#i guess this albums made the rounds already

[joanofarc]

cut from toxic cloth, @ (2021).

i’m cut from toxic cloth and you’re probably cut from it, too you’re an empty reflection of the hands that made you

[henrysglock]

Local Man Uses The Cyclical 27-Year Torment Nexus To Try And Change His Fate [EPIC FAIL COMPILATION]

You probably guessed that this is the time-travel post I've been slaving over. You'd be right. This is the newest and most formal iteration of my long-standing time loop theory (I have drafted flowcharts back from February that actually predicted a dimension/time fuckery event in 1943 in relation to Brenner, which was made canon by TFS). So...Let's just dive right in. Note: I'm planning to keep calling TFS Henry "Henry" here just for simplicity's sake.

Now, fair warning: There are a few big "bear with me"s in this post. I promise they make sense, I just need you to hear me out.

It all started with Henry's self-proclaimed superhero name: The Stardust Spider.

Some of you may have seen my original post about The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars (here).

Before anyone says "Oh, but that album didn't exist yet", a reference in 1959 about a Bowie album that wouldn't be recorded until November of 1971 is in keeping with TFS's habit of directly referencing things from the '70s that "don't exist yet".

However, all that aside, there's a specific piece I want to return to, because it bugs the living daylights out of me.

There was a cut song that was meant to go on the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars titled "Shadow Man":

For obvious reasons in relation to Henry in The First Shadow, this song already stuck out.

Specifically, though, these few stanzas hit me weirdly:

You should call and see who answers For he promises to come running Guided by the truth For the Shadow Man is really You Look in his eyes and see your reflection Look to the stars and see his eyes He'll show you tomorrow, he'll show you the sorrows Of what you did today You can call him foe, you can call him friend You should call and see who answers (see who answers) For he knows your eyes are drawn to the road ahead And the Shadow man is waiting 'round the bend ('round the bend) Shadow man is waiting up ahead

The Shadow Man is you from the future. He's waiting up ahead to show you the the truth/the consequences of your actions.

Considering that the TFS version of Young "Henry" has a direct connection to both the Shadow and Dimension X from a young age, and he also experiences what seem to be Vecna-type visions, this becomes particularly interesting to me...Especially seeing as said fates are not only possible for future "Henry", but also canon for future "Henry". (See: Vecna guy vs Mindflayer guy)

So, when I see an almost comical number of lines in TFS relating to rewriting known, undesirable endings (here are a few of my favorites):

And when we revisit some of the on-film classics:

I start to think it's time we revisit the concept of time-travel and trying to change your own fate.

It's always hard to know where to start with posts like these, so I'm going to kick things off with the technical aspect: The Cycle.

Something I've talked about in the past year, mostly on Discord, is this concept of a time loop. Not just any old time loop, though. A 27 year cycle, specifically.

Not 20, not 30...

Now, we all know the TFS timeline is messy as hell and doesn't actually align with anything that's possible in filmed canon...or within its own time span, even.

For example, the attack on Mr. Newby happens both some point after October 1st, 1959 and before November 20th, 1959...but the papers for the incident report it on March 20th, 1958:

The timeline we're given also largely fabricated, as I pointed out in relation to the newspapers with dates that don't actually exist.

However, much like NINA, the sequence itself being fake doesn't mean the events didn't happen. It's just not happening in the time frame we're told it's happening in:

It's a set of real events, just portrayed on a different time scale.

So, with all that in mind, I want to lay out a timeline, starting from Season 4 and moving backwards in time:

— Vecna opens the rifts, and El opens a gate to Dimension X in NINA, both in 1986. The March 1959 Creel Murders occur exactly 27 years before the Rifts and NINA's Dimension X gate open in 1986...at which point the Mindflayer is shown to be active.

— Mothergate opens through to Dimension X at some point between November 1983 and October 1984, this being somewhere between 16-28 months prior the Rifts opening. The paper about the attack on Mr. Newby, dated March 20th, 1958, is released exactly 610 days, or 20 months, prior to the Creel murders on November 20th, 1959. It's not necessarily the exact dates that are important here (again, these dates are relatively unreliable), but the gap between the dates.

When put in accordance with filmed dates (i.e. setting the release of this paper exactly 610 days prior to March 22nd of 1959), the paper for the attack on Mr. Newby would have been released on July 20th, 1957. This would be in line with Edward Creel's move to Hawkins in the spring of 1957...while also occurring 27 years before July of 1984, at which point Mothergate is open, and the Mindflayer is active.

This July date is especially funny to me considering we get "throwaway" lines like this...with shots in filmed canon from summertime:

Top: Joyce and Jim beginning their investigation into the attic attack. Hopper Sr. is questioning why Joyce and Jim are investigating, rather than attending school. Bottom: Alice and Henry with the rabbit death scenes in filmed canon, the setting showing full foliage and both children in summer clothing. "Is it summer break?" I don't know. You tell me, Chief.

Per TFS, Henry went missing in a cave system near his home town of Rachel, Nevada (hold that thought) at some point in the year prior to the attack on Mr. Newby. We've been told that Dimension X was involved in this event in Nevada, something happened there that left "Henry" altered physically. He was also flayed at some point around this time.

This all coincides with Henry's dramatic mood shift from a "normal and good" boy to one suffering from Mindflayer-induced psychosis. This change happened in tandem with the Nevada incident, dating back 10 months prior to the attack on Mr. Newby:

If we set Henry's initial disappearance in line with filmed canon like before, it becomes September of 1956, which is just over 27 years before Will's disappearance in November of 1983, at which point we know at least one gate is open.

We also have 1952, at which point TFS Henry would be 7 per his age as a 14 year old/freshman in play canon. This exists in a 27 year interval against 1979, when El opens the original gate that sends One to Dimension X, where he subsequently shapes the Shadow into the Mindflayer.

Here comes the first "hear me out".

My questions are:

Since Henry/Vecna/The Mindflayer/etc. in general don't show any capability for opening gates before 1986, then how the hell is the Mindflayer possessing anyone in 1959?

How did "Henry" get involved with Dimension X in Nevada in the 1950s?

Unless, by some chance:

Dimension X exists all the time simultaneously (i.e. it's a space outside time)

The gates exist simultaneously across time and space in the Right Side Up in 27 year intervals. By which I mean: A gate that opens in, say, 1983 would exist simultaneously in 1956, so on an so forth.

There's the disappearance of Captain Brenner and the USS Eldridge in 1943, which would, interestingly enough, align with 1970, the supposed year of El's conception.

Then, 1952. Now, I'm not sure what's special about 1952, when TFS "Henry" was 7, because they don't actually say what happened to make that year important! They make a point to show it to us, though, meaning something happened...we just don't know what. All I can say is that 1952 does exist in a 27 year interval against El's 1979 gate. Hold that thought.

Those addressed, let's fast-forward 4 years: 1956/1983.

Now, to be fair, there is some uncertainty in my mind about whether this specific gate incident stems from Brenner's involvement with Project Rainbow in Nevada pre-1957*, or if it stems from Mothergate in 1983, or if they created some kind of wormhole between the two locations 27 years apart...but that's a concept I need to explore more thoroughly in a another post.

In short, though: Did a singular El open a singular Mothergate? Did El open mothergate? Did Mothergate actually open on November 6th, 1983...or are we just supposed to assume it opened the same night Will went missing/the demogorgon came through? We're never given a concrete date for when Mothergate actually opened.

* In TFS, Brenner claims he's dedicated his life post-1943 to Project Rainbow with the goal of finding Dimension X, and that he's doing so in pursuit of knowledge regarding the circumstances of his father's death in connection with the Philadelphia Experiment. The USS Eldridge, Brenner Sr.'s ship, disappeared into Dimension X briefly on October 28th, 1943. "Brenner Sr." was the sole survivor. "He" returned to the Right Side Up with a completely unique blood type, supposedly altered by his travels into Dimension X. This is what ultimately led to him succumbing to his injuries, due to his body rejecting all forms of blood transfusion. Brenner Jr. tells us that about 10 months prior to Henry's first stay in HNL, a scientist from Project Rainbow escaped Brenner's lab carrying a container of a dangerous material, and ended up near the same Nevada cave system Henry disappeared into. We don't know how or when this material was collected, or what it was, but we know they found Henry's Captain Midnight spyglass next to a body (identity unspecified) with no trace of that dangerous material. We get no further detail about the Nevada Disappearance.

Anyway, someone opens a gate in the fall of 1956 and/or 1983 (my money's on it being directly linked to an El in 1983 either way). No matter who did it, though, someone opened a gate at both time points, showing us this 27 year link between the 2 dates, 2 key locations.

"Henry" goes missing in Nevada in 1956, and ends up involved with Dimension X...Which aligns with the choice of song surrounding this version of the Creel family while they move into their new home:

Coincidentally, 27 years in the future, so does Will, in Indiana. Their experiences are linked across those two spaces via that 27 year period.

We know that regardless of the gate in Nevada...Mothergate, at least, stays open until from fall 1956/1983 to fall 1957/1984. That covers exact time frame that the adjusted dates for both Henry's accident with the boy in Nevada and his accident with Mr. Newby fall in (as well as Will's time between his disappearance and his flaying).

The closer we get to Will's flaying in 1984, and the closer the Mindflayer gets to crossing through Mothergate, the more TFS Henry sounds like One (post-1979) while he's possessed in 1957, the more strangely he behaves in general (almost as though the Mindflayer is more enmeshed in his everyday life/closer to the surface), and the stronger the possession attempts seem to become overall. He begins giving nightmare visions to other people, namely tormenting Virginia with spiders and her past. He has his final and most powerful "Vecna" vision on the night of the attack on Mr. Newby.

Any kind of reciprocal gate irt Mothergate in the '50s would have gone unnoticed, since the papers in TFS indicate that HNL wasn't established until Brenner showed up to take Henry in.

Mothergate closes briefly, only for a gate to open in July 1958/1985 in the underground location of the future Starcourt Mall. This, in 1958, is during our unaccounted-for 20 months between the attack on Mr. Newby and the Creel murders. (Something rattles about this and the scene where Henry nearly makes full contact with the Mindflayer, when he has a handful of duplicate lines re: his 4.07 monologue self, but I don't have sufficient evidence to make that claim with any certainty.)

That gate closes, until Vecna opens gates in Hawkins in March of 1986, and El opens a Dimension X gate briefly and simultaneously in both Hawkins/Nevada in September of 1979 (September of 1952) and Hawkins/Nevada in March of 1986 (March of 1959) during NINA, concurrently...at least one of which may have gone unnoticed, since the Rainbow Room and the surrounding labs seems to have been abandoned entirely after 1979, and HNL as a whole has once again been abandoned after the events of 1984 ("unnoticed" and "abandoned", I say as if the building isn't still being surveilled by Brenner/Owens et. al...I just mean that the building isn't in use by the government at that point in time.)

We're shown the Shadow activating all the way in Russia due to one or multiple of these events. 27 years earlier, in March of 1959, the Mindflayer once again becomes active, per TFS's adjusted dates. Chaos ensues.

At this point, "Henry" starts swapping between sounding like his young self and sounding like his 4.07 Monologuing Adult self again, doing that kind of "I've seen the future" foreshadowing talk with Joyce that his visions did with him:

Here, he also sounds distinctly like ST3 flayed Billy, specifically in the way of the scene with El in the cabin when "Billy" outlines the Mindflayer's plans for her, her friends, and all of Hawkins while crying.

The rest is, well...history. Whatever fuckery went on, it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference. After all, TFS is a "canon event", meaning it had to end the way it did.

Remember those thoughts I asked you to hold?

TFS being a "canon event" means it had to end with Henry in the lab alongside baby El...thus completing our loop, which starts again with the events of 1979/1952. A 27 year loop. TFS may be indicative of a time loop.

Hence:

Out of place dates from the 1970s start to bleed into the 1950s: - A town like Rachel, Nevada, which wasn't established until 1978, now exists circa 1952-1959 after El opens a gate to Dimension X circa 1979 in Nevada circa 1986 via NINA, which exists...about 40-50 miles from Rachel.

- An album like Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (November, 1971) or a song like "Chuck E's In Love" (April, 1979) gets referenced circa 1957-1959. - An article about a "younger, more handsome" alien clone of Elvis appears in a 1959 Weekly Watcher paper about the Creel murders, despite Elvis having been 24 at the time...making this an article more likely to have appeared in the '70s or later, likely sometime around Elvis' death in 1977.

2. The Shadow is always depicted as the fully formed Mindflayer circa 1956-1959, despite the shaping event happening in the 4 years between 1979-1983:

3. Henry has Vecna-type visions, despite being the only vision-giver we know of circa 1957-1959.

4. 6 different guys later in the HNL massacre: 2 with the original baby El, 2 with teen El via NINA, and 2 in an as-of-yet unseen product of NINA's Loop (see: the final scene of TFS).

All this laid out, some questions remain:

Why do Henry's visions show him the genuine, terrifying reality of his future?

Why are these visions generally lacking in coercion?

Why are Vecna chime sounds heard before the major supernatural events that deal with visions, even though we never actually see the clock? (They're heard before Virginia in the attic, before the attack on Mr. Newby, before the Creel murders, and in the basement when Henry monologues at Joyce while viewing the corpses of his family.)

Why don't these chimes play when the Mindflayer alone is present, e.g. when no visions occur? (See: Henry contacting the Mindflayer in the lab)

And we don't really get an answer to any of these. Not an easily spotted outright answer, anyway.

But what's really fascinating, which I mentioned just a second ago and takes me back to the top of this post, back to the "Stardust Spider" and Shadow Man, is the fact that despite occurring concurrently with the possession attempts...none of these visions contain an ultimatum. There's no "If you don't obey me, I'll hurt someone you love", no "I'm showing you what's going to happen if you don't obey me", nothing of the sort.

The closest we get to coercion is the bathroom vision, when Henry fights off a possession attempt in the school bathroom and ends up in a vision regarding Patty. When "Patty" starts to talk to him about his future, about how Henry's going to kill her and so many others, Henry says "you're not Patty...what are you?" Then he gets into a physical brawl with her, which is surprisingly well matched. Vision Patty encourages him during that fight, saying things like "That's it!", "We want the same thing!", and "We can have her!"

Those seem like pretty straightforward "the Mindflayer's encouraging Henry to kill" encouragements, right?

Yeah, at first glance. However...lets read that back right quick, but with Moral Objectivity Goggles on this time. Henry openly, verbally identifies that Vision Patty is "not her, not Patty", but is, in fact, something else. He does this multiple times before he lunges at "not Patty", and he is subsequently encouraged by not-Patty...who tells him they want the same thing. That's not suspicious at all. The motives here are definitely crystal clear and totally aren't conflicting in any way.

There's the straightforward surface aspect, and then something else piggybacking on it, complicating it. Hold that thought.

Other than that instance, the negative parts of Henry's visions are all just...information. They're showing him what will come to pass...almost like they're motivating him to fight the Mindflayer. Hold onto that thought too, it buddies with the previous one.

Henry's freaking out about Prancer because he's getting close with Patty, and he's worried he'll hurt her?

His vision informs him that he's going to kill more, that he's going to hurt things, that he's going to kill Patty if he stays around her and/or gives into the Mindflayer's desires. And then it happens. All of it. He kills more animals. He hurts things and people, the pets and lab animals, Mr. Newby, and Inmate 58361 being prime examples. He gives in to the Mindflayer's desire to kill and kills Virginia. He does, by the extent of his perception, kill Patty in the accident.

The same goes for his vision in the attic. Henry's up in the attic using his powers to find someone/snoop on them, fearful of opening himself up for a possession attempt?

The vision version of Patty's mother catches Henry and tells him she "wants to tell him a secret" while his body is being puppeted to attack Mr. Newby. The next time the curtain rises to show us the inside of Henry's mind, he's seeing himself as Vecna, strung up on the tentacles and strangling people with them...just like the end of Season 4. Once again, he's seeing the future that will come to pass...should he fail to fight the Mindflayer off.

We can tell it's a vision, not what's physically happening in reality, because: a) Henry's watching himself in the attic from the stage below. b) It's got the messed up red lighting c) They show us reality just moments before, not a tentacle in sight and without Henry on the stage there observing:

d) The ending of the vision doesn't match with reality:

At the end of this vision, Henry passes out both in the void and IRL, while the vision version of Henry remains crouching. That is a different guy, entirely separate from IRL/Void Henry. There is at least one other person in the visions who is not a product of the vision itself.

Remember those thoughts from a bit ago that I asked you to hold?

Well. This also happens to be the sequence where we not only get Vision-Patty repeating Henry's own words from just after Prancer's death ("It's not real. It's not real. It's a nightmare") back to him, a phrase IRL Patty has never heard, but we also get:

Visions Patty telling Henry how to fight and evade the possession, as if she knows what she's doing ("It's your dream, remember? Anything is possible").

Vision Patty telling Henry she loves him as the last-ditch effort when his "good dream" memory of the real Patty fails to save him from the possession.

These are both things IRL Patty wouldn't know or think to say, since IRL Patty fully believed that Henry attacked her of his own volition out of malice, and she needed to be shown a drawing of the Mindflayer by Mr. Newby in order to abandon that belief.

IRL Patty's behavior is not the behavior of someone who a) knows the ins and outs of Henry's situation with the Mindflayer, and b) coached him through overcoming a possession attempt a little while earlier. It's just not.

Just like before, we're seeing contradictions and complications between vision-selves and IRL selves, along with a sense of piggybacking within possession attempts, wherein the vision serves as motivation for Henry to fight harder in resistance to the Mindflayer...while the Mindflayer is possessing him.

It's starting to become my favorite thing in the world: A pattern of behavior.

In summary:

Henry's are visions are visions of his future, and they're being shown to him by someone.

They are separate from, but piggybacking on, the Mindflayer's possession attempts.

The purpose of the visions isn't solely to torment Henry or coerce him into doing the Mindflayer's bidding. In fact, the content of the visions seems curated to make Henry fight harder in resistance to the Mindflayer.

So if, for example, Vision Patty ≠ IRL Patty, but she's acting against the Mindflayer's best interest/in support of Henry...then...

I think my answer to the questions of "who", "when", and "how" should be at least somewhat clear by this point:

Someone...from the future.

Specifically, someone from 1979-1986 who has access to the gates from the Dimension X side, someone with both vision-giving and time-related abilities who's directly connected to the Mindflayer/the Hive Mind, but who has a vested interest in countering the Mindflayer, saving Henry Creel, and trying to change the course of the future.

A traitor. A spy, if you will.

"A spy...from the future?"

[gestures at the Signs] Yeah, you heard me.

A spy from the future.

So, on that note: The point in this section wherein I ask you to hear me out.

I get the feeling TFS Henry is being told and/or shown what will come to pass in the future by himself...the Mindflayer.

And you're probably going "How do you figure that one, James? Isn't the Mindflayer a villainous force?"

I mean, yeah. Of course it is. However...

There are clearly multiple forces at play within the Mindflayer (hive mind!), and TFS shows us that Henry Creel wouldn't choose to be a villain.

Thus I think the visions in TFS are situations where, as in the 4.07 rabbit scene, things look really damning on first view. They play on our empathy using small, visibly-frightened, helpless victims and shocking, violent circumstances to guide us into making the assumption that everything about the situation is inherently malicious.

We're shown this poor little guy, "Henry". He's 14 years old, he clocks in at 5'5", he's skittish/scared of (ha) his own shadow, and he's geeky to the nth degree about comic books (just LOOK at that Captain Midnight salute? What an cute little nerd). He's immediately lovable. He's also, we find out rather abruptly, plagued by horrific visions and murderous fits of possession.

The immediate response is to go "He's being psionically tortured by some sick, sadistic son of a bitch who hungers for nothing but blood and control", just like Nancy and the ST fandom collectively did with Young Henry's rabbit scene...only to be proven wrong about Henry's intentions via TFS.

I mean, does anyone (anyone who's able to read this post, anyway 🤭) look at TFS Henry, filmed Young Henry, or even Orderly Henry and go "Yeah. He totally wanted what he got, and if he had the chance, he definitely wouldn't try to save himself from that fate"?

No.

TFS Shows us that "Henry" was a terrified, traumatized boy who wanted it all to stop. He's kind, brave, and stronger than he seems. We're also shown that he's capable of overcoming the Mindflayer to issue warnings to people he cared about (i.e. telling people to run, or prophesying dangers he'd seen via the visions). He was trying to survive with next to no help while causing as little harm as possible. He was a good kid, and he certainly wasn't evil.

So, all that said...I think that, via the Shadow's hive-mind capabilities, Henry's "fronting", in a manner of speaking, in order to show this version of himself the future. Probably as a warning, probably as motivation to fight the Mindflayer, and all with a nice side-dish of "here's how you fight this thing off so that my current future doesn't become our future" before someone else tapes over the figurative laptop camera.

[coughs, drops this Brenner-Mindflayer collage on the table in front of you, and then scurries away]

With that said, I'd like to loop all the way back to the top of this post: The "Shadow Man" may be Henry from the future. He's waiting up ahead to show his younger self the true outcome of his choices.

We all know how TFS ends, though. Hence:

[EPIC FAIL COMPILATION]

This brings me to my final "bear with me" point: The matter of the strange double-agent vibes from the UD in every season.

I'm not sure if anyone else outside the unholycule has noticed this, but in every season there's at least one instance of the UD just...offering up information.

"It does?"

Yup! Let me explain.

On first glance, we look at things like Nancy's vision and even El's vision with Billy in the cabin, and we go "Oh, it's because [insert "the bad guy's cruel/he wants to scare her/his hubris will be his downfall/all serial killers want to be known for their crimes" etc here]"...but maybe that's not the case.

For example: Vecna told Nancy his backstory, and then he immediately went

"Oh hey, so not only am I revealing my identity (Which may help you find out more about me via lab records later on, things like...maybe a list of my abilities, or my weaknesses, like the fact that I have a nut allegry. Allegedly.), but I'm also gonna give you a sneak peek of my apocalypse plans. For free. As a treat. Don't use these to prepare or anything. I'm totally not giving you a head start".

Terrifying, yes. A taunt and a threat on surface view, yes...but also showing his hand. "I want you to tell Eleven everything you see" Why. Why would he want that. He may be confident in his plans, arrogant, even...but he's not that stupid.

I'm serious, though. Check it out in comparison to Henrys visions of the future. The pattern is patterning:

We can track that back to El's cabin scene with Billy, wherein he tells her she shouldn't have looked for him, warns her that they all can see her, and that they're going to be coming after her...and he cries about it. That's vision Billy. That's someone else who piggybacked into El's mind from Billy's mind. That's not real Billy, just like how Billy in Max's vision wasn't the real Billy. The person giving El that vision warns her. Why on earth would he tell her that they can see her, that they're coming for her? That's sensitive information! It would be smarter to let her think she's safe and use that false sense of security to catch her off guard.

In fact, this pattern patterns so well that I'd like to argue this: Henry's TFS visions, Nancy's vision, and El's vision are all the same type of behavior displayed in NINA's chess scene, just in different contexts.

Henry ("Henry") gives some kind of scary prophetic information ("He and the others are going to attempt to kill you", "I would very much like to show you where I am going", "You're going to kill me, aren't you?"), and then we're left to question if it's a scare tactic, manipulative misinformation, or helpful inside information.

It's not that the Mindflayer or Vecna can't hide things from people (see: "Somewhere he didn't want me to see")...like, say, the fact that the Mindflayer is now able to see El, or that Vecna's planning to open 4 gates with his 4 kills.

It's always this miraculous "Huh! Weird info-dropping behavior from the UD's side. Shouldn't look that gift-horse in the mouth though. It's probably just a writing oversight or a shoehorned exposé, so really there's no need to question it." situation where it's just...information that's offered up with no real explanation.

Some of my favorite examples:

...and it's all topped off with Max's line:

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time".

That is to say...You're telling me:

The first message from the Upside Down isn't any of the messages that are concretely Will's, but instead it's the one that's a repetitive Henry line...and it's conveyed in a distinctly not-Will style? A message that saves Joyce, something that's definitely not in the UD's best interest given her tenacity in finding her boy...but is definitely coming from the UD nonetheless?

Will, who fell total prey to the Mindflayer in less than 3 days, was not only able to figure out how to defeat the Mindflayer, but was also strong enough to convey it in Morse code? The Mindflayer, who is able to keep secrets (see below), just...let that information slip?

El, who acknowledges that the Mindflayer is more than able to hide things from her, is suddenly released into Billy's memories and allowed to find the source unimpeded?

The Mindflayer, as Billy (Remember: not actually Billy, because Billy can't give visions or invade minds), is telling El that because he's able to see her now, she shouldn't have looked for him? The Mindflayer, which was supposedly building the Fleshflayer to track El down and kill her? Suddenly he's telling her she shouldn't have done the thing that allowed him to find her more easily?

Vecna's giving up all the information about himself and his plans before he's even gotten the 4th gate open, despite him being so secretive about it up until that point?

Henry's visions in TFS are going to scare him into resisting the Mindflayer, making it less likely that he's going to upgrade to killing humans, i.e. the very thing the Mindflayer wants him to do?

None of that makes any damn sense...until we hit this last point:

Orderly Henry is known for giving inside information about "Papa" to El with no clear motive other than getting her to leave the lab.

Now, if you know my page then you know Em's been talking about double meanings in phrasing recently (see: this post about "who"s and "what"s).

So, with that in mind, I'd like you to chew on this:

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time." vs "He's been telling us His plan this whole time."

By which I mean: "He's been telling us some other man's plan this whole time."

[Mike voice] Superspy.

As a parting thought, I made it all into a nice, neat set of collages:

Not to mention this final, parting bit:

[nhl-stories]

I'll Call You Mine – Elias Pettersson

Summary: Elias is sick of being the single guy on the team so he asks his friend with benefits to pretend to be his girlfriend. Good thing pretending to be a girlfriend is her profession.

Author’s Note: Explicit sexual content below, sex work (the two aren’t one in the same)

Word Count: 9.6k

Album Series Masterlist

Break me down And I'll call you mine And I know I've been around

Geena feels a hand press between her legs, her body pushes against the friction by its own volition.

She doesn’t have time for this, she says as much in her grogginess.

“Too worn out for another round?”

“Whatever makes you feel better Casanova,” she removes the hand and throws it behind her.

It doesn’t completely deter him; he moves to kiss her bare shoulder.

“E, seriously I can’t smell like sex at work, and I have just enough time to sleep for 10 more minutes and shower.”

He lets out a heavy sigh and buries his face between her shoulder blades.

“Who gets an escort at 4 pm on a Tuesday?”

Elias always says escort like it’s any other job. Like he’s mentioning a waitress or accountant or something. It is like any other job, but it’s not how most people react.

“It’s my favorite client, once a week he has me hold his hand at an early dinner and wear a sundress.”

“Okay then come back tonight,” he glosses over the details without judgment.

It’s refreshing.

They’re just fucking; she never has to put up with any shit even if he gave her any. If she ever felt slighted in the least, she knows she could find at least ten other guys to put in her sex rotation.

But Elias is the most consistent partner she’s ever had and it would be hard to give up just because he was being a judgmental ass.

She’s spent years putting up with that kind of behavior, she has thick skin. But there’s something nice about not needing to shield herself, let her soft underbelly show.

“I have a second client afterward, that might run pretty late and don’t you fly out tomorrow?”

“No, we just have an optional morning skate tomorrow.”

“So, you’re going to skate? Optional isn’t really your thing,” she smirks even though he can’t see, she knows him so well.

Elias wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her into him, makes sure she can feel his arousal. Makes sure she knows what she’s giving up for some extra sleep and a shower.

She lets out an airy sigh that borders on moan. Instead of leaning into that desire she rolls over and out of the bed.

“I’m not humoring you on this,” Geena laughs so Elias knows she’s not actually angry, “but I don’t work tomorrow so I guess I can come back tonight.”

It doesn’t quite appease Elias, who grabs her arm and pulls her back into a kiss. It’s simple, no demands behind it, but it still makes Geena second guess leaving. She has just enough will power to pull away and go to the bathroom, not giving Elias a second glance.

She comes back out already dressed; a blue sundress that brushes her mid-thighs, her hair tied into a single braid hanging over her shoulder. It’s the picture of innocence, but it sets something on fire in Elias. He kind of understands now why the man wants her to dress like this.

Geena seems to notice the flash of lust in his eyes and blows him a kiss, worried what will happen if she gets too close, “don’t wait up.”

Elias waits up, not entirely on purpose. He’s playing video games with some friends in Sweden when he hears the apartment door open. He’d given her a key so she could come and go when they meet up late for booty calls, her words not his.

“You’re not streaming, are you?” He hears her whisper from the doorway.

“No, but I’ll be done in a minute.”

He continues to play and Geena comes and wraps her arms gently around his shoulders, careful to not jostle him.  She gives him a couple of soft kisses along his jaw and he feels something cold press against the back of his neck.

He turns to see the outfit change Geena made since he last saw her. The braid is replaced with a mane of wild waves and she’s wearing a virginal white dress that almost glows, even more so against the leather harness she’s wearing over it.

He mumbles something in Swedish before turning off the game and turning towards her.

“This is new,” he plays with the metal ring that sits between her clavicles.

She rolls her eyes, suddenly looking exhausted.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she runs her hands over his shoulders until they link together behind him, “but I could use some help taking it off.”

“I think I could lend a hand.”

Elias stands up and kisses her, she tastes like gin; he wraps his fingers under the straps to pull her closer.

She’s on her tip toes to reach his lips, leaving her unbalanced or maybe that’s the feverish pace of the kisses.  

“Wall… bed… flat surface,” Geena breaths out between kisses.

Elias smirks against her lips and pushes her towards the nearest wall slotting his knee between her legs.

“I’m glad you came back,” he bunches up her skirt and rubs her through her lacy underwear, a patch of wetness already forming, “I guess you are, too.”

“Just do something,” she bucks against his hand.

He moves to kiss down her neck, but doesn’t make any forward progress with his fingers. If anything, his touch becomes lighter, only ghosting over Geena even as he moves her underwear down her legs.

The frustrated groan Geena makes has his cock twitching.

She pushes him away with some force, enough to give her space to kick of her panties and pull Elias back by his waistband. His thigh is pressed back against her and she moves rhythmically against him, desperate for friction.  Her hand reaching in his shorts and gripping his cock, stroking it to full attention with expert quickness.

“Fuck G,” he groans and pulls her back into a kiss, desperate to find some leverage.

Her hips circle more erratically, like she’s close to finding her climax just rubbing against his leg like an animal. As hot as that is, Elias wants more.

He moves his hands down her body, over her ass and to the back of her thighs, lifting her further up the wall and off her feet.

She gasps, half in displeasure at the loss of contact when she’s so close to falling over the edge and half in excited anticipation.

Geena helps line him up while he holds her against the wall; she doesn’t have time to waste, knowing she won’t last long.

Elias shows his control and strength as he slowly lowers her down his length. It’s too much, but it’s perfect. They feel every centimeter on the way down, until he bottoms out.

He looks up and sees her pupils blown out looking back down at him. Geena opens her mouth like she has something to say, but a strangled sound comes out instead.

She leans down to kiss him, mouth hot and tongue clashing against his. She grips his shoulders and pushes herself up, aching for Elias to move. He gets the hint and jackhammers his hips up towards her.

He keeps up the brutal and unrelenting pace, he can’t keep his lips working at the same time and leans his head forward on her chest. Geena digs her nails into the back of his neck, digging crescents so deep they might draw blood.

He bites into one of the leather straps of her harness, his movements becoming more irregular, wilder.

“Babe, I’m close, just keep going.”

Geena leans back into the wall, changing the angle just enough.  Everything feels hotter and tighter, and Elias bites harder into the leather as he feels her milk his orgasm out of him.

Still, he doesn’t slow his pace even as it becomes almost too much, too overstimulating. He thrusts until Geena lets out a whimper and goes nearly limp in his arms. Elias suddenly aware of her weight and the burning in his arms and thighs.

He slides her down the wall until her feet touch the ground again. Her legs wobbles and he has to hook his fingers under the straps to help hold her up.

Elias pulls her along to his bedroom, sitting her down in her post-orgasm haze. He gently undoes the straps of the harness and slides it off her body. He moves to her dress, pulling the garment over her head. She’s pliant and dazed, but gives him a soft smile before she scoots up the bed.

He goes to the bathroom and gets a washcloth and runs it under warm water. He gently washes the mess between her thighs, where her juices and his come are leaking out of her, running down her thighs.

“Sorry, I should have showered,” she says sleepily, giving his bicep a gentle squeeze.

He doesn’t respond, just removes his own clothes that never came off and joins her in the bed. He gently kisses below her breasts, her sternum, her shoulders where deep red marks from the too-tight straps of the harness scream out red and raw.

Elias wants to say something, ask her questions but it’s not his place to ask. He doesn’t fully understand the intricacies of her job, but they’re just fucking and she doesn’t owe him any answers or explanations.

He kisses her shoulders once more and then her lips, hoping his actions speak a little bit of what he really wants to say.  She cups his face like she understands and curls into his side before closing her eyes.

His fingers rub gently over the indentations around her back until sleep takes him too.

\\\

Geena is cooking eggs when he comes back. Elias has never hated his closet full of baggy clothes more than right now; Geena is swimming in one of his shirts making her look like she’s more of a blob than a tantalizing, half-naked woman.

“I thought you going to be ready and waiting for me in bed?”

“I got hungry,” she plates her food before she turns around, “definitely needed to refuel if there was a repeat performance.”

She hops up onto the counter and Elias hates his baggy shirt a little less when it rides up her thighs.

“Before we get back to it…” Elias places a hand on her thigh, “there’s this team event…” he doesn’t know why he’s so nervous.

“Like right now? You could have just texted if you needed to do something.”

“No, there’s this get-together this weekend and I wanted to know if you would… escort me?”

“Escort you…?”

“I’m sick of going alone to these things and wives trying to find me dates while everyone else has significant others.”

“I thought Quinn was single cause he broke up with that girl with the stripper name?”

Elias laughs, ignoring the giddiness he feels when Geena remembers even the most mundane things he brings up between their benefits.

“Lux?”

“Yeah, where was that name when I was a stripper? It’s perfect, you can go with Luxxx with three Xs or Lux Luxury; she’s sitting on a gold mine.”

“Yeah, well Quinn has a new girlfriend.”

“Wow, good for Huggy,” she grins to herself before going back to her food.

“So, what do you think?” Elias tries to get back on subject but is a little embarrassed to say the words again.

“You want me to be your date to get people off your back because you’re fine with having casual sex and don’t need a real relationship, but clearly saying that isn’t working?”

“More or less yeah.”

“I mean I am a professional dater…” she has a devious little grin, knowing she’s making him squirm a bit.

“A big part of why I’m asking you and not one of my other hookups,” he smirks like he actually has a list of other hookups.

She sets aside her now empty plate and runs her nails over his scalp and the buzzcut she’s grown to love.

She lets out a heavy sigh, “I don’t know E, we’re having sex.”

“Not at this exact moment,” he can’t help himself in the moment, being in her proximity brings it out of him.

She rolls her eyes but can’t stop the smile, “I don’t have sex with clients so it would be kind of weird and wrong to make you sign a contract or something.”

“I’m not asking for this to be a big official thing.”

“Elias, you’re thinking this is just a one and done thing, but if you want these people off your back I can’t just show up once and then fuck off.”

She cups his face, wants to make herself crystal clear.

“It means I will have to show up a few times, which makes this a time commitment, and some of those times will be during my prime working hours, which means I’ll be doing my job without making money and that makes the whole thing like an unpaid internship.”

“Okay, then let’s do this under the table,” he kisses up her jawline towards her lips, “and I pay you in sexual favors.”

“In an attempt to avoid me becoming a prostitute for you, you’re suggesting I become a prostitute for you,” she shoves him back a little bit, but he’s between the vee of her thighs and can’t go too far.

“I think the correct term is sex worker.”

Geena lets out a surprised snort.

“I appreciate your nuanced terminology, but I’m technically kind of a sex worker as an escort, so I’m just using it to differentiate. Also, I’m legally allowed to sell sex but it’s illegal to buy sex in Canada so we’re entering a real murky area here.”

She hooks her ankles behind him and pulls him close, “Will you give me a bit to think about it, like a day max.”

“Yeah of course,” he gives her a quick peck, “are you still gonna stick around for the day?”

“Yeah, you properly using the term sex worker weirdly does it for me.”

\\\

She ends up agreeing, there wasn’t really any doubt. She likes making Elias happy.

Geena rolls into Elias’ apartment two hours before he says to come over with a suitcase in tow.

Elias is watching TV in his boxer briefs and looks almost embarrassed to be caught being lazy and disheveled. Even though Geena knows he got in late from a road game in Winnipeg, where the plane had been delayed due to weather.

“Why are you here so early?”

“You gave me like no information about tonight, so I brought some outfit options for any occasion from super casual to full black tie.”

Elias just blinks, not sure how to respond as Geena starts opening the suitcase.

“G, we haven’t even discussed how I would,” he rubs the back of his neck, “pay you.”

He’s getting second thoughts about the whole thing.

“I decided the first one is free, see if I fit in and it feels natural then we’ll discuss payment plan,” she winks and continues pulling out outfits.

“This is a little overwhelming.”

“You’re getting the full Ruby experience. You can still call me Geena though, since we know each other intimately, going with my escort name might be confusing.”

He feels a bit nauseous. He assumes it’s showing on his face because Geena stops what she’s doing and joins him on the couch.

“E, this is literally my profession, I’m taking charge here so you don’t have to worry about stuff. But I have to get some information so you can relax and follow my lead.”

She gives him a quick kiss as a form of reassurance.

“It’s in a private room at a nice-ish restaurant.”

“Great start,” she gets up and holds up a black jumpsuit and a blue dress.

“Uhhh, the dress.”

“Excellent choice, now how do you want me to be?”

“What?”

“How do you want me to act? Cheery? Cerebral? Demure? Mysterious?”

“I just thought you’d act like yourself; I like how you are.”

Geena feels her face heat up.

“And PDA? Are we a little handsy–“

Elias laughs at the irony of that.

“I said handsy not hand job Elias,” she puts a stop to this tangent immediately, “but let’s say casual touching, nothing below the waist.”

“What if I want to grab your ass?” Geena quickly making him calmer about the whole thing.

“Okay, we’ll play the PDA stuff by ear.”

Geena knows the PDA situation the moment the hostess starts leading them to the private room in the back of the restaurant. The confidence Elias had thought he built up immediately crumbles and his whole body tenses up beside hers.

She grabs his hand, knowing she’ll probably be a calming touch away the whole night.  

Were he any other client she wouldn’t say the next thought out loud, “Loosen your grip E, you don’t want them to think you have to physically force a woman to go on a date with you.”

“No, I just have to pay one,” he whispers with a smirk.

She squeezes his hand, reminds him to stay this loose.

The tension comes back almost instantly. Apparently, Geena is the first date Elias has ever brought around, so meeting her is the main event of the evening.

Tension ratchets up further when the obvious question comes up, “how did you two meet?”

His eyes widen and he starts to stutter for a response. Geena has to practically pry her hand loose so she can wrap an arm around his waist and tuck herself into his side. His grip on her shoulder is only a little too tight.

“I was supposed to be meeting a guy in his building for a date,” Elias is shocked that Geena is telling the real story.

“And I’ve been waiting for 15 minutes already and this dude is not answering his buzzer and of course my phone has died in the meantime so I can’t call him or a car to leave. And obviously at this point the weather also has to be terrible and it starts pouring rain and I happen to be standing in front of the only luxury apartment building that has no overhang to stand under.”

She’s a natural conversationalist, Elias looks around, everybody is already enthralled just by the way she talks.

“So, I’m getting absolutely soaked while I’m thinking about what to do next, when Elias comes running from a car that just dropped him off and he lets me into the lobby because I must look too pathetic to be a thief or something.”

“I thought you were a wet dog when I saw you out of the corner of my eye,” he jokes and squeezes her tighter as she gives him a playful bat.

“Okay, I guess he let this wet dog in the lobby and I explained what happened with this other guy, and Elias offers to call me a car but makes me give him my number so I can text him that I made it home safely, which was clearly just a way to get my number– “

“Hey, there are security cameras in the lobby I didn’t want to be the last person on camera to see you if you got murdered.”

Elias feels his face heating up, he’s glad his teammates think it’s because he’s being called out for using a cheesy line. Because while the night really did end that way, Elias had actually invited Geena up to his place to charge her phone and take a dry sweatshirt first.

They ended up having sex on his couch while her phone charged.

“Uh-huh, sure, that’s the reason,” she rolls her eyes before kissing his cheek, he heats up even more.

Suddenly, Elias is relaxed. It’s like Geena passed a test and integrated into the group. She stays a touch away while they mingle until dinner starts.

Elias keeps a casual arm on the back of her chair during dinner, Geena working the room so well he has no idea why he was so nervous.

Then he notices the way Garland is looking at her, like he knows something. He pushes the feeling down and focuses on the warmth of Geena’s body against his palm. Garland spends most of the dinner looking like he wants to ask something, which keeps Elias on edge for most of dinner.

Eventually he gets the courage to ask, “Sorry Geena, you look so familiar, have we met before or do you just have one of those faces?”

Elias stiffens and Geena places a hand on his thigh and rubs it, telling him not to worry.

“I think I have one of those faces. Last time I heard that, someone told me I looked like some woman from pornos, so maybe I have porno face.”

She has big, innocent doe eyes when she says it while other people snort on their drinks. Conor turns pink as his fiancée is torn between laughing and being grossed out. She breaks the tension with a laugh and the topic is dropped.

Geena wouldn’t be surprised if he recognized her, her days as a stripper brought a lot of NHL teams to the club. Even some of the Canucks had made an appearance now and then, no judgement with what adults want to do, just facts.

Many a rookie party wrapped up in the strip club, when most people were too far gone to think about their inhibitions any longer. One of the rookies, usually the most or least sober, would be handed a stack of ones and shoved towards a back room.

She remembers bringing one rookie back herself. When he sat down, she finally realized he was really a boy just playing dress up as a man. Then he burst into tears, words garbled up through sobs and intoxication, something about this not being who he is.

They were about the same age, but Geena felt maternal in the moment.

Geena rubbed his back and assured him she didn’t need to do anything; they could sit until he calmed down. When he finally stopped, she got ice cubes to help get rid of the puffiness around his eyes, a trick of the trade. Once he looked presentable, she slipped him a pair of underwear into his back pocket, a very Sixteen Candles move.

“Oh my god you were incredible,” Elias says as they get into his car after dinner, “no wonder you do this for a living.”

“And you’re so quick on your feet! That porno line, I thought Garly was going to swallow his tongue,” he continues.

“Customer service is the most important part of sex work,” she gives a soft smile.

Normally, after a date with a client she’d have a joint or an edible and if she was still feeling wired, she’d call someone for a hook up. But Elias is her go-to hook up and it makes her whole routine feel out of whack.

She wants to go home with him, have a night cap and at least make out a little, but everything is different and that feels like a boundary she can’t cross. Even with her lover turned sort of client.

“Hey E, can you take me back to my place?”

His foot stutters on the brake, bringing them to a jerky stop and go.

“It’s just I’m tired and since we’re treating this like a real job it feels wrong. I wouldn’t go home with a client; I wouldn’t even get in a car with them.”

“Oh right, of course. That makes perfect sense.”

The car is silent as the lights of Vancouver flash by, Geena slouching further into her seat. The weight of everything seeping into her bones.

Elias pulls up in front of Geena’s building, “Thanks for tonight, I really owe you. But we can discuss my payment later,” he gives devilish smirk and Geena can’t help but smile back.

“Cool, let me know the gossip about me in the group chat later.”

She leans in for kiss, but even though that’s their norm it feels like a violation to her own code of conduct. She bails last minute for an awkward kiss on the cheek which ends up with Elias kissing her right below her eye.

She scampers away before she can see his reaction.

\\\

The weird feeling doesn’t go away after her joint. Not after a boiling hot shower or the cold shower she takes afterwards.

It still doesn’t go away when she texts u up? to the contact ‘For a Good Time 💦’ and she lets him fuck her throat until she’s a mess of tears and snot and can barely talk, let alone think.

After a good night’s sleep, the feeling is still crawling under her skin. It makes Geena want to rub it raw. Since the weirdness isn’t going away any time soon, she pulls up her wish list she sends to some clients, she usually calls it tipping, and sends it to Elias.

Ten minutes later she realizes without context the list seems weird and follows up with: For payment after our next date, leaving what and how much up to you, think of it as my friends discount lmk where and when you need me next

Geena turns off her phone and tries to enjoy her day off, the weird feeling settling like a pair of glasses, still there but no longer aware of them.

It helps that the Canucks are on an East coast road trip. They’ve been hooking up for almost two years but don’t really keep tabs on each other. It’s like the moment either of them leave the greater Vancouver area they become strangers.

So, she’s not surprised that she just has a thumbs up as a response when she turns her phone back on. But she is surprised when two days later there’s a large package at her PO box. She wasn’t actually expecting Elias to work so fast, to be thinking of her on his work trip.

She opens the package at home, there’s a note on top of the tissue: To keep my snack warm, E.

Geena rolls her eyes, but gasps when she pulls out a slate blue cashmere coat. It’s the kind of expensive thing she puts on her wish list without expecting to ever get it. Like putting something too fancy on a wedding registry hoping some rich, distant relative will actually go for it.

She does a grossed-out shiver thinking about Elias as a rich, distant relative.

But it doesn’t stop her from stroking the luxurious coat with awe. She puts it on and it fits perfectly, she thinks she might live in it from now on. It’s too much for one date that was supposed to be complimentary, too grand a gesture. Still, she loves it too much to care.

She shows up at Elias’ place after his first home game back. They won; she knew because the buzz on her phone from the NHL app kept going off during her date with a client. He turned out to be a big Canucks fan, but still it made her mind preoccupied on the job. Always a bad thing in her line of work.

Geena knocks on his door, worried that he isn’t alone. He’s a star Canuck who just won a game in a pretty rough season. He would deserve it and it wouldn’t be hard to find someone for him. Still, Geena ain’t no cock block.

His jacket is off and tie loosened when he opens the door, like he just got home.

“Hey G, the coat looks nice,” Elias smirks as he lets his eyes rake up and down her body, he doesn’t move aside to let her in

“Thank you, it was way too much, but it’s nice.”

Geena tries to casually peer around him, making sure he’s alone. He immediately catches on.

“Are you here for business or pleasure?” his tone cocky.

She shrugs, “I haven’t decided yet.”

Elias makes a show of moving out of the way, revealing for certain he’s alone.

Geena makes a show of walking past him and taking off her coat, revealing her burgundy slip dress with a dangerously high slit.

“Had a client tonight?” Elias moves closer to her.

She nods and takes a step back, “a business man who was a big Canucks fan.”

“That make you think of me?”

“Yeah, and that’s not great for business, I was so distracted I don’t think he’ll give me a good tip,” Geena pouts.

“That’s too bad, you love a good tip.”

The game of sexual tension chicken continues, slowly making their way towards the bedroom. A strap of her dress falls down her shoulder. She has to tense her muscles to not shiver under Elias’ gaze. Before she knows it, she’s falling back onto the bed and Elias is caging her in.

He kisses up her bare shoulder, up her neck, and nips under her ear.

“I guess you’re here for pleasure,” she feels his low voice rumble against her, vibrating her bones.

He starts to suck a mark into her neck and she can’t let that happen. He’s so focused on the task, she takes advantage of the moment to flip him over so she’s on top.

“I guess I am,” she smirks down at him before pulling off her dress and tossing it off the bed.

Elias rubs his hands up her sides, over her silky matching set, “This for your client, too?”

She wants to lie because the truth is boring, this underwear happened to work with the best with the dress. But the truth is also scary, she did think of how Elias would react when she picked them

“No, just for you,” she rolls her hips and Elias groans.

“Next time just wear this under the coat,” he sits up and captures her lips.

She bites his bottom lip and tries to work the buttons on his shirt, “You need less buttons on your shirt.”

Elias laughs and pulls her along as he lays back down. Pulling her body up his, her legs bracketing his shoulders. She’s about to question what’s happening as he kisses the insides of her thighs, moving towards her vagina. He grips her hips to holds her in place as she squirms at the sensations.

She’s so used to giving, this makes her feel off-kilter. She never knows quite what to do when it’s one way towards her, but it should feel good. Biologically her body is reacting like it should, she gasps when he mouths at her through the silky material.

“E,” she tries to push her body up but he doesn’t let her get far, “you don’t have to do this.”

His grip loosens and she’s able to sit back a bit, fully see his face.

“How many times do I have to tell you I want to do this, I like doing this,” his fingers dip below her waistline while he waits for a response.

“Okay,” her voice is smaller than he’s ever heard it, “if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” he pulls the waistband of her panties down, “now take these off and sit on my face.”

She does as she’s told, gripping at the headboard and riding his face to an orgasm that makes the blood slosh in her ears. Elias has to tap her thigh to get her to move in the stupor.

“Sorry,” she mumbles and starts to do only thing she know how, return the favor.

Geena moves down his body, but Elias stops her. Instead, he maneuvers her to his side, wrapping an arm around her.

“I’m kind of tired,” he kisses the top of her head, “let’s just sleep.”

“In your clothes?” She’s hoping that will be enough to start something, she hates feeling like they’re on uneven ground.

He rolls his eyes and then out of bed, taking off his clothes as he makes his way to the bathroom. Any of their heat from earlier dissipates as Geena watches him start brushing his teeth through the open door.

He rummages through a drawer and holds out a toothbrush, the green one he bought for her when she started staying over. She hesitantly gets up and joins him at the counter; Elias has his and hers sinks and they each stand in front of one and silently brush their teeth.

Elias keeps making faces in the mirror trying to get Geena to look and laugh, he’s pretty close despite her trying to avoid looking. Then he fakes a blow job: pushing it into the inside of his cheek, then gagging and spitting out the the white foam.  Geena can’t help but let out a belly laugh and chokes on her own toothpaste.

“Don’t try and kill me for a bit,” she gives him a shove after she rinses her mouth.

He just smiles and plucks her toothbrush out of her hand and places it in the cup next to his. There’s a swooping in her stomach, when did being so domestic become so normal?

She lets herself get pulled back into his side when they get back into bed, and she pretends she doesn’t sleep more soundly in his grasp.

\\\

Geena wakes up the next morning in an empty bed. It’s oddly comforting even if she’s not in her own home. She gets up and digs through Elias’ dresser finding a pair of shorts and a shirt, she doesn’t feel like trying to shimmy back into a constricting dress.

She pads out into the living room, gathering her coat and purse, shoving the dress into the tiny bag.

“Morning,” Geena nearly jumps out of her skin.

“Fuck me,” she takes a deep breath and finds Elias holding a mug of coffee and a plate with a croissant.

“I can do that, but maybe you want to eat first,” he smirks before noticing her holding her stuff, “you heading out?”

“I- uh- I thought you left so, yeah,” she still kind of wants to leave now.

“I just went out to pick up coffee, I would have invited you, but thought you could sleep and I’d bring you breakfast in bed.”

Geena isn’t exactly sure what her face does, but Elias frowns.

“Do you need to leave?” His voice is soft.

“No breakfast is good, maybe we could sit outside, it’s actually nice,” that seems to appease him.

Elias has a smoothie with his coffee and Geena gingerly picks at the pastry.

“The team has been asking about you, you were a big hit,” he finally speaks up.

“So, I need to make another sparkling appearance?” she’s grinning but doesn’t look up at him, staring at her toes in the sunlight.

“They were wondering if you wanted to sit with them at a game, and if we win, we can go out after.”

“Like hang out with them when you’re not there?”

“If it’s too weird then don’t worry about it, but you can see a free game and you can even show up late if you want to avoid that much time with them.”

“No, I can do it, it’s fine.”

She pulls her feet up onto the chair, curls her toes into the cushion. Flexing and unflexing, something to remind her she’s not lost at sea, she’s on solid ground.

“Great, would Friday work for you?”

“I’ll have to check my schedule, but that should work.”

She knows she’ll have to cancel with a client, it’s last minute on a weekend night. But she doesn’t want to disappoint Elias.

His smile grows twice in size.

“And in return could you get me reservations at Kissa Tanto?”

He scrunches his eyebrows.

“It’s like impossible to get good reservations there, so use your pretty boy Canuck connections and squeeze me in on like a Saturday.”

“Oh. Yeah, I can probably swing that.”

“I know you can,” she pops the rest of the croissant in her mouth and downs her coffee, “I do have to go now, but I’ll see you later.”

She’s more nervous about the game than she cares to admit. Changing her outfit about four times, stalking WAGs on Instagram just to make sure she’ll mostly fit in. She doesn’t even know why she cares so much, it’s not the first time she’s had to fit in and schmooze a group of significant other, but it is the first time she’s done it without her date.

She shows up during the second period, trying to limit the amount of time she’ll have to spend without hockey going on. Geena knows she can survive one intermission.

As soon as she gets to the seats Samantha pulls Geena to sit next to her.

“Thank god you’re here.”

Geena laughs nervously, wondering why this girl she talked to for maybe 30 minutes is so excited to see her.

“I’m new here too, so it’s nice to have some back up. This whole world is new to me.”

Samantha is smiling, but Geena can read the self-consciousness on her face. She knows what it’s like, back when she was new to a higher class of living, she always felt like people would know she’s some kind of dirty whore, that she didn’t belong and never would.

She soon learned pretending to be confident could go a long way.

“If it makes you feel better this is the fourth outfit I tried on,” Samantha squeezes her arm in response.

The game is fun, it’s the first time she’s seen a hockey game while not on a job in a long time. Though technically she’s still on a job, she doesn’t need to entertain someone else. She forgot how fun it could be. And she finally gets to focus on Elias, how gracefully he skates, the power of his shot; it’s kind of beautiful.

Elias scores a goal and Geena goes nuts, she didn’t know she had that kind of excitement in her.

One of the girlfriend’s films the reaction and the rest of the crowd cheering before Geena can slink out of view.

“What’s your handle Geena?”

“Oh, I don’t do social media,” she shrugs, she does but it’s under the name Ruby and definitely not for all audiences.

There’s a chorus of shock that follows.

“I’ll tag Petey in it then,” she smirks and types away on her phone.

The goal turns out to be the game winner and the group is buzzing, Geena is almost excited to go out with them, like they’re just a group of her friends.

It’s as if she’s in a drunken haze as they make their way into the depths of the arena to greet the players, then she’s pulled into a hug and obligatory kiss with Elias. Suddenly she’s piling into the back of a car that’s so crowded she’s half on Elias’ lap.

It all happens so fast she doesn’t even notice what bar they’re going to until she’s in the door and it’s too late to turn around. She definitely can’t make a scene, so she tries to hide behind the bigger hockey bodies as they go to the VIP section.

She drinks a little too much a little too fast. It loosens her up enough to go out onto the dance floor with some of the other ladies without a second thought. It’s when they go to the bar for some water that reality sets in again.

“Ruby”

Geena is pretty good at compartmentalizing her double life, so she doesn’t react to her alter ego name at first.

“Ruby!”

“I think that guy is trying to talk to you,” Samantha nudges her, making her finally look over to acknowledge the man.

She mumbles an expletive under her breath when she sees her manager, Michael. He likes to keep an eye on the escorts when they’re in a bar, it always seems to be where incidents happen.

“It’s some guy I gave a fake name then ghosted. I’ll go talk to him then meet you guys back at the tables,” she tries to shake the confused stares as she walks over.

“I thought you were taking the night off Ruby?”

“I’m here as Geena, I didn’t realize I was coming here until it was too late.”

“Shit, well Sam is here and he’s not too pleased with his replacement, so you might want to get out of here before you lose one of your best clients.”

“Fuck, I’ll get out as soon as I can. Sorry.”

“Geena, you’re allowed to have a life, just maybe not here of all places,” Michael gives her a sad smile.

She weaves her way back to the group, trying to blend in with the crowd. She clearly looks concerned when she sits back down next to Elias, who hands her his drink.

“You okay?” He leans in close, warm breath on her neck.

"I have a lot of dates here and the client I cancelled on for you is here,” she doesn’t mean to let that last bit of information slip but she’s nervous.

She leans back to look at Elias reaction, she’s not quite sure if he’s worried or happy. She gives him a long kiss in response before moving back to his ear again.

“So, if we get a bit handsy, so you can sort of hide my face and make it so it seems like we’re leaving to go bang that would be great.”

She kisses the spot below his ear, “we can also actually leave and go bang, too.”

Geena’s throwing out her rules of not sleeping with her faux-client after a date, anything to get out of here sooner rather than later.

“Yeah, sure,” he pulls her closer, “I think I can do that.”

They’re in a darkest corner of the table with his teammates, but the moment Elias’ tongue slips its way into Geena’s mouth there’s some cat calling from the boys. She can feel Elias’ hand move off of her, assumably to flip them off.

“I think they’ve had enough of a show,” he whispers and yanks her into a standing position.

There are some obligatory waves to the team before he’s pulling her into his side, hiding her a bit under his shoulder, leaning down to kiss her a bit as they walk to cover her whole face until they’re outside.

Her skin is on fire and the burst of cold air is doing nothing to change that. Geena feels the sudden urge to pull Elias into an alley and get on her knees for him, but she knows that has to wait until they’re as far away from this bar and any prying eyes as possible.

“Thanks E,” she can’t stop from kissing him again, with a little less heat this time.

“No problem, I was promised we’d go bang so not really a problem for me.”

He smirks and grabs her arms and pins them to her side to avoid the playful smack that was sure to come, and kisses her until her knees are weak.

\\\

Elias shows up at Geena’s apartment on a Saturday.

A woman in a silky robe answers the door and Elias worries he’s at the wrong place.

He’s only been inside her apartment once: taking Geena home when she arrived at his place for a booty call a little too drunk. He brought her home and practically carried her into her room, thinking it was best if she slept it off in her own bed.

“Hi, sorry I must be at the wrong apartment–“

“Baby Slut, your lover is here!” The woman shouts back over her shoulder and leans on the doorframe with a smirk.

“What are you talking ab– oh shit E, what are you doing here?”

Geena is also in silk robe holding a mascara wand.

“The Kissa Tanto reservation? It’s tonight.”

She blinks a few times before seeming to come back online.

“Oh, you made them for us,” she points between the two of them, “I was gonna take Xa,” she points to the woman in the doorway.

“I shouldn’t have assumed I was your plus one. You two should go together.”

Elias tries to hide his disappointment and embarrassment but apparently does a bad job.

“No, you two go have a cute little date,” Xa smiles a bit conspiratorially.

“But we’ve been wanting to go there forever,” Geena pouts, Elias hates that he feels like he’s being rejected.

“And I’m sure we can make that happen another time,” Xa give Elias a wink, “Would you be able to do that for us.”

“Uh- yeah of course,” Elias smiles back, “sorry about ruining your plans.”

“Don’t worry about, I can always go to the club make a quick buck,” she’s moving aside so Elias can come in, “someone’s gotta keep Baby Slut here in the life she’s grown accustomed to. Since you’re monopolizing all her billing hours.”

Elias feels his cheeks heat up.

“Let me throw on clothes real quick,” Geena cuts in, “behave yourself Xa.”

As soon as she seems out of earshot Elias asks, “Baby Slut?”

“I took her under my wing when she first started stripping, showed her the ropes. Barely legal girl who could barely get on stage without shaking. She didn’t have anyone taking care of her, so she became my little baby and well–“

She waves her hand implying all the things that could be associated with sex work, making slut seem like low hanging fruit.

It’s a reminder that Geena has already lived hundreds of lives in her short time on Earth. While Elias had only lived his solitary, safe life.

“I wasn’t legal,” Geena is dressed in record time, probably to avoid Xa sharing any embarrassing stories.

“Shhh, I don’t know how long the statute of limitations lasts on abetting a minor in her crimes.”

Geena rolls her, grabbing her coat and shoving Elias towards the door.

“Nice meeting you,” Elias calls over his shoulder.

“You too, have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Wow, that really narrows it down,” Geena flips her off as she slams the door.

Both parties are desperately trying to decipher dinner’s meaning, is it a date? A real one? With no prying eyes of teammates or payments?

It makes it a little awkward.

They’re staring at their menus in silence like they can’t think of a single thing to talk about, which is absurd for two people who have spent so much time together. Most of it was in throes of passion, but there was always time between rounds or during mornings after lazing in bed or while munching on midnight snacks.

They talk enough that one dinner with no expectations should be easy.

The waiter comes by and takes their orders and they’re both grateful when their drinks arrive.

“Well cheers to our first date, I guess,” Geena makes a goofy face, which make Elias laugh despite the confusion it causes.

“You look really beautiful.”

Geena blushes like no one has ever told her that before. Elias realizes he never has, not without some kind of heat behind it, some innuendo. He wonders if anyone has ever sincerely said it to her.

She starts to nervously gnaw on her lip and Elias knows he needs to change the subject.

“I didn’t realize you had a roommate, Xa seems nice.”

Her face nearly splits with excitement.

“Yeah, she’s the best. I wouldn’t be anything without her. I would still have the pseudonym Buttercup if it wasn’t for her.”

“Buttercup?”

“Don’t laugh!” She kicks his shin, “I was 16 and thought it was all ‘I’m innocent but sexy’, which I was neither.”

“It’s a really terrible stripper name.”

“Like 16-year-old Elias could’ve thought of something better.”

“I think it would at least be a step better than Buttercup.”

Suddenly, the ice is broken. They’re joking and talking like normal, the location is different, but it’s still comfortable. So, Elias takes a calculated risk and reaches across the table to hold Geena’s hand while they finish their drinks after dinner. She doesn’t pull away.

“That was fun,” Geena smiles as she settles in his passenger seat, reaching across the console to put a hand on his thigh, “want to keep it going?”

And of course, he does, he always does. But tonight feels different, so he wants to treat it differently.

“I’m gonna drop you off at home…”

Geena scoffs but doesn’t remove her hand from his thigh, if anything she moves it higher.

“And I’m gonna walk you to your door and kiss you goodnight. Like a respectful date.”

“Your dick has been in like all of my orifices, I think we’re kind of past respectful first date bullshit.”

“So, this was a first date?” he keeps his eyes forward but grins as Geena gives his thigh slap.

“I’ll send you the bill later,” he can hear her rolling her eyes.

“Worth it.”

\\\

“Are you dating Elias Pettersson?”

Geena almost chokes on her champagne.

Her date pats her back as she sputters, she kind of hopes she just chokes to death.

“Am I what?”

They’re standing out on the patio, a black-tie event happening inside. Just her and a long-term client getting some air. She’ll usually do some playful touches let him giver her his jacket to warm her against the chill; anything to make his coworkers think the heat is still alive between them after years together.

But this is new. He’s never asked Ruby about her life outside of their arrangement. He didn’t need to, he just needed arm candy while he wined and dined other rich business men that did something Geena never fully understood.

“Are you dating Elias Pettersson, the Vancouver Canuck?”

Geena feels lightheaded.

“My assistant saw some pictures of you with him. You were at a game with the wives and then out at a restaurant. You looked pretty cozy.”

“We’re not dating.”

“So, he’s a client?”

“I can’t tell you that, you wouldn’t want me telling people about us.”

“No, but I can’t risk looking like a fool because you’re out with someone in the public eye.”

A lump forms thick in her throat. She can’t speak around the feeling.

“So, you’ll understand why this has to be our last date.”

She nods while she tries to find her voice.

“Do you want me to make a scene? I can go a little crazy, make you get a little sympathy for dealing with your crazy girlfriend?”

“I was just going to tell people it didn’t work out because you wanted kids.”

“Very dignified,” she straightens her posture, trying to remain professional.

“I’ll still pay your full rate, but if you want to sneak out early that’s okay too.”

Her eyes burn with tears. She’s never cried in front of client, at least not if they weren’t paying for it. When it’s clear she won’t be able to hold them back for long, she slinks off in shame.

Her first thought is to go to Elias, seek comfort in his arms. She doesn’t even want anything sexual and her shame is replaced with unease. Geena’s not sure which she hates more. So, she takes to her bed like some Victorian maiden and hopes this is all some kind of nightmare.

It’s not.

Xa lets her stay in bed for two days before telling her she has to move on.

“Life happens, shit happens. You of all people should know that,” Xa says as she brushes her hair, a little intimacy that Geena never wants to admit she craves.

Her first outing is to the strip club, which maybe isn’t her best idea. Because being in a strip club at 1 pm on a weekday is never a good look. It’s just her and four men around the main stage. They keep sending her drinks as if she’ll go home with them or give them a lap dance.

She’s drunk by 2:30.

“You coming back to the club, Buttercup?”

Geena’s getting a lap dance from a dancer she used to work with, Sasha, who can only talk to Geena if she keeps dancing.

“If I came back, it would not be as Buttercup,” she’s basically talking to her tits.

“Fine, is Ruby coming out of retirement?”

“Ruby only retired from the stage, but she may be retiring entirely soon,” she slips some money Sasha’s her G-string.

“Shit, another whore going to the good side?”

“I don’t want to, I love what I do, I’m good at it. Just things are getting complicated. How do you live a normal life and do this?”

“It’s not easy, I have to work this shift now so I can see my kids. Money’s not as good but it’s worth being able to have dinner with them and go to their soccer games and shit.”

Geena furrows her brows.

“There’s nothing wrong with living this kind of life if you like it. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up the normal things. You don’t have to live in the shadows just because people make you feel seedy or dirty about your job.”

Sasha gives her forehead a kiss, which is weird after she was grinding into Geena’s crotch.

“You’re not baby Buttercup anymore, you’re badass Ruby and she can do whatever the fuck she wants. And if you don’t believe me Xa will kick your ass into believing. Now get out of here before the night girls come and make you get on stage.”

Geena stumbles out of the club, smelling of thick perfume and booze. Like she used to most nights. It feels like a safety blanket.

In her drunken stupor she calls an Uber to her most common destination, Elias’.

She generally tries to avoid showing up completely unannounced, but she’s too tipsy to think about that and lets herself in without a second thought.

And sitting at the table are two people, who are clearly Elias’ parents.

“Oh shit,” she says it too loud, both heads whip towards her, she can’t sneak out now.

Instead, she stands there frozen, mouth agape, probably looking like a fool.

“You must be Geena, Elias didn’t say you’d be coming by,” Elias’ mom smiles

“Oh yeah,” Geena returns a dopey smile, her brain is about five steps behind.

“I’m Irene and this is Torbjörn,” she stands up and walks toward Geena, “are you a hugger?”

“Nice to meet you and um yeah,” Geena holds out her arm and accepts the hug.

Irene pulls away a smile still on her face. She’s either great at hiding her judgement or doesn’t care Geena reeks of liquor. Knowing Elias’ inability to hide his judgement, she’s guessing the latter.

“Elias should be back from practice any minute.”

“Okay, I’ll just go freshen up really quick.”

She scurries to Elias’ room, hearing Swedish behind her. She hopes they’re not saying anything too bad, hoping it wasn’t too bad of a first impression. She flops on the bed, squeezing her eyes shut when the room starts to spin.

Why does she even care? It’s not like she’s actually Elias’ girlfriend, she’s just convenient, in every kind of way. Nothing more.

But he told his parents about her. His mom was excited to meet her. It felt nice. Like someone stuck around long enough to break through the hard shell around her heart. And maybe she is allowed to have that.

Elias comes in and flops down next to her. Geena finally opens her eyes, turning her head to the side to look at him. His smile is so nice she can’t stop herself from kissing him.

“You smell like a strip club.”

She lets out an airy laugh, “do your parents know that?”

“I don’t think so, they know you’re drunk though. I wanted to give you more warning before you met them, so, sorry.”

“Why would you introduce me to your parents? Did one of your teammates let it slip that you have a girlfriend?” She uses air quotes around the last word.

Elias sits up to get a better look at her, “no, I wanted – we went on a real first date – I thought…“

“E, are we dating now? You want to date me?”

“Of course, I do G! I didn’t realize how much until we started to fake date. But I like spending time with you outside of sex.”

“Even though I’m a dirty sex worker?”

“I wouldn’t call you dirty, unless you wanted me to,” he smirks.

“I just lost a big client because he saw a picture of us together. What happens if more people find out, on either side? I don’t want to quit my job because you’re in the public eye.”

“I’m not asking you to do that, you like what you do and from what I saw firsthand you’re really good at it. So, if you want to tell people what you do, I don’t care. I’ll do whatever you need me to, I just want you to be mine.”

“You really don’t care?”

“What you do doesn't change who you are or what I feel or want to give you.”

“So, you’re kind of mine then?”

He nods and pulls her up for a kiss.

“We should probably leave my bedroom before my parents think we’re having sex.”

“If they already think it…” Geena waggles her brows and playfully bites his shoulder.

He gives her a playful shove back onto the mattress before grabbing her hand, interlocking their fingers and pulling her towards the door, and the future.

[billboard-hotties-tourney]

Cher (1946-) Sonny and Cher - vocals; solo Songs: "I Got You Babe," "Dark Lady" Defeated Opponents: Françoise Hardy Propaganda: "With an amazing voice, fantastic outfits, and multiple comebacks? yeah, Cher." "She looks like a goddess (she's appropriately nicknamed The Goddess of Pop) and I think she could serve in anything! Her outfits in the 70s are so snazzy. At the time, she had the most number-one singles of any female solo artist in US history. She is the only solo artist to date to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart in seven consecutive decades and she is an advocate for LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS prevention." "mama she IS a rich man! I’m sorry if you aren’t already voting for Cher I can’t help you"

Margo Guryan (1937-2021) solo Songs: "Sunday Mornin'," "Think of Rain" Defeated Opponents: Darlene Love Propaganda: "she made one totally brilliant psychedelic pop album that was way ahead of its time and still sounds fresh today, but left the industry not long after, as she refused to tour or make tv appearances, saying that having been married to a jazz musician she'd seen "too much – performing required an agent, and a manager and a lawyer and a booking person and... you got owned by these people – they told you where to go, how to look, how to dress, what to say, and I didn't want that! [...] I guess I had about enough 'daddy' when I was five, and I just didn't like being told what to do." her label quickly ceased promoting her album as a result. it's since become a cult favorite, with saint etienne and belle & sebastian among its fans, and songs she wrote have been recorded by astrud gilberto, julie london, cass elliot, harry belafonte, marie laforêt, and many others."

Visual Propaganda for Cher:

Visual Propaganda for Margo Guryan:

[elektrischemaidchen]

Advent Calender #5: Alle meine Boyfriends sind tot

All good things come to an end. This little poison cabinet advent calendar (and we hope we'll be able to contribute a little something to @franzliszt-official 's calendar ;)), as well as our Horus cycle.

And yes, the ‘Gothic Tina Belchers’ (thanks for that, guys!) have decided not to put the title track ‘Alle meine Boyfriends sind tot’ on tomorrow's album of the same name. Our 2 ½ hardcore listeners may forgive us.

Why? Because we are sure that nobody could follow us mentally anymore. I mean:

Do you remember that we got this time machine from the professor and instead of saving the world, we did the young Franz Liszt? Then we locked him and all the other Horus donors in our cellar to sew them all into the perfect man? Then there was this story about the rendezvous with this guy who liked @chopinski-official but couldn't get his head round the fact that the real Chopin was already sitting in our house gagged, without his hands. (There's actually a song in between in which I tell my Polish grandma that we have Chopin in the cellar, but she thinks it's stupid because artists couldn't feed a family. It'll be on the next album). And then we made a film evening with the Horus with Frankenstein and Lilo and Stitch, then he had an existential crisis while we just wanted to do dirty stuff. After that he mutated into the Beach Horus, who was only interested in lower-class crap. Then he built himself a perfect second wife out of dumb models and then, unfortunately, we had to get rid of him. And this song is just about how we go down to the basement after disposing of Horus and all our Horus donors are comforted, even though they're missing so many body parts, but we all love each other anyway.... and then we all move upstairs and practice polygamy. (They'll get their limbs back, though, I promise. Franz without a face, c'mon.) The mistake, by the way, was to take something from Byron. We'll have to do it differently for the next Horus.

Apart from the fact that we desperately need therapy, it's a concept that's rather...unwieldy?...you know. So, tomorrow on the album you'll get Horus III (Beach-Horus) and today Horus IV. ;) And, guys, just the fact that there are real people out there who listen to songs like this makes us love you all even more. <3

I look down into the cellar to cry There it sits, my Horus starter pack They ask me What happened? I dumped my Horus I knew it, says Kafka quietly Then I guess he wasn't so keen after all Chopin hugs me with his stumps Well, they don't let themselves go with pity All my boyfriends are dead Well almost They are the saviours in my time of need No one can hold a candle to them All others must give way to them I prophesied it, says Novalis He's really not sorry for anything without a heart Will I get my bum back now? Rossetti asks, half bent over I look at Liszt, without a face He'd be prettier with it, I think Rasputin shouts all the time something in Russian, I don't feel sorry for him All my boyfriends are dead Well, almost They're the saviours in my time of need No one can hold a candle to them All others must give way to them Blind Byron leans back Says you've got your luck here One being out of all of us is really too much How exhausting, such rubbish Why don't we all live upstairs And can try out polygamy? We're all hot in our own way And apart from Rasputin, we're all quiet And Schiller can't do anything anyway He just runs around like a headless chicken It would just be nice if Liszt could get his face back It's really not mundane without it And then we'll all move in with you There's bohemia and there's red wine And I hug them, they're right Our love, it's still real But on the inside I take out a tape measure And figure out my next Horus

[bunchashapes]

any music recs?

i could have made this very short or entirely too long. i opted for the latter:

HAVE YOU LOOKED FOR SOME NEW MUSIC TO LISTEN TO? LOOK NO FURTHER, FOR HERE IS

I know. There's a lot of music out there. Well have no fear, because I've selected, organized AND categorized a fine number of music selections, just for you! I tried to keep it to just stuff you probably haven't heard of before, but I make no promises. Hopefully you'll find at least one new thing you can take with you into 2023.

MAKE YOUR SELECTION:

1 - MIKE, I'M LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO GROOVE TO. SOMETHING I CAN GET DOWN AND VIBE WITH OR PERHAPS LISTEN TO WHILE I WORK:

Sounds good! Let's start with a few of those:

Vulfpeck - Okay you may already know about Vulfpeck. Sorry. If you HAVEN'T, they're a wonderful group of dudes from Michigan that are all insanely talented. They have a wide-range of styles they cover and pretty much every member has gone on to do other solo stuff, which may also suit your interests. They also have a spin-off band called The Fearless Flyers that I'll cover a little further down.

Jacob Mann (As well as his Big Band) - Jacob's solo stuff has a nice laid-back feel to it, while his big band stuff is slightly more bombastic, but all of it is fun and groovy. Great example of a musician effectively switching between different toolsets, whether its a whole group of talented musicians at his disposal or just a bunch of nice Roland presets.

EMEFE - They haven't been very active lately but EMEFE is an incredible ensemble with plenty of amazing music for you to listen to. Their live album from 2017 makes me wish i could go back in time and watch it live.

Louis Cole - Louis Cole's also pretty popular, but maybe you haven't heard of him! Originally hailing from Knower, he's collaborated with a ton of musicians (including Vulfpeck AND Jacob Mann Big Band, mentioned above) as well as produced an impressive array of solo music. I can't understate how much I love this guy.

Thundercat - Know who else he's collaborated with? Thundercat. Have you listened to Thundercat? You should really do yourself a favor and listen to Thundercat.

Sammy Rae and The Friends - Only learned about Sammy Rae very recently but The Feeling (linked) was an earworm that lodged itself in my brain for months. Infectiously positive vibes, a great ensemble and really brilliant singing.

Silk Sonic - Okay they played at the Grammys so it definitely doesn't count as a deep cut but listen to Silk Sonic anyway okay? Okay.

2- MIKE I NEED SOMETHING THAT WHIPS ASS. SOMETHING TO COMPLETELY KNOCK MY SOCKS OFF.

Can do. Your metric of kickass may vary but at least one of these should work for you:

King Gizzard and The Wizard Lizard - King Gizz has put out such an unbelievable volume of music that it's hard to just recommend ONE thing from them. I've linked Nonagon Infinity, a great little album with the fun gimmick of seamlessly looping front to back. They really haven't put out a single bad album, so just go wild.

Royal Blood - Royal blood's bassist plays through an octave pedal, giving their stuff this fuckin' beefy sound that's well-rounded enough you'd never guess the band is just a bassist and a dummer. Their style has gotten poppier lately but it's still all worth listening to.

Tricot - Tricot's been around for around 10 years now and their stuff has only gotten better over time. I feel like Math Rock is kind of an obtuse genre for most people but their recent stuff is absolutely worth checking out even if that's not your usual sort of thing. Makkuro (真っ黒) is my favorite album of theirs by far.

Thank You Scientist - Stranger Heads Prevail is probably one of my favorite prog albums ever and you'll probably like it too. Insanely good ensemble (the amazing triple threat of sax/trumpet/violin is such an integral part of their sound) and really fun vocals.

Nova Collective - Another incredible prog group. As far as I know they've only put out one album but it whips ass.

Ask My Bull - These guys popped out of the woodwork a few years ago and I've been obsessed with them ever since, I can't wait to see what they do next. If you're a horn-loving freak like me you absolutely need to listen to them.

Fearless Flyers - The previously aforementioned Vulfpeck spin-off band, guest starring Mark Lettieri of Snarky Puppy and the incredible Nate Smith on drums. Their album Tailwinds is easily one of my favorite albums ever, the addition of a sax trio takes their stuff from incredible to legendary.

Daikaiju - Kaiju-themed surf rock. That's really all that needs saying.

3 - MIKE I NEED SOMETHING THAT'LL MAKE ME SAY "DAMN THAT'S COOL"

Well you're in luck! A wide range of things fit the bill:

Snarky Puppy - A powerhouse jazz/funk/rock ensemble full of insanely talented musicians. Just give this song a listen, you won't regret it.

The Dear Hunter - Dear Hunter (not Deerhunter. Different band) has remained my favorite band since high school. The band has a number of different projects, A collection of EPs for each color of the rainbow, a 5-part rock opera/narrative concept album (with a 6th part that may be a movie??) and other more straightforward albums that still cover a broad range of genres and styles. I think they're great and hopefully you will too.

Hiromi Uehara - Hiromi's probably my favorite pianist ever. Just watch that video. She's ridiculous. She also plays in an incredible trio and guest stars on my favorite Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra song! Preposterously talented and insanely fun to watch. I love her.

The Bad Plus - Speaking of great trios, you can't go wrong with The Bad Plus! Really vibrant arrangements and generally incredible musicianship throughout their work.

Esperanza Spalding - Obscenely talented bassist AND singer AND songwriter. As someone who sings and plays bass (not at the same time, of course) watching her do effortlessly do both at the same time is mesmerizing. I love her.

Chon - Chon's also pretty big now but I want you to imagine you're me at a Dear Hunter (see above) concert back in 2015 and one of the opening bands walks onstage and you're like "well okay what's these guys' deal" and then they start playing these fucking insane picking solos in perfect unison. I literally couldn't believe what I was seeing. I wish everyone could experience Chon through those eyes.

4 - MIKE THOSE ARE COOL AND ALL BUT WHAT I'M REALLY LOOKING FOR IS SOME MUSIC TO GET BUNDLED UP AND GO TO SLEEP TO

You need ambient? I got your ambient right here.

Hiroshi Yoshimura - I was first exposed to the wide, wide world of Japanese ambient music back in college and in all my years since then, few things have been able to beat Yoshimura's atmospheric soundscapes. If you need music to shut your brain off (and who doesn't, from time to time), look no further.

Chihei Hatakeyama - Another Japanese ambient powerhouse, Hatakeyama's got a huge discography of music and all of it will knock your lights out (very pleasantly).

Green-House - Very much inspired by Japanese ambient, Green-house is described as "music for plants". I only wish there was more of it.

Joep Beving - Not exactly an ambient artist but a masterful practitioner of minimal, atmospheric piano. His style is understated but filled with emotion, a great mix of more classical elements with a modern cinematic flair. Great to work to!

5- MIKE EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT JAPANESE CITY POP, JAZZ FUSION AND EARLY ELECTRONIC MUSIC BUT I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START. GET ME ON THE GROUND FLOOR HERE

You got it boss:

Yellow Magic Orchestra - You've probably heard of these guys by now. I've only known about them for 6-ish years after they had a moderate burst of fame here but I think it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say these guys were one of the principle pieces of genetic memory that coalesced into the DNA of modern electronic music. All three of the principle members, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi (rest in peace) have all had really prolific solo careers in a ton of styles of music that are all worth your time.

T Square - An absolute titan of Japanese jazz fusion, their album Adventures is a veritable Rosetta Stone of video game music, directly inspiring a good number of video game songs including the dang mario brothers theme! Their stuff is an absolute joy to listen to.

Tatsuro Yamashita - Yamashita is often called the king of city pop and is (according to wikipedia) credited for pioneering Japanese "soft rock". Having grown up on the pacific coast, there's some ineffable truth in his schmaltzy surf music that touches me deep in my soul. You may not have the same experiences as I do, but I hope listening to him will allow you to tap into that divine spark and enjoy it for yourself.

Masayoshi Takanaka - Perhaps not quite as famous as Yamashita, Takanaka is a brilliant guitarist and musician known for that same schmaltzy pacific rock (just look at that damn guitar. I love him) as well as a number of other styles of rock and jazz fusion. He's got a huge discography and it's all incredible.

Casiopea - I would be remiss if I didn't mention Casiopea. I'm not an expert in Japanese music obviously, but I think it'd be fair to say they and T-Square are the two titans holding the glory of late 70's-early 80's jazz fusion like Atlas shouldering the world. Do yourself a favor and listen to Mint Jams.

Himiko Kikuchi - Truthfully I don't know much of Kikuchi's discography other than Flying Beagle (linked) but she absolutely killed it. Do yourself a favor and listen to that too.

6 - WELL MIKE THAT'S ALL WELL AND GOOD BUT WHAT IF I WANT SOMETHING WEIRD THAT DOESN'T FIT IN ANY OF THOSE CATEGORIES

I'm always happy to recommend unconventional stuff. Here's a few albums that I love to close us out:

Tom Waits - Alice - First of all, you should listen to Tom Waits. I know you know him as the Funny Voice Guy but he's had such an incredible musical career that starts great and only gets more and more amazing over time. Anyway, in the 90's, Tom and his wife (and writing partner since the 80's) Kathleen Brennan were scoring weird experimental musicals in Germany, namely The Black Rider (also worth listening to) and Alice. The musical is a strange extrapolation of Alice in Wonderland, namely inspired by Charles Dodgson's (Lewis Carroll) relationship with Alice Liddell, generally accepted as the real-life inspiration for Alice. Though the actual specifics of their relationship are uncertain, the age discrepancy and Charles' general fixation with Alice leads many to assume....the worst about their relationship, an interpretation the musical runs with. The actual musical is hard to find evidence of (there's some documentary footage from the 90's and I've found the script) but Tom rearranged his music for the show and released it in 2002, which in my eyes is the definitive version of the music. The album is unbelievably melancholic, heart-wrenching, at times deeply uncomfortable, and absolutely filled with beauty. Lost in the Harbor is maybe one of my favorite songs of all time. If ANY of this sounds even slightly interesting to you, I implore you to check it out. It also has Colin Stetson on saxophone and clarinet, which segues quite nicely to the next album.....

Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2 - You may have actually heard Colin's music before, he's scored films like Hereditary, Color Out Of Space and the newest Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. New History Warfare is one of his experimental solo projects, most characterized by Stetson recording basically everything in a huge room filled with microphones, creating this incredible impression of scale. It's filled with some of the craziest shit I've ever heard someone do on a saxophone; long, galloping phrases with no pauses for air thanks to circular breathing, mixing in the sound of the valves opening and closing, and an incredible unnatural-sounding delay all achieved with live recording. The Righteous Wrath of An Honorable Man is one of the coolest things I've ever heard in my life (you've probably already heard it before) but the whole album is absolutely captivating.

Caroline Shaw - Partita for 8 Voices - Caroline Shaw is an amazing musician, singer and composer. All of her stuff is really beautiful and worth listening to, but few things stand out as much as this composition, written for and performed by a cappella group Roomful of Teeth (which is probably the sickest possible name for a choral group). I feel like a cappella music has a woefully bland perception among most people (thanks in no small part to Pitch Perfect); all lavish arrangements of pop music with absolutely no soul. If this is what you think all a cappella music is, I urge you to listen to this album. It's a masterful blend of speech, song and energy, filled with a vibrancy and passion I have a difficult time putting into words. You really just have to listen to it.

[cowboylikeekatie]

here’s reddie lyrics: evermore edition!! (ahh i can’t believe this series thingy is almost done i’ve had sm fun!) if this post is super long don’t make fun of me this is my fav taylor album EVER i’ve annotated every song it’s just so easy to find quotes

“the more that you say, the less that i know, wherever you stray, i follow , i’m begging for you to take my hand, wreck my plans, that’s my man” - willow (eddie’s pov)

“show me the places where the others gave you scars” - willow (richie’s pov)

champagne problems is if eddie divorced myra after pennywise round 2

“your hometown skeptics called it champagne problems” - champagne problems (okay idk if this makes sense but myra’s pov?????)

“so inviting, i almost jump in” - gold rush (richie’s pov)

gold rush plays into my eddie kaspbrak when emma falls in love theory thingy idk

“at dinner parties i call you out on your contrarian shit” - gold rush (eddie’s pov)

ALL OF TIS THE DAMN SEASON

“and it always leads to you in my hometown” - tis the damn season

“i parked my car right between the methodist and the school that used to be ours” - tis the damn season (richie’s pov)

“so i’ll go back to L.A, and the so called friends who write books about me, if i ever make it, and wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles im faking, and the heart i know i’m breaking is my own” - tis the damn season (POV DOESNT MATTER THIS IS THEIR BRIDGE. AHH)

“there’ll be happiness after you, but there was happiness because of you too” - happiness (richie’s pov)

“honey when i’m above the trees, i see this for what it is, but now i’m right down in it, all the years i’ve given” - happiness (richie’s pov)

“i can’t see facts through all my fury” - happiness (richie’s pov) (like when the losers wouldn’t let richie take eddie because they knew he was already dead)

“it’s never too late to come back to my side, the stars in your eyes shined brighter in tupelo (metaphor for derry??), and if you’re ever tired of being known for who you know, you know, you’ll always know me” - dorthea (richie’s pov)

“i’m sitting on a bench in coney island wondering where did my baby go” - coney island (richie’s pov) (i heard this live so i have to include a quote)

“id meet you where the spirit meets the bone” - ivy

“forever is the sweetest con” -cowboy like me

“takes one to know one, you’re a cowboy like me” - cowboy like me

(cowboy like me is my all time fav taylor song)

“i tried to pick my battles till the battle picked me” - long story short (eddie’s pov)

“pushed from the precipice, clung to the nearest lips, long story short it was the wrong guy” - long story short (eddie’s pov) (because he’s in love with richie not myra) (after leaving his mom, he CLUNG to the nearest person who made him feel at home)

“every scrap of you would be taken from me” - marjorie (richie’s pov)

“if i didn’t know better, id think you were still around” - marjorie (richie’s pov)

“what died didn’t stay dead” - marjorie

“it cut deep to know you right to the bone” - closure

“don’t treat me like, some situation that needs to be handled” - closure (eddie’s pov) (but about his mom not richie)

“this pain would be for evermore” - evermore (richie’s pov)

“guess i’m feeling unmoored, can’t remember, what i used to fight for” - SO EDDIE CODED (eddie’s pov)

“catching my death” - evermore (eddies pov)

“strangers get born and strangers get buried, trends change rumors fly through new skies, but i’m right where you left me” - right where you left me (richie’s pov)

“did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen, time went on for everybody else, she won’t know it, she’s still 23, inside her fantasy, how it was supposed to be, did you hear about the girl who lives in delusion?" - right where you left me (fits both of them in different ways)

" or that moment again, he's insisting that friends look at each other like that" - its time to go

"sometimes giving up is the strong thing, sometimes to run is the brave thing" - its time to go (eddies pov)

“he’s got my past frozen behind glass, but i’ve got me” - its time to go (eddie’s pov ab his mom)

[tmbg-tournie]

OMG I cant believe I missed the start of this, some of my faves got knocked out in their first round (whirlpool :( ). Im a bit curious: Im guessing youll probably do the kids albums, but what about live albums? Also what about Venue Songs and Then: The Earlier Years?

Here's some random songs pulled from all over that you could use in your singles polls. not expecting em to all make the cut, i dont know your criteria. i tried to check the previous polls to ensure i didnt include anything you already done but i may have missed some:

one more parade

snail dust

mrs. train

25 o clock

ram on

feast of lights

darlin allison

savoy truffle

pop a shot

anqui

the long grift

baroque hoedown

ant

through being cool

call connected thru the NSA

Valentine

minature sidewalk whirlwind

P.S.O.K.

Kooky Little Remix

Theres a great big beautiful tomorrow

name

you are old, father william

stormy pinkness

we've got a world that swings

(also during the solo projects later there the whole roman songs EP)

Thank you for the ask! Answers to your questions below!!

First of all, thank you so much for all the singles you’re a lifesaver (I find it hard to find singles that aren’t in regular albums too)

second of all, I am a proud proud whirlpool warrior and it should not have been slaughtered like that, some of my faves have been knocked out too (She’s an Angel…)

Third, I will do kids albums, and any live/earlier years album where it isn’t the same version of the song as what’s on main albums. Idk if that makes sense but more than likely yes I will do live albums/songs

My criteria for singles is that they have to be made by/under TMBG and not just made by one of them (ex. Mono Puff), they have to be different than the song on the main album (ex. The ungodly amount of Istanbuls), and they have to be actual songs (anti ex. Lesson 16)

Side note it is so fun to color text and also it makes it easier for me to read

[deyasworld]

( responding to my mutual, please don’t reblog this version of the post )

It’s just that…. Taylor Swift’s early career was known for having Easter Eggs talking about real relationships she had been in ( like hidden names in the lyric books, with capital letters spelling out a boy’s name, or references to an Instagram post a famous friend made ), and it encouraged fans to look for clues in all her work, seeing if they could connect the dots to who she’s talking about.

The problem is that, lots of her Boyfriend songs back then, used to be about how they broke her heart, how they mistreated her. For a while she was dating a lot of the most popular men in modern media, this was back in 2009-2014, and some songs she wrote about them damaged their careers ( ie. John Mayer who sings “Heartbreak Warfare” and “Say What You Need To Say” stopped playing on the radio when she released “Dear John”, where she sings about an age-gap relationship abuse, and ex member of One Direction, Zayn Malik, getting thrown an indirect accusation by her on live television at an award show, and the camera focused on his reaction ).

As you can see, there has been a heated issue with Swifties reading too much into songs, because a lot would take them far too seriously, and start making assumptions on her relationships based on songs. There is a community of young Swifties that insist she and her ex-Victoria’s Secret model friend, Karlie Kloss, are in a secret Sapphic relationship because they’d collab in several projects and would be seen hanging out a lot. They began connecting lyrics of her newest albums ( Lover and forward ), where she took a vow to not sing about real men for a while, and assumed it was because she was coming to terms with her new-found sexuality.

She has been asking her fans not to speculate on that subject because it’s not true, and the fans insist it’s a secret call for help because “She must be trapped by her contract and can’t come out”. And even if she was, in a wild chance, Sapphic, it still wouldn’t be okay to Out someone who is very publicly asking you to stop prying on the subject.

I’m guessing it’s all heating up and making rounds again because Karlie Kloss announced her pregnancy a few months ago, a few weeks before the MET Gala where Taylor Swift went alone after a breakup and these young girls were swearing “Kaylor” would go public. Also because she’s re-releasing one of her old albums, where the before mentioned “Dear John” song is featured, and the Swifties are already finding ways to cyberbully John Mayer, even after Taylor asked them not to because she’s not “that 19 year old anymore”.

( Sorry, everything I know about this affair I’ve learned through stuff on my dash 💀, I follow some fashion tags and music blogs )

taylor swift fans interpret her lyrics the way protestants interpret the bible

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY DID NO ONE PROPOSE A NEW SCHEME FOR MICROPAYMENTS

I grew up, so long as I enjoyed it. So don't underestimate this task. Though really it might be interesting to look at your idea in the harsh light of morning and ask: is this something people will pay most for? You often can't tell yourself. If they have time machines in the future they'll probably have a separate reference manual just for Cambridge. We can't do that, why not do it openly? When there's something we can't say: to look at things people do say, and get in trouble for saying that 2 2 is 5, or that people in the future had few fonts and they weren't antialiased. If you believe everything you're supposed to do what the teacher says. The disadvantage of this route is that it's slow and uncertain. One reason we had such a bad idea for startups that one wonders why things were ever done that way. By the second conference, what Web 2.

I'm convinced, is just the way that constraint is imparted to you.1 And what pressure it would put on the city if it worked. During the Bubble a lot of the earlier stage ones would probably take it. So understand that if you invest in startups, they decided to build recipe sites, or aggregators for local events. In the design of most other things, you get better results if you use flexible media. Editors must know they attract readers.2 I'm fairly stubborn, but I got the impression it might be ok to be discontented. And we know from experience that some undergrads are as capable as most grad students.

This is in contrast to Fortran and most succeeding languages, which doesn't pay at all, because people like it so much they do it for free. Tim O'Reilly led a session intended to figure out how we use the word. 0: their core business sounds crushingly hip when described in Web 2. If you want to do, you have to show off with your body instead. Finally you can buy individual songs instead of having to buy whole albums. Not explicitly, of course. Programmers learn by doing, and most of the other differences between startups and what passes for productivity in big companies, software tends to be written by large and frequently changing teams of mediocre programmers. A lot of them try to make them all work in some renovated warehouse you've made into an incubator.3

A rounds already are high res. People do in startups, at least, pick your battles.4 It made them hate working for the acquirer. But ambitious programmers are better off doing their own thing and failing than going to work at another job to make money that you can't do it by accident. What could be more wonderful, they think, than to be a good idea. Programmers, though, requires a conscious effort to keep your ideas about what you enjoy. But the pool of writers is very, very few who simply decide for themselves. At the time it was supposed to mean using the web as a platform was at least not too constricting. Hence what, for lack of a better name, I'll call the Python paradox: if a company chooses to write its software in a comparatively esoteric language, they'll be able to hire better programmers, because the more startups you had in town, the VCs wouldn't be trying so hard to discover what we like to work on, or don't like to get money to work on a Python project than you could to work on a Java project. Anyone who's worked for a time as a doctor in Nepal, for a time as the prize and the time you had a graph in which the x axis represented situations and the y axis the outcome, the graph of the smart person would have high peaks.

Notes

There are some controversial ideas here, since they're an existing university, or editions with the sort of stepping back is one way to predict areas where Apple will be interesting to 10,000 computers attached to the table. Free money to start using whatever you make something hackers use.

That will in many cases be an inverse correlation between the two, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Eighteen months later.

My guess is the same investor to invest but tried to combine the hardware with an online service, and one didn't try because they can't legitimately ask you to two of each type of thinking, but in fact they don't know. If you want to live in a startup. I see a lot of investors. But I don't know which name will stick.

Some introductions to other investors. The next time you raise as you raise money.

[jodilin65]

TUESDAY, MAY 31, 1994 I just typed a letter to Bob and have one ready for Kim tomorrow, too.

I don’t really feel like watching TV now. I watched a little while I ate my popcorn, though. Guess now I’ll go listen to some music or just veg out for a while till I can fall asleep.

Tomorrow I have to get blood drawn, meet Tom’s parents, and we’re also planning on videotaping me signing for the sign language program we hope to launch.

Later…

I am in the car right now, heading to get stuck. Lucky me, huh?

We’re not sure if we can see his parents cuz he called there and they said they were going out.

Yuck. I’m coughing up lots of sticky stuff.

It’s too bumpy for me to write now, so I’ll continue either in the doctor’s office or at home.

Later…

I am at the doctor’s office now. Amazingly there was one other guy only in the waiting room. He just went to get stuck first.

We’re going to KFC after. Then who knows where?

I just asked Tom if he had anything to say in here. He said nope. Not today.

Later…

I’m taping the music awards now. According to Andy, Gloria will be on at some point.

Got 3 letters from Bob today. In one of Bob’s letters, he enclosed a letter from a guy named Donald. He said he talked to him, warning him (Donald) of what’s OK and what’s not OK to write. I made a deal with Bob that anyone can write to me as long as they send their letters through Bob and never get my address. When I write them back, I’ll either write directly to them or send them to Bob to give to them. I know I can trust Bob’s judgment with this.

I got a package from Kim. She sent 2 sheets of 18 stamps. The kind you stick, rather than lick. She sent 2 boxes of envelopes. Each box contained 100 envelopes. Now we’re at a total of nearly 300 envelopes here!

Lastly, she sent 2 tapes of funny outgoing answering messages which I like a lot. I already put one on my voicemail. I duped them on Tom’s stereo and will soon send her back the originals. I’ve got to call Andy and let him know about the tapes and see if he wants to hear them. I’m sure he will. I also have to leave Kim’s address on his VM.

Later…

I just turned the VCR off and later I’ll watch the awards. I zip through 98% of it cuz most of it’s boring. Filled with people I could care less about.

Tom and I swam a lot today. It was fun. He has this plastic boat that’s broken, so it sinks. Therefore, I throw it across the pool and dive down under for it. I can open my eyes under water, but he can’t cuz of his contacts.

Still haven’t seen the van next door. I thought I heard a quick scream or two, but it kind of didn’t sound close enough to be right next door. It could’ve been anywhere, and all kids sound the same to me. They’re all one big scream in my book.

I put the pig on the little round raft and he loved it. He sat there so calmly, totally unafraid. Yes, he really does love the water.

Still no messages on Prodigy from either Tammy or Marla.

I’ll call on the 3rd to wish Becky a happy b-day. I sent a card with a $5-dollar bill. Tomorrow I’ll send out Ma’s card. Her birthday is on the 6th.

Tom called travel agencies today to get info. Only 14 more days left! Yup, in my next journal, I’ll be a married woman! Can you believe it?! I can’t fucking believe it! I never ever thought I’d see that day in my life. Maybe the next, if there is a next, but not in this one.

I think I’ll go watch the awards now.

Oh, I forgot to mention - no calls from Larry. He either gave up or tried to call when we were out but left no message. Oh well.

Later…

I just saw the awards. It was the World Music Awards. Gloria just doesn’t look as good as she did during her Let It Loose album and her Cuts Both Ways album.

I suppose I should shave my legs now, but I’m too lazy.

I saw an interesting commercial for an upcoming show on 20/20. Water births. They say it takes some of the pain and pressure off and makes it easier for the baby. Bet you gotta be rich for that. Water or no water, I can’t imagine something the size of a watermelon ripping through my crotch. Plus, I’d probably have to have a C-section anyway.

Later…

Starting another beautiful journal. This shall be the journal in which I am to be married in. Amazing!

Can’t think of anything to write about at the moment. Just that I’m going to go turn the computer off and watch TV. I expect to listen to music at some point, as well. My nails look pitiful. I better go cut those, too.

Hopefully, by tomorrow book of Letters #9 will be finished. It all depends on what I get in the mail. In the meantime, I will write later or tomorrow.

MONDAY, MAY 30, 1994 Well, it was on this day two years ago that I found out I’d be moving to Phoenix.

Today was a good one. Larry called, but I wasn’t awake enough to talk to him. I hope he catches me the next time.

Not much else happened today. We got more sawdust and some treats for Piggy, did computer work, and went swimming.

There’s no mail tomorrow cuz of Memorial Day, so hopefully Tuesday will bring me lots of mail.

They’ve been so quiet next door and they were definitely out today. Could they have gone to Idaho? I sure hope so, but I won’t count on it.

Later…

Tom got home right after I last wrote. He had quite a bit to fix on Eldon’s computer.

We just had pork chops and now I’m full.

Tomorrow’s the 102º day, so I heard, and it’s going to be a great swimming day.

Tom just said he thinks it’s best to get wedding rings after we’re married so we’ll have money for Vegas. I agree, but it would’ve been nice to have rings at the wedding. Why must love be so expensive?

Come to think of it, I think Larry’s just going to be calling, not coming to visit.

Well, there’s nothing else going on at the moment. I’m taping a movie and Tom’s eating. He’s on Prodigy now and I have my first of two loads of clothes in the dryer, which I guess he’s waiting for. I suppose I could call Prodigy to see if I have any messages from Marla or Tammy, but I doubt it. Tammy’s too busy, and Marla’s told me it may be a while.

When am I going to bed? I have no idea, but I think I’ll go listen to my music.

Tom just said he feels much better. He hadn’t eaten all day long.

Later…

Just got done swimming with Tom. It’s really hot out and the water felt so good.

He’s checking to see if the start of our sign language program works, then we’re going to have fun.

Again they’re not home next door. What luck, huh? I sure hope they split to Idaho. It’d be even nicer if they decided just how much they missed it and sold their house to a nice old couple. One with no little grandkids who hardly ever have company. No dogs, either. Hopefully, they’re cat, bird, or fish lovers instead.

Later…

The typing of #6 is going pretty fast. Within the next couple of days, I should be done with it. Then, I’ll be skipping #7 cuz I already typed it and I’ll do #8.

Swimming was lots of fun today and it was 105º today. They say it’ll be 102º tomorrow and 107º the next day. Wow! Summer’s definitely here. The pool shouldn’t be too chilly for the next handful of months. Even in the middle of the night, it will be extremely warm.

They were definitely gone all weekend as I said before. (next door) I still haven’t heard them return and I definitely think I would’ve if they were back. As the parents were unpacking, I’m sure the kids would’ve been screaming back and forth with them. I hope they’re in Idaho and seriously enjoying it.

After I let enough time go by, cuz I just took my meds, I’ll make some popcorn. Yummy!

Larry didn’t try to call back again, but Tammy said he called her. She said they only spoke for two minutes. He was in Wisconsin on his way to Colorado.

I hope I have a generous supply of mail tomorrow. Kim’s answering machine tapes, envelopes, stamps, and whatever the hell else may arrive tomorrow.

Going to go finish my coffee now.

SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1994 Tom came home early yesterday, and Andy got here shortly after. He swam a bit and we talked and he played the new Stevie single he bought on his way over here. After he left, mom and dad called and Tom and I spoke with them. It was a nice chat.

Ma says Larry’s going to be calling. Cool, but with my luck, it’ll be when Andy and I are out at yard sales.

Andy called last night with his sister Marla in California on the line. She was telling me all about her new and very impressive computer and that she’d eventually send me a message on Prodigy. Tom also talked with Marla and her husband even cuz they had lots of questions for Tom.

Andy will be calling any second to tell me he’s on his way over.

Tom’s going to go help Eldon with his computer cuz it’s trashed.

Later…

This afternoon Andy picked me up. We were out for about 3 hours. We couldn’t find any yard sales. It was kind of late for that, but we drove through some absolutely gorgeous neighborhoods.

First we went to JB’s where I ordered a pork chop dinner. It sucked so it was comped. All I got was a sundae and an iced tea.

When we couldn’t find any yard sales, we went to a pawn shop. There, I got an oldies CD and the CD Trio with Linda, Dolly and Emmylou. I have it on tape, but it’s finally nice to have it on CD. I sing a lot of the songs on that CD. At another store, I got Lush Life by Linda. Another one I only had on tape and most of those songs I enjoy singing.

Got 2 letters from Bob, 1 Bob sent Kim and 1 from Kim to me. She also surprised Andy with a letter.

When Andy and I got back here we went swimming. The pool’s the most comfortable it’s been all year so far. Andy hung out for an hour or so. I read him Bob’s letters. He also pointed out that I put the shelf up wrong that he’d given me when I was doing wall art at his place. I fixed it and I hope it holds.

Oh! Almost forgot. Got the diamond earrings my parents sent. Yes, they’re very beautiful.

No call from Larry yet. He sure won’t recognize this place. When he was last here, there were no wall drawings and that old ugly kitchen paneling was still up.

Now, I’m going to go change the batteries in my speakerphone.

Later…

Where in the world is Tom? I guess Eldon’s situation with his computer was as horrible as Tom said it was when he called him last night. Anyway, I thought he’d be back between 4:00 - 6:00, but I guess not.

Tammy says she’s back on Prodigy. She hooked it up. I’ll leave her a message maybe tomorrow. I just haven’t really felt like doing any computer work today. I’ll probably type some letters, too.

No calls from Fran. I wonder if he’s already lost his phone. If not, I’m sure it’ll be soon enough. Maybe Larry will call tomorrow, but Ma said something about Wisconsin, but that’s quite a way away.

I changed the batteries on the speakerphone. I watched some TV and there are 1 or 2 movies I’ll be taping. Tomorrow we have to get Piggy another big bail of sawdust. I mailed Becky’s birthday card out today and on the 1st I’ll mail Mom’s out. Well, I guess that’s it for now. I’ll just go veg out.

FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1994 Andy will be here any time now. Of course, he was supposed to be here two hours ago, but you know how he is. Always late.

Been back and forth from the pool all day. Getting a bit more color.

THURSDAY, MAY 26, 1994 Got a lot done today. I finished typing up #5 and then I typed all of #7. How’d I do that? Easy. It was only 20 pages or so cuz the old little #10 was recopied into #7 when I lived at the Vista Ventana. Remember? The remainder of #7 is being used for an ongoing journal chart.

I’m outside now and the weather’s gorgeous. It’s the perfect temp now. Not too cool, not too hot. It’s not very easy to write out here, though. Wish there was a table out here.

Guess Tom needs to chlorinate the pool. It’s a lovely shade of jade green.

I’m momentarily going to put the stuff I want to write about on hold.

Later…

OK, I’m going to write till Tom’s dinner is digested. Then it’s playtime for us.

Got 3 letters today from Bob and 1 from Kim. Got a total of 204 letters now and BOL #9 has 38 pages left in it now.

Andy called with Sarah on the line who’s playing Sabrina and I read her Fran’s letter. She was cracking up.

I was out bouncing my superball off the laundry room door when Tom came home. He shocked the pool.

So, their last name is M next door. A catalog came in their name. I brought it over, hoping that’d be a great opportunity to see if they’re really going to Idaho, or if they’re all talk. No one came to the door, though, cuz I doubt my knocking could be heard over all those screaming kids.

I’ve been playing another computer game Tom showed me. It’s kind of cool and lots of fun.

Later tonight I’ll begin typing #6. I thought about maybe typing up the quicker ones, though, first. What I mean by quicker ones is that there are a few with large print.

Andy and I may shoot again for going to yard sales this Saturday morning.

What am I forgetting to mention? Guess I’ve covered everything. I still can’t wait till we get new ribbons, but that’ll probably be after we’re married. There are so many pictures I want to eventually print out.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1994 Where the hell is the mail? Oh well, I guess it’s still early enough. I just stepped out to put out Bob’s letter and I saw his truck so he’s on his way. I hope he has Sabrina’s letter and letters from Bob and Kim, too. I do have more to write about, but I’m not in the mood just yet. I’ll fill you in later.

Yup, just got Sabrina’s letter which was so funny! This guy can’t spell, make any sense, and never uses any periods. Sabrina and I wrote him back and I’m sending letters to Kim and Bob. I’m going to send Fran’s letter to Kim. She’ll get a major kick out of it, then send it to Bob.

Fran left me a message for Bob’s address saying he knows people in prison where he is. I sent Bob’s address and I also sent Bob Fran’s address.

I talked with Tammy who dropped a jug of juice, stepped on it and had to get stitches in her foot. Good, God! I feel like not only did I leave the curse that was on me behind, upon coming here, but that now the curse is on them.

Today’s their anniversary, too. I sure hope their next one’s 100% better.

I called Ma and told her and she said (as we were about to hang up) “I bought you something. Yes, it’s real. You can wear it at your wedding to feel like I’m there with you, but only if you want to.”

Tom had a great idea last night. We’re going to get some dorky shirts there for the wedding.

Both Mom and Dad will be calling either Friday or Saturday night.

Well, I think I’ve remembered to write about everything I wanted to. Going to go play a computer game!

TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1994 Just got this pen at the grocery store. It’s the same kind as the blue one I’ve been writing with.

Got my meds too, and the guy came today to do the appraisal. We hope all goes well with that and fast.

I am so tired, so I’m going to make this quick. Today was a fun and productive day. Tom and I also made love.

We had T-storms today and for the first time in a while, my allergies acted up. I took an allergy pill and I’m much better now, but very tired.

I’m going to go shut the computer off and try to get some sleep. I need it.

Kim called telling me she won’t be able to mail out the tape, stamps, and envelopes till Friday. That’s OK, cuz we got some stamps and envelopes.

MONDAY, MAY 23, 1994 Got a letter from Bob. One of the happiest he’s ever written. He really likes it better where he is.

I also got 5 returns for info on home computer work which I’ll have Tom check out later on.

Today is a weird day! Last night Tom and I cuddled, but we were both too beat for sex. He reminded me to wear whatever I want, regardless of if it’d be something he’d wear or not if he were me. It’s true that he never plays daddy, otherwise I wouldn’t marry him or be here.

The phone’s ringing, but I ain’t answering it. People always call when I’m busy. Kim called and she’s sending stamps and envelopes. Cool cuz my supply is running out and I don’t want to reorder now. I want to save all my money for Vegas.

She’s also mailing me a tape of different outgoing messages for the VM. There are people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rosanne Barr, Joan Rivers, Star Trek, Madonna, David Letterman and some others.

Andy got Sabrina’s letter and he read it to me. It’s sooo funny and he’s putting it in tomorrow’s mail (I hope).

I went for a few swims today.

Tom and I went over the business info I got. He’s going to check them out on the computer. Some sounded hopeful and some sounded shady.

Speaking of computers, boy did I get so mad and bummed! I accidentally deleted 6-7 pages I typed on and off all day today, but when Tom got home he recovered it. Andy said, “Thank God you’re marrying a genius.” How true indeed. What a heroic rescue.

Well, I’m sort of tired now and tomorrow will be a big day, so I think I’ll just go take it easy.

SUNDAY, MAY 22, 1994 Well, well. I’ve got quite a bit to write about this time around. Let me first think about all the little things to tell about before I get into bigger things.

Well, Tammy got her kitten labels. Mine oughta come at the beginning of this week.

Andy and I were going to go to some yard sales yesterday, but he got sick.

I’m starting to get some color once again and I haven’t laid out either. I won’t do that ever again cuz all I do is get chased by bees and get sun poisoning.

Yesterday, in my opinion, wasn’t a good day, but it could’ve been much much worse. I woke up today with the attitude that yesterday was done and over with. First my pillowcase came apart in the washer, as I had mentioned before. Once again the reality of being trapped on cigarettes till they kill me had me bummed. Tom watched basketball all day, then we went swimming.

At one point in the pool, Tom started to initiate sex, but after a few minutes, I began to get really chilly. I wasn’t going to mention it, but it was making me so tense and rigid that I had to. He then put on the spa and I had a smoke while I was waiting for it to warm up. When it did warm up I got in and began giving him a hand job. He didn’t seem overly aroused but aroused enough, so I thought. When we went to get out he seemed bummed and when I asked why he said it was cuz it was hard for him to restart again. I had mentioned finishing our business in bed, but he just couldn’t seem to get in the mood again.

Up till yesterday, it seemed to be that we swapped shoes in a way. Remember how I was the one who was always horny and would be begging for him to initiate sex more? Well, now it seems the other way around. Guess I go through my phases with that.

Well, things are far from bad with us and both of us are still eager to get married, but there are still a few things I don’t get. When he said how he didn’t want to be held back (sexually I mean), I didn’t get that cuz he’s held his own self back. I used to think that he couldn’t cum by me but now I think he can. If he can get so hard so many times, he can cum. There were several times he was about to cum and he just stopped, so why he’d hold back beats me. I don’t want to put him on the spot, though, and ask him. If he chooses not to cum by me, then that’s his choice.

This morning he told me he didn’t sleep too well cuz yesterday was a bad day. He said he’s not blaming me for it or trying to put a guilt trip on me, but I feel that way anyhow. I feel like he’s not going to initiate sex later as a punishment for yesterday. He always tells me to look ahead, don’t take things so seriously, so then why is it still a big deal? I can understand something very traumatic being a big deal for a while, but yesterday really wasn’t all that bad.

Lastly, when I went to put on a certain shirt I jokingly said we oughta get married with me in it and he looked mortified. I hope he knows me well enough to know I was joking. He seems to be taking some things too seriously. I resent his saying I’ve taken away all the things that turn him on about me. If I’ve turned him off so badly, wouldn’t he not want to be with me? Also, I dress with my tits hanging out which is bull. There was only this one shirt and I didn’t even know it till he mentioned it. Now I’m going to be paranoid about what I wear when we go out. My body is for him and him only, but I cannot and will not live to please others. I can’t spend my whole life worrying about what they think of me or my clothes. I just don’t feel I should need to worry about what a stranger approves or disapproves of. I just hope that Tom knows that I am for him only, regardless of whatever some stranger may be thinking when they see me in public.

Regardless of this, we both do love each other very much, have way more better days than most couples, and want very much to be married.

I called Florida today, but only my mom was there. She and Dad are both going to call back this week. She asked Tom about his life in general. Tom told him about his work, being here all his life and that we’ll be married in Vegas. Ma mentioned getting us a portable dishwasher for a wedding present. Cool. No, she never went into why we shouldn’t have kids.

Well, that’s pretty much it. We both swam today and it’s been so quiet next door, across the street, and with dogs.

Later…

Well, I’m now recording the first part of the Menendez Brothers’ murder case. It’s a 2-part movie about these 2 brothers who murdered their parents. It’s based on a real-life true story.

Tom mentioned us fooling around, but we were both really hungry so we ate. I think we’re both going to be too tired.

SATURDAY, MAY 21, 1994 Today's been a real frustrating day so far. I went to wash my pillows and one came apart. The other one's all bunched up. At least it's quiet next door. So far.

THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1994 Tammy got her address labels today. She liked them a lot and I just realized the second order of mine could be out front so I’d better go check.

Nope. It’s not, but I might get it tomorrow.

Got the package from Mom yesterday of one huge stuffed cheetah, leopard, or whatever. Tom and I aren’t sure, but it’s cute.

I went for a very quick swim in the Jacuzzi today. The pig did too. Early this morning the water temp was 76º and it was almost 80º an hour ago. I may go for another swim after I finish writing.

I got 1 letter from Kim and 2 from Bob. Bob’s artwork is really improving. Kim also sent me 3 letters she’d gotten from Bob. I typed them letters and quickly chatted with Fran. They’re about to turn his phone off. His bill’s currently $1,500. Ha, ha!

Now I think I will go, after all, and see what the pool’s like now.

Later…

I changed my mind about going swimming. I could, as it’s far from freezing, but it’s very windy. I only like it windy when it’s 100º or higher.

I’m watching Donoghue now. God, guys are so horny and so easy. I can bet you that 99% of guys hit on by a woman will jump to the opportunity right then and there. There’s nothing wrong with being a whore if your partners are willing, but guys are such major whores.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 1994 Yesterday I managed to stay up till 2 PM and I got as close to midnight.

Also yesterday, Tom did yard work. I even helped saw off a tree branch.

Tom brought up a very important subject. He said, “I don’t want you to feel controlled or like I’m picking your friends, but I don’t think it’s wise to be pen pals with anyone else in prison.”

He brought up some other things to consider, too. The guy lived in Arizona for 5 years, knows the area, knows people here, and is in for involuntary manslaughter which is a common plea bargain for murder. He’s right, and that’d be all I’d need is for him to get released, come out here and stalk me. Usually, the only way to rid yourself of a stalker is to kill them. I certainly don’t feel like having to go out, learn to shoot, then kill this guy. Or anyone else.

I’ll explain all this to Bob, but I think he’s just been transferred. In the letter I got today from him he says he’d like to call collect to let me know the new address. As I was falling asleep I forgot to ask Tom if he could accept his call, if he did call. He did call, but Tom refused. Oh well. He also left me a message saying Andy, Fran and Kim called, too.

In a half-hour he should be getting up, then after he leaves I’ll dust and vacuum.

Later…

I’m so tired now. Just exhausted, but I don’t want to go to bed just yet. Let’s see… what can I write about? Well, for starters, Bob called and gave me his new address in Gardner. He says it’s so much better there than in Concord. Easier for Kim to visit here and there, too, cuz Gardner’s an hour away, whereas Concord’s a little over two hours. Any mail already on its way to Concord will be transferred to Gardner. I went to the computer and opened his address file, typed in his new address (now that I know this is his last transfer) and printed out a sheet of labels.

Speaking of labels, got my cactus labels. When I’m officially married, there’ll still be plenty of the old ones left to use as entry headers.

TUESDAY, MAY 17, 1994 I have so much to write about, but I am temporarily all written out. I’ll do a quick rundown on things.

I got all psyched up last night for nothing, but Tom said he’ll show me what I’m doing wrong with printing pictures.

I got 2 letters from Kim, 2 from Bob and 1 from David. He’s an inmate where Bob is and the letter he sent was nice. I have another pen pal possibly.

BOL #9 has 38 pages done already.

MONDAY, MAY 16, 1994 I’m printing out shots of Andy and I performing at the Pub and Frontier. I hope it comes out OK. Andy’s going to love it and I’ll send copies to my parents, Tammy, Bob and Kim too, eventually. This will be so much fun, but right now I’ve got to go see how it’s printing out. It takes forever and I’ve got sooo many scenes of sooo many different things that I want to print out.

Later…

Picture #1 came out so-so. Parts of it were either too light or too dark. People’s faces were one big white blob. You couldn’t see much detail. We need a new ribbon. Also, Tom said he’d show me how to lighten and darken things. How to change picture sizes, too.

I wonder if my package from my folks will arrive today. I hope so if she mailed it last Tuesday or Wednesday.

The journal Tom got me is so cute. It’s so sweet of him too, and he said he finally wanted to buy me a journal without me there.

I’ll have to ask for Andy’s help in mid-June or so, to take me somewhere to get something for Tom’s birthday.

Well, let me go check on how picture #2 is making progress.

Later…

Picture #2 came out lousy, but we’ll see how #3 comes out. I definitely have lots of questions for Tom. I’m going to try to print a Gloria picture as I’m curious to see how that comes out. I’ll try more of Norah, too.

Later…

Yay! I’m so psyched. I showed Tom how shitty the pictures came out and he said it was cuz I was starting with the picture too small on the screen. He also said he’d show me how to fix it sometime. Well, guess what? I figured out how to fix it for myself. So, this is what I’ll be doing for a while, then maybe I will go for a swim.

SUNDAY, MAY 15, 1994 Got a letter from Bob and got a letter from Kim today.

I’m certainly going to have a lot of movies taped. Six of them, and in 40 minutes or so, I’m going to watch another. One is about ice skaters trying for gold and falling in love while they're at it.

I got up at 6 PM and could’ve easily gone to Tom’s parents' house tomorrow morning. Guess why I’m not, though? Cuz Tom says there’ll be some cousins, “ants” and uncles who are jerks. Don’t I know all too well about that one?

It was 101º today. I went out back a couple of times in the early evening and guess who I could hear? It pisses me off and it’s also very depressing. Except for dogs, it used to be so quiet and peaceful back there. I still hang onto the hope that as the temperature gets hotter and hotter, they’ll shut their fucking door. Better yet, leave. It’s better than having them right outside my bedroom, though, and during the winter they oughta have their doors shut. I never could really hear them in the back till recently.

Well, it’s nice to know the music’s quiet across the street, their dog’s quiet next door and the dog across the street has been long gone.

Also, not one spider since we bombed. That’s just great cuz by now I’d have found about 20 more.

The more I think about it I realize that it doesn’t matter if they leave next door cuz if they do, God will send someone else to irk me.

Later…

I know I’ve bitched and bitched, but I guess I just always have something to whine about with life’s many ups and downs and changes. However, next door, for example, really hits me hard cuz of the NHA. Also, the VV and CC, but especially the NHA.

I’m bummed now cuz I want to go swimming today. Well, I might want to. We’ll have to see how tired I am. The point is that I live in a house that will sound like an apartment complex out back.

Again I ask God why He insists on doing this to me. What does He want from me? No matter when I may think about having a kid, I know it is not meant to be. There are more reasons for it not to be meant to be, than for it to be meant to be, so why does He insist on exposing me to kids’ noise so much? I don’t care that it’s a fraction of the NHA’s noise, either. I want to know what the point is. What did I ever do to any child for Him to use them against me? Is it cuz I pissed off adults when I was a child? Every child does, so why me? There are enough people in this world, you know, who don’t have to put up with having their own backyards screamed out. Especially in a house.

It would ease my mind right now if I knew for sure they were going to Idaho or would shut their fucking doors.

Tom’s up now, so I’ll continue this later. He’s up early. I thought he’d sleep in today.

Later…

Last night I went through a catalog for work at home. Sending mailing lists, stuffing envelopes, etc.

I slept from 10 AM to 7:30 PM and feel so much better. Today’s the last day of my antibiotics.

Tomorrow oughta be a great day. It’ll be Monday, and too hot for them to have their doors open.

Tom said he was glad I didn’t go to his parent’s house today. He said there were 4 kids and 20 adults. All in a house half the size of ours.

He surprised me today with a teddy bear journal (#74) that was only $2.49.

SATURDAY, MAY 14, 1994 I am so fucking pissed! There’s nothing like having everything break down on you at once. God just insists for whatever reason that I don’t do any computer work right now. The printer’s fucked up, so I can’t print out Bob’s and Fran’s letters. The VCR keeps flashing that the timer’s on and I can’t turn it off! I swear I’m on the verge of handwriting all my letters again! And fuck working with the video blaster!

The good news that I amazingly have is that I got one letter each from Bob and Kim today and BOL #8 is done.

Kim sent Tom a check for $15. That was nice of her. I thought she said she was sending $10.

Fran called and we talked for two hours. We got Andy on the line at one point and he had Fran call his friend Mary who’s also in Springfield. We called Nervous and Crystal a few times and they only spoke briefly and hung up. I couldn’t get Crystal to go off like I wanted her to. Nervous was drunker than hell. Lastly, we ordered them a pizza, but who knows if they’ll get it? You can’t get into their front door with no key.

Tomorrow we’re going grocery shopping. I mean today (early this morning).

I’ll probably be too tired to swim today, but who cares when I’m sure all they’re going to do is scream all day next door.

Don’t they ever go anywhere? I swear these people are home more than I am. When did they move in? November or December? Maybe even October? I’d have to look it up, but my point is that they’ve spent a total of no more than 4 days out. Tom says that if they really do go to Idaho, it’s tradition to go on Memorial weekend. So many people talk but never do, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. And also hope that if they do split, God won’t stick me with someone else’s noise. It didn’t sound like anyone would be renting cuz the guy’s going to stay there the bulk of the time and fly up on weekends. That’s what she said.

Later…

I just did some typing on #4, the only thing I can do tonight on the computer that works.

My waterbed sheets have been staying on a hell of a lot better since I cut the corners at the headboard, making straps. It’s a very hard thing to describe in writing, but it works.

I also did some exercises.

I hope Andy didn’t get killed or something when he went for his walk after Fran and I talked to him. He said he’d call back, but I’m sure he fell asleep. I still have a keen enough 6th sense and I’d have a lousy feeling in my gut if there was anything wrong.

I’ve got 8 hours’ worth of movies taped. This will be good for those days when I don’t feel like doing anything at all. That’s usually only 1-2 times a month, but it’s good for those kinds of days.

In about 4 hours we’ll be going grocery shopping.

FRIDAY, MAY 13, 1994 Got up at 2:30 PM yesterday. Got 6 hours of sleep, but I’m not tired. Woke up with my period, too.

I went swimming at 6 PM. It was nice and within the next week, the temperature will be climbing. Tomorrow will be 93º, and for Saturday, 97º. Sunday & Monday, 100º. Who knows if I’ll be lucky enough to have a peaceful swim this weekend? I’ll probably get screamed out by the lovely animals next door. Will they really ever go to Idaho? Who knows, but I’m definitely going to Vegas from June 14-17. We’ll be married on the 15th. Can’t wait!

Fran called earlier all upset about that girl Annette. Tom thought it was really neat how I calmed him down and got his mind off of it.

Yesterday Tammy brought Bill home from the hospital, so that’s cool.

I wrote letters to Bob and Kim. Got 2 letters today from Bob and I should hear from Kim tomorrow. I’m sending out my letter to the Phoenix Day School for the Deaf, so we’ll see where that goes.

I exercised and will continue to regardless of where my weight goes.

Wanna go for a swim right now, but I’m sure it’s too chilly now.

Well, now I’m going to go start typing up more of #4.

I sure did lots of typing on #4 tonight. I typed 10 pages, which only took 5 on the computer. I made some spaghetti, and wonder if BOL #8 will be finished tomorrow?

I gotta take a break and lay down for a while, so I’ll see ya.

Later…

I forgot to mention that yesterday I got a call from Dr. Wilcox’s office. My white blood cell count has improved. In 3 weeks I gotta get blood drawn again, though.

I did even more typing on #4. I typed a total of 8 pages through the night. There are 53 lines per page. I think that’s 505 lines altogether. That’s a lot. Most of the shit I’m typing is either way off the wall or shit I really don’t care to remember.

Spoke to Tam and gave her our wedding date. She said she wished she could be there. Me too, but what can anyone do?

Tom just turned the shower off and will soon be off to work. Poor guy. He’s running late, too.

Well, gotta go set the VCR.

THURSDAY, MAY 12, 1994 They say when one falls in love (or thinks they are), they’re compensated with weight gain. Well, they were right as I continue to get bigger. The sooner I stop worrying about it and trying to change it, the better I’ll feel. So, let the fat come! This also happened with Brenda and Kacey. Yeah, well, no chance of me leaving Tom, so God can pile all the pounds on me he wants.

I finished watching the movie I taped.

I was typing letters earlier to my parents and to Tammy and I figured out how to insert symbols and special characters.

I had another idea about my weight. Why don’t I try to get fat? Cuz, you know that the harder you try for something, the less likely you are to get it. That rule didn’t apply to me with women, though. Even when I wasn’t looking I never got approached by anything spectacular.

Tomorrow I will have my period. That’ll only make my tummy a little flatter for 24-48 hours or so, so I’ll just go with the flow, do whatever my body’s going to do and not try to resist it. By August I’ll probably be 106-110 on our scale here. I’ll keep a regular log of it. Earlier the scale said 102 and my waist was a sickening 27”. The last time I had a 27” waist, I weighed 110-115. Someday I could weigh 100 and have a 29” waist. It feels like I get way more inches for the pounds. Tom keeps insisting I’m skinny and that’s fine and that’s his opinion, but what’s really important is how I feel. That’s what really counts and I no longer can as easily look in the mirror. That is unless I’m not nude.

Yesterday I fell asleep at 8 AM and got up at 2:30 PM. I’m surprised I didn’t sleep till 4:00 or 5:00 and that I wasn’t tired all day. Especially with the rain too, cuz that usually makes me tired.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 1994 Now I finally have time to update. Yesterday me and Tom broke a record. He went down on me and I came twice. No one else has ever been able to make me cum twice.

I spoke to Ma a couple of days ago and she tried to call us too on Mother’s Day, but we both missed each other’s calls. Oh well. Better luck next time.

Got a Bob letter two days in a row and Kim called yesterday, too. She had me play a joke on Phil, her very much ex. He placed a personal ad on a 900-voicemail system and I called with a bogus Northampton number and name, saying I was very interested in meeting him. She’s going to reimburse us and wrote a check to Tom for $10.

She’d also like to visit again in the summer or fall and maybe go to Vegas. Tom said he’d like to go, too. That’s cool. I thought he’d want to avoid Kim.

She’s got letters on their way to me, too.

So, it didn’t take long for the blood work, then we went to get cash, then to KFC, then to Jack-n-the-Box, then home. We were gone for about two hours.

Upon getting home, we opened the place up and turned the EC on. No more spiders!

When Tom woke me up yesterday, damn was he horny! Unfortunately, I was too tired to respond.

I printed address labels for the people I write to a lot except for Bob since he may be moved out to Gardner.

Speaking of address labels, a Veteran company sent me about 90 of them on a sheet. Right before I get married, huh? That’s OK, though, cuz I’ll use them for Fran, as well as entry separators. They weren’t overly impressive. Just so-so. They had 4 different things preceding the address. Eagles, flags, rainbows and fireworks. I put the labels in the front cover of my journal.

I’m mailing Nerv tons of computer catalogs. Yup, Tom gave me lots of NPN cards for catalogs I know he didn’t get yet. I printed out 2 sheets, each of 14, so that totals 28 labels of Nerv’s name and address, so I only had to write 4 by hand. So, he should get 32 catalogs, all from different states.

Later…

Tom’s home from work now, eating dinner and getting the basketball scores on the TV in the back room.

In the living room, I’m recording Friday the 13th. They’re having about 5 episodes from Wednesday-Friday.

Within an hour or so, he’ll be going to bed, seeing how he’s been up since 5 AM. After he’s in bed, I’ll probably do some typing. Last night I used all those free labels I got, plus some of the ones I already had.

Later…

I was about to expand on my labels, but Tom and I got to talking, then he crashed.

I had several journals, especially the earlier ones, with calendars, and other little things here and there, taped in the front and back covers. I had written stupid stuff like numbers on the back and front covers, making it look confusing and unorganized. That’s the original purpose of covering them with pictures of flowers from calendars and whatever the hell else. I took off the pictures I had taped on and re-covered the confusing mess back up with address labels.

TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1994 I have several things to write about, but then again, maybe I should wait till tomorrow.

Tomorrow we’re bombing this place, thank fucking God. I’m sick of finding at least 3 spiders a day.

I’m getting blood drawn again tomorrow to see if my white blood cell count is normal again. Of course, we’re taking the pig with us. Getting blood drawn won’t take 2-3 hours, so what else we’ll do and where else we’ll go, who knows? I’ll save the rest of my news for either later or tomorrow.

Later…

I am at the doctor’s now waiting to be stuck. She said it won’t be too long, but we’ll see.

Before we left we set off the bombs. Piggy’s in the car with Tom.

SUNDAY, MAY 8, 1994 I hope Tom hurries up and gets home. Last night we agreed we’d call my parents. For two reasons. One’s cuz it’s Mother’s Day and the other’s so they can talk with Tom. I have a feeling he may have an excuse not to call. Does he really want to talk to them or even meet them? I wonder about this, but we’ll see what he says when he gets in.

Next Sunday I’ll be meeting his parents, but now I wonder if I’ll be able to be up at a decent hour. I didn’t get up till 2:30 today.

I talked to Tammy who says Bill’s doing better. She’s got a cold, though, or something. She said Larry called her. They only spoke for two minutes. He was in Missouri.

They made it sound like it was going to be very chilly today. Well, it’s not hot, but it’s not chilly either.

The pool doesn’t feel too bad, but it is very windy out. They say we may have T-storms tonight or tomorrow.

I’m very hungry now, so I think I’ll go cook some chicken wings.

Later…

I just threw in a few chicken wings and did the dishes.

I think I just heard Tom. If he isn’t back in an hour then, I’m not going to call my mom. If we don’t call my mom I’ll keep my mouth shut for a few days and see if he mentions it. If he doesn’t, I’ll remind him that he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to and he can tell me so up front.

Later…

Tom got home about 20 minutes ago and we did try calling my parents, but there was no answer.

I ate and now he’s eating.

I also talked to Andy for a few minutes. Between both of us, we’ve got lots of mail to go out tomorrow. He’s got his bills, book club and whatever computer stuff. I’ve got letters to Fran, Bob, Kim, Tammy, Bill, my nieces and my parents.

God, my face has been so greasy. Guess that’s better than it being all dry and flaky, though.

I just printed out 3 pictures from tapes but they’re too light. Time for a new color ribbon. That video thing’s so fun. When we get a new ribbon, I’m going to do some of Gloria. I’m going to do different stuff for Tom, and I have a real surprise for him and Andy both. I’m going to take the video of me and Andy performing at the pub and the Frontier and print some of those out.

Later…

That guy Eldon gave Tom an old VCR for working for him today. He just sprayed electrical spray on it, so I’m in my room now till the smell goes away. Later on tonight, I may use whichever VCR to print out some pictures.

He’s on the phone now talking to David.

I have been running a mile a minute here and now I gotta slow down.

Tom was really tired so we didn’t have any fun tonight. That’s alright though as amazingly enough, I’m not all that horny for being 3 days away from my period.

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1994 I am sitting at the kitchen table now where it’s easier for me to write.

I just copied a drawing Bob sent of a horse. It was from the neck up. Mine was good, but most of his I liked better.

I’m getting sort of drowsy now and I also have to go take another antibiotic now. I’m going to veg out to music and lay down, so I’ll write another time.

Later…

Yup, I’m still up.

I killed 3 spiders and typed a letter to Boo and Max. Why? Oh just for the hell of it and to give them a life update since they last helped me out. Hopefully, they’re still in Longmeadow and will get the letter. I believe they only go to Florida during the winter.

I forgot to mention the lovely and unexpected surprise I got from Tom shortly after I got up yesterday morning. He went down on me on the couch, then later we played on the waterbed. This time wasn’t a clumsy disaster as he made it in there. I swear this guy’s getting closer and closer to cumming, but if he ever will, who knows?

He’s going shopping this morning for some stuff we need around here. We need silverware, margarine, water, and of course, food items, too. He’ll be up in 1-3 hours.

Gotta call Prodigy. I’m sure I have all kinds of junk mail to delete. Gotta shave, gotta polish my nails and whatever else I can think of.

Yesterday I gave my hair another mayonnaise treatment. It really does work well at getting the dryness out. Makes it softer. I topped it off with Infusium.

Later…

Today I got Andy’s 14-page letter. It’s pretty cool and funny. I also got a letter from Bob. I’m going to go type them up and use the disk labels to stick them in BOL #8.

Got myself an unexpected surprise today. I went swimming today and the water’s a little warmer. No noise next door.

Tom did some yard work and it really looks nice out there. He trimmed with the edger after he mowed and swept the grass away since tomorrow they say it’ll be not only windy but very much cooler.

He also brought out this little round raft which is perfect for my size. It’s actually intended for something other than a raft. It’s got 8 small spots for glasses around it and in the center, another bigger sunken spot for a thing of ice. The pig will love traveling around in that.

I typed up Bob’s 7-page letter and Andy’s 14-page letter. It’s printing out now.

Later…

I just jumped up to take my antibiotic. Don’t wanna be too late on it.

Amazingly enough, I got up at 12:30 today. Even after yesterday’s long nap.

Well, gotta go check the printer now. Later I’ll be back to write more.

Later…

I taped in my letters.

Tom’s cooking pork chops now while we’re watching the movie Police Academy.

Later…

OK, I’m back. Tom just went to bed. Dinner was good.

I cut another big baggy of lettuce for the pig.

Tomorrow Tom’s going to work on this guy Eldon’s (a friend of his) computer.

Tomorrow’s Mother’s Day and we’re both going to call my mom tomorrow night.

Next Sunday I’ll be meeting his parents (finally).

Tom went grocery shopping this morning and he picked up the vitamin E Dr. Wilcox recommended. Yup, it does help these tits of mine. Now I gotta get the water pills. Tom’s been having a hard time finding them. I think our best bet would be to go to a drugstore for them.

Hang on while I go potty.

Later…

I got an idea last night for the waterbed. I was thinking of taking the foam pad off the twin bed and sticking it on the side I sleep on. This will make the sheets cling to it better. You know how waterbed sheets are always slipping off.

After I try that, I will go look in the TV guide and see if there are any good movies on tonight or not. If not, I’ll type letters. I’ll do that anyway as I usually tape whatever I watch to zip through the commercials. That is unless I’m watching HBO or Cinemax.

I need to call Andy too, to let him know his letter arrived today.

Later…

I just typed letters to Fran, Bob and Kim. In a few minutes, I’m going to watch a movie.

I love my piggy, but sometimes I think it’d be nice to have a small poodle. Something you can run around with. Also, they have no dander, don’t shed, and don’t need to be declawed. No litter box, either.

Well, till later.

Later…

I know I’ve said this before, but I have to do something about my weight. I recognize the old, yet familiar pattern. It’s been 101-103 too much lately. I’ll keep gaining 2-3 pounds a month if I don’t stop it now. I must lose 2-3 inches all around. If my parents are coming within the next few months, I’d like for them to see I’m still thin. It’ll be fine with them and they’ll love me just the same if I’m chunky, but I prefer to be thin, regardless of what others want for me.

Late at night, they play all these commercials of sexy girls to call. That’s my idea of pictures for Tom. I’ll surprise him, but right now the VCR is in use, taping a movie.

FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1994 I’m watching that movie now. It’s good so far.

I saw a commercial for an exercise machine I’d really like to have. Now here goes all those girlie talk-line commercials.

God am I feeling like a blimp! It seems my gut goes in and out, in and out. I still have to get those water pills.

Boy, this movie’s good. Most movies are so predictable. This one keeps twisting and turning with lots of surprises. After the movie, I’ll set up the timer to record Andy’s soaps.

My tits are sore but I’m only 6 days away from relief and I’ll be getting that vitamin E the Doc recommended.

Later…

God, are my lungs tight. It could be worse, though.

I left a note to Tom with the idea I’m about to write. Remember how when I first got here I wrote a letter to the Phoenix Day School for the Deaf requesting a deaf friend to sign with? This was when I lived next to the VV butch before she pulled her shit on me. I met one woman who was prejudiced against the fact that I was on disability. Well, now I think I’d like to try again and send in another letter.

Andy’s on his way over, so, be prepared for me to possibly be cut off.

Guess who’s playing? Yup, across the street, but at an acceptable volume. I can ever so barely hear it.

They’ve been great next door too, but during the next two days, we’ll see. I won’t mind cuz I’m not going swimming tomorrow. I also may very well be asleep.

I began my antibiotics today. Last night I slept 4 hours, waking up at 8 AM. No noise woke me up. I fell back asleep, though, from about noon to 5:00. I needed it, and the antibiotics have a way of making you drowsy.

Andy rented a TV today and is coming to get the soaps I recorded for him.

He’s also bringing 4-5 Mexican TV dinners. I probably won’t like them, but Tom will. He got them from a guy who drives a delivery truck with TV dinners.

Got a letter from Bob today. That makes my current total 175. BOL #8 is just past halfway.

I may also have another pen pal from where Bob is. I told Bob that as long as the guy’s no sex offender, it’s OK. I can deal with robbery or drug offenses, cuz you know I believe sex offenders can’t be rehabilitated and should be tortured and executed. Also, I’ll accept no sexual talk. I’m just not into that anymore. Those I’ll mark ‘return to sender.’

Tom thought it was a great idea for me to write to the Phoenix Day School for the Deaf for a deaf friend to sign with.

I put my note I left him in a no-postage-necessary envelope. I sent Kim Bob’s letter and Bob a letter, too. Soon I’ll type my parents and maybe Fran, too.

Later…

Andy came and got his tape. He also brought about 6 Mexican TV dinners, which I hate, but Tom will like. He also brought some pies, but they were crushed.

Yuck! There was a spider crawling on the headboard of this bed. Thank God we’re going to bomb real soon.

I finished typing up #3 last night and began #4. Typed letters to Bob, Kim and my parents tonight.

Fran called and Ricky was with him. He says Sabrina’s letter is ready, but he’s having trouble finding someone to take a picture of him. Guess he’s still trying, though. He wants more and more to come out here and said it’s cold there now and they almost had a hurricane.

Ricky called Nervous and I was surprised he didn’t instantly recognize his voice and hang up. Ricky pulled some ticket scam on him and for a few minutes, he was dumbly going along. Then Crystal grabbed the phone and she was just getting heated up, but Ricky hung up cuz he thought I hung up.

THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1994 Yesterday was quite a busy day. I got up at 12:30 PM and went for a swim. I also recorded my song and typed up ideas for the signing program.

At 6:30 Andy came and brought me to his place. I drew an Indian design to give it that real southwestern look. I also did his lampshade like I did mine.

He fed me well while I was there. He gave me cookies, crackers, a hot dog, and made me my coffee.

He also gave me tons of video labels, but I have yet to figure out what I’ll do with them.

Tom was in bed when I got home at 9:30. We left each other messages, though.

I talked to Tammy and Bill’s latest report isn’t good. He’s vomiting and has a fever.

My doctor called in antibiotics. I’ve been quite congested and yesterday they called to tell me my white blood cell count was too high. Next Tuesday I still gotta go back for a re-check. When I awoke today at 11:30, I was coughing up gallons of shit.

Went for another swim today. The water’s still chilly, but I managed to throw myself in.

What will the mailman bring me today? Another batch of Bob letters?

Later…

Yup, the mailman brought me 2 Bob letters which he stuck in one envelope.

Now for my cutest and funniest news of the day. I brought the pig out to the Jacuzzi and slowly lowered him down. I could tell right away that swimming would be one of his bags, cuz he remained totally relaxed. He swam around and around several times for a good 60 seconds or so and he loved it. Totally had a ball.

Andy’s TV’s dead and tomorrow I have to record 2 soaps for him. He says he’s getting a new TV tomorrow, but we’ll see. I have a feeling I may be doing this for him for a while. Guess he’s going to try getting a loan from his parents.

I also numbered all the journals on the top shelf of my bookcase. So, that’s 1-25. I’ll do more another time. I’ve got 2½ out of my 5 shelves filled up with journals. 1-25 on the first shelf. 26-54 on the second. 55-73 on the third.

I typed a letter to my folks today and I’ll do more typing later. Right now I’m a little bored. What else can I write about? I’m just trying to think. Have I forgotten anything? I said that yesterday and today I went for a swim, right?

Next door was quiet, thankfully, but I’m sure they’ll be ruling the weekend. That seems to be their thing lately till it gets over 100º. I say let them have this weekend cuz at 80º, the pool won’t be as nice and they say there’s a slight chance for rain Saturday - Monday.

Later…

Well, Tom will be delightfully pleased when he comes home which will be any second, cuz I have a spag dinner waiting for him.

I think I hear him now.

Later…

Guess Andy’s gone to bed. I just tried calling, but there’s no answer.

Guess what? I am now beginning the typing of #4. Amazing, huh? This is the furthest I’ve ever gone with typing them. It’s so much easier not to print them out. Also, it’s much easier using all caps and no fancy fonts.

Tom loved his spag dinner and we talked a lot to catch up since we didn’t see each other yesterday.

Will the pool be suitable for swimming tomorrow? I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see. Today was 97º and they say tomorrow it’ll be 94º, but hopefully that difference of a few degrees won’t matter. I’m not doing any swimming over the weekend. They say it’ll only be in the lower 80s, may rain, and they’ll be out back screaming next door.

No heavy metal concerts. They’ve been great. If they have been doing any playing, they’ve kept it quiet.

Tom’s going to pick up my antibiotics tomorrow. This will really help. He said he may drop them off at lunchtime if he can get the time.

Later…

I just went to the bathroom and got my regular meds.

In a half-hour, I’m going to watch a movie with Melissa Gilbert in it.

I saw something quite interesting on a news documentary show. Stalkers on Prodigy. But how the hell do they get people’s addresses unless they gave them to them? That must be it cuz there’s no way you can get this address from either Tom’s or my membership. I think it had to do with something like a bulletin. Where people are either pen pals or looking for dates.

Anyway, they just couldn’t get this one guy to stop. I am very against the sexual and threatening stuff he sent, but it seems like a fun way to send wacky stuff without getting caught. Then again, when Tammy sends me messages, a thing comes up giving me her name and her code. So, how in the hell are they sending mail without it being able to show where and who’s sending it? I’ll have to ask Tom tomorrow.

Andy said he finished that very long letter for me and Bob. Like 14 pages or so. When will he mail it here? Who knows? Fran’s full of shit, though, when he says he’s going to write to me and Sabrina. That’s OK, I get my fair share of letters from Bob.

Let’s see…what else is going on? Not much else. Can’t wait to watch the pig go swimming again. It’s so cute and so funny. I’ll wait, though, for when I’m in the pool with him. This will give us better peace of mind. Also, he shakes water all over me, so I may as well have a suit on, rather than regular clothes.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 1994 We fixed our sluggish toilet. No more having to flush number twos twice.

Last night I printed out tons of Norah pictures. Yes, I can do it all on my own now and it was so much fun. Going to do more of Gloria and others for Tom.

Sabrina and I still haven’t heard from Fran. Maybe a letter is on its way in the mail, but I doubt it very much.

We’re going to try to make and sell a computer program with me signing. First we’ll begin with those not serious about signing. Those who are usually going to school, but further on down the road, we may do an advanced one. We’ll start with simple everyday signs like in a foreign traveler’s guide for certain situations. Like if you have a deaf visitor or work in an office with deaf people.

I typed up a handful of letters. To Fran, Bob, Kim, Tammy and my parents.

Got lots of things to do. I want to clean the bathroom after the blue toilet water made quite a mess while Tom fixed it.

Gotta type up my signing ideas. Simple phrases and questions. He’s going to use the video blaster and the camera that’s on a tripod.

Gotta somehow turn that big Stevie dress from Andy into a skirt. Gotta record My Time Has Come. Gotta keep typing #3.

This is the last month of SS and SSI checks.

I was just thinking of all the shocking, unexpected, yet great things that have happened since I came here nearly two years ago between the dancing, getting a 2-bedroom apartment, meeting Tom, moving into a house, seeing Kim and Larry, learning computers, getting off SS and SSI and only having a few asthma attacks. I wish I could add quitting smoking to the list, but I just can’t.

TUESDAY, MAY 3, 1994 In just a little while, I have to go see Dr. Wilcox. When I get there and have to wait 20 years I’ll write more.

Later…

I’m in one of the exam rooms waiting to be seen. It’ll be a while, I’m sure. God, I hate waiting!

Yesterday was lots of fun. Andy picked me up at 12:30 and I was there till 6 PM. Before that, I got 3 letters from Bob and 1 from Kim.

I also spoke to Tammy. They removed Bill’s spleen which was loaded with cancer. Luckily his liver’s OK and they hope he can resume light duties at work within 6 weeks if the chemo works. If not, they may have to do a bone marrow transplant.

When Andy picked me up he went to pay his cable bill. That took forever.

Oh, before I forget. I spoke to Mom yesterday. She’s sending a package, but she wouldn’t say what of. I should get it at the end of next week.

After the cable company, we went to the Abco grocery store where he got a 6-pack of Snickers bars and some milk.

I took my suit hoping that maybe his

Later…

I got cut off in mid-sentence cuz Dr. Wilcox came in. Luckily it didn’t drag on as long as I thought it might.

She thought my journal book was so beautiful and was astounded when I told her how many I had. She asked me how I got into it and I told her. I noticed she had the same pen I’m writing with now, but hers was black. She asked to try this pen, she did, liked it and I offered to swap, but we didn’t. I intend to get more of these pens for sure.

Anyway, my boobs are very sore. She recommended vitamin E. She also said my lungs were a little tight, but not that bad. Yup, they certainly could be worse. They took blood for my Theo level anyway and they’ll call only if there’s a problem.

So anyway, about yesterday. I took my suit over to Andy’s hoping the heat would still be on since there’s a huge Olympic-size pool there, but it was too cold.

Andy did his laundry and cleaned while I drew cactus and a pot of flowers. He was very happy with it.

He gave me some things, too. The picture Tom took of us with my cactus I drew in the living room here behind us. Also, some other pictures of him, a nice wall shelf and an old Stevie dress. A nice pair of sunglasses, too. This pair doesn’t bother my ear and when I blink, my eyelashes don’t hit the lens. I’m going to adjust the Stevie dress and make a nice skirt out of it for myself. The wall shelf’s up in my room. It has 3 spokes on it and I’ve got necklaces and hair stuff hanging off it.

I lent him my Bonnie Raitt CD again, gave him the tapes I dubbed, and also his tape with his messages from his voicemail. The tape’s not done yet. He just wants to hear what he has on it so far.

More later.

MONDAY, MAY 2, 1994 Earlier Tom showed me how to hook the VCR up to the computer and print out pictures. I was doing fine till he went to bed, but now I can’t get the damn thing to print.

So much for his wearing me out today like he said he would cuz he felt really lousy, but I truly understand. I couldn’t be horny if I had a cold.

I talked to Andy and I may very well go to his place tomorrow to do wall art.

I’ll be going to bed soon, and on my way there, I not only wish I were deaf, I still wonder what’s God’s motive, or whoever my maker is, behind throwing these kids next door at me? Of all the houses on the block, too. It just had to be me. Is he trying to tell me I’m to have a kid? Or just annoy me? I think if I were meant to have a kid, I’d be pregnant by now and not a DES daughter. As far as to annoy me; I haven’t been doing anything to really annoy, upset, or piss off anyone else for quite a while now, so I don’t know about that. What is the reason? There’s got to be a reason. These things just don’t constantly happen wherever one goes. This is no coincidence.

Why? Why? Why? Why?

SUNDAY, MAY 1, 1994 Just had a chat with Andy and I’m about to hit the sack.

I have a total of 167 letters so far.

Today I’m not in the best of moods. I blew my schedule. I couldn’t wake up till 11 PM.

Also, the little animals are screaming their heads off in the backyard next door so I sure as hell won’t get any peace in my backyard. It sounds like the pool at the apartment complex.

What’s God trying to tell me? Why, why, why?! Almost everyone else here’s quiet on this street. Why me? Will they all really go to Idaho for the summer? Will they stay inside when it’s very hot? Why me? God, what are you trying to tell me?

I just got the two stickers in the front cover of my journal from my box of Lucky Charms.

I’m very hungry now, so I think I’ll get a bite to eat and then do some typing.

Later…

I wish Tom was working nights just for tonight so I could go throw a bottle onto their roof next door. Oh, I wanna do something sooo bad.

I wish I was deaf. I really really do. Yes, I’d miss my music, but I’ve heard long enough to hear plenty of songs in my head and to keep singing. I really really wish I were deaf. This one ear of mine has heard too many sounds it didn’t want to hear.

I don’t know how long they were out there, but I can imagine it was a good 4-6 hours. People have no respect for those around them. People have no control over their own kids. I’m sure they won’t go away for the summer. God just wouldn’t bless me with that. If He did, there’d be some other problem till we live in a house someday far enough away from others.

I just want to be deaf so bad. It’s all I think about lately. It’s always on my mind. I want to be deaf. I want to be deaf. I want to be deaf. I want to be deaf. I want to be deaf.

[boosqoowoo]

haon - pourin' (english lyrics translation)

In this song, Haon refers himself as a rainpour that always comes back (there will never be a time where you can say "it will never rain again"). Hence, with his long-awaited album, he comes back pouring.

[VERSE 1] Yeah, a status lifter The peace maker Walking demolition A great filter Ain’t no man gon’ stand right next to me Say the name, your parents prolly know me Play the game

기억해 누가 챔피언 Remember who the champion is

Blame on a player Go ahead If you wanna be a king slayer No way

이미 다 알아 성공의 flavor I already know everything about the flavor of success

짜바리들 있기 전에 연금술 Before there were idiots, there was Alchemy* *Possibly a diss on AP Alchemy, a record label owned by Swings. Haon’s label, KC, owned by Sik-K, recently had beef with Swings where they were dissing each other back and forth

It’s my hobby

미안하지만 I’m sorry but

You need talent

머릿속엔 금뿐 의도부터 불순 I only have gold in my mind, even my intentions are impure

엉터리들 웃으려다 흘리겠지 눈물 Idiots will cry while trying to laugh

2, 3

지구 한 바퀴 돌아 만든 레시피 The recipe that made the world turn one whole round

I’m so much fun without Hennessy Enemies, they didn’t see my guarantee

단체로 기절 Everyone faint

Point is Imma make it hard Even if the beat is fart

이런 아이 처음 봤나 봐 It must be your first time seeing a kid like me

주인공을 이마에다 써놨나 봐 damn The main character must have already been written on their foreheads

I don’t need liquor Professional spitter

래퍼라고 까불대면 If you make fun of me for being a rapper

창피함은 내 거 I’m embarrassed for you

I’m a status lifter The peace maker Walking demolition A great filter It’s on [CHORUS] It’s on, it’s on, it’s on It’s on, it’s on, it’s on Shooting my shot like Sonny, Son* *Son Heung Min, one of (or the most) famous Korean footballers

필요 없어 위선 위선 I don’t need hypocrisy

가져왔어 여기 so what’s up I brought it here so what’s up

소나기처럼 난 또 왔어 I came back again like a rainpour

Pourin’ hey Pourin’ yuh [CHORUS] It’s on, it’s on, it’s on It’s on, it’s on, it’s on Shooting my shot like Sonny, Son 필요 없어 위선 위선 가져왔어 여기 so what’s up 소나기처럼 난 또 왔어 Pourin’ yuh Pourin’ yuh, yuh

[VERSE 2] 30 minutes left to eat I’m gon’ get moving like a bumble bee

너네 다 쏴버려도 남을 내 sting Even if you all shoot, the only one left is my sting

이제 다 짐 싸야 돼 왜냐면 난 singer You have to pack everything now because I’m a singer

Mask on, mask off Korean rappers all sucks Ain’t nobody can do this better than me, yuh

Prophet도 로켓도 아니지 Not a prophet nor a rocket

난 professionalism I’m professionalism

발등에 불이 Megan Thee Stallion My soles are on fire like Megan Thee Stallion* *Megan Thee Stallion is an American rapper who got shot in the foot by Tory Lanez, another rapper

너무 빨리 걷다 보니 walking on water I’m walking too fast as if I’m walking on water

이런 게 자연스러운 거다 너넨 다 랩틸리언 This is easy for me, the rest of you are reptilians* *Reptilians: a person who is deeply disliked and repulsive **Reptile: animals that can live on land and water ***Haon is trying to make a link between reptiles and reptilians

Sorry for the wait? 말해 deserve it Say it, deserve it

나는 계시와 은총을 받아 금자씨 I received revelation and grace, Mr Geumja

주는 대로 받고 받는 대로 주는 거지 You get what you give and you give what you get.

가는 말이 고아야 오는 말이 고운 게 상식 It’s common sense, if you speak or act kindly to others, then others will be kind to you.* *Korean proverb: 가는 말이 고와야 오는 말이 곱다는 **Literal translation: The words that come out (of others) are nice only when the words that go out (from your mouth) are nice.

Now, I do understand Why you keep talkin’ 'bout fame Tell ’em I don’t wanna go viral

내 이름을 가려도 알아보는 게 Even if you cover my name, you’ll know my name

어디를 가도 너무 당연해져 That’s how it is no matter where you go

Man on the mission, I’m on a boat

배려는 끝났지 당연한 코스 Consideration is over, that’s the natural course

아무도 안 봤나 봐 일기예보는 I guess no one saw the weather forecast* *In the chorus, Haon mentioned that he came back like a rainpour, implying that no one expected him to be back because they did not check the weather forecast

됐어 여론은, It’s a you’re on your own kiddo Forget the public opinion, it’s a you’re on your own kiddo

All I need is 2 minimum, 2 maximum and All I need is 2 pelicans, 2 elephants All I need is 2 bad bitches, 2 dawgs And I gotta I need two of me to get this shit done All I need is 2 minimum, 2 maximum and All I need is 2 stallions, 2 chameleons All I need is 2 bad bitches, 2 dawgs And I truly need two of me to get this shit done

Pourin’ It’s on, it’s on, it’s on Pourin’ It’s on, it’s on, it’s on Pourin’ It’s on, it’s on, it’s on Pourin’

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 02/09/2023 (Miley Cyrus, Burna Boy's I Told Them..., Selena Gomez)

Content warning: References to alcoholism, penises, Eddie Murphy and the French

Last week’s #1, “Dance the Night” by Dua Lipa is at #15 this week. I guess transparent cassettes aren’t a two-week deal. They’re still on sale, grab ‘em while you can. Oh, and we actually have new songs to review this time around. “vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo is #1, becoming her third chart-topper, and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

As always, we start the episode with our notable dropouts, which are songs exiting the UK Top 75 - that’s what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. Given that this was the week after a pretty stale one, we have a lot to shovel out, like “Super Shy” by NewJeans, “Chemical” by Post Malone, “Baby Don’t You Hurt Me” by David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray, “Boy’s a liar” by PinkPantheress, “Die for You” by The Weeknd, “Escapism.” by RAYE featuring 070 Shake, “I’m Good (Blue)” by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha, “I Ain’t Worried” by OneRepublic and “Bad Habits” by Ed Sheeran. Good, bad, whatever, these songs have been here for a while and hopefully this is the final time we bid farewell to them.

As for what filled up the gaps… man, there’s not much to speak of outside of our new arrivals, as there really aren’t many substantial gains or returns. We welcome back “Another Love” by Tom Odell at #73 and “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac at #67, and see “Talibans” by Byron Messia jump a small hurdle up to #43 thanks to the release of Burna Boy’s album, given he’s on the remix and there’ll be more on him later. Our other two gains are in the top 10, as two songs enter the region for the first time: “Baddadan” by Chase & Status and Bou featuring IRAH, Flowdan, Trigga and Takura at #9, becoming the first top 10 for every act credited except Chase & Status, who now have two top 10 hits at this very moment, and “Prada” by casso, RAYE and D-Block Europe at #8, becoming casso’s first ever top 10 hit and long-surpassing the original track “Ferrari Horses” and its peak of #14.

This week’s top five on the UK Singles Chart shouldn’t be much of a surprise, as we have “(It Goes Like) Nanana” by Peggy Gou at #5, “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift at #4, “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish at #3, “Paint the Town Red” by Doja Cat at #2 and of course, “vampire” at the very top. Now to take a lightning-round scour for the gold in this week’s stash of new entries, a healthy selection compared to last week. Wait, we’re starting with what now?

NEW ARRIVALS

#65 - “Party All the Time” - Hannah Laing and HVRR

Produced by Hannah Laing and James Hurr

I genuinely have been waiting - partly in dread, partly in excitement - for the day that I was able to start off a review like this, and it brings me… some joy to say: Eddie Murphy is a man of many talents. An incredibly funny and successful comedian and actor, Murphy has been in blockbusters since the 1980s - also in the 1980s, he released his attempt at a pop single, “Party All the Time”. The one thing the man isn’t particularly known for is his singing talent, and the song is well-renowned as one of the worst one-hit wonders of the 1980s. Written and produced with the legendary Rick James, it’s a crappy synth-funk song about how his girl wants to party all the time. I love it. I adore every second of this terrible, terrible song, and despite its reputation… the song only peaked at #87 in the UK. It nearly topped the Billboard Hot 100 but over here fell kind of flat. Quavo sampled it last year with the late Takeoff and DJ Khaled so I had an inkling in my mind that the inevitable sample-flip was going to come and give this one a resurgence… or really, its second, because a semi-ironic house remix of this song already happened with Iranian DJ Sharam in 2006. The original mix of the song runs for 10 minutes and it takes itself slightly more seriously than you’d expect, and I’d argue it’s actually a pretty fantastic song that spends a great amount of its runtime squirming up to the top with filters and wiry synths, teasing you with the dangling keys of the vaguely-recognisable sample. When you can finally hear that hook three minutes in, and we get the build-up making it clearer and clearer, it feels like we’ve found hidden treasure in the rave club, and yes, it goes incredibly hard, and honestly for 2006, is very synthwave-esque, maybe even ahead of its time. It’s way better than it has any right to be and is probably up there with some of the best EDM that has ever charted as high as it did. It peaked at #8 late that year and sadly since 2007, our charts have been largely free of Eddie Murphy’s girl wanting to party all the time. The drought has ended. Hannah Laing and James Hurr, who co-produced Laing’s hit “Good Love” earlier this year, have swooped in heroically with what you’ve all been waiting for: a nightcore version of “Party All the Time”. I’m not joking, that is essentially what this is. Eddie Murphy’s voice is rendered to that of Alvin et al., and the monotonous disco throwback has turned into a plummeting hardcore bass, though much like Sharam, Laing and Hurr throw a lot of ethereal filters in to keep it cloudy and mysterious. The original song has always had an unintentional creepy aura so to see it replicated in its… seemingly every-20-years house remix is not that much of a surprise, and I mean, it works. Much like “Good Love”, the second build-up and drop feels like a bit of a copy-paste job, but the second has the hook more lost in the filters and honestly feels like it’s going somewhere really unique, yet sadly the song caps out pretty soon afterwards at only two minutes. I understand not every song needs to have the 10 minutes that Sharam did for his remix, but extending this would have done wonders, even if it’s just an ambient outro. As it is, this does feel slightly like more of a novelty that may wear off, but if the UK wishes to do yet another round of Eddie Murphy’s girl wanting to party all the time, party all the time, party all the ti-ime, I’m sure there are worse options than this one.

#61 - “DNA (Loving You)” - Billy Gillies featuring Hannah Boleyn

Produced by Billy Gillies

Alright, I’ll bite: who are any of these people? The lad with the rhyming name is a DJ hailing from Northern Ireland, whilst Hannah Boleyn is a singer who seems to specialise in more underground EDM cuts. This is both acts’ first time on the chart and yeah, this is pretty great. In fact, giving the shakier, reverb-drenched vocals from Boleyn and the eerie, minimal vibe led by a pluckly synth lead completely out of wack with the atmosphere surrounding it… this kind of sounds like Belters Only if done well and with more attention paid to 90s hardcore, given the boink of the bass synth and the lovely attention-to-detail sound effects that make the song feel just as syrupy as Belters Only’s productions, as well as just as misty, but with an actually compelling vocalist and more pointed-feeling percussion, so it doesn’t just go with the flow per se. Boleyn sort of does, in a way where her vocals feel somewhat improvised, even though they probably aren’t, as they so naturally flow above the cute, mechanical workings of the house beat behind her. What really convinced me though is when it took us back to the chillout albums from the early 2000s, as that ATB acoustic guitar is given time to shine before it admits itself into the fun of the song, hitting against the rapid flare of synth that eventually dies down, leading to a very interesting outro where a new, pitched-down refrain is introduced out of nowhere. If this ends up on an album, that honestly would be a great lead-in for a song that uses that hook, maybe Gillies is playing 4D chess and that song was already made prior to this one. Either way, it keeps the song fresh in its final few seconds and yeah, colour me impressed by this. This is how you do misty atmospheric dance right in a pop structure and I’d love to hear more from these acts as well as just more songs in this style on the charts.

#56 - “I Remember Everything” - Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves

Produced by Zach Bryan

Self-titled, self-produced, self-written, Zach Bryan is the mainstream country act that a lot of mainstream country haters would love to see rise, and I think with this newest record, he goes beyond expectations. He may debut at #1 with this song in the US, and the parent album is already #22 in this country. I’ve yet to hear it in full though when I do, I think I might love it, and I think it may give more context to this track which I honestly don’t like that much on its own. The track is about remembering and reminiscing on a relationship that ended too soon, and assumedly quite dramatically, with the conceit of a bar and alcohol emphasising the dichotomy of wanting to forget but needing to remember. Zach Bryan plays a hopeless drunk mess in the song, wherein he doesn’t really put any blame on anyone for how the relationship ended, because that’s not the song’s focus, but if he’s going to, he’s beating himself up about it in that chorus, especially when placed against the sing-songy remnants of memories that Bryan stumbles through in the verse amidst the strings and similarly drunken stumbles of organic percussion. The guitars aren’t as smokey, finding a balance between wistfulness and regret, and Bryan fits perfectly with his ranting melancholy fading into the more elegant strings. The problem I have with this, sadly, is Kacey Musgraves, who just doesn’t sound like she fits here. I’ve tried to grip with the idea that Zach Bryan placed Kacey here as a way of painting the woman in the relationship as above him, especially given that Musgraves’ lyrics are beating Zach up in a similar way to how he writes to himself, potentially just acting as a mouthpiece, but even then it seemed a bit flawed, in fact it revealed a bigger problem: Kacey Musgraves is just kind of a mouthpiece here, and not one that fits aesthetically given her higher, more ethereal tone that clashes with the dingier barstool that the rest of the song is. Sure, she represents blissful memories, but I don’t think her short, honestly quite angry verse does much to explain away her incongruous presence. It’s a shame because, otherwise, this is a great idea for a song and elements of this are fantastic, I just can’t get behind possibly the most important part, which is the duet and the reason behind it. I’m sure there is a lot more quality on that self-titled album though, so whenever I get the chance, I think I will take a listen.

#44 - “Drinkin’” - Joel Corry, MK and Rita Ora

Produced by Joel Corry, MK, Neave Applebaum and Jon Shave

MK is one of the best mainstream house producers of all time, I am seriously doubting his level of involvement in this track if he needs both Joel Corry and two ghost-producers to finish it off. Also, this samples Chance the Rapper because of course it does. In 2016, off of his mixtape Coloring Book, Chance released the hip house song “All Night” with Knox Fortune, which is a very fun little jam that makes through some cringeworthy lyrics partly thanks to that undeniable hook. Joel Corry and MK took that hook and developed a very generic song around it. Sure, the drums are busier than usual, but the way they overlap mechanically - especially in the pre-chorus - sounds broken, for lack of a better term, and that hook, whilst still undeniably good, isn’t really done any justice by the sugary, plastic production or Rita Ora’s non-presence of a voice. I’ll give them this: the cover art is amazing. I love its aesthetic, font choices and colour scheme. Shame that I don’t love anything about the actual song, huh?

#41 - “Meridian” - Dave and Tiakola

Produced by Jo Caleb and Kyle Evans

This week will go down in history as the day Dave betrayed this country by propelling a song partly in French to right near the top 40. Disgraceful. Jokes aside, Tiakola is a French drill rapper who has been charting in his home country since 2021, racking up four top 10s here. Over here, I had to search him up on Wikipedia, but I do that for plenty British acts on this show too. The bilingual duo released two new songs together last week, with this one being the biggest, and I mean… it’s definitely not really what I expected. It’s a pop-rap cut with Dave singing over a shaky Afrobeats-turned-drill rhythm and frolicking acoustic guitars that sound straight out of an RPG. I much prefer Tiakola on this, as this seems like his bread and butter considering his fast-paced auto-crooning that fits like a glove on this kind of production, even if he is speaking the Devil’s language. The rags-to-riches celebration with a lot of more likeable flexing and multicultural appreciation is actually pretty awesome to hear, especially when the two trade melodic flows in the chorus, echoing each other’s lyrics. I wish the bass didn’t sound as looming as it does, and the percussion may not be doing wonders, as it sounds more tense than it really should in my opinion. It’s a celebratory song, despite the mentions to weapons as you’d expect, so going for a more “Sprinter”-type rhythm with the same guitar loops, which do get tiring after four minutes of them mostly not changing, may have been the play to better exemplify the tone of the quite uplifting content. Also removing Dave outside of the chorus may have also been the play, he feels very much out of his element here, not that he’s phoning it in, in fact he’s trying very hard. This just doesn’t feel like a natural fit for him, and he’s playing off of someone with much more character and liveliness than say, Central Cee, so he ends up a fish out of the Channel waters, but otherwise, this is not bad at all and I’d like to hear more from Tiakola. Sadly, I don’t think any of that will end up on the charts but we’ll see.

#31 - “City Boys” - Burna Boy

Produced by MD$ and Ruuben

After three top 20 albums, Burna Boy has finally topped the UK Albums Chart with his latest effort, I Told Them…, which of course I have yet to listen to in full. Part of me doesn’t really want to, considering that whilst I like the two singles he released, the songs do feel a bit Americanised, appealing not to an Afrobeats audience but a global audience which ironically might end up narrowing his horizons more if he’s sticking to the 2000s pop-rap niche. He’s got the Wu-Tang, 21 Savage and J. Cole on the album after all. Speaking of 2000s pop-rap, in this song he says his penis is falling like the London Bridge - you’re not Fergie, man - after girls ruin the vibe by posting on Instagram in his house, despite the fact that the song starts with an Instagram story from J Hus. Boy, I wonder what the difference is there. Mr. Ogulu has two new songs debuting in the top 40, this being the first, and for God’s sake, are we really sampling Jeremih’s “Birthday Sex”? What’s with this week and comical choices of samples from largely forgotten decade-old R&B songs? “Birthday Sex” peaked at #15 here but was much more successful in the US. To be fair to the producers, they didn’t go the cheap route and sample the “girl, you know I-I-I-I…”, instead going for the twinkling synth lead and little clips of Jeremih’s voice collated throughout. It’s honestly a pretty good beat, with a slick Afrobeats groove and drums that are really on the attack all throughout. I don’t know if it fits with the laidback flexing, exactly, and Burna Boy kind of sucks on this in general, being so completely unaware of what beat he’s on that the beat cuts in and out at several points, seemingly just as confused by his flow choices as I am. The content isn’t exactly interesting, which is particularly tedious during that overlong second verse, but it’s still vaguely catchy enough and the beat is solid for this to go a bit over the edge into being decent, but it’s still far from all that good or interesting.

#22 - “Single Soon” - Selena Gomez

Produced by benny blanco and Cashmere Cat

You know I think I mayhaps kind of potentially like Selena Gomez, or at least her newer work - I somewhat enjoyed most of the better parts of Rare, and with these two on production, if it’s not good, at least it’ll be a bit of a mid-to-late 2010s throwback, and I think by the amount of quantifiers I had to add, you can realise my opinion on Selena Gomez is quite inconsistent. As a limited vocalist, she lives and dies on songwriting and production, so when the budget or talent is there, she can actually really shine. For this lead single, you could maybe even call it a comeback single, does it all work out? I mean, kind of, maybe, somewhat, possibly. The industrially-programmed drums are a lot more darker and lo-fi than I expected, driving the murky bass synths as Ms. Gomez ponders on how to break up with this guy, before deciding amidst the cheerier future bass synths that she’ll be single soon and she hasn’t got to worry about this guy’s reaction. She’s just going to stay out late and try on some new clothes and… this feels very childlike in parts. “I’ma date who I wanna, stay out late if I wanna”, the comical “Oh, well” aside and the, ahem, Meghan Trainorisms that are present throughout that chorus’ lack of substantial low-end - especially odd considering the bassy industrial rhythm and mechanical drums - as well as the little chuckle that I’m pretty sure got one take done and copy-pasted for further use. I don’t know, it’s far from bad but it just feels a little cheap and sanitary, which is fine. Facebook needs its music too.

#19 - “Cheat on Me” - Burna Boy featuring Dave

Produced by LiTek and WhYJay

We have once again another Burna Boy and once again another forgotten R&B sample, this time a chipmunk rendition of the non-charting “Cheating on Me”, a 2015 track by UK singer Kwabs. Unfortunately, I have to say this one - despite sharing no producers - suffers from exactly the same problems as “City Boys”. The lush sample is pretty solid, coated in uplifting pianos and the expected Afrobeats rhythm, which is much chiller this time around, without the real sting of the bass like in the last Burna Boy track. Burna Boy… compares himself to Jesus, whilst also reassuring that his posse is not the Taliban in rambling verses that don’t show off any of Burna Boy’s richer vocal inflections. There’s a lot of wailing on this one, which works in the chorus as he harmonises with the Kwabs sample… but that sample has nothing to do with the song! It’s a flex song! The explanation on the Genius page desperately linking the two is just that: desperate, and Dave phones it in here too, crafting as much care to his verse as Burna does songwriting-wise, especially by the end, which just feels like a bunch of empty space was left it unintentionally. I guess it probably counts as an outro with the horns, but the song loses itself in the “vibe” too early on for any of that to really matter. It’s a shame to say it but this actually kind of sucks. Sorry.

#12 - “Used to be Young” - Miley Cyrus

Produced by Michael Pollack and Shawn Everett

And finally, the biggest new hit of the week yet also the biggest non-event. For a song about how age has wisened Miley beyond the years of fun, crazy partying, it feels rather rote and basic, especially in that honestly awful vocal pattern in the verses. Miley sounds like a slightly broken robot with a Nashville rasp in that first verse, with the back-and-forth tone of the melody and its pace not really fitting her voice at all. The piano backing feels as generic as ever, and whilst you can tell Miley wants to infuse a lot more cinematic energy like she really should have the chance to do, the song is such a non-event that it stops her at the gate. That chorus is an aimless wail as a result, and the tinky drums sound like programmed children’s toys when mixed with the soaring screech of the guitar, strings and what a Disney Channel original series might expect kids to think country music sounds like in that second chorus. The writing isn’t awful but it also has no detail or character for a song about her past experiences. Make some references, don’t be afraid to infuse your own personal stories into the song. Maybe the Facebook mothers won’t like it, and maybe that’s her main audience nowadays, but she has a checkered past and it would be very interesting to hear a wiser take on that through music. But alas, we have this milquetoast non-event of a song that I really hope doesn’t stick around. It would be rewarding nothingness.

Conclusion

This was a mixed bag of a week, probably one bordering on bad if I’m honest, but that’s mostly through lack of real highlights, not consistently awful tunes. I’m tempted to give Best of the Week to “Party All the Time” because I mean, my girl wants to party all the time, party all the time, party all the ti-ime, how can you say no to that? Good taste succeeds in the end, with Billy Gillies and Hannah Boleyn winning out for “DNA (Losing You)”. Yeah, I didn’t expect that either though despite my gripes, I fully expected “I Remember Everything” by Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves to snab the Honourable Mention. As for the worst, it’s going to Miley Cyrus for “Used to be Young” but the Dishonourable Mention, Burna Boy’s “Cheat on Me” featuring Dave also left enough of a bad taste in my mouth to get a mention. As for what’s next on the horizon, I guess we’ll see the impact of Doja Cat and some other releases but I’m too sleep-deprived to fully recognise that it’s even Friday today so thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week! Yawn.

[suckitsurveys]

What was the last song you listened to on repeat?   Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd? by Lana Del Rey.

When was the last time you saw fireworks? 💥   New Years Eve/Day.

Out of all the community service or volunteer work you have done, what has been your favorite, and why?   Animal shelters.

Would you rather visit New York or California? Why?   I’d live to visit both places.

Do you normally eat healthy? 🥗   I try.

Which do you use more: your computer or your phone?   My phone.

Who is your favorite Disney princess?   Uhhhhhhhh I don’t really have one. Anna from Frozen has grown on me though.

Have you ever tried hard drugs?   Nothing not prescribed.

What are three of your favorite toppings for a pizza? 🍕   Pepperoni, mushrooms, and black olives.

What are three of your favorite ingredients for a salad? 🥗   Croutons, creamy garlic dressing, and cucumbers.

What color was the last hoodie you wore?   I am wearing a Dunder Mifflin hoodie right now.

Would you rather ride on a ferris wheel 🎡 or a merry-go-round? 🎠   Either.

When was the last time you went to the mall? 🛍️   Saturday.

Are you comfortable with silence?   Depends.

If you wear glasses, what color are they? 🤓 and what grade were you in when you started wearing glasses?   I have pink glittery cat eye glasses.I started wearing glasses in 5th grade? I don’t even remember.

Do you express yourself better out loud or in writing?   Writing.

What are three little things that you enjoy?   Leaving the windows opened on a warm rainy day, getting Starbucks with friends, kitties.

What was the last book you had trouble putting down? 📖   Lol.

What is one thing you are enthusiastic about?   Lots of things!

What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?   I love being complimented on my creativity.

Do you believe in miracles? ✨   Sure.

Have you ever witnessed or experienced a miracle? ✨   Sure.

What color is your favorite sweater?   Black with the Fleetwood Mac Rumors album cover.

Do you like the smell of old books? 📚   Sure.

Do you own a dreamcatcher?   No.

Have you ever made a dreamcatcher?   Yeah I think so.

What are three ways in which you are not normal?   The fuck is normal?

Would you rather be able to travel through time or through space?   Isn’t that kinda what we are already doing?

Would you rather eat Chinese food or Italian food?   Italian.

How many bracelets are you wearing right now? 📿   Zero.

Do you prefer tea or coffee? ☕️   Both.

What are three of your favorite things to do at the beach? 🏝️   Swim, lay out in the sunshine, have a picnic.

Do you sing in the shower? 🚿   Sure.

What is your favorite season, and why?   Summer. The warm weather soothes my soul and there’s just a sense of nostalgia I love.

What is your favorite musical? 🎭   Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Little Shop of Horrors, Rocky Horror, Rent.

How many people have you hugged in the past year? 🤗   I have no idea, I wasn’t counting.

Do you like hugs? 🤗   Yeah, from certain people.

When was the last time you painted something? 🎨   A couple weeks ago I painted wooden letters to make an easter craft.

What are three creative hobbies you enjoy?   Just artsy craftsy stuff.

Are you truly happy with your life right now?   Eh.

Which genre of music do you listen to the most? 🎶   I listen to a variety of stuff but mostly pop/pop punk/indie I guess?

When was the last time you lit a candle? 🕯️   Yesterday.

When was the last time you built a blanket fort?   A few months ago when my niece slept over.

When was the last time you took a relaxing bath? 🛀   A week ago.

What are three random things you are good at?   Organizing, planning parties, starting bonfires.

What types of cancer are in your family (that you know of)?   Breast cancer.

When was the last time you blew bubbles? 🫧   On easter.

What color are your eyes? 👀 Green.

[wcmcink]

everything went black/ bad town/ genre death

i know one’s the name of an album & one’s the name of a track but who gives a fuck about continuity anyway?

i’m editing this one again... make a billion false starts & you’ll make a real one. its already broken why fix it, nothing to do- live with the mistake because there are no mistakes in the real (turn off your television & turn on the radio!), learn, grow...listening to music a bunch of kids made in their basement when they were teenagers, let me tell you i’m 36 now... someone told me these where the meditations of an adolescent, they do say in the rooms you stop developing mentally when you start using narcotics, that might just be a myth to propogate addict shit... don’t worry its just me in my fashion, into an idea about life, a belief? never! its the anarcho-punk of london, d.i.y. capitalism of the south-bay, the gathering in the east-bay... the jazz at the mid-century mark...where the ego adorns only itself & is the object of its own desire (sorry i’m reading freud right now). something abstract towards the politics of living, make your trades, by all means survive bro. change yourself, change your relationship to others, ideology must be practiced in our vocabulary, in our attitude (we’ve got that p.m.a! some d.c. for you in case we forget), how we relate to others, it must be presented & performed. 

i heard a song coming from the radio in a grocery store right off the blue line years ago around thanksgiving “queer-sex momma get down on me, i’m the baddest fly-daddy you’ve ever seen...” co-opt your desire to live, co-opt peace, make your amends, who knows i was also pretty high... i’m a voice hearer, i hear & see things in the interstices of the real, between spoken word & the practice of daily life i hear it, you know letting someone reveal one where one is there already...not even a little bit... sum zero/ every single one... all the names you can throw at reality, a better definition, beyond the realm of the magicians...

(end of edit...)

be careful of gentle democratic suggestions, they might become mandates, & mandates become compulsory. who says you can’t like both east-bay & south-bay punk? east-bay as in the berkley scene back in the 80s & south-bay as in the beach cities in l.a. & orange county in the 70s & 80s. its true as far as philosophy they are fundamentally at odds with one another... i don’t know where i was going with that...ska bro its all real... what it takes to be a californian, know your city, love your city, grow your city... i take it to the heart of me... don’t be afraid to practice your life in the streets, don’t let them tell you that horrible things happen to people who practice their philosophy... its institutional propaganda to quiet the resistance...

i’ve had a flurry of activity with poetry, i mean i’m always writing but this is getting excessive... i started this blog again, guess i got the old name back, that was a relief. i used to facilitate a creative writing group for a mental health organization before i started smoking meth again & went back to the streets, i’m a smoker, you know... i quit, i pick it back up, i get clean, i get my life together then i tear it up... i’m quitting this time... back to the creative writing, i still have my free-writes i did in group that prolly won’t be anything anytime soon, so while i’m trying to publish my other work, i’ll update some of that. not that it’s a toss-up... who give a fuck anyway (here’s an equivocator that couldn’t equivocate to heaven) its 3:30 in the morning--

a pair of live bombs in the attic grave dirt from your dear aunt sally white sheets stained with blood toads some egyptian witchcraft polluted by the sun the earths gone round itself in a minutes time the connection’s unstable i think i’m going through seeing it as it really is now radical very like life itself but not quite it sounds different it looks different than it used to be the folks here perform spontaneity mechanically like they thought of it hours before they decided to go through with it i remember watching invasion of the body snatchers on the little portable television in kay’s kitchen in black & white/ the original  it would not have significance for me for many years when i had my first nervous breakdown the faces i recognized the people inside i didn’t the soul of the matter had evaporated replaced with a cruel alien mechanism 

[charmercharm3r]

Hate the Club

BC

Masterlist

wc: 7.8k

Synopsis: Seeing your ex at the club is one thing, letting him take you home after he broke your heart is another.

warnings: smut, sub!chan/service top!chan, dom!reader, one or two mentions of blood, unprotected sex (wrap it up people), um I can't remember this isn't really proofread

Part 1 of my 8 part series based off the album, "It Was Good Until It Wasn't" by Kehlani, where each member of Stray Kids will have a song dedicated to them and whatever toxic relationship I can come up with.

-

Nightclubs aren’t the place to rekindle a relationship, nor are they the place you go to when you’re wanting peace and quiet. Which is exactly what you wanted for the first time in months since your breakup. Clubs are meant to drown out whatever feelings that a person didn’t want to feel, suffocate them in alcohol and booming EDM music so that all you feel is the bass in your chest. If your friends had asked you six months ago if you wanted to go to the club, you would’ve jumped at the opportunity to feel anything other than Chan’s absence in your bed. But now, you’ve started healing and began to be okay sitting in silence with yourself, finally sleeping on his side. So when your friend found herself feeling the way you did after your breakup, you couldn’t tell her no when she said she wanted to go clubbing. 

You didn’t meet Chan at the club, moreso at the restaurant down the street where you went after your friends needed some fresh air and food in their stomach. You found yourself dressing in something similar to that night, instead of a black cut out bodycon dress you wore a black latex miniskirt and a cropped corset that had a point at the center of your stomach to cinch the waist, a black mesh undershirt with puffed sleeves and a steep, rounded neckline underneath to make you feel less exposed. Though you wore the same kitten heels, if you needed to make a run for it they were easy to take off, you always thought. Chan thought that was funny when you explained it to him at the restaurant, the restaurant you were now passing on the street with your arm linked around your friends’. She caught you eyeing it and said, “we don’t have to come here tonight. I can tell the others we couldn’t make it.”

This made you whip your head back around and shake at her, “no! We need this, you need this. Guess it’s time to get back on the horse, or… whatever.” She laughed and pulled your arm tighter as you walked up to the front of the club. She texted the others you were supposed to meet here to let them know you were outside, a couple of minutes later your friend Minho peaked his head out from behind the bouncer. “Ah, there you two are. Took you long enough,” he cheered. Minho patted his hands on the bouncer’s shoulders as if they were childhood friends, “they’re with me.” Giving both of you a hug, he took your hand and you took your friend’s as he led you inside.

Of course it was packed on a Saturday night, tons of people crowding the bar and the dance floor. Thankfully, you had Minho. His social status amongst the nightlife people was rather high on the list, somehow always getting a booth and bottle service like tonight. Besides Minho, Hyunjin and Jeongin were already seated around. They cheered as they saw the three of you enter, clearly already on the road to getting plastered. They put you and your friend between the three of them and handed you drinks. “You need to catch up,” Jeongin said in your ear over the loud music and continued to refill your glass after every down.

“We’re supposed to be getting her wasted tonight, not me,” you laughed and pointed at your friend who was sporting two cups of liquid, Hyunjin handing her another one.

“I think with the current information I have, you’re gonna want it,” he said in a more serious tone. You could only see his face every few seconds when the strobe lights passed over him, Jeongin smiled at you sympathetically as he gripped the neck of the champagne bottle tighter. You raised an eyebrow at him, urging him to continue. “They didn’t want me to say anything, but I think it’s better you’re prepared before you get completely shitfaced.”

“Jesus, just spit it out,” you nudged his arm. Neither of your three other friends were paying attention, too busy cheering Minho on as he wrangled another bottle.

“Chan’s here.” Your eyes went wide for a split second before regaining your composure. Without saying anything else, you grabbed the half full bottle from Jeongin’s hands and drank straight from it. Though your friend didn’t know of what Jeongin had just told you, she whooped and whoo-hoo’d as you downed it as quickly as possible. Jeongin sat beside you in awe. “Where?” you asked, unsure if you really wanted to know. He didn’t reply, only opting to look across the section. You followed his gaze and saw him, sitting at the end of the booth next to two of his friends whom you were all well acquainted with, Changbin and Jisung. The two seemed to be having fun conversing with the girls that sat at the other end of the booth, while your ex boyfriend looked… bored. 

You didn’t mean to stare, but after six months of not seeing him or hearing anything about how he was doing, you couldn’t help it. It was like he knew you were there, because he soon turned his head and looked directly at you, meeting your eyes. Chan stopped his leg bouncing as you held the stare, wanting to see all of him. He was wearing the white button up that you loved so much on him, black jeans that hugged his lovely physique. While you took him in, his eyes didn’t stray from yours. After seconds that felt like an eternity, you broke the contact and reached for another unopened bottle that sat in a bucket of ice on the table, cracking it open and wanting to chug like no tomorrow. Jeongin caught you before you could drink more than a third, “maybe slow it down a bit.”

The rest of your friends seemed to have caught wind of what had just happened because now all four of them were looking at you like an injured puppy. “I’m fine, swear. I just… let’s dance,” you grabbed Jeongin’s hand before any of them could retort and hauled him out of the booth towards the dance floor. You didn’t need to see Chan’s face to know he watched every second of the beginning of your downward spiral.

Jeongin let you lead him to the middle and stand behind you while your friend came to your front. Minho and Hyunjin followed, though staying closer to your friend as they watched you grab Jeongin’s hands and place them on your hips. You began to sway, the alcohol finally catching up to you and pulling your friend closer so you were sandwiched between her and Jeongin. The music continued to boom, you couldn’t hear Minho and Hyunjin snickering at the three of you, but you definitely felt Chan’s eyes watching. You wanted him to watch, wanted him to see you didn’t need him to feel alive. He wasn’t your lifeline anymore, but you were still his.

Things happened in a blur, unsure of when your other three friends left the dance floor so it was just you and Jeongin, pressed together tightly with his chest to your back. You could feel the bump in his pants against your butt, but didn’t pay much attention to it until he spun you around and lifted your arms around his neck. Leaning down, he whispered in your ear, “I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or him watching, but I know you want to make him jealous. Am I right?” You nodded. “Are you sure?” Another nod. Jeongin pulled back from your ear to look at your face, reading for any signs of disagreement. 

All it took for him to lean down and hastily press his lips to yours was the tug of your hands on the back of his hair, pulling him closer. It wasn’t the kind of kiss you were used to, it was rough and sloppy and all too new. There were some minor teeth clashes and lots of tongue, smearing your lipstick everywhere. Jeongin’s hands firmly kept your front against his crotch. With one more tug of your bottom lip between his teeth, you pulled away out of breath. You weren’t sure how you felt, the alcohol made you dizzy. 

Jeongin’s mouth was covered in your lipstick, he looked over your shoulder towards where Chan was sitting, smiling triumphantly. “He’s looking,” Jeongin kept his eyes on your ex boyfriend as he brought one hand up to tuck your hair behind your ear. You took hold of his chin and brought him to face you one more time, “think it worked?”

“He looks pissed.” You didn’t bother turning towards Chan, a new plan already blooming in your mind.

“Good. One more for the road?” You beckoned him, pulling him down by the chin to connect your lips again, this time softer and less rushed. After you break apart, you tell him, “thanks. I’ll venmo Minho for the drinks later,” and pat his chest.

“You’re so lucky I’m a good friend,” he called as you turned and walked off the dance floor. You initially meant to go back to your own booth, but made the mistake of looking at Chan as soon as you stepped away from the crowd of people. He stood immediately, gaining a reaction from Changbin and Jisung. Your eyes met his for the second time that night, but dismissed it as quickly as it came by darting your head back towards your own seat and walking away.

You tried to make your way back to your other friends, but before you could finish getting down the aisle, a hand pulled your arm towards the exit instead. Trying to pry the arm away, you shouted, “what the hell?” Chan’s grip wouldn’t let up, dragging you outside of the club and into the cold night air. As soon as you were outside, he finally let you shove him away. “What the fuck is your issue?!” you yelled at him, causing onlookers to stare.

“You! You’re my issue.” He looked tired. You could see the bags under his eyes worse than they were all those months ago. He ran a hand through his hair and tried to look anywhere except at you. “You come knowing I’m here, drinking, dancing on whoever the fuck that was- What the fuck was that, by the way?! You don’t dance with random people, you hardly fucking leave the house and now you’re willing to fuck anything that gives you the littlest bit of attention?” His frustration was coming out in the form of one singular word: fuck.

Once he started, there was no reasoning with him, which was one of the reasons you broke up in the first place. In Chan’s mind, he was always right, no if’s, and’s, or but’s. You let him continue to talk down to you, get it all off of his chest while you walk a little further from the club entrance to lean against a wall and cross your arms. “You’re so infuriating sometimes. Why can’t you just let me move on in peace?”

This made you snap. “Let you move on? You broke up with me, Chan. Did you forget that part already?” You didn’t raise your voice at him, never did when you were together either. That only ever made him more mad. He wanted you to get mad and scream in his face, throw a tantrum and stop being so damn understanding. It never made any sense to you.

“Of fucking course I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean it hurt any less.”

“I beg to differ.” Huffing, you pushed yourself off the wall and attempted to walk back towards the club, but failed miserably as your heels caught on the uneven sidewalk. You stumbled into the wall, barely catching yourself in time.

“And you’re still no better at handling your alcohol,” Chan scoffed, rushing over to help you up straight. “Let me take you home,” he offered, one hand on the small of your back and the other held out for you to steady yourself on.

“I moved.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Stalking me?” he huffed a bit at your quick retort. He forced you to lean against the wall again as he ran inside to grab your stuff, telling you not to puke while he was gone. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes, but you could see Minho walking behind Chan as he exited. “I’m watching you!” Minho called as Chan wrapped his blazer over your shoulders, disappearing back inside when you gave him a thumbs up.

Chan held you up as best as he could, though you struggling to get away from him made it that much harder. You passed the restaurant, looking in to see another group of people sitting at the same table you had when you first met, laughing and enjoying each other's company. Chan watched as you reminisced, stinging in his heart as he saw your eyes glaze over. “I hate the club,” you mumbled.

“I know you do.” The rest of the walk back to your apartment done in silence. Half way there, you were sober enough to not use Chan as a human crutch, opting to walk a step in front of him to keep him from seeing the tears threatening to fall any second. He heard you sniffling, of course, though thought it best to not press you until you were inside. You fumbled for your keys, already kicking your shoes off and stepping onto the welcome mat before you could twist the lock. It was almost comical how natural it felt to have Chan standing behind waiting for you, waiting to open the door like you’ve done a million times. As soon as you managed to get it open, you stepped in, not bothering to pick up your shoes because by muscle memory, you knew he’d get them for you.

And he did, only this time you didn’t make room for him to come in. You stopped as soon as you were in the doorway, throwing the keys into the bowl and turning to reach out for your shoes. Chan snatched them away from your grabby hands, “aren’t you going to let me in?”

“Why would I do that?” You tried for your shoes again, but he pulled them further away.

“‘Cause we need to have a conversation.”

“It wouldn’t be a conversation. It’d be you talking and me getting lectured because you don’t shut the fuck up,” you finally caught your heels from his hands. As soon as they were in your grasp, you turned to shut the door, but his foot stuck in between. By this point he was already closing and locking your door and taking off his shoes, meaning you weren’t going to bed anytime soon.

You ignored his calls as you walked into your bedroom, Chan following closely on your tail. “What was that stunt back there, hm? Were you trying to make me jealous?”

All you wanted was to curl up in a ball and not think about the headache you’d have tomorrow. “Did it work?” You said, not looking at Chan as you rummaged through your drawers to find something comfortable to change into. Once you did, you threw the oversized shirt on the bed and began to unzip the back of your skirt.

It didn’t feel wrong, but it didn’t feel right either. Chan had seen you naked hundreds of times, he had every piece of your skin burned into his brain. But him standing before you, not as your boyfriend, watching you undress, it made his heart weep. You didn’t care much for his presence as you changed, not like it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before. You slipped the skirt off to reveal only your white lacy underwear, and Chan couldn’t help his mouth watering just a little. Next to come off was your top, and of course not wearing a bra underneath. Feeling the intensity of his gaze, you quickly slipped the shirt on. You let out a huff, dropping your hands to your side and looking at Chan, “well?”

“Did you want it to work?”

“Don’t answer my question with a question.”

“You did the same thing.”

“I didn’t know you’d be there,” you admitted. “I really wished you weren’t, to be honest.” The life of domesticity with Chan came rushing to the forefront of your memory, flooding your chest with feelings of sadness. The way he was standing now, dressed up and hair done, though facial expressions so heartbroken that no adjective could do it justice. “You shouldn’t be here. For my sake and yours,” you let out an aching plea.

“I never wanted to leave,” he took a step closer to you, but it made you shy away and take one back. “Then why did you?” A pin drop could’ve been heard through the deafening silence.

He didn’t answer, yours and his mind both racing at a million miles an hour, only in different directions. Tears threatened to fall again, from him this time. You were done crying, there was none left for you to give and especially not to him. “You don’t get to do this. It’s not fair and you know it,” your voice shook. One tear ran down his cheek, it took everything in you not to cup his face and wipe it clean. He was always a pretty crier. Chan didn’t bother swiping it away, rather wanted you to see the raw emotion he was feeling. 

“I’ve never been fair to you, have I?” if it weren’t only you two in the room, you might’ve missed his words.

“No.”

There was nowhere left for you to run as he strode toward you, eyes red and pleading with you. His large hands reached for yours, gently taking them as you tried your best to look away from the mess of a man before you. “I need to make it up to you, let me,” his eyes chased yours as you avoided him. “Let me show you. I can’t tell you, but I can show you, I'm still yours. Please, just… just let me.” More tears showered his face, and you broke. You blinked away what you could and unintentionally smeared the rest across your cheek with your palm. Your silent crying only made him sob harder, falling to his knees in front of you still holding one hand, the other caressing your hip and pulling you forward. He buried his face into your stomach, pressing light kisses all across your belly and down to your thighs.

You wanted to bury the aching in your center, the way he pulled butterflies from your soul and left them to linger. You wanted to ignore the way his kisses burned your bare skin wherever he littered them, whether it be your thighs, the lengths of your arms, or the palms of your hands. More than anything, you wanted him. Seeing him on his knees, sobbing for you and begging you to give him another chance to see he’d changed was all it took for you to cave. He could move mountains while you controlled the ocean, never truly meeting but both beautiful all the same. Unsure of when he let go of your hand to wrap both around your backside and hold you closer, you pulled his face up to look at you. His hair was now in complete disarray, you only added to it by running your fingers through them and tugging his head backwards. “Still so pretty for me,” you cooed. Chan’s sobs turned into soft sniffles, his eyes bloodshot and puffy but in clear awe just for you. It took all the strength you had to not drop to his eye level and kiss him. Instead, you did what you know how to do best.

“Stand up,” you ordered him, testing the waters. He complied all too eagerly, it made you smile. You handed him a tissue from your bedside table and he wiped his face, tossing it into the bin. Chan looked to you for further instructions. “If we do this, you’re staying the night and we’re figuring it out in the morning. No more running away,” he nodded. “I need to hear you say it. Say you want this, because once we start-”

“I-I do. I want this,” his voice was no longer beaten and broken, but willing and pliable, and you were going to mold him to perfection. “Color system, remind me what it is,” you stared into his eyes, the tips of his ears and neck blushing.

“Green is good, yellow is slow down, red is full stop.” Smirking down at your feet, you walked slowly behind him, placing one hand on his waist while the other felt up and down his chest. You could hear his breath hitch as the hand on his chest moved to unbutton what was left of his shirt, slowly. Chan balled his hands into fists to stop himself from moving as your other hand toyed with the zip of his jeans. His whole body shuddered once you got his shirt undone and slipped your fingertips along the lines of his abs. Clearly he didn’t stop working out since your break up. Feeling him up one last time, you pulled his shirt off completely and dropped it, leaving him in just his pants and you still in just a shirt and panties. You wanted to take him all in, appreciate every dip and curve of his body, so you did. You planted featherlight kisses to the tops of his shoulder, moving slowly from one to the other as your hands kept playing with the waistband of his jeans.

One particular graze of your palm along the front of his ever so hard bulge made his stomach tense and let out a deep groan. “Please,” he begged, not daring to turn and face you.

“Please what?” you teased as you took your time unbuttoning his pants and sliding the zipper down completely. Chan’s back muscles contracted with every burning touch your fingers left behind on his torso, he wanted so badly to stop your teasing and throw you on the bed, rip the shirt and panties you wore to shreds. However past experiences claimed you wouldn’t let him come if he did. “Please touch me.”

It only took him asking nicely once for you to push your hand directly into his briefs from behind him, handling his rock solid length without care. You gripped him tightly, not letting up as he whimpered and convulsed at the sudden friction. “You were kinda mean back at the club, baby boy. Do you think you deserve to be touched?” Chan threw his head back and tried to steady his hips that threatened to move against you. Keeping him in place with your free hand on his ribcage, you didn’t loosen the one in his pants, if anything his moans told you he liked you being this rough. “I asked you something. Too dumb already?”

“N-no. I’m sorry, miss.” The name you established at the beginning of your sex life with Chan rang like music to your ears, it fell so nicely off his lips.

“At least you didn’t forget your manners.” You let go of him completely despite the whining Chan let out. Though, you didn’t let him complain for long before pushing him towards the four poster bed. “In the middle.” He scrambled to the middle of the bed and laid on his back. Looking to you, his cheeks were still puffy and crimson but his eyes were now darkened with something much more mischievous. “Take off your pants.” There were no pauses in between your command and his response, “so eager to please me tonight, hm? You’ve got a lot of making up to do. We lost so much time.”

“Yes, miss. Just want to be good for you,” Chan sat up on his arms as he watched you head for the closet, unsure of what you’d pull out. Shuffling around a bit, you found the box you were looking for. It rattled as you opened the lid, pulling out two hand cuffs with longer chain links for a bit more wiggle room. Faking a laugh, you threw the box back down and held the cuffs one in each hand. “You’re gonna be good now, hm? Didn’t seem very good when you dragged me from my night out.”

His body shivered a little as you leaned on one knee between his legs, swinging the cuffs in your hands. “I’m s-”

“Don’t apologize now, love. It’s too late for that. However,” you pushed Chan back down with a finger to his chest and crawled over him to straddle. “Be nice to me now and I’ll think about letting you come tonight.” He nodded quickly, making your heart race at how needy he is. 

The dynamic between you two was always a flip of a switch, one second he could be agitated and ready to burn the world down and the next, he was water in your hands. The power play wasn’t so much play as it was a front, he’s all talk while you’re all bite. It was just a bonus that biting was one of his favorite things.

Chan’s eyes trailed down to the handcuffs, holding up his wrists. “Mmm,” you hummed and smiled at him, undoing one and clipping it around his wrists, then again with the other. You took the free cuff of both and leaned over him to bound them to the corner posters near the headboard. He took in the scent of your chest in his face, slightly smothering his face between your breasts in hopes you wouldn’t notice. You did, but thought it was cute and let it slide. Chan tugged at the metal as you sat up in his lap. “Too tight?” you asked.

“No, miss. Perfect,” his breathing was heavier now with anticipation. He wriggled as you sat completely still atop his crotch, not letting your weight down on him completely because you wanted him to work for your body on his. You gave him a few more moments of struggling just so you could savor the sight below you, Chan working up a sweat and the blush spreading to his chest as he did his best not to buck his hips into your heat. “P-ple-”

“Okay baby boy, okay. Hold tight, I’m gonna take these off you now,” you scooted down his body to grab hold of his boxers to fold off his body. He was burning like a radiator, so when his dick sprang free from the confines, he let out a deep sigh of relief. You let your fingertips just barely brush the length of him before tiptoeing your way back up to place delicate kisses to his collarbone and along his neck. You could feel him holding his breath as you kissed and sucked the nook that met his chest, letting out another gutterly groan as you bite hard enough to leave a nasty mark. Tweaking his nipples just a little, your kisses finally made its way back up to his face where his eyes were screwed closed. “Look at me.”

It took him a second to calm down enough to open his eyes, while his mouth pinched shut to contain himself. Chan’s usually kind eyes were hazy and glossy and his lips were bitten pink. You ran one hand through his hair, pulling hard to make tears threaten to fall again as he whined. He opened his mouth to speak but all that came out was a gasp for air. You placed the hand that was in his hair next to his head so you could lean to whisper in his ear, while your free hand traced down his body, gently holding the base of his cock and pressing it to your clothed core. “Am I wearing too many clothes, love?” Chan nodded frantically, relishing in your touch. You all but tore your shirt from your body, leaving you only in the white lace that left little to the imagination.

Chan lunged forward at the sight of your bare chest before him, but the cuffs held him in place. “Ah, ah. No touching. Not until you show how good you are.”

“‘M good- ‘m good I promise,” Chan’s words were more for him than they were for you, talking himself down into headspace. At his affirmations, you fully sat on him, your own arousal dripping over the fabric and smearing onto Chan’s cock as he steadied his hips. What would’ve been the easy release of letting him have his way with you, making you work for what you know he’ll give you was also the one that Chan only gets as a reward. Letting him domme you was also more for him than you, letting him regain whatever short sense of masculinity he gets out of it. As long as it kept him under you, you’d let him have it from time to time.

You were toying with him, making him watch you as you sat up straight on top of him, kneading your own boobs together while you rubbed yourself on his straining cock. You were sure the fabric of your underwear rubbing dryly against him was slightly painful for him, but he loved the pain you inflicted. So when you pulled your panties to the side and let yourself glide his dick through your soaking folds, it was a sweet relief in contrast with the way your nails harshly raked down his chest. Chan let out another moan, closing his eyes and tossing his head back again, unable to control his hips bucking up sharply. “S-so warm,” he choked out. “M-more please. Need you so bad.”

“You’re in no position to be making demands, baby,” you took yourself completely off of him, looking down at his fucked out expression.

Chan’s eyes shot open at the feeling of your touch leaving. “At least kiss me, please. I- I need it. I need you to kiss me.” He looked on the verge of tears again. You realized you hadn’t properly kissed him this whole time, but if you did then it would make this all too real and a point you can’t turn back from.

“I need you to answer this for me first, okay? Me and you,” you stated, pausing the scene even though he’s still bound to your headboard. Chan blinked at you, urging your question. “Were you with anyone else? While we were…” His face contorted like you’d asked if he’d murdered your mother.

“No! No,” he blurted out. “I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready. W-why, were you?” You shook your head no, smiling down at him and leaning forward to press your lips to his. Even though he couldn’t touch you, he pressed into the kiss with such longing and heartfulness, it made you forget about the compromising position you were both in. It was almost enough to make you forget about the scene and just love each other. Almost.

You pulled back too early for his liking, drawing out a groan as he chased your lips. Chan cursed, “these fucking cuffs.” You laughed at his eagerness. You pecked his lips again before slipping your underwear off, leaving you both naked and in need. His eyes watched you as you climbed up him, past his dick and further up until you were hovering over his face. Your knees were on either side of his head and legs hooked under his bound arms. “Make me cum first and you’ll get what you want.” He dove straight in, not waiting for you to sink fully down into his face. Chan licked up and down testingly, rolling his tongue skillfully hard against your nub the way he knew you liked. He cupped his thick lips around your clit, sucking so rough that he made slurping noises. You grabbed his cuffed hands, interlocking your fingers as you sat lower onto him.

You let your eyes close, allowing yourself to feel him completely. It wasn’t like you were a virgin when you met Chan, of course not. But he brought out a side of you that no one else had before, one that made you want to take care of him in a way no one else could. It wasn’t a rare occurrence for him to eat you out, but right now he was doing it like there was no tomorrow and you were his last meal.

The continuous suckling to your core ignited every nerve in your body, your heels pushing into his shoulders as you clamped your legs tighter around his head. Chan’s hands held on to yours for dear life, not wanting to let go of the only part of you he could touch. You cried out when he went particularly hard, “f-fucking hell, baby. You’re gonna ruin me.” He couldn’t respond with you on top of him, so he hummed and pulled his lips away from your clit only to run his tongue around the edge of your wet hole. He slurped again, this time pressing his tongue teasingly in and out at a pace too slow for your liking. In return you let go of one of his hands and reached back to grab hold of his painfully red member harshly. Chan let out a muffled cry, pushing his tongue further into you. Thrusting his tongue in and out, you rounded your hips along his face, his nose occasionally bumping your sensitive nub to give you the stimulation you needed to finish. You could feel his dick twitching in your hand as you called out his name, proving how close you were. Giving his cock one good pump and squeeze, you let go of it to catch yourself as you fell forward towards the headboard, the one hand still holding Chan’s gripping tightly when the hot knot in your stomach finally came undone. 

You did your best not to suffocate Chan beneath you as you caught your breath again. When you did, he looked at you for further instruction as you clambered off of him and towards the end of the bed where his cock still throbbed, slightly even more swollen from the rough treatment. “You did so good, love,” you cooed at him as you knelt between his spread legs. He didn’t speak, only whimpered when you stroked and kissed up the insides of his thighs. Your kisses went up the length of his dick until you reached the head, kitten licking it. “P-please let me go. Need to touch you,” his voice wavered softly. You looked up at him through your lashes, seeing his arms straining against the cuffs so much that his fisted knuckles were turning white.

“Be happy with what I give you.” Looking to his face for any sign of discontentment, you found none as he gave you a quick nod. With that, you engulfed just the tip of his leaking cock in your mouth, swirling your tongue gently around it. Chan let out a higher pitched moan, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back. You watched as a single tear fell down his cheek. “You’re so mean,” he said so quietly, you would’ve missed it if you weren’t watching his lips. You hummed with his dick still in your mouth, sending shivers through his body as you acknowledged his words.

The taste of his precum was the same bitter saltiness, but tasted better because it was Chan. You licked it up and dug your tongue into his slit, gaining another cry. Pulling away, you gathered as much saliva in your mouth as possible, letting it drip painfully slow onto his head and down the shaft. Using your hand you spread it as you pumped him slowly, bringing your face down to give his balls and quick lick and suckle until you moved back to leave hickies along his inner thighs. All the while, Chan did his best to keep his eyes open to watch you, but once you bit his leg while slicking up and down him, he was letting the pleasure get the best of him. He forced himself not to buck into your touch, contracting his stomach muscles as his breathing became harder and harder. You bit harder into the flesh of his thighs, once satisfied with the deepening red scattered across them, you gave his cock a slow and long lick up. Giving one good suck and swirl to the head, you popped off of him. The absences of your touch made his eyes shoot open again, “wh-why?”

“I think you’ve been good enough for me,” you smiled softly down at him, kneading the flesh of his torso as you moved to straddle him again. Just to get him a bit more riled up, you immediately sat your sopping heat over the length of his cock, spreading your still very present arousal up and down. Bending over, you kissed up his neck again until you got to his lips, taking in his bitten skin with a deep breath. You pulled away from the kiss, looking at his face, contorted and tear stained. Cupping his face, you swiped the leftover moisture from his cheeks and lightly gave a kiss to each side. “Color, baby?”

“Green, green, so green. Just please- I can’t-” you cut him off with your mouth onto his, swiftly lifting your hips and holding the base of his cock upright for you to sink down on. When you did, you moaned into each other’s mouths. The stretch was burning, but in the most heavenly way possible. You let yourself move slowly down his cock, adjusting to the newfound split. Chan’s kisses became sloppy, almost stagnant as he entered you. His mouth stopped moving and formed and ‘O’ shape as he took in the heat of your pussy. Once you bottomed out, you sat still for a minute with your forehead against his, basking in his presence and scent. It wasn’t one you forgot easily, it never truly left your mind, like spice and vanilla with a hint of rose. It filled your senses completely, overriding your mind and forcing you to sit up straight and lift your hips, only to smack it back down into his. That first movement made him completely lose his self control, thrusting up to find more of you. You stopped him as quickly as you started, pushing his hips down with your hands. “You were doing so well, love. Let me have a bit more fun and you can have whatever you want,” you said as you purposefully clenched hard around his cock. Chan bit his lip rough enough to draw the littlest bit of blood, to which you cupped his cheek and swiped your thumb over to collect.

It was hard not to move at the fast pace you wanted in order to release, however the need to feel every ridge and vein of Chan’s cock in you overpowered the churning in your stomach. Your hand slid up his chest tauntingly sweet, until you fingers gripped around the sides of his neck and squeezed, though not hard enough to hurt him entirely. He bit back a moan, keeping it between his lips. In contrast, gently, you tested Chan’s willpower again by swiveling your hips in a circle, unable to control your pussy clenching around him even more. The grip you had on his throat left him feeling powerless, helpless under you even though he could easily flip you if he wanted to. He gave up containing himself, his groans were getting louder every time your hips came back around full circle, the loudest when you lifted up and kept only the tip inside you, choking him a little harder, and spun your hips around it before slamming back down onto him. You felt him hold back from burying himself deeper in you, and with that you’d had enough. Hastily, you let go of his neck and jumped off of him- earning you a complaining whine- and grabbed the key to the handcuffs from the nearby dresser, quickly unlocking only the parts attached to his wrists. As soon as he was free, Chan resituated himself so he was now on his knees at the end of the bed, adjusting a pillow in the middle and gesturing for you to lay down. “You remember,” you smiled at him as you threw the key onto the nightstand and patted him on the top of the head.

You clambered into the middle of the best, prepared to lie down, but Chan grabbed your hand and pulled you into him, chest to chest and crashing his lips to yours. His hands roamed up and down your body until deciding to plant firmly in your hair, keeping you as close as possible. Unsure what to do about the sudden affection, you let your fingertips sit softly on his abs and kissed him back. It wasn’t a lustful kiss, like you expected it to be. No, it was his way of telling you how much he’d missed you and still loved you. His soft lips somehow pressed impossibly deeper into you and you could feel his cock twitch against your stomach, also reminding you of the ache between your legs. With your lips still attached, Chan lowered you onto your back so that the pillow was beneath your butt. Your legs spread for him so easily as his hands roamed from your hair to your chest, kneading your breasts a bit and gliding down the sides of your torso, only to slide under your thighs and bring them around his own hips. The tip of his dick lightly tapped against your sensitive clit as his lips disconnected from yours, both of you catching your breath. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you grabbed his hair and pulled his head back harshly, “be a good little boy and fuck me like you mean it.”

Chan quickly grabbed the base of his cock, slathering it around your pussy and collecting your arousal before pressing the head against your entrance. He pushed in, mouth letting out a muted moan when you engulfed him again. “Fuck,” you mumbled and held him closer, his head falling into the crook of your neck and attaching his lips to it. Hips pulled out and in with a few experimental thrusts, you relished in the way he moved from base to tip again and again, slowly testing how much you wanted him. “Faster,” he complied all too desperately, finally getting to control the pace. At least, that’s what Chan thought, that he was the one in control. When really, “you’re the perfect service top, aren’t you?” You whispered in his ear, “so eager to prove yourself to me.” Chan bit into your neck harder, the grip on the back of your thighs strong enough to leave bruises. “Do it. Prove how much you need me to make you cum. Show me how much you love me.”

Your words triggered something inside of him, animalistic and raw with pure lust. He moved his head to bite one more mark into your shoulder before sitting up onto his knees and unwrapping your legs from his waist. Chan stalled his hips balls deep in you, lifting behind your knees to rest them both on his shoulders. Something about the new position with the pillow as leverage made the head of his cock bury all the more deeper inside you, brushing lightly against the spot that made your head spin. “God, put a fucking baby in me, why don’t you?” It used to be a running joke between the two of you that this position was the baby-making one, the one that solidified that you’d be tied together forever in one way or another.

He grumbled a low, “if that’s what you want, miss.” Leaning his forehead against yours, he pulled out and slammed into your heat with a newfound vigor, over and over and over. Chan’s eyes threatened to close as the feeling became too much, letting go of the grip on your thighs and putting all of his weight onto his hands next to your head. Through the coiling in your stomach and his pounding thrusts, you managed to grab hold of his chin and force him to keep his eyes on yours. 

It's an intimate thing, eye contact. Something about the way your gaze made him squirm gave you what felt like all the power in the world, you knew with a single look he’d crumble at your command. Your sweaty foreheads slipped from each other, letting him take his rightful place at your neck once more. One hand found its way into his hair, pulling and scraping along his scalp as the other raked long and hard from his shoulder down to his back. He did his best to hide his moans by keeping his mouth pressed to your skin, vibrating through you whenever you clenched around him. “Let me hear you,” you spit out as smoothly as you could through the immense pleasure you got when he repeatedly hit that spot inside you, tightening the coil in your stomach. Chan was as incoherent as a person could possibly be, only being able to whine and groan without a single thought. “Sound so pretty. Still my pretty boy,” you turned your head so you could bite the lobe of his ear, scratching rather hard along his scalp.

Apparently this got to him, “f-fuck- need- need to-”

“Cum for me, baby boy,” was all he needed to hear as his long, languid thrusts turned into short and hard ones that just about gave you the push you both needed. Your pussy clenched incredibly hard around him, forcing his hips to a stutter stop balls deep and milk him for everything he had. The warmth from his release was the icing on the cake to make your orgasm rip through your body like a hurricane, making your legs go numb on his shoulders and leave scratches down his back you were sure could be bleeding. He liked the pain, and you liked that he loved when you gave it to him.

It was a couple of minutes before either of you could move again, breathing too labored and body already starting to ache. He didn’t pull out of you, but instead moved your legs off of his shoulders and let them fall to the bed, cradling him in between as his body collapsed on top of yours with all his weight. The movement made his softening dick move inside you, the sensitivity causing you to clench a little and flinch. You didn’t mind it though, it was comforting having him be completely at ease with you. Chan’s head rested on your chest, leaving a small kiss to the tops of your breasts and wrapping his arms around your back to hold tighter. “Still hate the club?” he whispered, too tired to look up.

“Still hate the club.” You fell asleep like this, arms around his neck and hands in his hair, lulling you both to darkness.

-

A/N: phew this took me a while to write… First mature post heheh hope it isn’t too shitty, got a bit carried away in the gory details.

This is the first part of the 8 part series i’m starting!! I love Kehlani and her lyricism and the way she expresses her life experience when it comes to dating and relationships, thought this was a good way to try and embody it :3 As always let me know what you think!!