always do, isn’t it? We love the shit out of each other and we get by. And the weird thing is, December and the holidays are still the same now… the circumstances are ever-changing, of course, but there’s always the painful melancholy of missing people that you love, coupled with the stress of it all, then combined with so much warmth and comfort. It’s a lot. It’s all of it at once. And we’re doing it together. Life is rich, y’all. <3

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.”  ― The Perks of Being a Wallflower

[hornyfishprince]

Tell me some of your favorite stories with your friends. I need good vibes my way!

Hey! Sorry this took a couple days to get to, but let’s see here… This is a very long story, and I apologize in advance.

A couple years ago, I went to my first anime convention with CactusoftheNight and yurukiturah (Cas and Cat respectively; try not get them mixed up). The three of us often refer to that event as “The No Chill Weekend” because shit just… kept happening.

Now, before this, I had never met either of them in real life, but Cas and I had met online a few years prior, and he’s known Cat since gradeschool. Cas and I were (and still are) way too into homestuck for our own good at the time, and while he’d been to this particular convention in Dallas, Texas numerous times neither of us had ever cosplayed. As you can imagine, our stars were aligned. Months of planning and prep, measuring, cutting, sewing, fabric paint, body paint, makeup, arm socks, paper clay, broken horns, a broken wand, experimenting with everything! Mistakes were made. Money was wasted. This is all before the actual convention weekend. We had no idea what we were in for. 

Summer arrived, and it was finally time. I took a bus 800 miles from my sleepy little hometown in Illinois all the way to Dallas. It was my first time taking a bus, and my first time traveling alone. My bags had been packed meticulously carefully with all of my cosplay supplies, and I was a paranoid wreck whenever my luggage wasn’t gripped in my hands. Luckily the trip down was relatively uneventful. I rode overnight and arrived early in the morning, dazed from lack of sleep, but excited beyond belief.

Cas and his mom picked me up from the bus station and treated me to a nice breakfast at IHOP. I stayed at Cas’s place for the next two days while we did our final prep work for the con. We should’ve known then that it was going to be an interesting weekend. Neither of us had finished our armsocks (a crucial piece of costuming for any looking to transform into one of those candycorn motherfuckers), so it was now a race to get them done. We listened to Nightvale while we sewed, and that was about all we did for those days. It was hard work, but we didn’t care. We were going to be stepping into the skins of our favorite homestuck trolls (I was going as Eridan, and Cas was going as Gamzee), and we were high on the excitement of it all.

Then it was time to meet up with Cat. For the rest of the con weekend, we were staying in her dad’s condo, because it was the closest place we could stay to the convention without renting a hotel room (which we had no money for). The day before the con officially started people could come in and do their registration and then stay for a masquerade ball, which is exactly what we did. Cas and I had originally planned on cosplaying that night as well, just fancied up, but we didn’t have enough time to fuck around with all that facepaint. Also we still hadn’t finished the armsocks. I still wore my cape.

The cape was a mistake.

The chain holding it closed about my neck was flimsier than I had realized, and it snapped while we were trying to dance (badly, I might add, because we missed the dancing lessons they were supposed to hold earlier that day). The combination of a broken costume piece, a crowded ballroom, nothing to do, and my crippling anxiety issues led to us leaving early. We managed to fix my cape well enough that it would mostly hold together, but it still gave me grief for the rest of the weekend. We spent the rest of the night relaxing and playing CAH, and we still didn’t get our armsocks finished.

The next morning, we started the rush to get in costume. It took hours and a metric fuckton of baby powder, but our paint looked perfect and was sealed. Cas and I had only half of our armsocks done and since his arms were going to be more uncovered, we had to cut each of the finished arms into long gloves for him to wear, and then I got to paint my hands.

We had to take a few buses and then a train down to the hotel where the convention was being held, and then there was still a bit of walking to do on the way. I should mention at this point that Cat was in a long, black, leather trench coat - the garb of Org XIII from the Kingdom Hearts series. Cat is also very tall. Like a foot taller than Cas and I. We were a sight to behold. And behold us they did. You’d honestly be surprised how many people who don’t live immediately next to the hotel don’t know about the convention. Incredulous looks and questions abound.

On our way between the bus and the train, we stopped for a snowcone. An older gentleman questioned all three of us about our costumes, but he seemed the most enamored by mine, kept asking what I was supposed to be.

“A fish,” I replied simply, not knowing how else to explain (homestuck cannot be explained).

“Oh!” he responded, excitedly. “Well, swim all over me!”

The three of us laughed awkwardly and then our next bus arrived. I don’t think we’ll ever forget the “swim all over me” guy.

That first day was amazing. A-kon is the oldest anime convention in the united states, and it shows. Until recently, it was held at the Hilton-Anatole in Dallas, which is where we were that weekend, and it is a beautiful event. So many people in so many fandoms coming together in one spot. The dealer’s room and artist alley had so much to display you could hardly get through it all. We didn’t go to any panels, but everything we did do was worth the time we spent.

The first two days were busy and tiring, but fun, and not a disaster. But on the night of the second day, things took a turn. It started when Cas and I decided to stay for a panel that was being held a bit late. Unfortunately this meant we missed the Rocky Horror showing, but they do that every year and we planned on being back, so we figured we weren’t missing too much. In the interest of not dragging out this story anymore than it already is, I’ll spare the details on the panel we went to, but know that Cat couldn’t go with us because she wasn’t old enough at the time. This left her alone, and it was getting late before the panel ended, so eventually Cas and I had to rejoin her so we could head home before the trains stopped running.

Nerves were already a bit frayed at this point, as we were all sore and tired, and the walk to the train station was not a short one. When we made it to the ticket kiosk, the train was already pulling in and stopping. In our rush to get our tickets and get on the train, Cas’s backpack was left open and several things fell out. We realized this after another passenger handed him his phone charger. I had Cas check for my wallet (I had no pockets that could hold it) and sure enough it was gone.

Panic set in.

At the train’s next stop, a few blocks down the road, we got off and before we could so much as think, Cas was handing me his backpack and sprinting off back to the other station. I was still freaking out, and took off after him without thinking. Poor Cat stayed behind, alone again (I am still so sorry about that, oh my god). I wasn’t fast enough to keep up and soon lost sight of him, but continued on at a walking pace, knowing I would catch up eventually.

Meanwhile, Cas was running on. If you’ve never seen a chubby alien juggalo running straight at you with a look of sheer determination on their face, you can’t really know exactly how the people downtown felt when they saw Cas approaching that night. He searched all over the platform. He asked everyone who happened to be there waiting for the train if they had seen my wallet. They all stammered and shook their heads, perplexed by the urgent request from the strange grey man. “Was that Satan?!” Cas heard one of them exclaim as he was leaving them to ask the next bystander.

I was still on my way, alone, in a city I’d never known. I was constantly looking over my shoulder, but too scared to turn back at this point. A stranger spoke up from the darkness behind me, and I nearly jumped out of my shitty painted shoes. Luckily he was nice, and apologized for scaring me. He walked with me to the train stop, asking me about my costume and why I was out dressed like that so late. I gave him a brief rundown.

Just before making it to the train station, Cas crossed the street and met up with us, defeat and physical exertion coloring his face. We both had tears in our eyes at this point, and now we had to get back to Cat and figure out what to do. The stranger walked with us for a bit longer to make sure we would be okay before parting ways.

We eventually made it back. Cas called my dad for me and I explained through shaking sobs what had happened. My driver’s license, my debit card, and about $60 cash were now gone, and I was a 19-year-old in a city far from home. Anything worse that had ever happened to me before had involved physical injury. My dad agreed to call the bank asap and cancel my debit, and then we’d have to figure out my driver’s license when I got back. Cat called her parents, and they reimbursed me for the lost cash.

The three of us stood and waited for the next train. Some rando with a skateboard walked by and shouted at us something along the lines of “You guys wanna fuck me? I’d fuck me!” Still not sure if he was high as shit or just weird, but you gotta be pretty brave to solicit what appear to be a dark sorceress and the demons she summoned. At the time, we were too stressed to be amused by this, and if he hadn’t shut up and gone away, I honestly think we would’ve thrown down.

So the train arrives and we board. I’m still drying my eyes, and my two friends are doing a good job trying to calm me down. Eventually the train picks up some more passengers and we’re treated to a lovely conversation with some very drunk girls (and one guy, who happened to look like Matt Smith) who had just gotten back from a country music concert. They told us all how nice our costumes were, and we explained about the convention and how I’d lost my wallet. We showed them some cool stuff we’d bought at the con, including an Ouran Highschool Host Club poster I got, which, after seeing, they proceeded to tell Cat she looked like Honey. Drunk girls who go out of their way to be friendly and cheer you up give me life, tbh.

But eventually we get to our stop. And by now the buses have stopped running, as we knew they would, so now we have to walk. Unfortunately, Cat underestimated the distance from the train station to her dad’s condo. It was about 4 miles. I once walked about 3 miles for a school event once, and, as someone who doesn’t walk regularly, it was rough. There was nothing for it, though; we had to walk.

My heels were already starting to blister just from all the walking we’d done at the con. Cas was in mostly the same boat. Our shoes were not good for this at all. On top of it all, we were hungry, thirsty, and our bladders were full. There were no sidewalks for most of the trip, so we had to keep to the side and stay vigilant for cars. And even with light pollution and nearby buildings, I realized that night just how unnervingly dark a street with no street lights can get. People talk about liminal spaces on this site a lot, and I can tell you that entire night felt liminal.

Eventually we decided we needed to stop the first chance we got, and that came in the form of a gas station. Let me set the scene. It was on a corner, as gas stations tend to be. By this time we had made it to a small business district. There were definitely other buildings around, I think we even passed a Jack In The Box or similar establishment shortly before, but as I recall this, the gas station, the lot it was on, the road, and the cemetery (I’m not making this up) on the side of the road we were on all felt alone in an abyss of night.

I feel I should reiterate at this point exactly what we all looked like to set up this next part. Cat is 6 feet tall and mostly just looks like herself, but she is wearing a long, black leather trenchcoat. Cas and I are both roughly one foot shorter. We’re both painted grey and have yellow-orange horns on our heads. And Cas has his face painted white over the grey in a clown-makeup patter. Oh, and he has deep purple claw marks painted on over that. We’ve been walking for a while and we’ve been through some shit tonight, so we look a little disheveled. Did I mention we’re approaching out of the dark from the direction of a cemetery?

We cross the road, relieved that all the lights are on and it looks like we’re going to get to use the bathroom and have a little snack to keep us going for the last leg of the journey. We cross the lot and go and into the store, only to find… No one is there.

“Hello?” We call out. “Is anyone here? Are you open?”

From the back hallway we hear some movement, and out come two young adults, a man and a woman, probably only a year or two older than us. If I remember right, one of them was holding a broom. Fear was plain on their faces.

“Y’all scared us!” They said.

Oh my god… they thought we were demons.

We quickly apologized and asked if they had a bathroom. They were too stunned at first to really register what we were asking for, and just kept prodding us with questions. “What’re y’all doin out here?” “Is your skin really grey????” “Why are you dressed like that?”

We did our best to answer quickly and politely, but Cas and I were nearly bursting at this point, so we reiterated that a bathroom was urgently needed. They showed us the one bathroom in the place. It was small, and cramped, and the “door” was basically a piece of plywood you had to pick up and slide out of the way, which technically had a functioning lock… in theory at least. We did our business quickly, me first and then Cas, and while one relieved themselves, the other two stayed out and talked to the workers, trying our best to calm them down and assure them that no, we aren’t actually demons, they’re just costumes, there’s a convention in town.

We finished up, got our snacks (I think I got a snickers bar and a cherry pepsi), and then went on our way. We got back to Cat’s place without much more fuss and promptly passed out. The next morning we still got up and cosplayed for the last day of the convention. Cas’s horns broke, and we spent the last of our time at the con hanging out with some other homestucks who tried (to no avail) to help us fix them.

Then Cas and I went back to his place, we packed our stuff, and then he went back up to Illinois with me for a little less than a week. We started dating that summer. It’s been almost two and a half years since that weekend and we just got married at the end of October.

And that’s one of the best stories of my friends that I have.

I am so sorry this couldn’t have been shorter. Thank you for the ask!

[bigyack-com]

Women Are ‘Claiming Their Power’ in Investment Clubs of Their Own

During the 2008 financial crisis, Lauren Winfield found herself starting over in Austin, Texas, without a job, a network or a nest egg.She had just come out as gay. In her 20s with no savings or financial support from her family, she worked minimum-wage jobs to pay off college loans and credit card debt.Ms. Winfield tried to save, but emergencies often washed those attempts away. The result: a feeling of insecurity that left her reluctant to try investing.Things changed when Ms. Winfield started attending women’s finance group meetings. She eventually joined the Austin Women’s Investing Group, which she found on Meetup, and started connecting with its members on Facebook. The community she found in the groups gave her the support to begin investing for retirement in her 30s.“It’s confidence boosting to be in the same room or online group as other women claiming their power and autonomy with their money,” said Ms. Winfield, now 34. She went on to create Signum City, a fintech start-up that developed an app-based game to help young adults learn to invest.Her financial journey mirrors the challenges many women face when investing for retirement: Their short-term financial needs have a way of eclipsing long-term goals. Across the country, women’s investing groups, from Meetup to clubs organized by the nonprofit BetterInvesting, are helping some women to focus on their finances in ways, their members say, where Wall Street firms, fund companies and financial advisers have fallen short.Just 17 percent of women said planning for retirement was their top financial goal in a 2018 survey by Pimco, the Newport Beach, Calif., investment firm that manages $1.8 trillion for central banks, pension funds and financial advisers. Respondents ranked it behind goals like achieving financial stability, creating a wide-ranging financial plan and becoming financially independent.Researchers cite myriad reasons, namely: Women’s longer life expectancy, lower wages, marital status, and responsibility for child care and caregiving. The challenge women often face is how to take a nest egg that is typically smaller than men’s and extend it to last their lifetime.The disconnect between women’s priorities and what the financial services industry typically emphasizes — strategies to beat the market — is especially apparent when it comes to retirement. In Pimco’s survey, 72 percent of women, and 81 percent of millennial women, said the investing system was “set up to be confusing.” Women identified honesty, knowledge and transparency as the top values they sought in advisers and financial institutions.Major financial institutions have taken note. Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Fidelity are among a growing number that have built websites and issued reports to try to attract female investors. They’re competing with women-focused investment houses like Ellevest, a platform that uses human advisers and roboadviser technology. What’s at stake, according to the Bank of Montreal, is an estimated $22 trillion in personal wealth that women in the United States control.Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, an associate professor of economics and a research fellow for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said many such Wall Street initiatives were “just marketing.”A 2019 study by the center noted that a typical woman who was approaching retirement had spent about half her adult life married. This didn’t ensure greater financial stability, however. Even though married women are in households with higher earnings and wealth, the study said, they’re less likely than single women to maintain their standard of living in retirement because nearly half of two-earner couples “tend to undersave in their retirement plans.”If only one spouse has a 401(k), that spouse needs to “save even more,” said Dr. Sanzenbacher, a co-author of the study. Yet most people don’t do that, he added.This is where women’s investment groups and clubs are making a difference.After some time with the Austin group, Ms. Winfield opened Roth I.R.A.s to invest in exchange-traded funds and some real estate investment trusts. She encouraged her partner to maximize 401(k) contributions and taught her partner about emergency savings.“As a lesbian, I constantly remind myself to claim a seat at a table that was not initially designed for me,” she said. “Finance is a male-dominated field, but saving for retirement is a must for everyone.”Monthly gatherings in public libraries, cafes, conference rooms or living rooms used to be the preferred way for women’s investment groups and clubs to meet. But now, because of the coronavirus pandemic, organizers are holding virtual meetings instead.The Austin group stands out, in part, because it has built a membership of over 2,000. Sara Glakas, an investment adviser and the founder of Black Barn Financial, said she helped start the group in 2011 because women were being underserved by financial advisers with a “significant blind spot.”Gathering together matters because the topic is stressful. “Much of the tone and approach of experts, along with the financial news you read, tends to cause anxiety for people,” Ms. Glakas, 40, said. “We seek to create simplicity, clarity and give people control.”One recurring topic of discussion is how avoiding riskier parts of the financial markets, such as growth stocks and the technology sector, puts women at a disadvantage because they miss the effects of compounding.“By focusing so much on the emergency fund and the mortgage paydown and the kids’ education, women are being steered into shorter-term, lower-return investments to the detriment of the longer-term, higher-return investments that can build great amounts of wealth,” Ms. Glakas said.Kamie Zaracki, 64, who recently retired as chief executive of BetterInvesting, a national organization with a network of clubs that educate people about investing in high-quality growth stocks, has been making retirement contributions since her 20s.“With every job since, I’ve participated in the 401(k) as soon as possible and immediately contributed the maximum amount,” she said.Ms. Zaracki is single, lives in the Detroit area and for the last decade has consulted with a male chartered financial analyst to try to grow her retirement portfolio of stocks, E.T.F.s and bonds into a $2 million nest egg. But she also learned to find stocks to help increase her portfolio returns from participating in Baker’s Dozen, a BetterInvesting club with mostly female members that meets monthly in Milford, Mich.Through February, Ms. Zaracki held a high percentage of equities (nearly 87 percent) in her retirement accounts, she said. Now, with the downturn, she and her adviser decided to sell some stocks so she could cover three years of living expenses.About half of the women in the Pimco survey said they were so strapped for time that they felt “more time-poor than financially poor” — and preferred to hire someone else to manage their money. But Ms. Zaracki said managing investments didn’t have to take a lot of time.Even with help, the hours she spends on it are “very empowering,” she said. “I have a clear picture of my finances and greater confidence in my financial decisions.”Investor confidence remains in short supply with the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc on the markets. Laura LaTourette, who runs Family Wealth Management Group in Dahlonega, Ga., has fielded lots of calls from worried clients, many of whom are in the L.G.B.T.Q. community and older than 50. She is also concerned about her wife’s and her own portfolios.Ms. LaTourette has run up against some of the same obstacles to money management that other women have — even though she is a financial planner.“I am now just starting to really prioritize my own retirement savings,” said Ms. LaTourette, 59, who manages her own Roth I.R.A. and 401(k) accounts. “After living through the last recession, getting my children through college and helping my siblings with financial trouble, I find myself behind on investable assets for retirement.”She said that she had come to appreciate how female clients valued “deep conversations” to learn about all facets of investing and the economy, and that she believed the industry needed to hire more women.That’s the approach that Sallie Krawcheck, a co-founder and the chief executive of Ellevest, took.“We have built Ellevest completely around serving women,” she said. Most of its clients — Ms. Krawcheck said they numbered in the “multiple tens of thousands” — are women, as are more than 70 percent of the company’s employees. This strategy “helped us see both the problem and solution from a vantage point that others have not,” Ms. Krawcheck said.Ellevest’s platform has what Ms. Krawcheck called a “gender aware” algorithm that accounts for how women live six to eight years longer than men, often have lower earnings (with salaries that peak earlier) and take more career breaks. She said it was designed to “take on the least amount of risk necessary for women to reach their investment goals.”The firm’s research also underscores the need for community engagement. “If you bring up the topic of money to a woman,” Ms. Krawcheck said, “the words that come to mind for her are ‘isolation,’ ‘uncertainty’ and ‘loneliness.’”Those are exactly the feelings the Austin group is trying to help women avoid.“Frankly, I believe we have yet to see what women investors can achieve as a force,” Ms. Glakas said. “We’re very serious about creating a space for that change.” Read the full article

[bellyofkorea]

Honey

Honey is my cousins dog. She is a pitbull/corgi mix that was adopted by my cousin while she was living in the US - I think her origins lie in Texas. My cousin then brought Honey to Boston and then eventually all the way to Seoul. When my cousin moved back to Texas at the beginning of this year, I think she decided to not bring Honey because it would probably be too much for such an old lady.

Honey has been in the care of my aunt, my uncle, and Halmoni for the past several months. And sadly, I don’t think from lack of caring, Honey’s health has deteriorated. I think they are all just too busy to deal with a ailing elderly dog. They are already worrying about Halmonis health, on top of both having busy jobs and four grandkids. 

Honey has several issues right now. She is overweight and does not get walked. This apartment has the benefit of having roof access and they have just been letting Honey out by letting her out onto the roof and picking up/cleaning up after her. 

She has mange. Or at least this is my theory. Her fur is patchy or completely gone in certain spots and she has all these weird open sores on her body. She also has some pretty bad looking skin tags - which aren’t necessarily related, but are a sign of a bad immune system. 

She has a bad ear infection. This is probably related to the mange and bad immune system. She’s an old lady, so she’s going to be more susceptible to infection, but I’m sure either the mange started and she got the ear infection OR, my other theory, the ear infection and started and got so bad (it’s bad) that it has effected her coat, giving her a bacterial or yeast infection on the rest of her body. 

She might have failing kidneys or a UTI. I can’t tell, but she does pee a ton. Fortunately the pee is not red/bloody. She pees a ton and she pees constantly when she is outside. Further, she has issues with peeing in the apartment or not making it all the way to the outside rooftop before peeing. She acts very guilty if she does this - so she knows it’s bad, but she can’t help it. Part of me thinks this could be because people forget to let her out, but she’s been doing it even with me taking her out 4 times a day. 

Finally, she has some bad eye problems - this however had always been the case and I guess she had eye problems before she was even adopted. 

The sad part is that I can only treat some aspects of this and hope that she gets better. My prognosis is grim. On top of all these outward signs of bad health, I have an inkling that she has something internal that is slowly killing her. I think that the skin condition, while worsened by not being carefully monitored and addressed, is only just a sign of a very poorly working immune system. 

I’m no vet and I could be very wrong about this, but all my life I have had the blessing (or curse) of intuition that something isn’t right when it comes to animals. I really want to do as much as I can to help Honey, but I am limited not just by the fact that I can’t really communicate whats happening to her to my relatives, but also by the fact that I’m only here with her for two months. I have suggested that she should go to the vet to them, which I think worries the heck out of them, but they also are so busy that I don’t know if they can even stress about thinking about taking Honey to the vet. 

So, for now, I am treating what I can on Honey. I have started with daily baths, 2 walks a day, and cleaning out and wiping her ears and her whole body with a mixture of apple cider vinegar and water (a homeopathic remedy for both ear infections and mange). I’m also putting on antibiotic cream onto any open sores. 

Unsurprisingly, I’m already seeing improvements. Her fur is already less patchy and her ear is looking significantly less red. All her open wounds are closed and healing. I think I’ll be happy if I can at least get her looking fairly normal before I leave and give her some level of creature comfort in her twilight years. 

Honey is a terrible beggar, too.

[la-liga-zine]

Memory and Film: A Conversation with DIY Filmmaker Caitlin Diaz

At 28, Caitlin Diaz has had the privilege of working with world-renowned clients as a colorist, archivist, and filmmaker, amassing an impressive body of work that shows her nuance and passion for working behind the camera. She currently lives in Los Angeles, working freelance on various projects from her home studio, but her heart is and has always been rooted in the Rio Grande Valley region of Texas. As her "source of inspiration and security," Caitlin recently undertook her most arduous and personal project yet: an independently produced and financed feature film based in RGV about women and transformation. In our interview below, we trace Caitlin's deep connection to her hometown, her experience as a woman of color in the film industry, and the power of DIY culture.

Mia Rodriguez: You’ve said that your work “explores the state that is commonly and absurdly called existence.” What does it mean to you to exist in the modern world as a Latinx?

Caitlin Diaz: Existing in this world is very layered and I try to retain as many experiences as possible, good and bad. Being a Mexican-American woman from South Texas plays a huge role in my life and how I perceive the world around me. Living authentically is always my goal--being resilient, sincere and compassionate all at the same time. It’s a difficult balance, especially as a woman of color, but (in my opinion) necessary to strive towards.

MR: As a colorist and archivist, a lot of your work is intrinsically nostalgic. What are your earliest memories of film, color, and capturing memories? Was it a hobby that developed into something more?

CD: Nostalgia definitely is the spark when conceptualizing a new project. All of my films pull from the past to help me understand the person I am at the current moment. We’re constantly in flux. Memories help bind the chaotic nature of my evolution as something constant, something I can always go back to. I’ve always been interested in knowing more about my family history, cherishing the stories that my grandparents, parents, tías and tíos share with me. So I hoard old family photos, record the stories and digitize any and all home movies. I’m obsessed with the past: the idea of what was once there and now isn’t, how things (and people) have changed. It continues to fascinate me.

MR: Your work ethic and aesthetic eye have allowed you to work with big clients such as The Estate of Ana Mendieta, Calvin Klein, Swarovski and artists like Nick Jonas, Enrique Iglesias and Beyoncé. What was it like the first time you saw your work shared with the world in such a big way? What did working with these brands and artists teach you?

CD: My work ethic is a direct correlation to me being a woman of color (morena) in an industry dominated by white males. I’ve always felt that I had to prove I belonged, that I was capable. I'm not afraid to ask for help if I need it. I think it's important to know and accept your limits. Many times I've been thrown into a project with no prior knowledge, so I must ask questions in order to do my job properly. I love learning and hate when things get too routine.

When I began working in LA, I was exposed to a lot of new workflows and machinery. I learned so much from my colleagues and developed really great relationships and valuable skills. My favorite job quickly became film restorations—every step in the process requires an incredible amount of attention to detail. It’s a match made in heaven because I’ve always been attracted to methodical processes. The most rewarding aspect of working on a digital restoration like the Estate of Ana Mendieta or Belladonna of Sadness is knowing that you’re a part of something larger: preserving the material for future generations to enjoy. 

All these projects have taught me to approach my work with a more exacting eye. Currently, I work out of my home studio as a freelance film colorist and editor, so organization is always my top priority. I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned from working on big projects is to not allow stress or frustration to take over. Sometimes when things go awry (hard drives failing) or you’re up against a tight deadline, it’s easy to get caught up the chaos. But when you step back and take a look at the issue from afar, you realize the pettiness of worrying and you’re usually able to find a way to solve the problem.

MR: Recently, you’ve entered into the post production stage of your first feature film, Puras Ilusiones, which takes place in a fictional town in South Texas, part of the Rio Grande Valley where you grew up. A favorite critical theorist of mine is Nancy Duncan who co-wrote a book called “Landscapes of Privilege,” in which she describes the connection between identity and place, landscape and memory. She says that “landscapes are integral to our identities,” describes them as “emblems of our individual and collective memories,” and that “threats to the landscape are often interpreted as threats to identity.” What are your thoughts on the landscape of the Rio Grande Valley? What does it represent to you? What memories of yours and your family dwell there?

CD: The RGV will represent my core being para siempre. The geographical and social landscape of the area is what drives me to explore this connection. I love the history of the area, the people who inhabit it, the culture and its close proximity to/relationship with Mexico. At the moment, 45’s border wall and industrialization of the untouched coastline (LNG export terminals) are two major concerns residents of the area have. The Valley is constantly referred to as one of the poorest regions of the US and, being so close to the Mexico border, one of the most dangerous areas of the country. There is more to the Valley than the negativities the press focus on. Memories from my childhood are pleasant: riding bikes on unpaved streets, day trips to Camargo or Migel Aleman with the family, pumpkin empanadas, raspas and breakfast tacos, thrifting at the Ropa Usada (10 cents a pound!), palm trees, mesquite trees and chachalacas…I can go on forever. It’s a beautiful area that is constantly overlooked and under-represented in the media. The Rio Grande Valley holds a lot of weight in the conversation about race, immigration, gender inequality, income inequality, reproductive rights, LGBTQ issues and countless others. It’s important we share these experiences and stories with the rest of the world.

MR: Following that train of thought, how much of Puras Ilusiones is based on your own experience growing up there?  What makes you want to revisit and immortalize RGV now as an adult?

CD: Ironically, it was after I moved away from Texas when my interest in the RGV began to influence my work. I wrote Puras Ilusiones on and off for about 5 years. I pulled inspiration from memories I had and stories I invented based off old family photos. Both my grandmothers have wonderful stories from their lives. Nostalgia is always fun to explore. The land became a character and I kept daydreaming of desert ranches. I knew that whenever I decided to make the film, it would be shot on my family’s ranch in the RGV. So memories and historical events became the constant musings during the writing process. Last year in the midst of #NoDAPL, I read an article about a similar situation happening in the RGV. At the same time, it was the 50th anniversary of the 1966 Melon Strike—an event that sparked the United Farmworkers movement in Texas. The film evolved into a type of research project and a way for me to capture the beauty of the area.

MR: The plot of Puras Ilusiones is about female self-discovery, but it also tells the story of the grassroots campaigns, history of the land, and social justice activism you've mentioned is happening in the RGV region. Art and activism continue to be at the forefront of a lot of social change we see and have been seeing for decades. Personally, how do you see art and activism influencing each other, working together, to fight for justice? Do you believe art can be activism?

CD: Art and activism most definitely go hand in hand. The night of the 2016 election, I was extremely emotional, scared for what the future held and saddened by the possibility that I would never be able to make this film. The next day [my friend] Lauren texted me, ‘Girl, we HAVE to make your movie now.’ And that’s what lit a fire under my ass to get this production rolling. I realized this was my way of resisting the new administration, of addressing issues regarding gender, race and class through cinema, of disproving stereotypes. It gave me purpose and helped me harness pent-up energy. Sometimes we can feel overwhelmed by the news and social media, feeling like we always must have an opinion on every issue. A big part of activism is listening to others. Making this film was my way of meeting other people in the RGV who were resisting and hearing their stories. It was a way for me to give back to the community that shaped me into who I am today. The film became a tangible way for me to fight back. 

MR: As your first personal, narrative film project, what has it been like directing and guiding your cast? Did you work organically off of their energy and chemistry or was there a set script and storyline? What have you learned from working with veterans and newcomers alike?

CD: I’m used to making films in a pretty isolated way. My previous work is all paint on film, so my process was working alone in my studio painting, splicing, editing, coloring. I love documenting objects/places in life and cutting them together to express a feeling or memory. Puras Ilusiones was a huge departure from how I had previously made films, so I approached it as a large-scale collaboration. I worked with trained actors and non-actors resulting in a range of experiences. Individual activists and organizations such as Save RGV From LNG and La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) also joined the cast and crew, which allowed us to showcase the work they are currently doing in the Valley. Resistance in the area is strong and it deserves to be talked about.

My crew and cast were completely invested in the project and it really showed. It was a wonderful experience to work with people who share a passion for what they're doing. There isn’t much dialogue in the script, so I encouraged my actors to improvise and inject a lot of their own experiences into the characters. There were only 10 of us on crew and we had a ton of gear to lug around. It was a grassroots, DIY production which meant we were constantly problem-solving. But it made the feeling of accomplishment stronger at the end of each day. We were also shooting all 16mm, which was a first for a lot of my crew. Our budget was extremely tight so we had to wait until we wrapped production to send all the film to be processed and transferred. My DP Lauren Pruitt and I were on edge for weeks until the footage arrived in LA. It looked so beautiful, I think we both cried a little out of relief.  The biggest takeaway from production was the importance of enthusiasm on set. It was important to me that anyone involved was having a good time and never bored. It was wonderful to have such a lively crew and cast, especially since we had to work in the harsh Texas heat during many outdoor shoots. It also reaffirmed my belief in DIY filmmaking--not needing permission from anyone to make a film, not letting it become an elite art form. It can be done, but it’s a huge undertaking to see it through.

We've seen in recent years a huge resurgence of DIY ethics in film, print, art, and online media; people really going back to their roots and creating things locally as self-taught artists. You're a huge believer of DIY culture and your volume and quality of work are proof that sometimes, you really do have to do it yourself. Can you tell us more about how DIY culture drives or inspires you? As an artist of color, have you found freedom through DIY?

DIY culture became a very important part of my life in my formative years. Throughout high school, my friends and I would put on shows, mostly bands we had formed, in various places around the Valley like the local VFW or after-hours in the parking lot of a hardware store. Similarly, my sister and I would spend our weekends thrifting across the Valley, bring our haul home, cut it up and sew it into something new. We created the clothes we wanted to wear, the music we wanted to hear, the art we wanted to experience. There was a lot of that happening in the Valley while I was growing up; it came as a very natural way for us to express ourselves on our own terms. 

The passion to create without hesitation stayed with me as a moved further and further away from the Valley. It’s pushed me to experiment with film. DIY culture forces you to stop making excuses. And in filmmaking, there can be hundreds of reasons why you feel you can’t make a film. DIY allows you to have control of what you are creating and to realize that there is never a wrong way to execute your ideas. Punk is the essence of DIY—complete, unapologetic self-expression. DIY filmmaking gives you the freedom to share your point of view because you don’t have to answer to anyone else. 

MR: When can we expect to see the finished work and where would you like to premiere it?

CD: Puras Ilusiones is currently in post, which is probably my favorite part of the process. I’m editing whenever I have downtime between freelance work. My goal is to have it completed by late Summer/Fall 2018. I’d like to do a traveling screening throughout the RGV, specifically in the towns we filmed. I’m excited to share the film with the people who helped me make it and with the community that inspired it. Eventually, I'd love to have a 35mm film print made and screen the film on a larger scale so others can experience the beauty of the Rio Grande Valley.

MR: What does the future hold for you? Are there any other projects you’re currently working on or plan to start once Puras Ilusiones is released?

CD: My current goal is working with more female & female-identifying filmmakers, especially those who are trying to make their own stories come to life. It’s necessary to surround myself with others who are creating. I’m enjoying the editing process and taking my time with it because I hate rushing or forcing creativity. When I have ideas, I write them down. It’s hard to commit to a new project with the current one being in such a crucial state. But I definitely look forward to finishing the film and starting work on the next one.

 Puras Ilusiones is a self-funded, independent film. Caitlin is editing & coloring the film herself but will be working with others on music, sound design, visual effects, subtitling and additional film transfers. If you'd like to help with the costs of post, please donate to the film's PayPal here

To see more of Caitlin's work, visit her website