#i say nine hours because i usually get up at 5am to be on time

[lyxchen]

Having to go to work at 6am is so weird. Like what do you mean it's now 2pm and I've been awake for nine hours already?? It feels like it should be getting dark ouside meanwhile it's barely afternoon???

[writingmeraki]

be there when I wake up — k.mg drabble.

❝ in which you love mingyu in all states of your mind, whether sober or drunk out of your limit.

( or it seems even when you're drunk you don't recognise him but you still love him with your whole heart. )

pairing : secret agent! husband mingyu x secret agent! spouse reader. warnings : mentions of alcohol and being drunk, hangovers, reader almost has a breakdown (?). genre : fluff, romance. a/n : more of them, I can't get enough I have too much to write on them😔 let me know what you think of this 💌!! not proofread (this was very random pls I am absolutely NOT procrastinating my other wips, ignore errors pls it's lit 5am 😴 )

word count : 1.3k

part of this au !

It felt like you were on cloud nine, feet light as you walked and head filled with nothing.

Being drunk tends to do that to you at least.

Today, when Mingyu and you got your well deserved day off, he decided it was time for you to be the one to let yourself loose.

Not that he never did let you but usually you were the one who assigned yourself as the designated driver whenever it was just you two. Though being as thoughtful as he was, he made sure to never be too hectic for you to handle if he could do it himself.

And even then, he'd still do his best to stabilise himself albeit the attempts were always hilarious but the thought counted.

He held you tightly by your waist to his side, making sure you didn't fall or wander off somewhere because see while he was the type to be the clingy drunk, not leaving your side, you were the carefree one, wanting to fly away, perhaps even quite literally.

As your husband and more importantly lover, he did not want to entertain the idea of you hurting yourself by accident. Luckily, all the gym hours he’d spend building his muscles to impress his one and only lifetime crush (read:you) paid off, because you used him completely as a support to walk, leaning all your weight on him.

Your cheeks were warm, eyes half lidded, now the pain in your cheeks was prominent from smiling so much, it seemed you smiled more when drunk than sober in a few months. It wasn’t because you were emotionless but rather only smiled to those who deserve it, which was only a handful of people. Your husband is on the top of course.

Speaking of your husband, you suddenly paused in your steps, remembering him. Realising you were clinging onto someone, you pushed yourself away, smile dropping and being replaced by a frown while you glared.

Mingyu blinked once, twice, a little startled from being pushed away and even more when he saw your glare.

“You shouldn’t hold some stranger like that, mister.” You could make out the silhouette in front of you, but the face was a blur. The classic case of drunken forgetfulness.

“Babe-”

“BABE? Are you crazy? Only my husband can call me that! Which by the way.” You put out your left hand, pointing towards the shiny ring. The shiny ring he got you. “See!I’m married!”

“And-and I am very happy with my Gyu, I don’t need you- or or anyone courting me- I am very happy with my relationship sir.”

Fuck. Why did you have to say it like that?

He couldn’t stop the grin on his face, there was no way he could even if he tried to. Only you could make him feel like the first time he'd ever have a crush on someone. His heart raced, almost too fast. He swears he can feel his chest fill with even more love.

“Okay, okay how about I get you to your car?”

“No mister! I re-refuse I don't want to go with you, where's Mingyu? Where's Gyu???”

You were whining at this point, finding your legs too tired so you ended up just sitting. Right in the middle of the pavement.

Mingyu’s eyes widened when you sat down but even more in panic, the smile dropping as he saw you bring your hands to your face.

You were crying.

“Where's Gyu? Did he leave me?” A hiccup came after the sentence, as your vision got more blurry with the tears flowing even more freely.

He rushed towards you squatting beside you, pulling you into his side.

“Honey, I'm here. Shh. I'm here.”

You looked up from your position, making sure to blink to clear out the tears and there he was. Your husband.

“Gyuuu” Your words slurred and choked up as you threw yourself at him. Him immediately wrapping his hands around you, still in the sitting position.

Your arms looped yourself around his neck as you put your head in the crook of his neck, still crying.

“I thought you le-left.”

“I'd never. I would never leave you.”

“Please don't.”

Slowly, he got up, pulling you gently up as well, still holding onto you and your entire weight now leaned on him.

“Come on, you wanna head home?” You pulled your face away from the nook, looking up at him as your sobs stopped turning to sniffles.

He moved one hand to hold your face as he caressed your cheek, pushing your stray hair strands behind your ears with delicate touches.

Your eyes began to droop, the side effects of being drunk slowly overcoming you. You just simply nodded as you put your head back to his comfy shoulder.

Sighing, he shook his head as he noticed your breathing slowing down, coming out in slow exhales, meaning you just passed out drunk.

He softly smiled as his hand still caressed your hair. He wouldn't have it any other way.

[ bonus cut : the following morning ]

You were sure this was your karma catching up to you because the way your head was splitting was surely due to your supposed horrible past deeds. There was no other reason.

“Good morning sunshine~”

“Zip. Shut. Shh. Not a word.”

Mingyu frowned, pouting at your harsh reply, but a small pity formed as he saw you wake up while holding your head in pain.

“That's mean.”

“Not mean enough, I will actually kill you.”

Being the ever so doting husband he was, he'd gotten up from your shared bed, made breakfast, your favourite food by the way, and even gotten ready for the day.

“Have this, you'll feel better so that maybe you can plan my murder better hm?”

And now there he sat down beside you on your bed, a painkiller in one hand with a glass of water.

You grabbed the water like you had never touched it in your existence, gulping it down along with the pill,even if it ended up spilling onto your clothes. You frankly don't care.

Mingyu gazed at you with the same adoration he always had. He loved you at all times, anytime. He just knew that he loves you. He didn't think he said it enough.

“I love you.” You almost choked on the water, gulping it down before it sprayed out. You raised an eyebrow at him.

“Can I not say I love you to my spouse?” He honestly felt offended at the suspicious look on your face.

“Alright…”

Now it was his turn to squint at you in question, as if waiting for something.

“I guess I love you too.” You were pulling his leg, you loved to see that look on his face where it seemed as though someone had stepped on his tail. Like a puppy who’s tail had been stepped on by mistake

“I don't even want to talk to you. Bye.” He snatched the empty glass, glaring at you now, you knew it was not with any sort of malice, you knew him. He turned around, purposefully stomping and then you couldn't stop the laughter.

You burst out in giggles, clutching your stomach, the headache subsiding.

You threw off the blanket and rushed after him, hugging him from behind, hands barely wrapping around his large frame but it did stop him. You placed your face sideways on his back.

“I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I love you. Like surely. One hundred percent.” You said still chuckling, the grin on your face not faltering.

He wasn't even upset in the first place, because the moment he heard your laugh, his own grin formed widely on his face.

“You mean it?”

“I do. Always did. And will.”

And perhaps this was what it meant to be loved. And to love.

for my dearest @etherealyoungk ; THIS IS A VERY VERY LATE BIRTHDAY GIFT TO MY WIFE 🫂 ( blame that on the fact that this was totally not what I planned to write for ur birthday 😔) I love you so much and I can't believe we got close this soon <3 I wish I could have known you before because it feels like I know you since so long, you're literally my soulmate like??? i hope you have an amazing year ahead soo here is ur fave couple as a present mwahh (mine too lowkey)

perm. taglist ( open ! ) : @mansaaay ; @gyuguys

( if you want to be added just send an ask/reply to this !)

all written works as well as images and edits (unless credited) belong to pri. do not plagiarise, repost, re-edit or claim as yours. pics mostly found on pinterest.

writingmeraki Ⓒ 2024

feedback is always appreciated 💌 !

links : main navi ! | svt masterlist ! | info !

[brynfelan]

The One Where Hajime Only Knows Class 77b Because He Works At A 24-Hour Grocery Store

it’s DONE, it’s BAD, it has all the pacing of a POORLY-WRITTEN SNL SKETCH, but I can’t give less of a shit I am tired and putting it out into the world. @idnek83 I told you I’d fucking write it. It’s 5am and this was written purely out of spite. also, the credit for this idea goes to them. the only reason i wrote this is because they were too much of a coward to.

Word Count: 3272 Summary: Hajime Hinata works at a 24-hour grocery store and only knows class 77-B because they all come in at different times to buy some weird shit. Chaos ensues. This is crack, just straight up crack.

There are worse things than working the graveyard shift. It pays a little extra than day hours, there’s less work to do at the counter, and the only thing Hajime really has to worry about is a drunk customer getting rowdy. Actually, he enjoys it in a weird way. He just stands at the counter, runs people up, and then leaves at six in the morning to do whatever the hell he wants with his day. Usually sleeping, but it’s also nice to be free all the time.

His favourite part of the job is the set of students that come in between the hours of two and five almost every day. They aren’t usually together, but he’s pieced together that they’re all in the same class by descriptions that he’s gotten from the more talkative of the bunch. He doesn’t know all of their names, some of them he only knows by nicknames, but he does know all of their faces.

Kazuichi Soda for example, comes in at around two in the morning every Friday night. He usually buys shitty beer or cheap liquor, and complains that he’s the one that got sent out from the party to get more booze. Sometimes he also picks up random assortments of tools or screws. Hajime thinks it should probably be illegal to sell a man a 40 of cheap whiskey and a power drill at two in the morning, but he learnt to stop questioning the combination of things that people buy at this kind of hour. He dreads to think of the drunk creations that Soda makes.

On the other hand, Mahiru only comes in around once a month. Hajime knows her name is Mahiru because the first time, she drunkenly introduced herself to him and tried to explain that her combination of items were for a photoshoot and not for any kind of nefarious purpose. He isn’t quite sure what kind of crime she could commit with several bunches of half-dead flowers, a whole cream cake and a bottle of champagne, but he’d definitely like to see it.

It’s four in the morning on a Tuesday. Hajime gets off in two hours, and he’s currently dealing with one Gundham Tanaka. He knows his name is Gundham Tanaka, because he announces it every single time that he gets rung up.

“Huh. Sunflower seeds and hamster bedding. You got any pets?” It’s an innocent question, but at this point he really should have learnt not to question Gundham.

“You fool! I, Gundham Tanaka, have my four Dark Devas of Destruction at my command, ready to strike at any moment for insinuating that they are mere pets as you mere mortals call them!” Ah, good. This happens every time. “You may also notice that I am purchasing this protective potion. This is a defensive measure to protect myself from the very devils that seek to feast on my demon blood!

Hajime looks down at the mosquito spray. He’s definitely not getting paid enough for this.

“Right, yeah. Sorry man. I hope those, uh, devils don’t bother ya too much. That’ll be twenty-two fifty-nine.”

Four hamsters poke out from Gundham’s scarf to deliver the money to Hajime. He isn’t sure if that’s sanitary, but at least he gets to see some cute animals during his shift. For “warriors”, as Gundham calls them, they’re pretty sweet and don’t seem to be adverse to getting pet when they hand (mouth?) him the bills.

Even if it gives him daytime freedom, this job isn’t worth ten seventy-two an hour. He sometimes thinks about switching to the day shift, but he gets paid more to work nights and effectively does half the work. Hajime knows that it’s the best job he’s gonna get for a while, and it pays enough to get him through college. Still, he reminds himself to check for something better when his shift’s over.

Gundham is the last of the class he sees that night. He’s definitely eccentric, maybe the most eccentric of the bunch, but he’s never caused a real scene. Except for one time when he managed to smash three bottles of red wine in quick succession, but it happens. Hajime didn’t have to clean it up, so he’s definitely not paid enough to care.

The next night, it’s Sonia that walks in. She’s never formally introduced herself to him, but Soda never shuts up about her, so Hajime has a pretty good idea of who she is. She’s buying nearly his month’s rent in skincare products and murder mystery novels. She talks the whole time too, about how this store is so different to ones in her home country, how he must get so many interesting experiences working at these hours.

“Yeah, you sure could call it interesting,” He snorts a little, “You get some interesting people come in at these hours.”

“Ah, of course! You are a respectable man to hold a necessary job such as this, I believe I would be, as they say, boned without you here! Is it customary to tip workers in institutions such as this?”

Jesus, how much money does this girl have?

“Uh, not grocery store workers ma’am. Cash or card?”

When she pulls out the cash from her purse, Hajime nearly faints. He decides that she must either be a foreign dignitary or deep in some criminal ring in order to have this much money on her person at any one time. It’s not even in exact change, and she’s a hundred over her total.

“This is too much, ma’am. Here, this is yours.”

When he tries to give the hundred back to her, she steps away from the register and puts her hands behind her back. She’s smiling, and shaking her head.

“Oh, no. I shan’t be taking that! You must keep it.”

She’s either an angel, or Satan trying to tempt him with nearly double what he makes in a night. Arguing with her is pointless, she refuses to take her items until he pockets the cash. He hopes that he never has to explain that to his manager, because he hasn’t read the company policy but he’s nearly a hundred percept sure that accepting personal money is very much against it. She finally leaves nearly half an hour later, after insisting he keep the money. He can’t tell if he hopes she comes back, or that he never sees her again.

He ends up keeping the hundred. That’s way too much money to be given to pass up.

If Hajime had to name a favourite customer out of the students, it would have to be the girl that comes in a couple of nights a week to buy snacks. He doesn’t know her name, but she always talks about video games. They share the same taste in them, and he likes hearing about his favourites from another person’s perspective. He doesn’t really have anybody to play them with, but it almost feels like he does when she comes in and asks how far he’s gotten in whatever just came out that week. He thinks about her during his shift sometimes when things get slow.

That same night, a boy with all the manners of a particularly pissed off cat comes in. He’s with a girl that towers over him, and Hajime would laugh if he wasn’t afraid of getting his ass handed to him, since he’s pretty sure the girl is carrying a sword. He’s buying twelve packs of cookies, and a single toy bunny. He pays with a black credit card. Neither of them say anything to Hajime. He’s pretty sure that’s the “Baby Gangsta” that Soda has spoken about on a couple of occasions, but definitely doesn’t want to ask just in case he gets sliced in half. He only notices that he was holding his breath when they leave.

An absolutely giant man walks in just as Hajime is about to clock out. No really, he’s huge and all muscle. Hajime might be scared of him, if he didn’t have such a huge smile on his face. He occasionally comes in early in the morning to buy a hideous amount of protein powder and other groceries. Every time he does, he invites Hajime to “train” with him. Hajime is too scared to ask what training involves, and turns it down every time. By the size of the guy, he’s pretty sure any amount of training would kill him.

Hajime doesn’t know when he clocks in the next night that it’s going to be the most hellish night of his life. He doesn’t know that tonight is the night he hands in his two weeks yet. He’s pretty optimistic when he walks in, freshly showered and having just gotten back a pretty decent grade for one of his classes.

It starts at five. Kazuichi Soda walks in first, already drunk and talking to Baby Gangsta about some motorbike he’s going to jack up so much it won’t be road legal anymore. The Giant Man is close behind, talking to a girl about doing “it” (Hajime has no idea what “it” is and frankly he isn’t sure he wants to know). That’s the first sign. No more than three of them have ever walked in together at any one time.

Lagging behind a little is Gundham and Sonia, followed by Mahiru and the tiny girl that sometimes accompanies her. The only thing Hajime can remember about her is that she called some other girl a “toilet clogging bitch” one time. Three other men follow behind, one with light hair that looks just a little too skinny to be healthy, one that looks nearly exactly the same as him except taller and heavier, and one that’s even shorter than Baby Gansta. A girl with her eyes glued to a Game Girl trails behind them, the Sword Girl almost steering her out of the way of a promotional stand for donuts. Behind them is Ibuki Mioda, a girl that comes in sometimes to buy Monster Energy by the crate at three in the morning, talking to Mikan Tsumiki who usually accompanies her to run of the health risks of drinking too much caffeine.

Behind all of them is the devil himself, dressed up like an angel. Hajime doesn’t know he’s the devil yet, but he will in about an hour.

They’re in the store for all of ten minutes before shit starts going south. Hajime can hear things being tossed around in the aisles and shouting. He definitely isn’t paid enough to deal with that, so he stands at his register and hopes it calms down.

“C’mon, we just finished our finals, Ibuki wants to go hard!”

That’s never a good thing to hear when you still have two hours of your shift left.

Now, part of the reason why Hajime likes working the graveyard shift is that it’s quiet. Nothing happens, except for the one time a guy in a Scream mask came in and robbed his register at axe-point, but he’d already been working at the store for two weeks and couldn’t give less of a crap whether or not the company lost money over that. Tonight, it isn’t quiet. Tonight, there are sixteen students that Hajime thinks might give him a migraine if they don’t shut up for five minutes.

The worst part is when they disperse through the store. Before, all the noise was coming from one place. Now it’s everywhere. Hajime thinks that some of them are having a competition to see who can make all the toys that make sounds go off in the quickest amount of time. He can hear shouting and squealing and laughing (and is that crying? Is one of them crying in his store?) and he wonders if it would be worth it to just walk out and let them take whatever they want.

It doesn’t end there. There’s a loud smashing sound, and then the high-pitched whine of the girl who looks too young to be buying booze but Hajime has never cared enough to card because it’s not his job to parent her.

“You snot-nosed bitch! I bet you’re trying to make Hope’s Peak look bad, you drunk whore!”

“I’m s-sorry! I didn’t mean to!” The crying gets worse the more the short one yells, “I-I’ll clean it up and pay for it, don’t worry! Please forgive me!”

Hope’s Peak is that exclusive private place down the street, right? Hajime passes it everyday, but couldn’t have ever dreamed of getting to study there. He isn’t even really sure what they teach, besides that they always push out the greatest in whatever field of study they run. No, Hajime chose the cheaper option, and while it might have been nice to go somewhere so prestigious, it definitely wouldn’t have been good for his wallet.

From the other side of the store, he hears clapping and laughing. He doesn’t even want to think about what fresh hell is going on in the DIY section, where he’s pretty sure he can hear Soda spilling paint everywhere if the swearing from Baby Gangsta is anything to go buy.

Half an hour or so after they all walked in, Hajime is ringing up fifteen people. He’s the only one working tonight until the cleaners come in, and this is more people than he’s ever had to deal with in his life.

Sonia has bought sixteen bottles of the most expensive champagne the store sells. Hajime doesn’t want to think about the ordeal he went though last time she was here, so when she pushes an extra hundred into his hand he doesn’t bother arguing with her. Gundham, on the other hand, has apparently bought up every single vegan burger that was in the freezer section. He’s also got all the buns, and what feels like a hundred different condiments and salad options. Through tears, Mikan apologises for the trouble she’s causing while trying to pay for whatever bottle she broke – while at the same time picking up enough hangover medicine to cure an army.

By the time he’s rung everybody up, he’s exhausted. He wants to go to bed and never get out of it, to never see anybody again. He hates customers at the best of times, and these people might be excellent outside of this setting, but in his store they’ve been an absolute nightmare.

They’re all packed up and ready to go when the girl with her nose in the video game pipes up.

“Hey, where’s Nagito?” She asks through a yawn.

Then, it happens. Hajime hears a “whoops” from the back end of the store, and everything he’s ever wanted to not happen on his shift happens.

One shelving unit goes down, then another, then another. The sounds of shattering and splintering echo through the now otherwise silent store. They go down like dominos, each falling shelf worse than the last. It’s five fifty-seven in the morning, and Hajime can only watch as his divine punishment for choosing to work in a grocery store near a college is shown to him. Bottles are smashing, toys are crushed, he’s pretty sure that whatever happens in the fish section is no longer safe to look at with the naked human eye.

“I’ve never thought about committing murder before,” He says, “But now I think I understand.”

Everybody is quiet until the dust settles. The white-haired demon walks out completely unscathed, with an innocently shit-eating grin on his face.

“Ah, I can pay for this. I’m so sorry to have caused such trouble,” He says, waving his hands like it’s no big deal, “Please, allow me to pay for the damages. My terrible luck is a scourge on this Earth, I simply can’t apologise enough.”

Hajime sighs, and looks at the clock. It’s five fifty-nine. There isn’t an enough money in the world to pay him to deal with this.

“What the fuck happened?” Baby Gangsta asks, from the back of the crowd, “Seriously, you’ve had some bad fuckin’ luck before, but this shit takes the crappy cake.”

“Oh. I tripped.” He dusts his knees off, and smiles again.

It’s unnerving that he’s so calm about this. Hajime dreads to think what else he’s done in the past that would make this seem so natural to him. Can you bar somebody from your store for accidentally wrecking every single item that you have to sell?

“There is some hope to come from this, Kuzuryu, don’t worry!” He pulls out a tiny stuffed dog from his pocket, “Please, how much will this be?”

All Hajime can do is stare. He isn’t sure what god he pissed off to deserve this. He doesn’t believe in karma, but he hopes that whatever he gets in return for this is pretty damn good.

Six in the morning rolls around. The day-staff have walked in to the mess that is the store, and his manager is just staring at him. Hajime looks at him, and just shakes his head.

“If you want the story, talk to the guy with the white hair. I don’t even know what’s happening anymore.”

Immediately after he says that, he hears a whoosh. Then, everything starts feeling a whole lot warmer.

“Shit, store’s on fire. Komaeda, you’re going to get us banned from this store!” Kazuichi yells, running as fast as he can to the exit.

The others follow, and Hajime gives his manager a “what-can-ya-do” shrug, before following. This store isn’t worth getting a lungful of smoke over. Hell, he isn’t even sure working here is worth the extra cash that Sonia seems adamant to give him every time she comes in.

Sixteen students, Hajime, four other co-workers, two cleaners, and a General Manager stare as the building burns. Before his manager can open his mouth to speak, Hajime looks at him and says, “Nope. I quit. I’m leaving. Now. This isn’t my fault, and you can’t pay me enough to deal with it.”

There’s no argument. His manager just lets him go. The sixteen students get a lifetime ban. Hajime also gets a lifetime ban. The white-haired devil writes a check and walks away basically scot-free. The store is going to be closed for the next fuck-knows how long until it can get repaired. From the number of zeroes on that check, Hajime’s pretty sure this is an expensive problem to fix. He doesn’t care, it isn’t his problem.

“Hey, Mr-Store-Clerk Guy!” Ibuki grins at him, “Wanna come and party with Hope’s Peak? We just got done with finals!”

“Ibuki, that’s a fantastic idea! To repay our debt to him for causing so much trouble, we simply must invite him to part-ay with us!” Sonia claps her hands together and smiles like Ibuki’s just discovered Atlantis, “Please do come with us! But first, might we get your name? We all see you so often, and have never thought to ask!”

It’s six in the morning. Hajime rubs his temples. Any sane person would say no, because he’s tired and just quit his job so he’s going to need to find another one as soon as possible, and having a store burn down on your watch is not good on your resume.

It’s six in the morning, and if there’s any day that Hajime wants to start drinking at ass-o-clock in the morning and not on his dime, it’s this one.

“I’m Hajime Hinata. Please don’t burn anything else down.”

“Oh, don’t worry!” Nagito calls from where he’s standing by the manager, “I’m sure that after that I’ll have some incredibly good luck!”

[hovid19]

All-Nighter (Spencer Reid)

Just some Spencer Reid fluff based on the prompt: “Now, how could I forget you?”

This is my first imagine-type story on here so please go easy on me... :)

Word count: 1,137 words

It was never easy to fall asleep in your apartment. It was old and run-down and everything inside of it squeaked insistently. Usually it didn’t bother you much, having been used to the noise after living in the studio for a week. But over the past couple of days, it had been more challenging than ever to turn your brain off enough to get some shut-eye, leading to the sounds of the faulty A/C and near-broken ceiling fan to drive you crazy.

You tried everything– focusing on your breathing, reading a book, exercising to try and tire yourself out. Nothing was working, and it was getting harder and harder to go through a normal day without a raging headache due to your lack of sleep.

You were thinking of finding someone to bother, your cat not providing enough company after scratching you for disturbing him from his slumber. It was 4:52AM, and you were far from tired.

Maybe your best friend would be up. She always knew the perfect way to get you to fall asleep, or at least keep you busy enough to not go insane. But fifteen minutes later and with no reply, you decided on taking a walk to clear your head– and get the fuck out of that noisy apartment.

The air was chilly, the winds of September hitting you as you pushed open the door to the entrance of the apartment building. The ground was wet, a thunderstorm passing through just hours earlier. The air still smelled like rain.

There were a few cars that passed by every now and then, a handful of people getting a head start on the early morning, while you were stuck in a late night– though not by choice.

You glanced down at your phone. 5:04AM. Maybe your favorite coffee shop would be open. You had never been up early enough (or stayed up late enough) to have known.

You pulled the door open, instantly smelling the delicious odor of coffee grounds and melting at the aroma. There were a plethora of reasons this place was your favorite, and the scent of their freshly ground coffee was definitely one of them.

“Y/N? Is something wrong?” the owner, Liam, asked, peering over the top of one of the cappuccino machines.

You furrowed your eyebrows. Was something on your face? You peered down at your outfit, a pair of joggers and a sweatshirt. Neither was dirty. “No, I don��t think so. Why do you ask?”

“I thought the world was ending when I saw you walking in at 5AM on a Saturday morning. You sure you’re okay?”

You rolled your eyes and let out a chuckle. “Ha, ha. Laugh it up, Liam.” Not like he was wrong. Early mornings were SO not your thing. “I’ll have you know everything is perfectly fine.”

He nodded sarcastically, a smile tugging at his lips. “Okay, hun. Whatever you say. Gimme five on the coffee.”

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t spend every last cent of your paycheck at Liam’s coffee shop. He had easily the best coffee in the city, and plus, he made it a point to get to know every customer that walked through the door. It was like having a hip forty-nine year old dad that also made the world’s best coffee.

The seat you sat down in was one you always took, a plush chair in the corner of the shop, next to the big bay window that looked out on the street. You crossed your arms over your chest, letting your eyes drift to the people and cars and bikes that passed the window. You still weren’t tired.

With a huff, you turned away from the scenery to look out at the shop. It wasn’t busy by any means, but it did have a good bit of people in it for only opening seven minutes ago. Your eyes got stuck on the figure sitting across from you two tables down.

You recognized him from a couple of other times you’d encountered him: twice at the park, four times at the bank and once at the very coffee shop you were sitting at. It was odd how many times you’d run into him in the short span of living here, but it’s not like you were complaining much. Having a face as pretty as his be a familiar one was not something you were gonna protest.

A hello was definitely planning on coming out of your mouth, but you could not for the life of you remember his name. You sat for a second, eyebrows scrunched and lip caught between your teeth. Steve? No, you’d remember if someone as young as him had a name that sounded old. Shawn? No, you would’ve remembered that too because you probably would’ve made a joke about him having the same name as Shawn Mendes. Seth? That seemed close– or at least better than the other options.

“Spencer!” Liam called, holding up a cup. The man stood, gathering his coffee before sitting back down.

“Spencer!” you parroted out loud, before widening your eyes and setting your hand over your mouth.

He looked at you confused, cocking his head a bit to the side. At least you knew his name now, and kind of sort of said hello.

You laughed, standing and sitting across from him. “Sorry, I was trying to remember your name because we’ve run into each other a couple of times and I wanted to say hi. I don’t know if you remember, I’m Y/N.”

He just smiled, taking a sip from his cup. “Now, how could I forget you?”

You smiled back, a small blush taking over your cheeks. You bit your lip again, hands tucked in between your legs. “I don’t know, I couldn’t even remember your name so I didn’t expect you to recall who I was.”

“I have an eidetic memory,” he explained. “And even if I didn’t, I don’t think I could ever forget someone as beautiful as you.”

Your cheeks felt hot and you couldn’t keep that stupid smile off of your face. “God, you’re cheesy, huh?”

He slipped a card across the table, standing and gathering his things. “I have to get to work, but please, don’t be afraid to call. My name’s on the card in case you forget,” he teased, smiling as he walked out of the shop.

You let out an incredulous laugh, staring at the door he just walked out of and shaking your head until Liam pulled you from your trance. “Jeez, I thought he’d never ask you out. Last time you were here he wouldn’t stop staring at you.”

You grabbed your coffee, thanking Liam and making your way back to your apartment. Maybe having a minor case of insomnia wasn’t necessarily all bad.

[softyoongiionly]

In My Calvins 💼

Mondays suck. Mondays with your boyfriend suck less.

Pairing: Kim Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Domestic!, Model! Taehyung, kind of? Sub! Taehyung, smut

Word Count: 2.7k

A/N: Taehyung frequently ruins my life so, I’m dragging you all into my misery. Love you!

Warnings: smut, language aka TAEHYUNG IS A DIRTY DIRTY BOY

Mondays.

The worst day of the week.

Honestly, like who even allowed Monday’s to happen? Who signed off on that shit? You didn’t want to fight…you just wanted to talk. Mondays had gotten increasingly worse over the last few months because, you had started your new job and, on Mondays…they wanted you to come in early.

Early!

On a fucking Monday.

The audacity.

Early as in, 5am.

5…in the fucking…morning…on a Monday.

This was the opposite of ideal.

The thing is, you loved your job. You really did. The 4 years of college, 5 months of job hunting and, 3 month interview process was totally worth it. You were in a place in life where you finally felt as though you were doing what you wanted to do.

Aside from your job, you also procured an amazing condo in the nicer part of town aka the part of town you only ventured into in your dreams. Big open windows lined the walls, giving you a breathtaking view of the skyline, modern appliances were nestled in your kitchen which was complete with marble countertops and a fancy trash compacter. The rest of the apartment had been co-decorated by you and your boyfriend Taehyung.

You had met Taehyung at an art gallery nearly three years ago and, the two of you bonded over your mutual love for cheap diner food and expensive artwork.  Falling in love had occurred much faster than you expected. Taehyung’s sense of humor and, desire to speak endlessly about the complexity of the world around him had won you over almost instantly and, the chemistry between the two of you was, according to your close friends, palpable in every sense of the word. Taehyung was a walking contradiction, one second, you were convinced he had discovered the secret to immortality and, was actually born in 1728 and the next second, you were begging him to wait until after dinner before indulging in the ice cream you had come with. The point is, he was everything all wrapped into one:  sensitive and strong, childlike and wise beyond his years, goofy and refined, all at the same time.

And, my god, was he gorgeous.

Like, so fucking gorgeous that it actually offended you sometimes.

So, it was no surprise to you when he was scouted one day while the two of you were out grocery shopping. The agent worked for quite a prestigious agency and, after some time, she had convinced Taehyung to submit a few headshots to her recruiter; headshots that the two of you took on your old DSLR in front of your windows during the golden hour. The mini photo shoot had ended with the two of you fucking in front of said windows for the better part of the night. At least, you lived on the 81st floor right?

Needless to say, the headshots were a success and, after a few magazine campaigns, Taehyung’s career had taken off. For the better part of last year, he was travelling constantly, so much so, that the two of you hardly say each other. You were, of course, very supportive of his career and, wanted nothing but the best for him. However, you missed each other like crazy. You spent nearly a year living together and, suddenly he was just gone all the time. Sometimes, you would go with him but, most of the time, your previous job/job hunting kept you tied down to the city. Earlier this year, Taehyung had decided enough was enough, modelling was something he loved, yes but, he couldn’t stand being away from you constantly. His agency understood and, now, only requires him to travel during a few of the major fashion weeks throughout the year. Taehyung still models in designer brand campaigns and, often times, brands will send their photographers into the city, specifically to work with your boyfriend.

You couldn’t blame them. He was a literal work of art.

Since his career shift, life had become pretty domestic between the two of you. Date nights, weekend trips, home cooked meals, stupid fights over whose turn it was to clean the bathroom; life really couldn’t have been any better.

However, today was still Monday. Mondays still suck and, this one sucked even more because, you had trouble sleeping the night before. Nine and half hours of work on two and a half hours of sleep was bad day that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy and, yet here you were, jittery and exhausted on the cab ride home. You had doubled up on the espresso this morning but, all it really did was make you feel anxious and sleepy at the same time.

Misery.

You trudged through the front door of your condo, messenger bag across your body, empty coffee mug in hand, only to be greeted by silence. There was a bit of disappointment in your stomach as you had a feeling that your boyfriend might not have finished up his photoshoot. After the day you just had, you were really looking forward to his company. With a long drawn out sigh you placed your things on the countertop and, headed into your bedroom. It was there that you were greeted by the sight of your sleeping boyfriend.  Sandy blonde hair splayed out on the pillowcase as the duvet hung off of his hips, his bare back, broad and exposed to the rest of the room. The sight was heavenly and, you could literally feel your lids grow heavier at the thought of snuggling against his warm, tanned skin.

After shedding your work clothes, you pulled on a tank top and a pair of thin sleep shorts. The room was cooled by the powerful breeze of the standing fan but, you knew very well, that your radiator of a boyfriend, would have no problem keeping you warm. You pulled back the covers before slipping underneath them, shifting carefully in the direction of a sleeping Taehyung.  As your skin makes contact with his, you sigh out in relief, as if his presence alone was soothing you.

“Rough day?”

Your boyfriends ragged voice rumbling beside you, startles you and, he chuckles as you let out a squeak, face whipping towards him. Your greeted with Taehyung’s boxy smile, obscured slightly by the material of the pillow and, his cunning gaze, his disheveled blonde hair messily framing his face.

“I thought you were sleeping.” You whisper and, you weren’t sure why, something about Taehyung’s voice causing you to keep quiet.

“I was, until you came in.” He smirks, eyes full of fondness as he shuffles closer to you, bringing the blanket up from his hips and, over your shoulders.

You welcome his closeness, a frown on your face, your lips pouted slightly.

“I’m sorry I woke you, I was trying to be quiet.” You regret, wrapping your arm around his bare waist, securing yourself against him.

The motion causes Taehyung to smile, his nose nudging against yours before his soft lips lean to press against yours. The kiss is slightly more heated than you expect but, you reciprocate none the less, your hand squeezing lightly against his waist. He chuckles into your lips, wiggling lightly at your touch before deepening the kiss, his tongue brushing across your bottom lip, requesting entry.

“Your makeup looks pretty today…” He mumbles against your mouth, his hand slipping under the material of your tank top, fingers lightly tickling the skin there. “Is it ok if I fuck it up?”

His question throws you off and, you pull away from the kiss, brows rising as you giggle.

“What do you mean?”

He smirks, his eyes darkening as he sits up, positioning himself between your legs. It was then, that you notice the white Calvin Klein’s hugging his caramel colored hips. The definition in his stomach made your mouth water but, coupled with his choice in attire and his shaggy blonde hair that reached the nape of this neck, you felt like you could literally die.

It was moments like these that you wondered what in the world you did to get so lucky.

Taehyung shrugs, his big hands coming up to rest on your knees, “Your eyes tend to water when I eat your pussy…”

His words make your clit throb in your shorts and, you feel your throat growing dry as you try to calm yourself. You feel goosebumps collecting on the sides of your thighs and, on the back of your arms, Taehyung’s baritone voice sending you into a frenzy.

But you attempt to keep calm none the less…

“Who said anything about you eating my pussy?” You retort, brows rose in defiance. After all, he usually asks permission.

Taehyung chuckles and, his cocky because, he knows for a fact you would never pass up his mouth, especially because, he doesn’t give it to you nearly as often as he would like to.

“You had a rough day yeah? Don’t you think it would get a lot better with my tongue on your clit?”

Another throb occurs in your shorts then and, you can feel your entrance contracting as you grow more and more aroused.

“I had a rough day too babe and, I know for fact, the only thing that will improve my mood is if your cunt was in my face.”

Fuck, he was filthy.

“I-“ You weren’t one to be speechless but, your overwhelming arousal and, lingering exhaustion caused your brain to go foggy. All you could feel was desire.

Taehyung smirks again, his body lowering so his lips were kissing at your knees, his hands slowly spreading your legs, wet lips trailing over your heated skin all the while. His eyes lock onto yours, hunger in them as he starts kissing and sucking up your right leg.

“What’s gotten into you today…” You breathe out, eyes threatening to roll back as he sucks against a sensitive spot on your inner thigh.

The vibration of his voice causes your shorts to dampen and, you feel your heart quickening in anticipation.

“You’ve been working so hard Jagi…” He murmurs, nose trailing up the cuff of your shorts, a drunken smirk on his face. “I wanna make you feel better.”

He’s kissing at the junction of your thighs now, alternating between kissing your skin softly and pulling it between his teeth, the latter making it harder to keep quiet.

“Can I jagi?” The question is asked against your pussy now, your pajama shorts being the only thing separating you and his mouth. He flits his eyes to yours, the cocky smirk still prominent on his face. “Can I eat your sweet little cunt?”

You didn’t have it in you to bite back anymore. Normally, you would have made it harder for him, you would have resisted more but, today was different. Today you were spent and, you need him more than you could possibly articulate.

“Yeah…” The voice that passes your lips is small and, nearing a whimper, bracing yourself for what’s to come.

Taehyung’s brown eye flash victorious for a moment before he leans back and, hooks his fingers into the band of your shorts, ignoring the throbbing of his dick as he hears the desperation in your voice.

He lets out the breath he was holding as he takes in the sight of what’s between your legs. You’re swollen and wet and, he could hardly control himself as he begins dragging his tongue slowly up the length of your pussy, the tip of his tongue barely probing between your lips. The feeling sends a shiver up your spine and, you arch slightly towards his mouth.

“Your clit is throbbing…I can feel it…can I lick on it Jagi? Please?” Taehyungs accent is growing thicker as the taste of you hits his tongue. It’s taking everything in him not to bury his face between your legs.

“That’s what I like isn’t it?” You retort, smirking softly, trying to get a grip on yourself.

Taehyung’s brows go up in surprise as he looks up towards you, a teasing smirk on his face.

“I know what you fucking like you little shit…” He chuckles, biting your thigh in retaliation, causing a giggle to erupt from your throat. “I’m trying to be polite…isn’t that what good boys do mistress?”

The name he uses sends another pulse into your clit. The two of you had decided to spice things up recently, not out of necessity or anything but, just out of curiosity. You had dabbled in BDSM and, you were pleasantly surprised at how quickly Taehyung slipped into a submissive role. The most recent encounter occurred after he had been acting like an ass for most of the day and, you decided the best remedy was tying him up and fucking him until he couldn’t see straight anymore. It was very effective.

“You’re right…keeping showing me what a good boy you are then…” You suggest and, Taehyung feels another throb in his boxers at the return of his favorite nickname.

“Yes mam”

He dives in then, tongue pushing its way past the sticky lips of your pussy, quickly finding your swollen clit. He’s licking against it, nose buried against you, hands bracing against your thighs holding them open. The tension from your day coupled with Taehyung’s teasing were not going to allow you to last long, the sinking feeling already building up in your stomach.

Taehyung’s tongue licked on either side of your clit, lips pursing around it, sucking it into his mouth momentarily before, continuing to lick on it. The feeling made your toes tingle, it made you feel completely helpless. You couldn’t move, you just laid there, legs spread, pussy drenched, taking everything he was giving you.

“I’m a good boy aren’t I mistress? Eating your cunt after a long day…” Taehyung’s voice holds the same amount of arrogance but, its renewed slightly with desperation, his darkening eyes staring into yours.

You just nod eagerly, breath shortening with each motion of his lips against your pussy. You’re trying to catch your breath, fingers clutching against the duvet that lay underneath you. Taehyung moves down to lick at your entrance, tongue teasing at the wet skin, lush lips sucking against it lightly.

“You have no right jagi...” He groans against your cunt, hands on either side of your thighs, holding them open. “...no right to have a pussy this good.”

Teeth are gnawing at your lip, trying to refrain from screaming out, your heart throbbing in your chest. Your pussy tightening and contracting against your boyfriends talented mouth.

You feel his fingers then, long and nimble, circling your entrance, a devilish smile being shot your way from between your legs.

“Can I put my fingers in here mistress?” His voice is arrogant but, his eyes hold the slightest amount of adoration, secretly desperate to please you.

All you can do is nod as the goosebumps continue to collect all over your skin, the breeze from the standing fan not helping. Taehyung smirks, wasting no time as he tucks two of his fingers inside of you, pressing firmly against the mound of tissue that’s bound to drive you crazy.

Your breath is caught in your throat and, you feel the tension in your stomach increasing, your cunt tingling as Taehyung begins licking at your clit again. His fingers are steady as they rock inside of you, rubbing against your g-spot. You are normally one for stamina but, today is not the day. Taehyung groans against you as you tangle your fingers in his blonde mane, tugging harder as he sucks at your clit.

Its all too much, its overwhelming you, there's a deep, sickening, pleasure curling up inside of you and it’s about ready to snap.

“I’m gonna cum...” Your voice is barely above a whisper as euphoria washes over you, your back arching, your nipples hardening. All of the tension melting away as your boyfriend helps you through your orgasm. You feel more wetness that normal between your legs but, you can't find in you to care. It’s your turn to do the laundry anyhow.

Taehyung doesn't miss a beat, he slowly slides his fingers out, hunger in his eyes as he sucks them dry, dark eyes holding yours all the while. He smirks as places kisses all over your pussy, nibbling on your inner thighs, causing you to giggle.

“You came a lot...” He mumbles drunkenly, still smirking as he starts kissing his way up your body.

“You play dirty...” You retort, eyes fluttering as you feel his hardened dick rub against your sensitive pussy.

He chuckles, his still swimming with lust as he leans into your lips, “Is there any other way to play jagi?”

damn him, always wanting dessert before dinner.

[gamcn-blog]

LALISA MANOBAN | CISFEMALE | SHE/HER | ASEXUAL - GAMON CHAROENSUK is a TWENTY-ONE year old SECURITY GUARD AT SEATTLE RIDGE ARTIFACT / LAW STUDENT that moved into apartment G5 a good NINE MONTHS ago. the CAPRICORN has been in town for ELEVEN YEARS overall and is well known around seattle ridge for being SELF-AWARE and CREATIVE, but has a reputation of being ANTISOCIAL and ECCENTRIC. guess that’s why they call them the THE BUFFOON around these parts!

it’s a me passing by with a small 5am rework (but mostly just a new fc) ! a lot of what’s below is copied and pasted, but there are a few nerfs, buffs and details added that’ll make her a bit different overall;;

—  p  a  s  t;

she was born at dawn in bangkok on january 2nd

she’s an only child to anchara, an aircraft pilot, and niran, a university professor since eleven years ago

she was an average child until she discovered her dad’s piano in the family house’s basement on a stormy night. she was trash at first. whatever it was that she tried to play there woke her parents up, but as she practiced for hours every day and learnt fast, she started to develop a skill that’d eventually make them proud

she was a complete derp as a child and walked around the classroom with short, messy einstein hair and refused to wear anything but superhero t-shirts and oversized hoodies with either, atoms or cringey geeky quotes on them. she wasn’t popular material behavior-wise, but she was surprisingly well liked due to her strange nature. she got away with saying and doing things no one else would, just because she was gamon. kids loved teasing her and watching her reactions, all in a friendly manner, just because she was so unskilled socially and did the unexpected without fail. she spent most of her time locked in and playing her instrument, but she acknowledged her communication flaws and tried to do baby steps whenever she was around people

when she wasn’t playing, she was switching between various material arts. that led her to be more fit than she should be. she even won a competition once and brought home a medal

after a few years of a stable life, her dad ended up reaching his two dreams both at once; moving to america and finally becoming a professor. the whole family moved to seattle ridge when gamon was ten

she was apathetic towards the change. it was unfortunate she never picked up english, but at least she had more time to think up melodies during lunch breaks

she started picking up graphic design, digital art and chess. chess had quickly become one of her main hobbies. at this point, she took a boxing class at noon once a week and drifted away from material arts completely

soon, with her inability to get good at the language, she shifted all of her focus towards her hobbies and her usually good grades started to drop rapidly for the next two years. she was having a hard time and was giving up on learning something so difficult and uninteresting to her. but, she figured she couldn’t take the risk of relying solely on her piano skills and found her admiration for lawyers. she decided to play it safe and try to become just that, for now, to gain motivation for school again

—  p  r  e  s  e  n  t;

she stays up late and runs on 2 hours of sleep, all of that time spent switching between trolling forums, studying, playing, and trips to the fridge

she has an opinion on everything

she drinks milk from the bottle and gets down ten cups of coffee a day

she speaks insanely fast, but not a lot

her fashion taste’s still the same, except she’s switched to metal dad hoodies

she’s really observant, focused, and in the present moment

she’s still socially awkward. all she can do is be sarcastic, even in the most inappropriate of situations, and wouldn’t know how to react to anything if that was taken from her

triple the sarcasm, she really responds to everything with it without a care about coming off as rude. being considerate hurts her brain 

buT, she’s a soft soul despite and cries everytime she’s playing, writing a song, or listening to a touching one. she pours everything she’s keeping down into music

she lives near her parents and skypes them every other day

she can’t hug

she has a sphynx kitten called hamburger that she bought a week ago

she’s pretty edgy and wants to get her back tattooed one day. she’s only got the back of her arm thus far, and it’s a small dragon. she just thinks it’s neat

she loves ninjas, superheroes and lara croft

she’s made a thousand huge steps towards improving her language and has vocabulary close to a SAT level, but she can properly pronounce about a quarter of them and still carries a heavy accent

she’s a gAmEr

—  f  a  v  o  r  i  t  e    t  h  i  n  g  s;

flowers

baby blue

giraffes

ballads

noodles

swimming

--- i’ll be adding more as i go, but click here for a few wcs !! 

[20straveling]

9.20.18 ~ Ireland

As some of you are aware, I have achieved my singular most important life goal – and at the age of 23, what an accomplishment! I have traveled to Ireland. If you’ve been reading my blog, or if you’ve known me at all in real life, you may have the slight inkling that I have an obsession and deep wanderlust for the majesty that is Ireland. Between the exposure to all that is beautiful in the film P.S I Love You (landscape and men included) in my early teens, and the yearlong research project into the art styles and history of monastic life in my senior year of college, I am thoroughly and irrevocably obsessed with that country.

Last month (because it’s somehow half-way through September already), my family and I traveled abroad for the first time together. It was quite the experience. It had been quite some time since we had all traveled on a plane together, and I’m not quite sure how they managed it when we were kids. My father is much more familiar with flying, and I’ve done my fair share in the past few years. My mother and brother, less so. There’s a funny story involving my brother, TSA, and a giant bottle of contact solution, but we’ll leave that be, as I think we’ve over-told it in our real lives, and heaven forbid I spread his mistake online as well (no matter how funny it was, but not at the time).

One of the wise pieces of advice I gave to my family was “sleep on the plane, to confuse your body into being wide awake when we land,” because my father had inadvertently planned our flight to be overnight, which is great, that landed around 5:30AM Dublin time. My thought was “heck yea! lets go explore some stuff!” but my family’s thought was “oh no, where can we take a nap at 5AM?” because, oh dear reader, we could not get into our AirB&B until around noon. So, what do you do in a foreign city for almost 6 hours without wifi to guide you? The answer, for us at least, was to sit in a café for about an hour and use their free wifi to create a plan. So, we created a plan.

See, we were going to drop off bags and walk around Christ Church Cathedral, but plans never go, well, as planned. And we got lost-ish, asked multiple people where things were and realized they knew almost less than we did, and then decided to sit at the bag-drop tourist location until they opened at 8:30. My mom had to muscle her way into the lobby because some woman who arrived 5 minutes before they opened tried to cut in front of the rest of the people that were gathered around their front door area. So much for Irish hospitality! Joking, only joking. Other than the one rude woman, who was probably a tourist herself, every tour guide, and direction-giver, was as nice as could be.

Margret, from our Kilkenny B&B, was in a league of her own when it came to hospitality. She was more than understanding about our confusion when it came to the room arrangements, as we had booked two rooms, with one bed each. She explained that a double room was a full bed, and a twin room was a two bed room – a common misunderstanding when Americans were booking with her apparently. And because we had arrived before all her other guests, she allowed us to switch rooms and it was no hassle at all. She also served us Irish coffee before tucking in for the night, and served the best breakfast that I had during the whole trip – and Irish Breakfast with tomatoes, eggs, sausage, the whole nine. Recommendations, advice, there was nothing Margret wasn’t prepared for, maps included.

A guarantee during any of our family vacations or trips is tours, usually history oriented, and always interesting. Ireland was no different by any means. We toured castles, churches, the Ring of Kerry, and the Cliffs of Moher, as well as the towns and shops along the way. Each place was beautiful, full of stories, and perfectly old in every way. Part of what I love so much about being abroad, beyond the US, is that there is history that reaches beyond the founding of our country and further. Churches stand almost a thousand years old, castles from wars our fore-father’s grandfather’s were a part of, and practices that have stayed the same and thrived for generations. Yes, we have some of this in America, and we’ve created ourselves on the history of those countries we come from, but nothing beats a 900 year old church on a hillside, overlooking an entire valley to the mountains.

Speaking of phenomenal views, some of the best views we had were at the top of the Guinness Storehouse in the Galaxy Bar, the Ring of Kerry (no specifics, I’m obsessed with countryside and national  parks, so I loved it all), and the Cliffs of Moher in all of their stunning, breathtaking beauty. One of my little goals in life is to have one of those large prints above my couch or desk, and someone asks “oh, that’s a great photo, where’d you buy it?” and I get to say “thanks, I took that!” There is something so special, so powerful, in being able capture a moment that you experienced so well that others are able to share part of its splendor. It’s one of the reasons I love taking pictures; I love to share them.

Anywho, moving on now to the silly details and things I can remember off the top of my head, as I don’t have the patience to go through all the photos right now, but would like to tell you more about our trip. One of the great joys was watching the live music being played on the streets of Galway every evening. There was a band, who’s name I cannot remember, but they had such good energy and an awesome mix of instruments and voice styles; I bought one of their CDs, which is currently in my car and played through at least once a week. Oh! The Book of Kells: amazing, very secure, and incredibly detailed (Trinity Library, I want to get married there. That is all.)

Coming home from a trip is always something that I hate to do, but also always necessary. Luckily, the weeks, and months, up-to the trip and following my return home, have been nothing but go go go (which is partially why this post is so late and also why it may seem a bit half-hazard or disorganized, my apologies). I’ve had time to remember and chat about all the good, without feeling like I’m missing out on too much because I have so much going on in my normal life. And, we all know, this won’t be the last trip I take to that majestic green island. But, until then, please ask me questions and ask for photos, because I can’t not talk about how wonderful and beautiful this trip was.

 So, until next time,

 <3 M

 9.20.18

[winecoolr]

I wanna talk about David, and our split cause folk have asked and I’ve given a really short story every time but it’s. A lot. This is a long post and there’s a shit ton to get off my chest so. very fucking long post ahead

Literally everyone knows we’d been together for coming up 5 years, which when you start at 16 is quite a fucking long while and we ended up living together and it was supposed to be great? And at the end of it I’ll say it was at one point a great relationship and we were great together? BUt 

I went away to work a season at a hotel up north last year, and I was gone nearly seven  months, which was the longest we’d ever been apart and it showed me a lot. I smoked and drank and partied all the time, which I had never done, and he used to go absolutely ape at me over it. Granted my communication slipped and had the roles been reversed (as they had been three years prior) I’d have been furious too. But when I quit that job even though i loved it, to move back in with him, it was so different.

We used to go to pubs and talk about getting married and what we’d call our kids and where in the world we’d moved to once he finished his degree (never about when I finished what I wanted to do) and all these things, but after I came back it changed to us going to the pub and he’d drink and accuse me of not loving him and cheating on him while I was away, and we’d end up fighting and i would cry. every time. four times a week usually. I would feel guilty for ever leaving, and feel as if I had actually cheated on him, as if I had actually done something wrong enough to warrant him hating me the way he told me he did. I spent my time tip toeing around him, trying to convince him I loved him.

And then it changed, he’d go out three or four nights a week, but I couldn’t. I’d work nights and even that would bring a round of accusations of seeing some guy, or smoking, or anything. He would demand to know who, if anyone, had hit on me while I was working, and if I flirted back. I’d smell like booze (I’m a bartender for fucks sake) and he would say I’d actually been out partying instead of work. In the seven months of returning to Glasgow, i went out only twice, and he came with me one of them - and I don’t think anyone there will forget that night because I’d been standing outside myself talking to a guy, who was also in a relationship, about where I was from and David went off his rocker at me. He screamed at me in front of a whole nightclub that I had been making out with the guy and smoking. I cried and cried and cried and it was an awful night and I smoked an entire fucking pack of cigarettes. We “made up” and that was that.  He had all the passwords to my phone and laptop, and would check them when I was at work. Any little thing that seemed off to him, he attacked me over.

After that, I was depressed. And depression hits everyone differently, we all know. I stopped eating, and weighed just 8 stone at my heaviest in June and I’m 5′11″ .He never noticed this, which made it a lot worse in a twisted way. I started smoking properly at my job, where David wasn’t there to see it, and when he went away to classes during the day I’d walk at least a 5 mile stint for something to do and a way to smoke without the smell lingering. I thought it was all chilled out too, convinced myself we were back to normal and everything was fine again. It had to be, I wasn’t making enough in the three fucking jobs I had to move out into my own flat, I needed him.

And then one of my friends, who I usually had to sneak out or make an excuse to see while David was at uni, kissed me after I told him everything that had been happening in my relationship. And then one night when David had gone away to spend the night with his family and left me in Glasgow, I fucked that friend. Not even just once. Then literally a few days later, I had a threesome with old work colleagues from the hotel. I hadn’t been drinking, all they did was ask if I wanted to come over. I don’t know why (maybe I do). And whenever he accused me of cheating after that, as he still did, I would actually have a reason to feel guilty as I denied it. We hadn’t been having sex anyway, even though he pushed and gaslighted me about it every night, so when it got to the point when the guilt would eat me when I would even think of sleeping with him, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for me to say I wasn’t up for it. Small blessings on my sinning fucking head. But I still told myself we were okay.

When I got a call in May to return to the hotel for another season, I was ecstatic and scared. I hadn’t been allowed to even bring up the hotel’s name for seven months, or fear the mood and accusation, so to say I wanted to go back to work there was out of the question. But we wanted to get our own flat together, and he was going on an unpaid internship, so someone had to come up with the money. I had to make rules and guidelines for myself that he agreed to;  I had to call him at 7am every morning, and every night as soon as I finished my shift. I had to come see him every time I had a day off, and I wasn’t to spend any money - in fact, was to ask my boss to keep half of it in the safe for when I left so I wouldn’t spend it.

That lasted four days. Within the first week, a day off came and it was sunny and I wanted to spend it drinking and getting sunburned with my work friend rather than spend the whole time on the train, where I would be miserable and get the 5am bus back to work the next day. So I did. And he was angry, but I was an hour and a half away so I didn’t actually have to face it - I turned off my phone and got drunk and smiled for real. And then a couple nights later, there was a party (which I’d promised I wouldn’t be partying this year) that I went to, and met Cal properly. We sat in a corner the whole night drinking gin and irn bru and taking the piss out of eachother and we clicked instantly. When I had the party at my van another couple nights later, it was just us left eventually and we kissed. And we stayed up all that night chatting and got about 20 minutes of sleep.

Cal and I started a relationship. While I was with David. He knew everything about me, I told him it all straight away, that I was in a relationship, the whole nine yards. We didn’t have sex though, he was too moral for that which I am thankful for.

A month into being in Ardlui, I dumped David. I phoned him, and laid it out that I didn’t want our life plan anymore, that I wasn’t happy and we weren’t growing off eachother anymore. I didn’t tell him about the cheating, with anyone. I didn’t tell him I smoked. I didn’t tell him I’d been absolutely jungled three hours before phoning him. Because I didn’t want to hurt him, and prove that he’d been right every time he accused me and I denied it.

And he didn’t even care. He went ‘okay’ and sounded like he’d been expecting it- which made it so much easier on me, because when I woke up the morning I decided to leave him, I was destroyed. 5 years of my life and the whole life I had planned ahead of me were about to be thrown out the window, and at first I didn’t think I was ready. I wasn’t looking in the mirror when I decided it, to see my ribs and hipbones staring at me over an ignored eating disorder. I didn’t see the depression written in my drafts on twitter. I didn’t see his controlling nature in my texts to the few friends I had left. I saw my dependency to him and saw the promises I’d made him, and I felt like a bitch. Because he was relying on me too for his life plan. But the simplicity of his ‘okay’ drove the way he’d been treating me home.  Despite hating myself over the way I’d been acting with the cheating and eventually refusing to adhere to any of the “rules” we’d set, I deserved better. I deserved to eat, to drink, to smoke, be happy with the 6′4″ gorgeous man I’d always wanted that finally waltzed into my life and showed me I deserved better.

So for the first time since officially being considered an adult, I depended on myself. I threw my entire life away and took everything day by day after that, and it has done me the world of good. I’m still  with Cal, we’ve just hit 6 months together, and even though the way we ended up together was unconventional and I’m sosososo insecure about it, I know he loves me. Even though we do argue, I don’t lie or hide anything from him. I tell him when I‘m having a rough mental health day, even though it’s hard. We’ve been all over Europe, something I always wanted to do but never did, and it won’t be the last time I do it. I have nothing planned, I have next to no money left, but I’m happier right now than I have been in the past year. I don’t depend on anybody. Everything is down to me. 

I’m still balls deep in my eating disorder, which I’ve only recently admitted and acknowledged was something I was dealing with. I am better, I do eat every day. Some days I eat properly, some days I have to deal with choking down a cereal bar and staying away from the scale and calling it victory - which it is! I still hit rough times mentally, but they’re okay. I know how to recognize and deal with them now, and I don’t brush anything under the rug. Even though I am worried about how he views me, I have a boyfriend that listens to me when I tell him what’s wrong. 

Abusive relationships aren’t always black and white until you’re out, and the term ‘abuse’ is scary and heavy, but it’s grey too. Neither of us knew how bad we were for eachother. We were both abusive. I haven’t spoken to David since the split, so I’ll admit I don’t know how our relationship affected him. I guess I just hope the breakup was as good for him as it was for me. I don’t mean to paint him badly, because I do have people here that knew and know him. He’s a great person and I do wish him the best. I just wanted to finally talk about it and what I went through, because I’m tired of being asked. Idk. If you read this then god bless you, because it was l o n g.

[thedeadnotesofficial]

London (UK), 20.02.2019

Freiburg. We meet up at 8 am, still 33 hours left to get to London on time.

The plan is to leave Freiburg at 1 pm as we still need to pick up new merchandise in Münster as well as pick up our good friends KID DAD in Paderborn. If everything works out we should still have some time to rest at Jakob‘s place in Cologne later before we head off to the ferry quite early in the morning. So far, so good. What really happened:

Let‘s go one step back first. Let me introduce to you: „Al Azul“. It’s the name of our brand new van and one of the main characters in this drama I'm about to tell you here. We recently bought ‘Al’ from our friends in Redensart and we bloody love this vehicle. It makes us proud to finally call him our very own. We already toured in Al Azul many times and I think it‘s quite an 'institution' in Freiburg‘s and Europe‘s diy scene. 

Everything is prepared for the biggest European headline tour we‘ve ever played to date. This is way to exciting. We weren‘t lazy and even cleaned the whole van very carefully and got a new soundsystem installed, too. We load in our backline, pick up our sound guy Robert and even manage to leave on time just as planned. Perfect. The sun is shining and everybody is looking forward to cross the channel tomorrow.

We’re on the motorway, not too far from Frankfurt when we first hear strange noises that seem to be coming from the engine. Can‘t say how long the noises have already been there because we were listening to Rob’s first band “Fed Up 74” on max volume until realizing that Al Azul sounds like an old tractor and we decide to get off the motorway as soon as possible. We call the ADAC but have to wait for almost two hours. Everyone still is like “Shouldn’t be a big thing” whereas I’m a little scared (have to admit that I’m always the biggest pessimist in this band). The yellow car arrives and we show them the problem. It doesn't even takes two minutes until Mr. ADAC drops the following sentence:

“The engine might be broken.” What? “The only thing I can still do is to tow off the van“ .F***ing Hell.

#throwbacktime: On our last UK tour in 2017 the exact same thing happened on our way to Brighton. The only difference is that it’s not a hired van this time but our very own van. It’s fucking Al Azul! 

We really are the most cursed “bad luck kids” on this whole planet. We immediately call every single car hire station nearby but no one seems to have a nine seated van available on this short notice. We‘re already four hours delayed at this point and spent the last hours going completely crazy, pissing each other off and losing hope in literally everything. While the van is towed off to a garage nearby we receive the news that Mary @ Turbo Booking might be able to sort out a van. Only problem. The van is located in Cologne and we are stranded in a small village called Groß-Gerau, 200 km away. If we learned something from playing in an intensely touring band for the last 8 years, it's to always make the best out of tricky situations and that sleep is sometimes overrated. Within seconds Darius and Jakob decide to take the next train to Cologne. We are well aware that we‘re about to lose shit-loads of money that we don‘t have, when the bus driver on the bus to the train station in Frankfurt even wants to charge a massive extra fee because the guys bought the wrong tickets. They bought tickets for 8,60€, the right ticket actually costs 8.70€. Come on. What is wrong with people?

Rob and I are still waiting for the guys to pick us and our backline up in front of a closed Fiat-garage stranded in the middle of nowhere.

The ‘new’ rental van is a little smaller but at least it’s warm in here. We‘re 8 hours delayed at this point, finally ready to drive another 4 hours to our next stop, Paderborn, where we arrive at 5am. For the first time since the van breakdown I feel very well again until I get to see the huge pile of Kid Dad gear in front of their rehearsal room that definitely won‘t fit in the van.

We don’t have enough time to play van-tetris the whole morning so everyone has to place some gear on their legs. Our main goal is to catch the ferry to the UK somehow, so we will still make it on time for our London show.

It’s not a big surprise that we miss the first two ferries but at least we pass the British border control without any problems. Crossing the Channel, Dunkerque to Dover became a routine for us and everybody is looking forward to finally getting something to eat at the “7 seas restaurant” on board. Fries, mushy peas and baked beans served on plate. We jokingly call it “prison meal”. Always a nice welcome to this beautiful island.

In the end it takes us nearly 35 hours to make it to London, but it feels like a huge success when we finally arrive. It’s only fair that there’s a parking spot right in front of the venue. Thank god. Not too fair that we are charged an extra 100€ parking ticket a few hours later. Surprisingly there’s still enough time for a quick soundcheck for Kid Dad at the beautiful „The Monarch“ in Camden before We Bless This Mess, our good friends from Portugal, now London based play an absolute killer set. Go check them out. 

We are a bit overwhelmed with everything and exhausted by the lack of sleep but the show turns out as the best London show we’ve ever played and I’m pretty sure Kid Dad are “happy” as well. The venue is packed with at least 50 kids and when we get on stage we are relieved how this all came together somehow. Can‘t really put into words how grateful we are and how proud I am that everyone in this travel party works together without a single moan which would be more than understandable under such circumstances.

Ps: Two days later we receive a phone call that our beloved „Al Azul“ was diagnosed as a write off. We can call us proud van owners for at least two hours now. Unfortunately we lost many thousands of euros on this one and still don‘t really know how to afford this loss. If you wanna buy some merch in order to support us and keep the whole thing going this would mean the world to us. Anyway, come what may. We‘ll be doing our very best to rock this with the same intensity as usual and I don‘t think anything will ever stop us as long as we‘re the happiest bad luck kids in the world.

Photos: Ilkay Karakurt

[rambling-russ]

Newsletter 3 India

Hi all,

I arrived from Kuala Lumpur and gained favour with the Immigration officer at Calcutta (Kolkata) airport who brought me forward before others in the arrival queue awaiting the entry process. However, once it was known I was headed for Manipur (a N.E. Indian state), I was taken aside for questioning for about an hour for my own safety or possible involvement with insurgents operation in this state.

In Manipur the population is 2.7 million people. There are nine administrative districts, three of which are mostly Christian. The district here in Churachandpur is mainly Christian with many churches and there are three dialects used in the area. In this local area, Hmar ls the language spoken. However, there are more than twenty different dialects in this state.

The Churachandpur district is about 200 kilometres away from the insurgent’s area. In the town here the people are usually very curious when they see me but often very friendly too.

I bought two sim cards with the help of my friends who provided their I.D. details. It is not easy to obtain a sim card in many countries because of government and security requirements and that is the case here in Indian. The first sim didn’t work properly – It wouldn’t allow me to ring-out or use SMS facilities. The second SIM allowed me to ring but no SMS. I learnt later that one has to pay a little extra for the SMS facility. The third visit to a different phone & Sim distributor, from the first agent whom I visited twice, fixed all the problems except for not being able to receive some SMS’ and tethering (linking) my laptop to my phone. To use the sim in different states throughout India, one requires roaming.

The cost of 1.58 gigabytes a day for one month is 400 rupees or A$8. The second sim cost 280 rupees. The third, another 400 rupees totalling around A$20.

The weather is very hot during the day, around- 31 degree Celsius but late afternoon & morning it gets down to a cool 21.

We have had power cuts here for two days supposedly due to the shifting of electricity lines. Now, however, the power is off again as I write!

On Sunday I preached to a church of over 200 people. My message was translated very capably and embellished by my very capable Indian friend Robinson.

Five different denominations (four Pentecostal and a Presbyterian church) put aside their differences and joined forces to build and make one church. The Church is now called “The Thenmuol Local Village Church” and is completely independent.

The church youth meets for prayer every Wednesday, the whole church on Saturday night, Sunday morning and evening for church services, Sunday afternoon is for fellowship when there is a guest. As I was the guest I was asked questions for 2 & ½ hours about my church, Australia, my life and countries where I had worked.

The village where I preached have been supporting Robinson a little, financially, where they could and praying for him whilst he was a missionary. On returning home, the church doesn’t see the need for further financial support of him. He and his family just use their savings to survive, not that he is complaining or even mentioned it. He could easily obtain a lucrative, lecturing position but is keeping himself free to set-up and run the school. He now considers it’s time to support that same village with a school. He knows that other villages will also use the school and considers the Lord has placed this large project and responsibility on him as well as other future mission and church related activities.

This particular farming community and village have to send their children on a bus on bone-shaking, poled-holed, rocky roads to and from school in the town around 20 kilometres away. (Villagers further afield have to travel longer distances on these gruelling roads). The students from this village have to leave home around 7am. After school, younger children, who finish earlier, have to wait around for an hour or so until the older students finish before catching the first bus home.

The school bus (a long wheel based jeep) has to make several trips to collect all the students.

These struggling rice farmers have to pay the bus fares and school fees and the children come home exhausted. There is a disused school in the village that could be utilised when renovated and provided that there were dedicated Christian teachers. The school had to close about five (5) years ago because the community could not afford to pay the teacher’s wages.

The school is now is in disrepair.

The bus costs around 1000 rupees (A$20) a month & the private school fees 900 (A$18) monthly for primary students. There are limited places in State schools so the farmers have no alternative but to use private schools. Poor farmers can’t afford to send their children to school at all.

The villagers are very friendly, generous, poor compared with our standards but more Godly, committed people.

They church put on a special welcome lunch for me to meet the church leadership at the pastor’s house. I have never seen so much cooked rice! Chillies feature in Indian meals, as we know, but extra food was made without it for me. Even at an individual church-goer’s home, they completely eliminated chillies from all the dishes prepared, when I was there.

The church unexpectedly gave me a gift of a loom-woven cloth, used as a men’s shawl, as well as a generous monetary gift.

Robinson and I have been going sometimes to the 5am prayer meeting held daily, visiting the aged, infirmed, alcoholics and pastors. As well as preaching twice on the weekend, he is involved in preaching at a ladies meeting on both Monday, when invited, and Tuesday night. This evening he was preaching to some youths doing a “house-to-house crawl.”

I knew Robinson & his family in Cambodia where he was a missionary and educator for over ten years. His titles include reverend, doctor. His most recent degree is a PhD in political science & is currently doing a post graduate in educational administration.

Robinson is almost forty and is a powerful, dynamic preacher/orator and has been since his teenage years & is the driving force behind the school project. He speaks ten (10) language and is in popular demand within the churches. He voluntary preaches sometimes for an hour and a half at times, with no notes, has an altar call and is used to “slay people in the spirit.”

He has heredity diabetes (diabetes 2), rheumatoid arthritis in his foot, blood pressure and has recently had a stint placed in the heart. His current medication is causing severe drowsiness. His hospitalisation cost the family US$6000. His wife, Joyce, wants some improvements done to the house but contently says that she’ll have to wait for a couple of years.

The village where I preached have been supporting Robinson a little, financially, where they could and praying for him whilst he was a missionary. On returning home, the church doesn’t see the need for further financial support of him. He and his family just use their savings to survive, not that he is complaining or even mentioned it. He could easily obtain a lucrative, lecturing position but is keeping himself free to set-up and run the school. He now considers it’s time to support that same village with a school. He knows that other villages will also use the school and considers the Lord has placed this large project and responsibility on him as well as other future mission and church related activities he has in-mind.

If & when the school eventuates and opens early next year, I will volunteer my services (D.V.)

I know that you will pray for the school project and me so thank you so much for that. We need it. If, however, you feel you want to donate or support the school, it would be really appreciated.

Unlike other Indian states the people here look different, have cultural differences, one of which is eating beef so naturally the cow, sacred in other states, is not sacred here.

Driving here in quite erratic. It’s O.K. to pass a vehicle even when there is on-coming traffic who have to move over or stop. If no one is on the road then one can drive on the opposite side just because you can! There are no footpaths so pedestrians walk even two or three abreast on the side of the roads.

Well I’d better let you go even though I have more to tell you.

Blessings on you all.

 Russ                                                                                                                        P.S. Having trouble downloading photos again!

[chelsorz07]

you know it’s not forever

I think I’m gonna stop doing these soon, since it’s been at least a year since I started the series and I have to have repeated some already. But for tonight I have nothing else to do. Also for anyone who actually cares I’m working on a fic...it’s not my first but it will be the first one I finish and publish so keep an eye out in the next couple days, Dean/Cas fans ♥

2010/2018

What's one of your locked text messages? a line from a justin bieber song that sarah sent me haha Don’t have any. This phone doesn’t delete shit apparently. Where is the one boy/girl you want to see the most right now? at this very moment i would grow a left nut just so i could give it away if it gave me the opportunity to kick it with mah weskimo. Texas. Do you think your last ex deserves to die? i don't think about him, one way or the other. I definitely do not think that. He thinks that. And I try to convince him every day that he’s wrong, just like he does for me. Who was the last person you slept in the same bed with? david. Dave but he’s been gone for two weeks. Would you be mad if your best friend dated the person you like? probably, considering the person i like is my boyfriend. If my best friend dated my husband, yeah that’d be an issue. She never would though. She doesn’t even like him as a person lol Is anyone over- protective of you? my parents used to be but i think they've decided to chill for the most part. Nobody cares that much about me. Plans for tomorrow? babysitting, and hopefully walmart to get shirts to tie-dye for the summer set. Laundry, Netflix, hopefully finishing the story I’m writing. I really suck at dialogue. Have you made a mistake in the past week? i make mistakes by the hour. Constantly. I don’t recall a specific one though. Do you know anyone named Joshua? yeppp. A couple. Nobody I’ve spoken to in years. Will you be in a relationship in 4 months? more than likely. I’d like to hope so. If my marriage falls apart in the next four months I will most definitely kill myself. If you were paid 1 million dollars to spend the night in a supposed haunted house, would you? for sure. I’d do it for free. What were you doing at 7:00 AM? sleeping. Watching TWD and playing solitaire on my phone. Do you think you can last in a relationship for six months? it's been almost a year. Oh my god. Do you think two people can last forever? perhaps. I have yet to see it happen. Would you put yesterday on repeat and live it forever? nah. No, yesterday sucked. Work was dead and with nothing to do my feet hurt like hell, even with medical grade compression socks on. Did you ever kiss someone with a tattoo? yeah. Yup. I would never go near that person again. I was 19 and stupid and he was a filthy liar. What did you do today? watched maranda, cleaned up the house a little. that's pretty much it. Slept mostly. Picked up the living room. Watched tv. Looked at real estate listings. Talked to my dad. It was a decent day. Last time you laughed super hard? no idea. i laugh all the time. Can’t remember. I tend not to laugh really hard when I’m alone. Which I usually am. Do you find smoking unattractive? nope. but it sucks being around all my friends who smoke when i quit two and a half months ago. It probably is but I’m a chain smoker so I don’t really care. How many people do you fully trust? haha...well...used to be one. now i'm not sure i can completely trust anyone. Still one. Although the person is different. Nobody will ever have my back as much as my dad does. Did anyone see you kiss the last person you kissed? i doubt it. Um...randos at the Pittsburgh airport. Did anyone call you pretty recently? ehh...don't think so. The last person to call me pretty was me. But Mike agreed so I guess him lol Do you look decent when you wake up? depends how my previous night went. That’s a valid answer. I look shitty without makeup no matter what. If my makeup from the previous day isn’t all fucked up after I sleep then I still look good. Are you afraid of falling in love? no. If I was it’d be way too late. Say the last person you kissed was kissing someone right in front of you? i'd probably feel exactly the same way i felt when i woke up from a really bad dream about him yesterday morning. There would be violence involved. Do you have any empty alcohol bottles hidden somewhere in your room? um...i don't believe so. I don’t drink anymore. There are a couple bottles of whiskey in my freezer that haven’t been touched in years, that’s about it. when was the last time you were at the beach? never. Still never. Think back to September, were you in a relationship? yep. I’ve been in a relationship for the past eight Septembers. Almost nine. If you had to delete one year of your life completely, which would it be? i wouldn't. Last half of 2010, first half of 2011. Do you know anyone with such a terribly annoying voice that you can't even stand? most people. Fucking BARB. A lady I work with. She’s so irritating. I’ve even had customers complain to me about her voice, saying they want me to check them out instead. Who was the last person to give you a hug? maranda. Dave. What was the first thing you thought this morning? aksdfmkaoiewhfjdnf;h. “Wtf time is it?” It was actually almost 3pm. But I don’t go to bed till the morning so. What is something that you disliked about your day? uh. everything. The fact that I was pain free most of the day and now I’m not. Have you ever kissed anyone whose name started with a B? How many? nope. Not that I recall.

What about T? How many? no. Nope. What do you currently hear right now? commercials. Carl Grimes. And my cat snoring. Have you ever sent a text to the wrong person? many times. Yep. Awkwardsauce. Who was your last text from? chele. My dad. Did you have any unread text messages when you woke up today? no. Nope, just a voicemail from my pharmacy. Would you rather be able to control the weather or control traffic? weather. Ooh...those are my two biggest fears sooo...Idk if I could pick. Are you faster at text messaging or typing on the computer? computer. Computer for sure. Even with Swype. If you won a trip to a nude beach would you go or give the trip away? i wouldn't go that's for sure...but i'd figure out a way to make money off of it. I stand by that. In your opinion which is the stronger emotion: love or hate? love. of course sometimes when i say i hate someone, it's just because i don't know how to tell them i love them. and furthermore, feeling like i hate someone can make me love them even more. Love. I don’t have the energy for hatred anymore. But I’ll never stop loving what I love. Would you rather sleep for 3 days, or stay awake for 3 days? sleeeeeeeep. Honestly...I don’t know now. I do love my sleep. And I’m lucky to do it for three hours at a time, let alone three days. But I’m also the world’s biggest night owl and am most productive when I should be sleeping. What time did you go to sleep last night? 5am this morning. Like 9am? I don’t remember. When was the last time you had starbucks? never have, never will. I broke my vow and had it exactly one time, a couple years ago. But I refuse to pay five dollars for coffee ever again. Timmy Ho’s and Sheetz are better and half the price. If you were granted one wish, what would you wish for? i don't believe in wishes. Money. What's the tenth text in your inbox say? "is nellie home?" from my mom. “I’m just happy you actually did something about it. Suppose I should return the favor and look into this now.” From Dave, about our respective health issues. Did you stand on your tippy-toes when you had your last kiss? for some reason i always do, even though he's only an inch taller than i am. I must have broken that habit somewhere along the way, because no, I didn’t. Do you like the same person you did a month ago? i've liked the same person for two years. That will never change. Would it be weird if the last person you kissed called you? yeah, cuz he's at work. and he almost never actually calls. He doesn’t call unless something is wrong.  Kissed somebody whose name starts with a C T D or J? d. First name D, last name C, middle name J. All different people. Do you ever think about the past? i think about past, present, and future. Always. Do you believe exes can be friends? sometimes. They most certainly can. Do you currently have a hickey, if so where? i've never had one. Only guy who ever gave me a hickey was a complete tool and I only liked him for his southern accent. He came along a few months after the last time I took this survey, when I was on the rebound. Last night you felt? meh. Bored and in pain. What's your favorite thing to do when you're bored? play solitaire. Read fanfic or watch Youtube. In the past 72 hours have you been under the influence? yup. I haven’t. It’s been months since I even drank a beer. Does anyone know your password besides you? no. Dave knows a couple of them. What're you wearing right now? pajamas and a hoodie. Lilo & Stitch pajama pants, Supernatural Day 2017 shirt. The Hot Topical makes a lot of money from me. What were you doing when you found out Michael Jackson was dead? don't know, don't care. i never liked michael jackson. That. Do you want to see somebody right now? yes. Several people. When's the last time you cried? daily. Um...a couple days ago at work because I was in pain. And probably the same day because I was watching Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life and it always makes me cry. Would you rather sing or dance in front of 100,000 people? i'd do both. I don’t want to do anything in front of that many people. But I could sing better than I could dance. Would it be more likely of you to fail Science or Math? both. I sucked at both. I was strictly an English and Art kinda gal. Will you regret your next kiss? no. they're so few and far between i can't regret them. not that i would anyway. No way in hell. I relish the ones I can get. Has the last person you kissed ever seen you cry? yeah but he doesn't ever seem to care. All the time. Everything makes me cry. Next time you will kiss someone on the lips? hopefully i'll get to see him tonight or tomorrow night when he gets done working, since i won't see him on his day off this week. Sometime between the hours of 4 and 7am next Thursday.  Your boyfriend buys you flowers, you say? he's not that stupid. he knows i hate flowers. Still true, except he’s my husband now. Do you understand football? understand it and love it. The fooseball is life. I’m so freaking excited for the draft tomorrow. Is the last person you kissed mad at you? he'd have to care to be mad. Our last conversation was about travel and home buying so probably not. The person you have the strongest feelings for dies, do you care? shut up. i'm terrified of that more than anything, because he seems to like to do dumb shit that could get him killed. and i've been having tons of dreams about it lately. What the hell kind of question is that? I’m not a sociopath. Think to the last person you kissed, have you ever kissed them in a car? yes. Our first kiss was in a car. Well not the first kiss but that’s what we spent the entire rest of that night doing lol...There have been many car kisses since then as well. Have you kissed more than ten people this year? one person. Just one. Would you ever date someone who was gorgeous but they had a conceited attitude? no. looks don't matter as much as personality. I didn’t know he was conceited at the time but no, I never would again. Like I said, dude was a tool. If someone called you a bitch would you be offended? more like proud. I AM a bitch. I own it. Do you know a few people that smoke weed? a few? i know less people who DON'T smoke weed. Everybody smokes weed anymore. Except like my parents. Was this the best summer of your life? it hasn't happened yet. but last summer was the best so far. For the record, the summer of 2010 was the worst of my life. And last summer was really good for the sole reason of my birthday week, where I met All Time Low and got to spend it back home with my family and friends. Do you think relationships are even worth it? some are. Hope so. Medicine, fine arts, or law? arts. Same. Have you been through driver's ed yet? safety ed...like six years ago. i still don't have my license though. We didn’t have “driver’s ed”. Safety ed was like six weeks of basics but there was never any practice driving or anything like that. I didn’t get my license till I was almost 23. What do you think about people who party a lot? i think i want to be invited? If they’re my age, they need to grow the hell up. If they’re my sister’s age, I’m sure most of them will get sick of it eventually like I did. When was the last time you dyed your hair? almost a year ago...i've been really lazy with it lately. A little over a month ago? It’s orange with black ombre. I like the concept but next time I’m getting it done professionally. Is there a movie you've seen countless times? more than one. Several. I tend to watch most things I like over and over again instead of watching new things. What do you need to go shopping for? i need to stop shopping. Haha...that’s a good answer. But I do need some more compression socks. Have you ever read Twilight? no. Yes, and dammit, I liked it. I still curse myself for that. Is there something that happened in your past that you hate talking about? yeah. Nah, I’ll talk about anything. I’m pretty self-centered. If Britney Spears came to your town, would you go see her concert? hell yes i love her. I’d be there with bells on. Meet anybody new this week? nope. but i'm going to on wednesday. Idk if customers at work count. I don’t leave my house unless it’s for that. Do you dislike anyone at this moment in time? everyone. Yeah, the cunt that thought it’d be cool to cheat on her boyfriend with my best friend and then screw him over as well. Any up coming events you're excited about? the concert on wednesday, and my birthday. Going home next week and house shopping. Does anyone hate you? sure. I guess so. Don’t matter to me.

[jeremystrele]

Bertie Blackman · Crepuscule

Bertie Blackman · Crepuscule

Creative People

by Elle Murrell

Artist Bertie Blackman  applies the final touches to her latest exhibition. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

The Sydney-based artist pictured in front of her artwork ‘Searching For Crepuscule‘ oil on board, 90 x 90cm. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

‘Crepuscule’ is currently showing at Lindberg Gallery in Melbourne. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Along with oil-on-board artworks, Bertie has created a series of dolls for the show. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

The exhibition is dominated by the colour indigo and inspired by the story of the last-known living Tasmanian tiger, Benjamin. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Bertie and her sketchbook. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Today we learnt a fascinating new word, thanks to artist Bertie Blackman, whose latest solo art exhibition, ‘Crepuscule’ is currently on exhibit at Lindberg Galleries in Melbourne.

Referring to the meeting of the day and night – i.e. twilight, in Bertie’s context ‘Crepuscule’ is also the alternative-dimension hangout of Benjamin, the last ever Tasmania tiger, and his merry band of wide-eyed friends. ‘Clever, cunning and mischievous, he evades captivity by leaping through the veils of dreams and reality… through the Crepuscule… bending time and space,’ the artist narrates.

Extending this concept, all of Bertie’s oil paintings for the exhibition are dominated by the colour indigo, built up in darkening layers. The hue really reverberates the feeling of twilight for the artist, and she also loves the way the word sounds: ‘a bit like you’re already bending and squinting the light with the letters; it’s an unusual word, so people are very curious about it!’

It’s no surprise that Bertie would make an audible link, given that many people know the ARIA award-wining singer, songwriter and guitarist for her music. Though busy building her multifarious BB empire, the candid creative took some time out to delve deeper into her current paintings, AND dolls!

Many readers would know you first and foremost as Bertie Blackman the musician, but can you tell us a little bit about your background as a visual artist?

I come from a family of artists, writers and creatives alike… so for me, visual art has always been a strong way of communicating. I have always drawn and painted but, because my parents are both painters, I ended up steering away from it as I really wanted to create my own path. A musician is as rebellious as I could get in my family!!

Throughout my musical career I’ve art directed my shoots and videos, created stage designs, and painted costumes. In 2009, I had an auction of drawings at Moss Green Gallery, but it wasn’t until 2012 with my fourth record ‘Pope Innocent X’, that I really started concentrating on my drawing. For that album, I released a book of illustrations with each song; I realised that art, music and writing really just all came from the same place for me. And I didn’t need to be one or the other.

Growing up with both parents as visual painters, I witnessed extraordinary discipline and sacrifice from them when it came to their art. I learnt about the reality of what being a practising artist is really like – the blood sweat and tears that go into your work, and the extraordinary work ethic needed.

My art practice has really developed through just doing it, looking at books and persevering with the mediums. I have had no formal education, but I’ve got big dreams and big ideas! I’m forever shaking with adrenaline because I just find it all so exciting!

Your most recent album, ‘The Dash’, was released in late 2014, and since then you’ve also done some amazing collaborations. How do you balance your music with your art?

I do really struggle with balancing my music and art. I have learnt pretty quickly that I can only really do one thing at a time.

I tend to allocate big blocks of time for each. With my current art show, I put aside a solid block of three months. I’m finishing that body of work up, I’m already connecting the next thing. However, I’m also writing and illustrating my first children’s picture book, which will be published in 2018. I would say I spend about eight hours or so a day in my art studio five days a week and then I work nights on my writing.

In between all of this, I have been ducking into various studio sessions, though I’m looking forward to getting into the recording studio more later this year. I’m also an early morning riser. I wake up at about 5am and usually meditate or go for a run to prepare for the day.

Your solo show ‘Crepuscule’ is currently on exhibit in Melbourne. Can you tell us more about this exhibition?

I’m really excited about this body of work. I started working on it quite a few months ago – really working on my painting and developing my technique. For me, I have no lack of ideas or imagery, it’s just been ‘the technical doing’ that has been the challenge and also needing the time to make all the mistakes and learn what the paint can do.

I’ve only been working with oil paints for about nine months, so when I started, I thought it would be an interesting idea to just work with one colour, so I could concentrate on getting the texture and feeling in it without worrying about mixing paint. I love the indigo hue so much; it feels very otherworldly!

For this show, I’ve also made dolls, and bringing my imagery into a playful three-dimensional form has been exhilarating. They’ve become my little friends – I do take them out to dinner sometimes for a treat as well as long walks on the beach. I’m a big fan of Mirka Mora, she’s a great old friend of my father’s and I love her dolls, so this is a little nod to her wonderfulness!

Was there a particular story that inspired the concept for this body of work?

Benjamin the Tasmanian tiger has been a feature in my work for the last six months. He is inspired by the actual last living Tasmanian tiger who died in captivity in 1936. I love the constant conversation and debate as to whether this creature is actually extinct. Personally, I think he is still alive, and I’m hoping that through conjuring him in his ‘Crepuscule’ it might bring him back.

A lot of my work has been hinged in floating spaces or abstract dream worlds, this is the first series that I have brought the imagery into a landscape. I used to play in the rainforest a lot as a child, so I really think that Benjamin and his friends are totems of my childhood – me reliving those curious moments of abstract memory.

What’s it like being the daughter of a OBE bestowed, acclaimed painter, and creating your own art?

I think because my father is Charles Blackman, I definitely shied away from having a career in the visual arts as I really wanted to make my own way. I don’t want to live in his shadow, I mean, it’s a blessing and a curse. Because a lot of people know who my father is, doors have opened probably a little easier for me than others, but the criticism has been far greater because the expectations are much, much higher.

I have, however, worked really hard in the arts for over a decade and I think I’ve carved out a little space for myself to grow quite naturally. I’m incredibly passionate and dedicated to my art forms and people know this of me.

I most definitely get my singular thinking and focus from my Dad, as well as the wild untamed imagination and thirst for the abstract and curious. But I have also inherited other lovely things from my mother in terms of my art practise as well.

I think if the work’s good then it doesn’t matter how famous your parents are, it should be able to stand alone.

  Who are some other Australian creative people that are you loving at the moment?

Luke Storrier and I have had a great time recently bonding over having a famous artist father and also being artists ourselves, in our own right. His work is brilliant and exciting and I’m looking forward to collaborating with him.

Ian Strange is just one of the most interesting artists I have met. I love his vision, he pushes all boundaries.

McLean Edwards is a wonderful painter, and such a wonderful eccentric man. One of the family!

What are some of the resources you turn to when you’re in a need of creative inspiration?

The library. Books are just necessary and essential in my life.

Outside.  Going outside and sitting in the gutter and looking at peoples shuffling feet and framing birds and dogs and shadows.

My Mother. I call her daily for a chat about the work I’m making and she really helps make sense of my abstract thoughts sometimes.

Pinterest. I use it a lot to gather visual references.

What’s been your proudest creative achievement to date?

That is a very hard question! I think singing with Danny Elfman and a 100-piece orchestra at the Adelaide Festival, and also co-curating ‘Sonic Canvases’ at the Art Gallery of NSW have been a couple of major highlights and pleasures.

Also, just being able to exist as a practising artist my entire career without having to get a ‘proper’ job!

What would be your dream creative project?

I would love to create an underground lair in Antarctica… make dolls, paint, sing, write, and turn all my dreams into imagery… a language that can be understood by the moon and stars!

Amazing! What’s a little closer on the horizon for Bertie Blackman?

I’m excited to be painting my next bodies of work, to be writing and illustrating my first children picture book for release in 2018, recording a new record, and making a series of dolls. I’ve got big dreams. Gotta start laying the blocks for empire BB!

  SYDNEY QUESTIONS

Your favourite Sydney neighbourhood?

Redfern… it’s my neighbourhood! I love it!

The best meal you recently had in Sydney?

Fratelli Paradiso in Potts Point. It’s always amazing and it’s my favourite Italian food in Sydney.

Where would we find you on a typical Saturday morning?

At my local Redfern coffee shop getting a take away coffee and reading in the park – that’s if I’m not painting in my studio!

Sydney’s best kept secret?

The beaches are all amazing. But that’s no secret…

  ‘Crepuscule’ by Bertie Blackman September 7th to 23rd Lindberg Galleries 77 Cambridge Street, Collingwood

[jobs-in-dubai-uae]

Dubai, UAE: “My kids’ summer break started last week and they’ll be back to school on September 1. That’s roughly two months. As a mum, I believe this summer holiday is just right — not too long, not too short — for my kids to be able to relax. During the break, we usually fly back home so they can spend time with our family there. On idle days, they take swimming and piano lessons to make wise use of their break. I don’t want them to take structured classes because they’re already too stressed with their academics for nine or 10 months, this is their time to relax. Kids nowadays face a massive amount of pressure when it comes to their studies. They have homework every single day, their lessons are way more advanced than what I can remember I had back then. Having that summer break is good to break the monotony of studying—they wake up at 5am, then their bus picks them up at 6.10am. Imagine the regimented life they have for nine or 10 months. We also have to balance it out. Anyway, once they’re back in school, they’ll be able to adjust after one or two weeks. So if we adults need a break, the kids do too.” - Ritchell Pangilinan, 41, physical therapist, mother of two   “I agree that the summer break for students is too long; two-and-a-half months is too long. Students have a rigorous syllabus these days. Teachers cram the lessons with the limited time they have. I understand summers are extreme here but that doesn’t mean there should be productivity loss also. My daughter usually spends her break playing cricket, badminton, going to lunches, parties, going to India. She really looks forward to the summer vacation. After such a long holiday, it takes kids one to two weeks to adjust to school life. Children will always favour long summer breaks because they don’t have to study, they don’t have to wake up early in the morning, nor worry about missing the bus. I would say four weeks of total break is good enough. Ideally, after a month-long break, they should have an internet-based education for two weeks so they can still learn.” - Madhu Madan, 44, homemaker, mother of one   “Considering the weather over here, I feel it’s very difficult for the kids to have a short break. In our countries also we had a two-month break, which is essentially needed for the kids because the academic year is already too hectic for them. They need to have time of their own. They’re too busy with their academics most times of the year, they need to have that break where they can be refreshed and be able do something of their interest. For the past four years, we have been sending her back to Kerala to spend time with her grandparents. That way she can also bond with her cousin, get to know about the culture, understand what family is, and know all the social functions. Her native language has improved a lot since she started going on vacation there. I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘summer learning loss’. They do forget a bit but it’s normal. We make sure that she reviews basic courses such as languages, reading, and math so she’s not disconnected. A two-month break is perfect. If at all it should be reduced, one to 1.5 months is fine.” - Praseepha Rajesh, works in the pharmaceutical industry, mother of one   “It is normal that students wait for the summer vacation to get a break from school-related responsibilities. I don’t believe that this leads to learning loss... But it is beneficial if parents create a summer routine to dedicate half an hour every day to reading and math, and towards [organising] interesting activities to engage their children in. “I try to get my daughter to read during the summer break, even though I do meet some resistance every now and then. And even when we travel, I always make sure to pack some books for the summer.” - Inas Nasr Bou Azzedine, 34, Lebanese, educator   “It is true that my children seem to forget just about everything they have learnt during the holidays, but when they go back to school for the next academic year, [the learning] tends to come back. So the break can’t be far too long. From my point of view, schools should focus more attention on assigning summer homework that helps children keep track of the things they have been taught. “Other than that, the long and visit extended family in Egypt. My children miss their grandparents and the rest of their family through the year, so they eagerly wait for their summer holiday [trip] to Egypt.” - Karz Adel Aboubakr, 48, Egyptian, home maker   As a mother of two teens, I don’t agree with the concept of summer learning loss, as I have not encountered this problem. I think if children have a summer routine which incorporates both play and relaxed learning, [learning loss] will not happen. In fact, in my opinion [summer break] is a no learning loss but rather a gearing up or a settling in phase. Contrary to the belief that learning loss occurs in all children, initial school performance [in the next academic year] could possibly be a result of a change in curriculum, school, place, etc. Summer is the best time of the year for kids and parents because we spend more time with them. Soon, before parents realise it, children grow up and get on with their lives. So create memories which you and your children will cherish forever.” - Shabeena Zakir, 45, Canadian, home maker © Gulf News via Edarabia.com

[edarabia]

Dubai, UAE: “My kids’ summer break started last week and they’ll be back to school on September 1. That’s roughly two months. As a mum, I believe this summer holiday is just right — not too long, not too short — for my kids to be able to relax. During the break, we usually fly back home so they can spend time with our family there. On idle days, they take swimming and piano lessons to make wise use of their break. I don’t want them to take structured classes because they’re already too stressed with their academics for nine or 10 months, this is their time to relax. Kids nowadays face a massive amount of pressure when it comes to their studies. They have homework every single day, their lessons are way more advanced than what I can remember I had back then. Having that summer break is good to break the monotony of studying—they wake up at 5am, then their bus picks them up at 6.10am. Imagine the regimented life they have for nine or 10 months. We also have to balance it out. Anyway, once they’re back in school, they’ll be able to adjust after one or two weeks. So if we adults need a break, the kids do too.” - Ritchell Pangilinan, 41, physical therapist, mother of two   “I agree that the summer break for students is too long; two-and-a-half months is too long. Students have a rigorous syllabus these days. Teachers cram the lessons with the limited time they have. I understand summers are extreme here but that doesn’t mean there should be productivity loss also. My daughter usually spends her break playing cricket, badminton, going to lunches, parties, going to India. She really looks forward to the summer vacation. After such a long holiday, it takes kids one to two weeks to adjust to school life. Children will always favour long summer breaks because they don’t have to study, they don’t have to wake up early in the morning, nor worry about missing the bus. I would say four weeks of total break is good enough. Ideally, after a month-long break, they should have an internet-based education for two weeks so they can still learn.” - Madhu Madan, 44, homemaker, mother of one   “Considering the weather over here, I feel it’s very difficult for the kids to have a short break. In our countries also we had a two-month break, which is essentially needed for the kids because the academic year is already too hectic for them. They need to have time of their own. They’re too busy with their academics most times of the year, they need to have that break where they can be refreshed and be able do something of their interest. For the past four years, we have been sending her back to Kerala to spend time with her grandparents. That way she can also bond with her cousin, get to know about the culture, understand what family is, and know all the social functions. Her native language has improved a lot since she started going on vacation there. I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘summer learning loss’. They do forget a bit but it’s normal. We make sure that she reviews basic courses such as languages, reading, and math so she’s not disconnected. A two-month break is perfect. If at all it should be reduced, one to 1.5 months is fine.” - Praseepha Rajesh, works in the pharmaceutical industry, mother of one   “It is normal that students wait for the summer vacation to get a break from school-related responsibilities. I don’t believe that this leads to learning loss... But it is beneficial if parents create a summer routine to dedicate half an hour every day to reading and math, and towards [organising] interesting activities to engage their children in. “I try to get my daughter to read during the summer break, even though I do meet some resistance every now and then. And even when we travel, I always make sure to pack some books for the summer.” - Inas Nasr Bou Azzedine, 34, Lebanese, educator   “It is true that my children seem to forget just about everything they have learnt during the holidays, but when they go back to school for the next academic year, [the learning] tends to come back. So the break can’t be far too long. From my point of view, schools should focus more attention on assigning summer homework that helps children keep track of the things they have been taught. “Other than that, the long and visit extended family in Egypt. My children miss their grandparents and the rest of their family through the year, so they eagerly wait for their summer holiday [trip] to Egypt.” - Karz Adel Aboubakr, 48, Egyptian, home maker   As a mother of two teens, I don’t agree with the concept of summer learning loss, as I have not encountered this problem. I think if children have a summer routine which incorporates both play and relaxed learning, [learning loss] will not happen. In fact, in my opinion [summer break] is a no learning loss but rather a gearing up or a settling in phase. Contrary to the belief that learning loss occurs in all children, initial school performance [in the next academic year] could possibly be a result of a change in curriculum, school, place, etc. Summer is the best time of the year for kids and parents because we spend more time with them. Soon, before parents realise it, children grow up and get on with their lives. So create memories which you and your children will cherish forever.” - Shabeena Zakir, 45, Canadian, home maker © Gulf News

[mnranger5]

Lake of the Ozarks Fishing Trip, 5/18/17 - 5/21/17

The long awaited Ozark fishing trip is finally in the books, and it will go down as the best fishing (and eating) trip Aaron and I have ever taken together.  This trip, originally scheduled for the spring of 2016, was delayed until 2017 due to my knee surgery.  I can safely say, it was well worth the wait!  That said, even the best trips have their not-so-great-moments.  And when your trip consists of 1,200 miles on the highway, you pray that those not-so-great-moments have minimal impact to travel plans.  Unfortunately, our unpleasant moment was experienced while traveling.  Thank God, we had guardian angel looking out for us, which came in a very unexpected form.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Here is some backstory for context.

Tuesday, two days before Aaron and I were set to embark on our most ambitious fishing trip, I shared a conversation with one of my favorite co-workers, Tom Biermaier.  Tom and I share some similar interests, like baseball and fishing.  Old enough to be my dad, Tom often shares words of wisdom or guidance laced with some sarcastic humor.  He is good stuff.  Anyway, my fishing trip came up in conversation and Tom became very interested, yet concerned about my boat trailer.  Tom indicated that my trailer bearings should be repacked annually.  I told him my bearings are usually serviced annually during the winterization process, however, since I winterized on my own the previous fall, the bearings were not repacked in 2016.  He suggested I repack them prior to leaving.  Ugh.  Such a dad thing to say....

I called Lighthouse Motorsports in Rosemount, MN, and asked if they could do a quick service on my bearings prior to my trip in two days. They told me the service would take at least two hours, but they were 6 weeks out on the service calendar.  They would be happy to provide emergency service at $500/hour. Yikes.  No thanks.  I could handle this on my own.

On Wednesday , I made a trip over to Cabela’s in Woodbury and bought all of the parts to change my own bearings.  The Cabela’s service manager and I began chatting about the bearings on my trailer. After asking a few questions, the manager said that, “I had nothing to worry about.”  He indicated that Ranger Trail trailers are the best in the business. He said there was “no way” the bearings needed to be replaced this soon.  I appreciated his opinion and it definitely put me at ease. However, I decided that I would still buy all the parts, and just keep them in the car in case we encountered a problem on the road. $200 later, I had all of the parts necessary to repack, or worst case, change out the bearings on the side of the road in case of an emergency.

Aaron arrived at my house shortly after 5AM on Thursday.  We got all of his gear loaded up and the boat covered.  We were Missouri-bound by 6! 

Our fishing trip was only eight and a half hours away.  Early in the drive, I told Aaron about the whole bearing situation and he seemed relieved that I had all the gear to make an emergency fix should we need it.  I did tell him I’d like to stop every 150 miles or so just to check on the wheels.  The test would be whether they were hot.  If the bearings are functioning properly, the hub should be cool as a cucumber.  If the bearings are not working properly, the wheel should be hot.  For the first five hours of the trip, we stopped 3 times to get gas.  Each time, the hubs were perfectly cool.  I joked to Aaron that this “Tom-Guy” got me all worked up for nothing!  

We stopped for a quick lunch in Macon before getting back on the road.  The weather was really warming up to the point we didn’t need sweatshirts in the car.  Aaron pulled the car over in Moberly (35 miles from Bass Pro Shop in Columbia, MO) to take off his sweatshirt and we checked the hubs again.  They were still in great shape.   Back on the road we went.  

As we neared Columbia, I asked Aaron if he’d rather hit up Bass Pro Shop in Columbia, or a local bait shop in the Ozarks.  Aaron didn’t have a preference.  I kind of just wanted to get to the lake, so I suggested we pass Bass Pro Shop and get new bait in the Ozarks.  A couple of miles before the Bass Pro exit, Aaron suggested he’d rather stop at Bass Pro so he could buy a hat for the weekend.  Sounds good to me!  We made a quick exit off the highway and into Bass Pro’s parking lot we went.  I quickly checked the passenger side trailer wheel, it was fine. I moved around to the driver’s side wheel and immediately could tell something was wrong, really wrong.  The wheel was literally smoking because it was burning up.  The hub was blazing hot.  Aaron and I just stood there looking at the wheel in disbelief.  Was this the end of the trip?  Looked like we might be hanging out in Columbia for the weekend instead of the Ozarks.

Aaron called his mechanic and explained the scenario unfolding 7 hours away from home.  The mechanic indicated that the smoking wheel could signify significant damage to the bearing and/or spindle.  He said any fix would be an “involved fix.”  Thank God, Bass Pro has a boat service center attached to the store.

We went in to talk to the service staff and their initial diagnosis was a ceased bearing. Bearing replacement started at $150/wheel plus parts.  I told the service manager and mechanic that we were from Minnesota and heading toward the Ozarks for a fishing trip.  They knew we were stranded and they did not sound optimistic.  They had four other boats in for servicing so fitting us in would be a challenge.  Compounding any solution was the fact that they didn’t know if they even had the right parts to make the fix.

They told me to drive the boat around the garage, and they would take a look, but promised nothing.  I limped the trailer over to the service entrance where Jim, the mechanic, crawled under for a closer look.

“I don’t think you have a bearing problem, I think it’s a bent axle.”  SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!  Bent axle! How does that happen?

Jim retreated to the garage to fetch his jack.  He cranked up the trailer and took a closer second look.  “No, the axle looks fine, it is definitely a bearing problem.”  He placed his hands on the wheel at nine and three and gave the wheel a shake.  The wheel wobbled horrifically on the axle - like a quarter that has been spun on a table and is just about to come to rest.  Jim said it was a miracle we stopped when we did.  A few more moments at 70mph and we would have lost the wheel dropping the trailer/boat motor on the pavement.  We were moments away from a potentially catastrophic end to the trip. Jim continued, “I doubt we have the parts to fix it.  We don’t stock parts for Ranger.”  I was deflated.  I just jeopardized the trip and a potential accident all because of what I thought was some routine trailer maintenance.  I was so embarrassed, and felt really bad for Aaron.  

All of a sudden, we had three people addressing our problem (I should say my problem, because clearly Aaron had nothing to do with this!)  The service manager tried to explain where we could try and get service (Camping World) if Bass Pro did indeed not have the correct parts.  The parts manager, Bryant, pushed the boat back into the shop where Jim could take the wheel off.  Like Aaron’s mechanic, Jim was also concerned there could be spindle damage.  

Amazingly, they appeared to be prioritizing my boat over the four other boats waiting for service.  After 15 minutes, Jim called us into the garage informing us that the bearing completely burned up the plastic hub cover.

The plastic had melted all over the bearing and spindle.  The good news is that the spindle was undamaged.  The bad news is that Bass Pro did not have the parts in stock (specifically the melted cap.)  They continued working on the wheel.  After an hour, the service manager came out to the lot where Aaron and I were anxiously waiting and said they were able to take a hub off of the brand new Nitro boat trailer in the showroom and fit it to my Ranger trailer along with a Bearing Buddy. He also indicated Jim would be looking at my other wheel to make sure there was no issue.  Since they did not have any more of the bearings in stock, they asked if they could replace my other bearings with the new bearings I purchased at Cabela’s. 

I retrieved the new bearings from the car and took them into the garage.  Jim then surprised me with the actual cause of the bearing burn out.  Apparently, the issue had nothing to do with the bearings not being packed with enough grease.  The issue came down to some braided fishing line that had somehow penetrated the seal and wound up inside the bearings.  He said the fishing line caused the bearings not to run smoothly which caused them to overheat.  

Unbelievable. I asked him how we were able to make it seven hours with the fishing line inside the bearing and he said something happened in the last few miles before Bass Pro that caused the line to tighten up and wreak havoc on the bearing.  He said we were very lucky.

For about two hours, Jim worked to get Aaron and I back on the road.  When completed, Jim called me into the garage to provide overview of what he had done. 

He then said that we all (fishermen) go through this (trailer problems) once in our lives.  Usually it happens on the side of the highway, at night.  He told me I was lucky that we pulled into this exit – one more exit and we would not have been so lucky.  He shook my hand and said, go enjoy your fishing trip.  With that, Jim told me my total was $66, for parts.  He was waiving the $300+ in service fees.  What?!?  He is not going to charge us for service?  What an AH-Mazing experience we had with the three guys from Bass Pro.  Jim and his crew just created two Bass Pro Shop loyalists for life!

Our trip had a lot of beautiful moments, but I must say, no moment was as beautiful, wonderful, glorious or miraculous on that trip as Aaron telling me he wanted to stop at Bass Pro because he wanted to buy a hat.  

This hat (and the many things that fell into place thereafter) saved our fishing trip, and possibly a chaotic scene on the highway.  Thank’s for watching out for us, HAT.

Ninety minutes later, Aaron and I were launching the boat at Village Marina on Lake of the Ozarks!  It was hot, but beautiful.  Temps were approaching 90 degrees under bluebird skies. It was about 5:30PM, so we had 3 hours of daylight left.  We wanted to get as much fishing in tonight as we could because the forecast for the remainder of the week did not look ideal.  Friday’s forecast was stormy in the morning and afternoon, and Saturday looked to be an all-day washout.  The area was expected to get between 3 and 5 inches of rain while we were in town. Not the kind of conditions you hope for on a fishing trip.

On the bright side, we’d have no shortage of fishing holes.  Lake of the Ozarks is a sprawling river system over 60 miles long, spread out over 54,000 acres and 1,100 miles of shoreline.  That is more shoreline than the state of California!  My parents live at mile marker 3, near Bagnell Dam, which is considered the lower end of the lake.

Being that we had little time to fish on the first evening, we decided to fish in the small unnamed cove straddling Jobson Hollow Cove (where my folks live), and Birdsong Hollow Cove. 

Aaron started out throwing a green/white spinnerbait and I was throwing a Motor Oil shakey-head worm.  We were focusing on the back side of docks, specifically 1-10 FOW.  The docks protruded out into 30+ FOW in some cases, so we didn’t fish the deep side of the docks.  Aaron was casting his spinnerbait right into the rocky shoreline and cranking it out slowly. I was casting my worm in the area between the docks and the shoreline and dragging it down the bottom of the lake. Within 10 minutes, Aaron connected with our first fish of the day.  She came in just shy of 2 lbs.

Behind the very next dock, I hooked up with a similar bass that was pushing two pounds as well.  

We continued fishing deep into the cove, neither of us straying much from the spinnerbait and worm.  Toward the back of the cove, I picked up my second fish of the night.

As we started making our way back out of the cove, Aaron hooked up with a great looking slab crappie on the spinnerbait.

We continued fishing worms deep between docks when we came upon a dock with a small yacht.  I cast out toward the back corner of the dock and let it sink to the bottom.  My shakey-head was in about 10 FOW.  I gave the worm a couple of pops and let it sit for a moment.  I felt a bite, then noticed the line moving in the water.  I set the hook and knew I had a better fish than the first few we had boated.  I was using a rod rigged up with 6lb test flourocarbon line, so I had to baby the fish in order to get it up to the boat. The fish fought really hard for a couple of minutes before we finally got her up on the surface.  She was a nice fish, just shy of 3 pounds.

As I was weighing the fish, Aaron cast out his worm to the same area.  Let it fall to the bottom, and began working the worm.  Hook set!  Boom!  Aaron had a good one on, and this one was even better than mine.  Aaron fought it hard to the boat.  Our coordination for landing the fish wasn’t great.  I leaned down to pull the fish out of the water, and Aaron decided he was going to boat flip the fish.  The result was a fish careening off my forehead.  It was funny, but the laughs didn’t last long, because Aaron had a 3-pounder in the boat!

We worked our way toward Birdsong Cove;  Aaron went back to the spinnerbait, and I was casting a lipless crankbait.  From the back of the boat, I hear, “Here we go!”  Aaron was ripping a decent fish across the surface of the water. As soon as it was up in the boat, we realized it was a 18 inches of dinner!  Nice bonus walleye.

As we wrapped up the evening, Aaron hooked, reeled and boated one more 2-pound bass all while he was on the phone with Amber.

In total, we ended up with 11 fish on the evening.  Around 8:45 we headed back to the house for dinner.  Mom and dad had picked up Bandana’s BBQ ribs (my favorite at the lake), baked beans, fries and toast.  And to top it off, homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert.  We sat on the four-season porch well into the evening enjoying amazing food, fun conversation and loud boats motoring through the cove below us.  It was also at this point my dad issued official tournament rules for the following day.  Aaron and I didn’t have a chance at beating Josh and Dad, and the tournament had yet to begin!

Storms ripped through the area overnight causing tornado warnings just south of the lake.

We received a lightning storm, wind and torrential rains, however, it all cleared out by 7AM.  

As we waited for Josh to get to the lake, Aaron and I trolled around the docks in Jobson Hollow Cove.  We picked up four quick bass.  Josh then arrived and the tournament was set to begin!  Unfortunately, however, the tournament between our two boats ended fairly quickly when my Dad’s trolling motor malfunctioned.  They were relegated to fishing off the dock.  And that they did.  Dad pulled in this blue catfish.  

Shortly thereafter, Aaron hooked up with this chunky little bass which tied things up, in terms of total fish.  

Around 10AM, we headed into the house where we were served a hearty meal of homemade biscuits and gravy.  It was off the charts, the best gravy I have ever had!

Just like that we were back out on the lake, except this time, we decide to go exploring the lake for a new spot.  

The first place we pulled up on was near mile marker 2 on the south side of the main channel. There were condos perched high above on the shear cliff.  

We began casting up on the cliff and slowly dragging it down.  We positioned the boat about 20 feet from the shoreline cliff, and we were in 100 FOW.  This cliff was a complete drop off above, and underneath the water.  We were hopeful there would be some nice fish hanging near the surface of the cliff but we didn’t get bit in this location.

We moved down river to Jennings Branch Cove along the south side at mile marker 1.  We cast the primary point without getting bit, and then decided to move deeper into the cove fishing a couple of the shallow fingers. All we had to show for it was this aggressive bluegill that blew up Aaron’s spinnerbait and a couple of small bass.

We then cruised down to the Gravois Arm and fished the entire perimeter of the island located outside of Possum Hollow Cove.  

We had a couple of bites, but no fish.

As the skies became dark, we headed back to Jobson Hollow Cove and fished our honeyhole from the day before but didn’t pick up any more fish.  When we got home, we were served up some KC Strip steaks with baked potatoes, Texas toast and cheesy cauliflower.  First class meal!  Aaron told my parents they should open up a B&B with as great of a job as they do at hosting and serving guests!

After dinner, and a brief downpour, Aaron and I headed back out on the lake, this time canvassing the docks in Birdsong Hollow Cove.  

We fished well into the dark picking up about a dozen more fish.  

And, we had spectators too!

By 10PM, we had racked up a total of 18 fish as we fished in the dark casting docks and the shoreline. It was incredibly peaceful, and gorgeous outside.

When we noticed lightening in the distance, we figured it was time to head home and get after the most amazing dessert ever – homemade chocolate cake and ice cream. My mom claims she was going to do homemade ice cream too, so it’s ashame we didn’t get that.  Instead we had to settle for Haagen Daaz.  Come on mom, you really need to step up your game!  Just kidding, haha!

As we enjoyed dessert, the next round of storms began rolling through and lasted through the night until 6AM.  

At 7, Aaron and I launched under beautiful conditions.  We could not have been more lucky with the timing of the rain so far. It only rained when we were eating a meal, or sleeping.  The rest of the time on the water was gorgeous.

We buzzed down toward the dam making a first stop at Spinnaker Point.

Aaron and I worked crankbaits, worms and spinnerbaits in tight to the docks and shoreline once again.  As we drew further into the cove, we began fishing creek mouths, in 2-4FOW. 

 It was chocolate milk.  Aaron tossed a little bluegill crankbait into some brush  and slowly began cranking it out.  Boom!  A fish blew up on the crankbait.  The water was so shallow the fish exploded through the surface and all we could see was the fat side of a giant largemouth.  But just as quick as the big girl hooked up, she shook the hook.  She was gone. See was easily twice as big as any fish we had caught the entire trip.  Dang!  We continued fishing the shallow portion of the coves picking up a couple of small bass, like this one.

We moved easterly toward the dam and into the next small cove.  We continued throwing lures with the same technique.  On the spinnerbait, Aaron hooked into what looked like a good fish. As he was reeling it in across the surface, this fish was spazzing like nothing I have ever seen.  As it thrashed across the surface, I realized it wasn’t a bass, but a blue catfish!

Around 11, it was getting hot out, so we elected to fish in the jerseys my parents got us!  Thanks Mom and Dad!  

We then headed in for brunch, consisting of French toast, ham steak, eggs, hashbrowns and toast.  A hearty and delicious breakfast.  Just what a fisherman needs!

After we ate, Aaron, Dad and I did a little maintenance on the fender wall  of my trailer.  When the wheel was wobbling on the axle at 70mph, it blew out 5 of the 6 rivets holding the inside fender wall to the metal fender.  We used my dad’s reciprocating saw to cut off one side of the rivet so that we could use a punch to blow the busted rivets out of the metal fender.  We made a quick trip to Menards for some bolts, locking washers & nuts.  The fender wall was attached in no time. Let’s go fishing again!

At 1:30, we were back on the water with our sights set on Lick Branch Cove.  In order to get there, we had to safely navigate the weekend seas that were made rough by some giant yachts and cigarette boats.  Aaron and I fished the primary and secondary points in the cove with a couple small fish to show for our efforts. 

We then headed to the back of the cove and fished the shallows. Again, just a couple of fish, but nothing with any size.

With not much luck in this cove, we decided to head back to Birdsong Hollow Cove and pick up where we had left off the night before.  The warm afternoon sun and bluebird skies made fishing tough.  We managed another couple of small fish (including this one who pooped all over the floor of my boat) giving us 10 total for the day.

We cruised back over to Village Marina where we loaded the boat and called the fishing trip a success. After getting cleaned up, Mom and Dad took us out to dinner at Vista Grande Mexican.  The dinner was fabulous and we topped off the evening with a scenic picture at the overlook in Lake Ozark.

Once again, we had chocolate cake for dessert when we got home and retired early that evening.  At 5:30AM on Sunday, we got on the road and were headed home - with homemade sausage, egg & cheese mcmuffins and cinnamon rolls.  The hospitality and food were outstanding.  Thank you so much Mom and Dad for making this such a wonderful fishing trip.

For the record, the drive home was perfectly uneventful .  My kind of drive!

UPDATE: It’s been two days since the trip and Aaron and I both have the seal of approval to head back down to the Ozarks next April to fish in the Big Bass Bash Tournament!  Mom and Dad, here we come!  And, let’s see if we can get some homemade ice cream this time…

[dreamychick]

rules: answer the questions in a new post and tag 20 blogs you would like to get to know better.

nickname: Angelrella, Cherubim, and Auntie

starsign: Taurus baby! 

height: 5′7 maybe 5′7 and 1/2 

last thing i googled: Batfamily (I was looking for pictures of them arguing for the thing) 

fave music artist:  Uhhh. Like, to what does one base their criteria? I don’t really have a “favorite” I listen to whatever I feel like in the moment honestly. I always end up saying N*Sync because I’ve been listening to them the longest but that doesn’t really make them my fav. 

song stuck in my head:  Outside  Calvin Harris ft  Ellie Goulding

Also History Maker but you know, that seldom leaves my head. 

last movie i watched: Anastasia with Christina and Julia on New Years! 

last TV show i watched: Paw Patrol before I went to work and then fell asleep to Bob’s Burgers. 

what are you wearing right now: Maroon “Hunter in training” sweatpants and a black cami, (I just woke up) 

when did you create your blog: September uh...2011? It was for a college class and I’ve never been more grateful to school for something. 

what kind of stuff do I post? Fandom shit. Just constantly. Supernatural, comic books, TV shows, movies, anime, manga whatever I happen to fall into at the time. 

do you have any other blogs? Nah. I only need the one to control my life thanks.

do you get asks regularly? Like never. But that’s ok. I’m not like a submission based Blog so I don’t expect people to send me asks. 

why did you choose your URL? I’ve had the same name since 2005 and when I originally made the blog I had no intention of keeping it (like I said it was for a class) so I just used the name of my e-mail and kinda kept it moving. 

gender: female 

hogwarts house: Gryffindor! 

fav colour: Green, red and blue

average hours of sleep: about 5 hours. Sometimes as much as 8! This will all change when I quit my job that I gotta get up for at 5am. 

lucky number: I don’t really have one. But I guess I do always make a wish on 11:11? 

fave characters:HOW DARE YOU. Favorite character from what universe? Like, my god, we could be here forever. I guess I’ll just do SOME. Castiel, Dick Grayson, Merlin, Nine, Kirito, Charles Boyle, Bob Belcher....

how many blankets do you sleep with? 1 sheet, 1 princess blanket and I comforter. But I have 3 other blankets on my bed for when the temperature drops. 

follower count: 1,364. Which I REALLY don’t understand because I just do a helluva lot of reblogging. But you guys are awesome and always welcome here. 

i tag: All the usual's have been tagged already. Damn you @sakurai-ai so Whoever else wants to do this!!