#i will have to pay MORE TAXES on the missing/broken items

[kincoo]

A random rant on how unlucky I was when getting my Miles Kane album. I had ordered a bundle with the yellow vinyl, the 7 inch, the signed print and the CD.

So first, it took FOREVER to get to my country. Like literally, i received the message that it had gotten here almost 3 weeks after the release.

Then, i had to pay 16 extra euros in customs taxes, even after paying for shipping and taxes when i first bought it.

Then today it got here and guess what??? The CD and the signed print... were not here???

BUT WAIT it gets worse, because when i play the 7 inch, it stops near the end of See You On The Water, leaving me without the last 20 seconds or so...

I'm just... HOW AM I THIS UNLUCKY WTF???

[theyearsiturnedintoaghost]

“But I Wanna Know One Thing When Did I Become a Ghost?”

Sometimes I try to pinpoint the exact day I became a ghost. I go over days and nights and try to decipher if it happened pre or post certain parts of my life. Was it before I finished college? Maybe earlier, maybe the day my parents finally split? Maybe it was the day I realized a boy I loved in my twenties was never going to love me back, and I just needed to focus on myself while life kept unfolding? Was it somewhere in the move across the country to finish college, and try to do something for myself that might better me, that my actual self flew out the window somewhere in Texas, or some other dusty road, and the entire years following were just my ghost years? Or maybe it wasn’t until after I let myself fall so far away from what I remembered myself to be, or what I stood for, or dreams I had, that I shrunk into myself so small and became a walking shell of who I used to be. Maybe it was the day I stood next to someone else at a bar, a different one than the bar I’d left that earlier unrequited love behind at, and thought for the first time in so long ‘is this person perfect?’ while I was introduced to him, and instead of being cool or sweet, or like someone a person would want to talk to - I blabbered on about some snowboarders who had a TV show that this person had never heard of, and I realized in the walking away from that person as a blush rose to my cheeks and my hands shook just enough to let me know that deep down I wanted to cry from my anxiety, that I was just too fucking weird for people, and not just that person, but maybe all people. These same type of ‘outer body’ or anxiety induced conversations and moments just kept happening over and over so I started focus in and realize I was the common denominator and that I must be the cause to my inability to relate to people or not be so fucking weird that I could practically feel their eyes rolling at me while I spoke to them. Clearly, I didn’t become a ghost because of any of these specific moments, but probably due to all of these moments all swirled together with so many others, and also due to my brain makeup and what I imagine is some missed diagnosis from childhood that today would for sure have me on the spectrum. Which, for the record, I’m completely okay with being on. Actually sometimes I think it would give me some kind of ease that maybe I’m not as ‘crazy’ or ‘out there’ as I’ve compared myself to be when I look at other peoples lives of my age. There’s no shame in thinking differently and having to work out how you do think so other people who don’t think the same can sort of understand. So please don’t take that as a cruel joke, or something to be angry at. It’s just me recognizing that people can be different, and sometimes they don’t know the reason for it because they were never seen properly. 

So, I’m not exactly sure of the day I became a ghost - fuck, maybe it wasn’t one of those moments or days specifically, but a lot of days, weeks, or months; full of falling further from who I’d been at seventeen, even twenty-one, or twenty-three, or who I even thought I would be by thirty, that made me disappear from myself one day and just become this person who just existed in the world day to day, but wasn’t actually living. I ate sometimes when I wasn’t trying to disappear fully so clothes would fit me better or boys might think I was beautiful, I laughed when I was supposed to, went on dates like I was trying, got up and went to work like I was supposed to, read a book here and there, binged watched TV shows to have conversations and social interactions with people like normal people do, and tried to convince myself that this was what living was, I guess. Between all of these day to day things and smoking myself to sleep, crushing up pills in private places and snorting them through straws, or dabbling - to put it lightly and politically correct - into cocaine, just to pass the time and make myself feel anything most of the time, I guess vanishing became easy.

Becoming a ghost was easier.

It’s just not exactly clear to me to be able to figure out the exact date and time I fully realized I’d become a ghost. It’s not as easy as like providing an alibi for myself for one specific night, and not because my brain was so hazy and filled with anger, sadness, and drug fueled smoke and pills for most, but not all - and not all at the same time - of the years between twenty to nearly thirty, that I cannot fully recall the moment I fully realized I wasn’t who I remembered myself wanting to be, but really because I think it happened slowly at first, somewhere in between being lonely, living in a place that I kind of had a hard time fitting into, not in terms of the weather or nature, but in making a friend or two or feeling like I wasn’t so... annoying-to-people-based-on-reality-shows New Jersey in a non-New Jersey place, and even if maybe it didn’t fully seem that way to other people, trying to finish school and not feel so old being basically a junior at like twenty-three when every other person I knew had already graduated and was moving to the next levels of their lives - whatever those were - while I was working as many hours as I could to just pay the rent, trying to make a friend in any place - which is really hard for me if I’m being honest. To cut it down to brass tax, I think I’m socially awkward and full of so much anxiety that I either shy away and appear unapproachable, or I let people in too quickly and my heart gets broken by them when I realize I probably care too much for them than they do for me. 

I think I’m just afraid of disappointing people.  So instead I just disappoint myself. 

I let people leave me because it’s easier. Why make them stay when they don’t want to? Why hope they’ll call first when they won’t? Why hope they’ll love me back the way I would have loved them?

It’s easier to let them go on and be happy and just... disappear. 

It’s why I think I let myself slowly start to slip away from who I had been my whole life. Some girl who was hoping for the ‘happy ending’ the ‘good things to come,’ as embarrassing as those things can sound for a person to imagine, the successful life that I sadly felt I would achieve with the promises of getting an education and working hard, but instead was just always left outside of the winners circle.  Not that anyone wins in any of this, but you know what I mean. The truth is, in life - from what I’ve come to understand - there are just people who lose less often than other people. I just got tired of losing, and feeling like I was losing all the time.  I got tired of making it to my twenties and feeling like I was never going to be the girl who would ever become anything or the one that anyone ever actually wanted back.  Sure, I had ‘romantic entanglements,’ if you could call them that, crushes, and drunken kisses, but nothing that it felt like everyone else was so easily able to get.  Boyfriends, flowers on a date night, fucking date nights in general, a birthday party thrown for them; not one they had to put together themselves and hope at least five people would come. The things one may think matters, but don’t - not in the grand scheme of anything that actually does really matter to the world - but these things still add up as years go by, and as I kept getting older and older and it felt like everyone I knew had this laundry list of relationships and ex’s and I was just kind of aware of how... no one has ever asked me out properly on a date or reached over to hold my hand in a crowded room. Or knew the thing I wanted to laugh about in public without me even have to say it.  Those stupid wishful, movie, dream life, fantasy land bullshit things that everyone tells you aren’t real outside of movies, but I just didn’t fully believe because I’d seen my own friends make eye contact with someone they loved across a room and I’d seen that feeling occur in real time. Maybe it wasn’t in a movie script ending kind of way, but it still happened. Small and simple, but it still did happen, and it was probably more beautiful than Hollywood could even fathom or conjure up.

And once I started to kind of realize that this kept occurring to people around me all of the time I just started to think that I was invisible. And soon after I came to realize I was. 

And it isn’t just the relationships that make you feel invisible, it’s the other things everyone around me seemed to be doing or achieving that makes me feel sort of ‘less than.’ People getting - what seems like to a twenty-something - a big fancy office job out of college, or buying a house, travelling with a group of friends multiple times a year.  Fuck, even just having a group of friends, that was actually amazing to me after like twenty-one. I could honestly walk through a store, or down a street and I’m not sure one person may have even noticed if I was there - or if I wasn’t. Even if I did daily routine items like where I bought my coffee or the days I shopped at a grocery store, or when I went for walks or not, I’m not sure if people would notice when I didn’t, or if I ever even did. Even when I was working in the office I got fired from, and commuting day to day, I’m not sure any one on that bus would be able to pick me out a line up even if I took the same 6:50 everyday.  Hell, I’m not sure people who I worked with and spoke to would even notice if I wasn’t there. And when I would wash my hands in the bathroom and the automated sensor wouldn’t even recognize me, I really started to wonder if I wasn’t actually a ghost after all. 

And day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out, all of it just started to add up. All the good things that were happening for everyone else - which was something I truly was happy for, despite how fake that sounds typing, like I’m trying to make myself sound like a decent human in hopes someone won’t just think I’m being whiny or jealous, I really was happy for them because I think a person - even some of the worst ones - does really want the people they know and care about to be happy; even if that happiness is seemingly impossible to hold for themselves. Regardless, deep in my heart I know that I was happy for them getting all of their desires, I was just sad I wasn’t getting my own ‘good things,’ or desires. And I felt like I had nothing to talk with people about. Like when I came to their table I was just... the person they knew who wasn’t progressing on any kind of timeline; even my own.

I started to feel ashamed about it. Embarrassed and stuttery about any kind of topic any one might speak to me about. So I sort of just stopped going to people’s tables. I didn’t want to see them look at me out of the corner of their eyes with pity as the thirty-something year old who had no direction, no love life, no career type job, and had not created or accomplished anything; at all.

And in the meantime, in trying not to fail, or having something to speak about that I felt I’d done a good job on or created, It felt like any kind of outlet that I tried to create to promote my own dreams or wishes just kept never hitting the mark. Trying to make a clothing line? Fail. Like even having one of these Tumblr’s years ago for my writing, anything I actually did write was pointless; or at least felt that way. Any story I’d completed, I wished were different or more original. I just kept feeling like other people had done the ‘path’ correct and they were all getting their foot in the door at the right times, and I was just... behind. My lack of being able to commit to a major at school, or even get an office job or internship doing something basic and day to day just didn’t appeal to me.  Not in a way that made me excited for the next thirty years of my life, especially because that’s what I always thought being an adult was. Finding a place to work that allowed you to build a career, and just getting through that until you were able to retire.

I guess I didn’t really think much about the joy in any of it, or what adulthood really held for me that didn’t seem so mundane and boring. Like just something you had to do and there was nothing super exciting about it. By the time I made it to like twenty I kind of realized dreams I’d had since I was younger were already out of question.  I was clearly never going to be that Olympic Gymnastic’s Champion I thought I would at eight - which even as I type this I want to laugh at how farfetched that dream even feels to remember - and the odds of me becoming Georgia O’Keefe, who I dressed up as for a 4th grade biography day - felt impossible, especially since my desire to possibly go to art school after college were kind of laughed off by my family because what are the odds people make any money out of art school? Plus, she mastered flowers, it’s hard to compete with the beauty of that.  And I was clearly never going to be some teen idol movie star or popstar princess. Which was also very far off dreams that I guess I recall having around 14. But I was like twenty-something now, and I’d heard myself sing, it is not good, even just speaking I have a voice most people wish they could unhear, and the most acting I’ve ever done is pretending I was just fine for most of my entire life. Even though I could feel the sadness deep in my chest and gut that felt so heavy and dark I was afraid of even admitting it was there in fear of what other people might think about me, hell, what I might think of myself.  

That’s the thing I’ve learned the most about trying to pinpoint when I became a ghost, I think I always was in some way, I was just never honest with myself about feeling that way. Not until I got much older and everything got out of control, that is.  It’s why I’ve always felt more comfortable in my own space and house. Where I have confidence in myself and my own little secret hiding spots for where I keep the sadness or fears of inadequacy. It’s easier to be me behind closed doors and in the stillness of my bedroom or solitude of my basement. I can be me in places where everyone isn’t watching, or it doesn’t feel like they are. Where I can’t hear them laugh about me as they pass around a group chat or some other joke I’m not privy to. Where they aren’t looking at my messy bun and unfashionable clothing and the smattering of pimples on my chin, or sad eyes and splatting of goofy childish freckles. I don’t feel so odd when I’m alone. It’s when I’m actually around people - especially people who I don’t know, or who have job titles much more important sounding than my name, or people who have travelled all over, or created something beautiful that they are proud of - that I notice how inadequate I feel in their shadows. That any small useless fact that I might know, or place I’ve travelled, and job I’ve held, feels unimportant or less.

I am also aware that a lot of these feelings are just that, feelings, and not actual facts. That these people are probably not actually feeling these things about me, but that’s the way my anxiety and depression feels. It keeps me in the basement of my own heart and mind because it feels safer. Like assuming all of these people already think those things about me will hurt less when I find out they actually do.

And that’s the part that also hurts - a lot - is when you do find out that those people feel and think those things about you. Sometimes you only find out because someone tells you, and sometimes you have to hear them making fun of you behind your back to realize it.  But it hurts all the same. 

And it hurt the most when I was actually actively trying to reorganize my life and try to pull myself up out of my own depression and self induced spiral, and was honestly trying; going to therapy weekly, removing myself from bad places, narrowing down my circle of people, and mostly cocooning myself from the rest of the world outside of throwing myself into a desk job and reading books on my commute to and from said job. I stopped using social media, stopped talking to a lot of people, stopped doing a lot of anything. 

And still I was a joke to people.  Turns out, the people I worked with were just... making fun of me without me knowing. I was trying my best to find a footing and ‘build a career at a company’ or whatever the fuck that really means, and they were just laughing at how uncool I was, or terribly dressed, or the annoying voice I posses. I mean, I understand why they didn’t like me - most of the time prior I barely liked me - but it just sucked to know that even when you were trying to be an okay human, one that wasn’t fucked up all of the time and actively working on yourself two mornings a week where I cried so often about how much everyone hated me and how much of a fuck up I was, hurt so much worse than all the times when I was a teenager and felt like I didn’t fit in. When the mean girl in our neighborhood would invite all the other kids out to play manhunt, but wouldn’t include me. Or the girls in middle school wouldn’t include me because I wasn’t an A-Team soccer player or whatever other bullshit made me weird to them.

Because now I was an adult, who knew she was a ghost for so long, and when I was finally started allowing myself to be seen in any formation - people laughed. It made me wish I’d stayed hidden in my night shift jobs, basement hideouts, and in the comfort of the naps I took that were basically second nights of sleep, just with daylight shining on outside. It felt worse to realize not staying a ghost allowed people to see me, and even then they didn’t like me. 

So I became a ghost, again. I cut off more people, stopped responding to others, asked some of them to stop reaching out to me, and just existed alone. I cried - a lot. In fields with my dog, who then was still a live, in parked cars outside of a job I hated, in the bathroom of that same job when I was constantly messing up and being allowed to have no responsibility, privacy, or final word on anything I did, I also cried in my bed, silently, almost every night as I stared at the ceiling fan spinning above my head and tried to transport myself to another place and time where it hurt less, I felt more secure, and maybe someone, or something, loved me back.  But most of the time when I cried it was for the life I thought I was going to have, the one I realized I was mourning even though I never lived it, and crying for the other part of the person I let myself become which was a person that people at these companies, and ‘friends’ I knew in some parts of my life was a good reason for them to laugh at.  

I cried a lot because I was never able to be someone, but what I think I was really crying for - and still do sometimes - is that I forget when I stopped wanting to be me.

Even the me that people in offices don’t like, or girls in middle school don’t understand. Sometimes I cried because I wished I could like that person more because at least than I’d feel like me. It’s hard to come to terms with that, hard to realize that I’m okay with not being liked by people, but it gets lonely realizing that having people in your life means all they want is for you to change. For you to fit the mold that they are okay with you being or who they would be comfortable bringing around their other friends. Someone who doesn’t laugh at the most inappropriate stuff, or snores in their sleep, or cries at commercials, whose car isn’t a mess, doesn’t hate folding laundry, knows when to call it a night at a bar one drink earlier than I do, or has a clear direction in their life and a slew of opportunities waiting for them at every corner with so many points of contact to makes those opportunities reality. Things for them to talk about at dinner parties or weddings as someone's date. 

Things that people who aren’t ghosts know how to do naturally and effortlessly. 

So I guess the real answer is, no, I don’t know when I actually became a ghost, if it was my whole life, or one morning when I woke up and just thought, ‘none of this is fun anymore,’ none of the getting high, or buzzed, or pretending I’m okay, or doing jobs that don’t make me happy, or never feeling the love of another human in the full ways that I wished I could, but instead tried to ignore and pretend I didn’t desire or want in my life. I’m not really sure when it all happened, I just know that I remember it all happening; slowly in random bouts of progression and over so many minutes of a life I kind of feel I’ve wasted to some extent, and hell, I’m unsure if I’ve ever really stopped fully wanting to be one. Sometimes it just feels easier to move through places and moments alone because it hurts less, somehow. Like it’s easier for everyone else if I just never get too attached to anything in fear that I’ll hurt them, or worse, they’ll break me, again. And I’m really tired of being broken by things that I may have thought were for me, but ended up not being. 

And then there are the random moments where I peak out into the world around me, fully noticed by someone - in a normal everyday running of an errand kind of way - and walk away from a conversation or an event and feel a slight bit of content in my heart that I think maybe it really doesn’t hurt worse than never actually feeling anything fully. It’s an odd catch 22. Wanting to be seen, and being fearful of being seen in fear, on both ends, that you’ll end up broken somehow. 

I’m unsure what any of it fully means, I guess for anyone. Do other people feel that way? Is it just a whole group of us who exist out there and feel - lost? Or scared? Or afraid to be who they actually are in fear that the life they lead now will no longer suit them or make them actually happy? And I know that this must be something people struggle with in terms of sexual orientation, but in a way, even as someone who does not struggle with that and knows I am into a certain sex, I still understand it in the sense that faking who I am feels wrong.  It feels like selling out. Like I’m only living to appease other people, and I wish more times that other people were willing to live to accept other people for who they were; faults and all. Even in this cancel culture world, not everyone is good, and not everyone is bad; people can be so many things, it’s the idealization to put a label on everything that makes things harder I think. We aren’t ingredients in a candy bar for consumption, we’re people - ghosts and all - but we are all allowed to be phases of ourselves sometimes. Sometimes, you have to become what you’re not all of the time to maybe even fully realize who you are, or want to be, most of the time. 

Unsure if any of that makes sense, but I think I’ll have to break it down even further. Maybe next time. In another post, where I don’t ramble on forever and come to no conclusion. This thesis would fail if I had to hand it in for a grade. 

Unless of course it was a scientific experiment hypothesis; and maybe that’s all life really is - one giant cosmic experiment where the rules will forever change and the points don’t really matter. Some giant game of Whose Line is it Anyway?

From one ghost behind a computer to another reading, goodnight.

xoxo

[prorevenge]

I’m not paying a finders fee for stolen property. Thief earns himself a felony instead.

I had just moved to a new city for work and had been working here for about 3 months so I am still pretty new to the area. My apartment complex I would say is in a nicer part of the city and is pretty well kept so I didn’t really expect anyone to go and try breaking into cars. I was set to travel and had a pretty early drive so I had packed everything for my week long trip the night before so that I could get up and just get on the road.

The next morning I walk out to my car and I see clothes off to the side of my car and thinking it was weird started to look around the car. Turns out my car had been broken into and was cleaned out. Out of the trunk they took my laptop bag which had both my personal computer and a government computer, 2 gyms bags (one that had my work clothes and the other had my workout clothes and personal hygiene stuff), and a backpack that had my Nintendo switch and office supplies in it. They also took ~$50 out of the console where I keep change and random bills for parking. This obviously throws a wrench into my work travel so I call my supervisor explain the situation and come back into work. It’s my fault I left all that stuff in my car so I had to go to our security/IT office and explain what had happened and see what the next steps were to get a new work computer.

During this meeting with the Physical Security Manager which was 3 hours after I found my car broken into I get a call from a local number and turns out this guy had “found” my laptops on the side of the road when he was coming home from visiting his mom. My bag had a ‘contact me if found ### ### ####’ Conversation goes as follows:

Guy: “Hey man, I found your laptops on the side of the road I figured you would want them back. They look pretty important” (Government laptops are plastered with stickers with official jargon and returning instructions)

Me: “For sure! I am currently at work now but I can come meet you or whatever works”

Guy: “Yeah man Im just coming back from visiting my mom so I am trying to get to home so I can relax.”

Me: “Cool, I can make it work, can you text me your address and everything so I can just come to you?”

Guy: “Ill send it to you here in a second, Its also my birthday so if I could get some money for like a finders fee or whatever I think that would be cool”

Me: “Yeah man whatever you need. See you in a bit.”

As soon as I get off the phone I call the local police in that area and explain that this guy is trying to extort money from me to get stolen goods back. They instruct me to meet them a few blocks away from the residence and they will send a plain clothes cop and officers to act on my behalf so I am not in direct contact with the guy just in case since the situation sounds sketchy. I go and meet them where they go to the residence. The guy is hesitant seeing the cop cars and takes a few minutes to return the bag. With the laptops in it. They bring the bag to me to identify the laptops and everything’s still there. I accept the bag and got my laptops and bag back. Easy enough…

On the drive back to work, no more than 15 minutes later this guy still had my number and starts going off… bad unreadable spelling and all is seething through text messages on how I could get the police involved, he was trying to be a ‘good samritian’ and he should have thrown my shit in the ‘grabig’. So I did the normal thing and blocked the number.

Now I’m still missing everything else including the Nintendo switch which was in a case with 7 games (important). I was originally going to take the loss on it and take it as a “stupidity” tax since it was almost impossible to get back. However, something didn’t sit right with me with this guy and thinking if he did have it he was going to try to sell it fast and cheap. I went onto FB Marketplace and craigslist searching for a switch for cheap around the same location as his house..

BINGO!!!

The ad read “$200 – Nintendo switch with 7 games and case lightly used, no charger or dock. Must be gone today” The location was enabled and was within 2 miles of his address, the phone number was the same, and the dock and charger were in my apartment. So I had a buddy of mine who lived in the next city over contact him asking if he could hold onto it til tomorrow since he wouldn’t be in town until the next day and he would pay him $300 instead. The dude agrees and also gets him to read off all 7 games that were there. This was to buy us more time so I can go coordinate with the police.

The next morning I get everything together to go make a case to police to assist me with this: Police report, the craigslist ad, the serial number from Nintendo, the screenshots of the text messages between him and my buddy. I make my case and the police agree to do the same thing as the day before and meet me somewhere else to go over what the plan was. I meet them and go over his address and what all I had missing. These are different officers than the day before and they recognize the address and the name.

We found out this guy is known for this stuff and is currently on probation. So we come up with a plan where my buddy will call us on his work phone so we can hear the conversation and call him on his regular phone to see what’s going on. The police use a plain car go to this meet up spot and acting like my buddy scoop the guy up and get him to cough up the rest of the stolen goods. They were able to recover all my items including all my clothes and bags. He ends up going to jail and earns a new felony on his record for receiving stolen property.

I think I would have lost the rest of it if I didn’t do the digging on FB Marketplace and Craigslist.

TLDR: Car got broken into and had >$2,000 worth of stuff stolen, thief calls me for a finders fee. After some craigslist perusing ended up getting everything back and the thief a new felony charge.

(source) story by (/u/D0ugieFresh)

[storiesthatnobodytold]

Priceless

The painting had been in your family for as long as you can remember.

You’ll always think of the day you first saw it

the way that it filled you

with pride and with joy

the way that it struck you with awe

the way it belonged to you all,

yet nobody owned it,

not really.

It was a masterpiece,

teeming with life

and depth of color like you’d never known

and never would again.

You knew every stroke,

like you’d placed it there yourself.

And maybe you did.

You moved to the city.

You found an apartment downtown.

With a space big enough for the painting.

You wanted to take it with you on the plane

but it wouldn’t have fit in the overhead bin,

so you shipped it,

with UPS ground.

The day it arrived was a day like today.

The doorbell chimed

you rushed to the porch.

You couldn’t believe what you found.

The box you had carefully sealed was in ruins,

the bubble wrap nowhere in sight.

The mahogany frame,

so strong and supportive,

was snapped in 3 places.

The canvas was shredded,

as if with a knife.

You fell to your knees.

How could this have happened?

It was priceless.

But someone was going to pay.

So you got UPS on the phone, and you screamed,

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO MY PAINTING?”

And the voice on the other end said

“ma’am, please calm down,

or call back in an hour or two.”

So you took a deep breath,

you swallowed your tongue,

and you tried to explain without raising your voice.

You didn’t know what else to do.

And this was their statement:

“We’re very sorry this happened,

we’ll gladly refund the cost,

of shipping, that is,

and launch an investigation,

to show you how sorry we are for your loss.”

They hung up.

You looked at the doorbell cam footage.

saw your package get ripped from the back of the truck

by the driver, who snapped it in half on their knee

and slashed it to bits with a boxcutter

and tossed it aside, with a smile, at their feet

and drove off, marking the order complete.

Your neighbor brought the remains to your door.

UPS emailed you a receipt.

You contacted customer service,

attached the footage,

and wrote

“This driver needs to be fired

and pay for the cost of the item they broke.”

Which was priceless, and one of a kind.

The company said

“Now hold on one second

we hired an appraiser, 

approved for assessment

and they said the painting

in question

was fragile,

so really it isn’t our fault.

The driver that day has been sent on vacation,

to contemplate their mistake.

We’ve concluded that they were just doing their job,

they’d been having a difficult day,

we promise not to break any more of your stuff.

we hope that this is enough.”

and hung up.

But it wasn’t, of course,

so you raised up your voice

in anger 

and in pain,

���there’s no reason to use disproportionate force.”

They replied, with annoyance,

“Ok, let us explain,

this package was bulky

and got bent out of shape,

‘cause it just wouldn’t fit in the truck.

Most items we handle are smaller, and square,

send one of those, if you want it to get there 

intact

or you’re shit out of luck.

Besides, it was one careless driver,

but I’ll tell you what we will do,

we’ll write in the employee handbook,

‘don’t break anything, please and thank you’”

“Was that not already a rule?” you ask.

“Well, sure, but it was unspoken.

Once again, our official position:

we’re terribly sorry

your package was broken.”

You hung up the phone and you called a reporter,

who told you the driver was assigned a new route,

and gave you a link to a story they’d written

about almost exactly what you’d been through.

UPS had received nearly countless complaints

of packages, missing or damaged,

each time the answer they gave was the same,

“It’s one careless driver, we’re sorry this happened.”

But online, there were hundreds of videos posted

that showed their drivers behaving this way.

And although it was happening to everyone,

it was happening more in your city and state,

and the packages all had a similar shape,

like the painting you lost.

Which was priceless.

So what do you do, at this point?

Write them a 1 star review?

Do you trust UPS to resolve things?

Do you give them more money, and hope they improve?

Do you fit their delivery trucks with new cameras

that their drivers can turn off on a whim?

Do you force them to use a new hiring agency

that screens their employees for being ‘unhinged’?

To send them to trainings they’ve been to already,

on how to do things that should be common sense?

Do you tell anyone who will listen?

Do you go back on the offense?

Do you burn all their warehouses down?

Do you smash up all of their trucks?

So their CEO can cry victim in public,

while they bail out the morally bankrupt?

Do you find a new porter, who cares for your package’s worth?

One who won’t force you to work in their warehouse

to pay off a fee that you never agreed to,

and do everything in their power to keep you

complacent, 

to keep you from freedom?

If the potholes are making it harder to reach you,

then shouldn’t we pave a new road?

You don’t need UPS,

they need YOU

to believe that they mean

“what can brown do for you?”

when they really mean

“how dry can we bleed you?”

Do I have to explain UPS is to blame if their drivers

are free to behave as they please

and then freeze your account

if you dare to complain?

Do I have to explain what I mean when I say

that no painting can ever be truly replaced?

Do you value your things more than somebody’s life?

And how much do you value your safety?

If they take and they take and they give nothing back,

then you cut off their funding instead of their slack.

Sit back and relax as the system collapses,

or find something better to do with your taxes.

Black lives fucking matter.

Blue lives cause anaphylaxis.

-Anonymous

[magicalmarauder]

Broken

Pairing: Shawn Mendes x Reader

Warnings: Slight language! 

Word Count: 2.4k +

Summary: Reader is Shawn’s girlfriend who has decided to surprise Shawn with learning a song on his guitar for their two year anniversary. However, while practicing one day, the guitar falls and breaks, leaving a very angry Shawn and an upset reader. Angst + fluff! 

Strumming the guitar, you softly sang along to the tune of Perfectby Ed Sheeran as you stared intently at the music sheet in front of you, determined to finally get the chords right and master the song that you had dutifully been practicing over and over again for the last few months.

Tomorrow was your two-year anniversary with your boyfriend Shawn and you wanted to surprise him by playing him something on the guitar. This year, the two of you had agreed that you wouldn’t spend any money on your gifts to one another, so you had decided that secretly taking guitar lessons and learning how to play one of his favorite songs would be perfect. So far, everything was going according to plan and Shawn had no idea of what you were up to. Although your guitar playing was definitely far from perfect and your singing wasn’t the best, you knew that Shawn would appreciate the time and effort that you had placed into this gift and really, that was all that mattered.

Satisfied with your progress for the day and confident that you would be able to decently perform for your boyfriend tomorrow, you gently set down Shawn’s guitar, leaning it carefully against the wall before heading over to the kitchen to make yourself a cup of tea to soothe your aching vocal cords. However, halfway there, you heard a loud BANG, causing you to jump about a foot in the air in surprise.

Running back into the room that you had previously exited, your eyes widened in horror as you took in the sight before you. Somehow, despite your extra care, Shawn’s guitar had somehow slipped from its place against the wall and had crashed down onto the floor, separating the neck of the guitar from the body.

“No, no, no!” You exclaimed desperately, rushing forward and picking up the two broken pieces, looking back and forth between them desperately.

What am I going to do?You thought helplessly, tears springing to your eyes as you thought about what you were going to tell Shawn. This guitar was hands down his favorite, most valued possession. Shawn wasn’t a very materialistic person, rarely splurging on expensive items, but this guitar was definitely an exception. Not only was it expensive, but it held a lot of sentimental value for him. There was no way Shawn was going to just let this go.

Just as you started running through different ways to broach the subject with your boyfriend and concoct a plan on how to get his guitar fixed, you heard the front door of your apartment opening and Shawn’s melodic voice calling out to you. “Babe! I’m home!”

Panic surged through you anew as you were at a loss as to what to do. All you had wanted to do was surprise your beloved boyfriend with a sweet gift for your anniversary, and somehow everything had turned into a disaster. Nevertheless, you knew you had to face the music sooner rather than later. Shawn was going to find out eventually. It was best if you got it over with as soon as possible and were just honest with him. It had been an accident. He couldn’t be that upset with you. Right?You thought to yourself nervously.

“Where are you honey?” He called out again, voice much closer than a few seconds ago.

Taking a deep breath, you said a quick prayer before calling Shawn into the room with you, steeling yourself for his reaction.

“There you are!” He grinned, eyes lighting up as his gaze finally rested on you. Usually this type of reaction from him made your heart leap. Today; however, it caused an ache to spread throughout your body, dreading how he was going to look at you after you explained what had happened to his guitar. “What are you doing in here?” He questioned, still not noticing the broken guitar on the floor behind you. “You usually don’t hang out in the music room.”

“Something happened, Shawn, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to! I was being extra careful, I promise! I just wanted to surprise you for our anniversary!” You blurted out, unable to stop the words or tears from flowing out of you. “I set it down so gently, just like you told me to, but when I went to go to the kitchen, it must have fallen over and it broke! I’m so sorry, Shawn!” You cried.

Shawn’s brows furrowed in confusion, not expecting that outburst from you and also not quite sure as to what you were talking about just yet. “What are you –“ His question was immediately choked off as his eyes fell on the guitar sitting behind you, very distinctly in two different pieces, not at all how it was supposed to be and not at all how he had last left it.

“What did you do?!”He exclaimed, his voice full of horror at the sight before him. Quickly, he rushed around you and knelt down, picking up the pieces of his guitar.

“I didn’t mean to, Shawn, I’m so sorry!” You sobbed, the tears gushing out now. “I wanted to surprise you by learning a song for you for our anniversary tomorrow. I’ve been practicing the past few months and I’ve been so, so careful, Shawn, I swear! I don’t know what happened today! I was just as careful as I always am, but something happened and it fell over when I left the room and I came back in and it was broken! I’m so sorry, Shawn!” You bellowed. “I’m so, so sorry!”

Your breathing was heavy from the cries that were wracking your body as well as from your rambled apologies.

Abruptly, Shawn stood to his feet and faced you, causing you to flinch back from the look of anger gracing his usually serene features. He had never looked at you like that and that thought alone caused more tears to leak from the corners of your eyes.

“How could you be so careless, Y/N?” He demanded, fury lacing his tone. You shrunk back not only at the anger in his voice but at the use of your name as well. Since the two of you had started dating, Shawn rarely called you by your first name. Usually, he referred to you with an array of pet names that seemed to tumble from his lips. Your name was not something that you heard very often coming from his mouth.

“You know how much this guitar means to me!” He continued, barely pausing to take a breath as he continued to unleash his frustration on you. “I can’t believe that you were even touching it! What were you thinking?” He demanded.

“I just wanted to surprise you with learning a song for our anniversary,” you squeaked out, hoping that if he could just understand your good intentions, it would calm him down a little bit.

“Well, great job Y/N, what a great surprise!” He barked out sarcastically. “You know what, I can’t even look at your right now I’m so angry! Please just get out of my sight while I try to salvage what I can of my guitar!” He huffed, turning his back to you.

“I’m really sorry Shawn,” you cried, moving to reach out and lay a hand on his back.

However, before you could touch him, he whirled around to face you. “Leave!” He shouted, his eyes flashing with anger.

A sob tore through you as you obeyed his command, a part of you still unbelieving that your sweet boyfriend was ordering you out of his sight. Quickly, you grabbed your purse resting on the hutch and sprinted out the door.

You ran out into the late city evening, tearing down the sidewalk with no real destination in mind, just knowing that you needed to get away. Finally, you stopped at a nearby bus bench a few blocks away from your shared apartment with Shawn and collapsed, trying to regain your breath as well as get a rein on your emotions.

Although you knew that Shawn was not going to take the news about his guitar well, you hadn’t expected him to react quite so harshly. Apart of you was indignant as to how he had treated you while the other part of you was still feeling extremely guilty about breaking his guitar.

Once your sobs had finally quieted down, you wiped at your face and stood up, knowing that you had to make this right. Assessing your surroundings, you realized that you were only a few blocks away from Shawn’s favorite music shop. Taking a deep breath, you turned and began making your way down the street. You were going to make this up to Shawn if it was the last thing you did.

***

A few hours later, you walked out of the guitar shop, satisfied that the man you had spoken to would be able to fix Shawn’s guitar so that it would be as good as new. All you had to do was bring it in the next morning. And although you had to pay an inordinately large amount of money to repair it, you knew it would be worth it to hopefully earn back Shawn’s forgiveness.

This was most definitely not how you saw your anniversary surprise turning out, you sighed sadly to yourself.

Reaching into your purse, you went to grab your phone and check the time only to realize that it was missing and you must have left it back home in your hurry to get out the door. Great, you groaned to yourself. You had been planning on ordering an Uber, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen anymore. Adjusting the strap of your purse, you took a deep breath before making the long trek back to your apartment in the chilly night air, contemplating what mood you would find Shawn in and hoping that he had calmed down enough to at least tolerate your presence.

***

About an hour and a half later, you dragged your exhausted body through the front door of your apartment, wanting nothing more than to collapse in sleep after the emotionally and physically taxing day that you had endured.

However, as soon as you closed the door and assessed your surroundings, your attention was immediately drawn to Shawn who was pacing the living room, phone in one hand while his other hand ran anxiously through his curly locks, pulling at them slightly before returning his hand back to his side.

“Shawn?” You questioned hesitantly, wondering if his apparent anxiety was still due to his broken guitar. He had already kicked you out of the house once, you were desperately hoping that he would not repeat that a second time.

At the sound of your voice, Shawn’s head snapped up, revealing blood shot eyes and dried tear tracks running down his face.

You furrowed your brows in concern. “Shawn. Are you okay? What happened?”

“Y/N,” he breathed out, dropping his phone on the ground and rushing over to you. You flinched back slightly, your last encounter with your boyfriend still fresh in your mind. However, Shawn didn’t seem to notice as he wrapped you in his arms, embracing you tightly and burying his face into the crook of your neck.

“You’re okay,” he sobbed, fresh tears spilling from his eyes and landing on your shoulder. “I was so, so worried that something had happened to you,” he cried. “Especially after I had treated you so badly! I tried calling you as soon as I realized what an asshole I had been, but I couldn’t get a hold of you and then I realized you had left your phone and I was just so worried that something happened to you and you weren’t able to reach out to anyone.”

“I’m okay, Shawn,” you murmured, hands coming up to return his embrace as you stroked his back softly in comfort. “Nothing happened to me, I’m sorry for worrying you.”

Shawn pulled away abruptly, an agonized look still apparent on his features. “No, baby, I’m the one who’s sorry! I can’t believe I treated you that way, especially when you were just trying to do something nice for me. Yes, I love my guitar and I was devastated to see it in pieces, but baby, I love you more than anyone or anything. I was so ashamed as soon as you left and I realized what I had said to you and then when you didn’t come home for so long and I couldn’t get in contact with you, I was terrified you were hurt. Or worse,” he choked out.

Your eyes softened at his confession and you brought a hand up to gently caress his cheek.

Shawn leaned into your gesture before turning his head slightly to press a quick kiss to your palm. “I’m so sorry, honey. Can you please forgive me? I promise this will never happen again and I am going to spend the rest of my life making this up to you,” he vowed. “I love you so, so much and you are more valuable to me than some silly guitar.”

You smiled gently at him, relieved to have your soft boyfriend back. “Of course I forgive you, Shawn and I love you too. So much.”

A relieved grin broke out across his face and he leaned forward to press his lips to yours. You eagerly returned the kiss, pouring all the love and forgiveness that you could into that kiss and receiving the same from Shawn.

Pulling away, he pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of your nose and your forehead before wrapping you tightly in his arms again, breathing in your scent and resting in the sweetness of the moment.

Shawn chuckled all of a sudden, interrupting the sweet moment and causing you to pull back and look at him in question. “What?” You asked.

“Nothing, nothing,” he assured, wrapping his arms around your waist and looking down at you with a grin. “I’m just excited to hear this song of yours,” he explained. “Especially after it caused all this drama. It had better be one hell of a song!”

You laughed along with him. “It will be! Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think you’re going to be very impressed! I worked very hard on it!”

“I can’t wait, baby,” he sighed, smiling down at you before bringing you in for another sweet kiss.

[gamersonthego]

Chase Koeneke’s Top 10 Handheld Games of 2019

With the Switch in full gear and the debut of Apple Arcade, 2019 was another solid year for handheld games. Sequels to many of my favorite games were plentiful, but very few absolutely blew me away. And a few games I really loved (Slay The Spire, Return Of The Obra Dinn, Super Mega Baseball 2) were handheld ports of previous games I didn’t feel super great about adding to my list. So instead, I left this final year of the decade feeling content, and that’s perfectly OK too. So here are 10 games I liked this year, even if I didn’t love them.

10. Tetris 99 (Switch)

I love pretty much all iterations of Tetris. From the iconic Game Boy release I would play in the car, to the Facebook-based Tetris Friends that kept me company through many boring lectures in college, to last year’s gorgeous and powerful Tetris Effect, Tetris is A-OK with me.

Battle royale games on the other hand? Not so much. Despite enjoying shooters in general, I’ve yet to play a single match of PUBG, Fortnite or Apex Legends, and I’m not itching to change that anytime soon. But I found the mechanics of the battle royale genre to translate rather brilliantly to Tetris. It’s a thin experience (even with the expansions made to the game), but it’s an addictive one. And the fact I never quite crested the mountaintop – even if I did get a second place finish to video game Santa himself, Wario64 – is one of my biggest 2019 gaming regrets.

9. Mini Motorways (Apple Arcade)

Dinosaur Polo Club’s previous game, Mini Metro, made my top games of 2016 list, so it’s not surprising to see their latest game show up on this year’s list. What is a little surprising is how much of what could be said about Mini Metro can be echoed here on Mini Motorways. From my 2016 write-up:

Mini Metro wins my heart for its amazing ability to be serenely relaxing and nail-bitingly stressful simultaneously. Watching the train cars move back and forth around the sharp, minimalistic map brings a calming sense of satisfaction, but when the ever-growing amount of train stations hits critical mass, there were few experiences more harrowing this year. The basic strategy is smart and layered, preferring to let you experiment rather than tutorializing you to death up front.

You could remove the word “train” and get yourself a pretty accurate Mini Motorways review. But unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. While I love a lot of what’s new in Mini Motorways – being able to create partial roads to better plan out cities from the start, colorful and sprightly graphics – the strategy and variety on display here actually pales to the previous game. One Mini Motorways upgrade, the traffic light, doesn’t even seem to function correctly. And the fun modifiers in Mini Metro’s different locations like Tokyo’s shinkasen are nowhere to be found here. Every city has a body of water to deal with, it’s just that some are slightly more of a pain than others. That’s not variety.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Mini Motorways and have put a lot of time into it. It’s my #9 after all. But if I had to pick just one to take up space on my phone, Mini Metro is getting that spot every time.

8. Risk Of Rain 2 (Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC)

The first Risk of Rain also appeared on my games of 2016 list, and like Mini Motorways, the sequel is good, just not quite as good…and also feels a bit unfinished. But unlike Mini Motorways, Risk of Rain 2 made a bold change, ditching the two-dimensional world and sprite-based graphics for 3D polygons.

Bringing the z-axis to the tried and true roguelike mechanics of the original Risk of Rain makes for a new experience, for better and worse.

The worlds of RoR2 are bigger and more awe-inspiring. The 3D nature makes some classes and items feel more viable (like the melee Mercenary class) and it’s much easier to dodge incoming enemy attacks.

But the shift in perspective is anything but perfect. Just as enemies miss you more, so too will you often miss your own targets. The camera is both too close and yet also too far away, depending on the situation. The levels, after your inspired awe has left you, are barren, and the main objective of hunting for a teleporter to take you to the next area can be a frustrating venture as they are much more easily camouflaged in the polygonal zones.

It’s also just…not done. As of this writing, there’s no final boss fight, just a shrine that lets you sacrifice yourself to say you’ve “won.” There are missing classes on the menu and the artifact modifiers tab says “coming soon.” Last time I checked, the Switch was not an early access machine, and the fact that this version also gets a “Switch tax” makes it go down even more bitterly.

So why would a deeply flawed game like this make my list? Because the core loop of Risk of Rain is still better than most experiences out there. Stacking power-ups to near omnipotence is a blast, and running around with a friend or three in co-op is more fun than ever. Risk of Rain 2 may eventually become a great game someday, but for now, it’s a good game. And despite its issues, it’s still good enough for me.

7. Baba Is You (Switch, PC)

Sokoban meets coding logic; Baba Is You layers these puzzling elements to create something that feels familiar, yet fresh. It’s a simple concept: You push physical words around the self-contained areas to manipulate the level’s rules and collect a flag…or a different win condition if you’re clever enough.

Take the screenshot above for instance. “Baba is You” means you control Baba. “Flag is Win” means you need to touch the flag to win. But say you push the words “is Win” to vertically align with “Baba.” Now Baba is both you, the player and also the win condition, so you can forget the flag. You win automatically!

The puzzles continue in that fashion, ramping up the challenge very quickly (or maybe I’m just not very good at it.) I’m nowhere near mastering it, but for its highly inventive mix of environmental and logic problems, I’ve got an incredible amount of respect for it.

6. Assemble With Care (Apple Arcade)

I’m kind of down on Apple Arcade as a concept (I’d rather just pay for the few games I want and be done with it), but if games like Assemble With Care keep coming out, I might have to soften my stance. Assemble sees you repairing broken objects like rotary phones, cassette players and watches by using the touchscreen to pull objects apart, replace their busted components and piece them back together. It���s wonderfully serene: There’s no time limit, no logic-defying puzzle box qualities, no Operation-style buzzer if and when you make a mistake. It’s just nice.

A lesser game would leave it at that, but Assemble goes a step further, wrapping the repair mechanics with a short, satisfying story with solid writing and voice acting. It’s this year’s Florence, and while it may not be as impactful as that game, it’s a must play for anyone with an Apple Arcade subscription (or a good reason to burn your free trial if you’re not a subscriber).

5. Untitled Goose Game (Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC)

Like Assemble With Care, Untitled Goose Game does not hang its hat so much on its mechanics as what it chooses to do with them. There are no fail conditions to Goose Game and what challenge it holds is relatively minimal. But it’s a true sandbox game in that it’s loaded the small town you inhabit with lots of little things to play with and discover. It’s Grand Theft Auto, except they’ve replaced carjacking and shooting with taking an old man’s stool or honking at a kid until he hides inside a phone booth. You’re an asshole, you’re just not a malicious asshole.

A list of tasks helps to keep you focused, but it’s more of a nudge in the right direction so you can discover something else to mess with or people to bother. And once the game is “over,” you get a new, more inventive list of tasks, all with the benefit of the entire sandbox available to you. It might not be the most complex game, but when it comes to the enjoyment of play, it’s one of the best this year.

4. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Switch)

I’m well known for my aversion to finishing Zelda games. I’ve played almost all of them and have finished exactly two of them (Oracle of Seasons and A Link Between Worlds, probably not the two you’d expect). And despite enjoying it, even the original Link’s Awakening eluded me, so seeing it get an overhaul in the form of a Switch version excited me. Not only was this a second chance for me to play a classic, but it was also another opportunity for the world to see how great handheld games have always been.

Outside of the really well done tilt-shifted graphics, the remake is mostly made up of small quality of life improvements. The overworld isn’t as rigidly screen-based anymore, allowing the player a little more finesse in dealing with enemies. Some equipment, that on the original Game Boy version must be switched in and out ad nauseam, now has dedicated buttons on the controller (never again must you be without your sword). All these decisions allow for the charm of the design to shine through even easier than its original version.

Would it be nice if the frame rate were more consistent? Sure. Is the Chamber Dungeon a completely extraneous and half-baked idea? Totally. Does it tarnish the fun that’s there to be had here? Not in the slightest.

I’m proud to say Link’s Awakening has joined the pantheon of Zelda games I’ve actually finished. Now maybe someday I’ll finish that “Link to the Past” that everyone keeps talking about…

3. Super Robot Wars T (Switch, PS4)

Super Robot Wars X made my list last year despite me having only played the PS4 version. So it feels a little more legitimate to have played the Switch version of Super Robot Wars T this year. It’s still not available in the US (you have to import a copy of the Asia version that comes with English subtitles,) and it’s still an extremely flawed game with its repetitive and uninspired level design and overly complicated systems, but man, I love this bad game so much.

I love tinkering in T’s dense mechanics, upgrading my anime mechs for perfect turn-based strategy synergy. I love jumping through hoops to find the right way to recruit new units. And I still love the over the top battle animations – seriously, if you’re bitching about Pokemon’s weak animations, the video above will show you Super Robot Wars has your back.

Plus they’ve added Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop this time around, so there’s at least one recognizable character from a non-Gundam anime you’ve probably seen in here. That’s…progress.

Look, this game probably isn’t for you, but it is totally for me. And Christmas came early this year in that Super Robot Wars V (which came before last year’s X – the naming conventions are not here to make sense) got ported to the Switch, and last year’s Super Robot Wars X will get ported soon too. That’s a lot of anime turn-based strategy to play, and I couldn’t be happier.

2. Pokemon Sword/Shield (Switch)

After much Internet handwringing from an extremely vocal minority, the new Pokemon games came out. And, what do you know, they’re good. Really good. They continue the slow evolution (I’m so sorry) of the franchise with small quality of life enhancements, a few new features and a little trimming of the vestiges. I appreciate the renewed focus on gyms and gym leaders and the single connected world, even if it basically two circles with a straight bit in the middle.

The new Pokemon are…fine. Very few that I detest, but also very few that I’d be willing to write home about. The new Max Raid Battles are generally pretty cool, but they all take advantage of the gimmick I’m least thrilled about: Dynamaxing. Making a Pokemon bigger for three turns is not all that compelling to me. And the Gigantamax variants with their special appearances are neat, but it’s basically just a worse form of Mega Evolution.  

So yeah, it’s a good entry in the series. And a good Pokemon game is pretty hard to top in my book.

1. Fire Emblem Three Houses (Switch)

Hard to top, that is, unless you’re Fire Emblem. But despite being a new game in my favorite franchise, I was actually dreading Three Houses. The pre-release coverage did not leave me optimistic. Old features I hated were making a comeback (cough, weapon durability, cough). The art style couldn’t hold a candle to the jaw-droppingly gorgeous previous entry, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. And whether Intelligent Systems was admitting it or not, there was a strong Persona-fication at play here (don’t get me wrong, I love Persona, but if you’re going to get your Persona chocolate in my Fire Emblem peanut butter, I’d rather you just make a sequel to Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.)

So the hopes, they were not high. But Three Houses exceeded my expectations with a cast of characters I really grew to love. My loveable loser Golden Deer crew went from zeroes to heroes, and the ability to recruit students from other classes meant I got to make my dream team (Hilda, Petra, and Lysithea were my undisputed MVPs) when saving the world.

The story was deep and complex, and hearing how it changes based on which house you align with is pretty cool. I enjoyed the control I had in molding my students, and appreciated seeing them have a breakthrough in something they used to struggle with, and it becoming one of their best qualities. Turning a lazy, valley girl like Hilda into a front line tank and hearing her bitching about it every step of the way was especially enjoyable.

It’s not my favorite in the series, but I’m glad it’s seen pretty universal appeal and sales from the community at large, cementing its status as one of Nintendo’s premier franchises. Someday I will play through all four of its routes, but for now, I’m content with it comfortably sitting as my favorite handheld game of 2019.

[missroserose]

I swear I thought I'd sent you asks last night, lol. I have some questions! What's one thing you love about Chicago? Miss about Alaska? Favorite comfort foods? What's one hobby you enjoy outside of fandom? What's your fav Trek series? Lol okay okay I'll stop!

Never stop, lovely. 💕

Love about Chicago:  Oh man, so many things.  World-class museums.  Parks everywhere.  Good (not great, but great for America) public transit.  The food!  The architecture!  The fact that no matter what time of year it is, there’s always something going on.  People love to complain about the taxes, but let me tell you:  I spent four years living in southern Arizona, paying every bit as much in tax (seriously, the sales tax had been bumped to almost 10% in the wake of the housing crisis, which had wiped out all the property taxes the state depended on, plus the state tax was the same) and for that money I got a big fat Nothing—it all seemed to go to building golf courses in Phoenix.  So yeah, I’m okay with paying that same amount to live in a city with a functioning infrastructure that helps to build this kind of vibrant community.

Miss about Alaska:  Honestly?  I never saw this coming, but…the mountains.  There’s no mountains in the Midwest, and I didn’t realize how fundamental they were to a sense of a place until I’d been here a good year and a half.  I remember looking out at the lake multiple times and thinking “that’s pretty, but something doesn’t look quite right…” and it wasn’t until I went back home to visit and was driving along the Seward Highway when I realized what was missing.

Favorite comfort foods:  Hrm.  I have a weird relationship with food—I resent the time it takes to prepare and eat, so day-to-day I will happily just live on the same five or six items that don’t take long, keep me going, and don’t tweak my blood sugar—but I love really well-prepared delicious meals, especially as a social experience.  So the answer might be “anything someone else makes for me”, haha.  I do love Mexican, especially good seasoned refried beans and carne asada.  Ooo, and queso fundido—there’s a place in Lincoln Square that has a chorizo variety.  Literally just a giant plate of melted cheese piled high with spiced sausage, greasy and artery-hardening and delicious.

Hobby outside of fandom:  I do a lot of various crafty things—sewing, embroidery, knitting, scrapbooking, what have you—but I tend to go on six-to-twelve-month benders with them and then set them aside for years at a time.  The two things I’ve kept picking up consistently are writing and music, though I’ve come to terms with the fact that I don’t have the drive to “do” anything with them—but hey, that’s what makes them hobbies!

Favorite Trek series:  Just going straight for the jugular, there, aren’t you? :P  Honestly, I like (and dislike) parts of all of them—with the possible exception of Enterprise, which I tried but truly could not get through the first season.  I tend to be drawn more to characters than specific series.  Growing up I loved Deanna Troi, which maybe isn’t surprising given the fields I went into (even though as an adult I recognize that she was underutilized and badly written and generally suffered from all kinds of sexism—if you haven’t seen the clip of Marina Sirtis telling the story of her various costume changes, you’re missing out).  Still, a sci-fi show acknowledging the importance of empathy and mental health was (and kind of still is) so unusual and I loved that.  As an adult (and now having access to Netflix so I can watch all of the episodes in order, rather than trying to piece things together via syndication), I really love Kira on DS9—she still had some issues with the sexism but damn if she doesn’t portray a once-idealistic now-broken character struggling to figure out how far she can trust the new and improved but flawed community around her, which is, like, my life story.  And I completely adore several of the characters on Discovery, including Tilly and my new possible #1 favorite Jett Reno.  Oh god I laugh so hard every time she’s onscreen and I really really hope she gets to be a regular character next season.

[childoftimeandmagic]

Prompt! Klaus is returning a Christmas gift at the store where Caroline works and she feels the need to share her opinions.

Christy!!!!! Here you go and I hope you enjoy it. @misssophiachase

AO3

After the holidays was the most bizarre mix of slow and hectic that Caroline ever dealt with. Rolling her shoulders she glanced around her store front. She hadn’t seen a soul in hours, not since Elena Gilbert had walked in complaining about the status of men in the world. Flicking her wrist up to place the bill back on the door she sat back down. Opening a bookstore wasn’t considered a normal pursuit for a witch; but sitting in her store the candles lit and gently filling the air with sweet perfume of winter nights. Caroline couldn’t imagine something she’d like to do more.

Shrugging and reopening her book she leaned back in her chair. As she allowed her mind to be reabsorbed into the adventures of Nancy and Ned, the bell  above the door went completely unnoticed. Sighing happily into her book she refused to be pulled from the chapter for even a paying customer. After all what was a single customer who was probably just going to browse and leave to a good mystery.

As she turned the page she took the opportunity to sneak a peek at the person who’d entered her store from her vantage point by the counter. He was beautiful, tall, blonde and stylish. Something about him was dangerous though. A monster in human form. Now this wasn’t super helpful because he could just be one of a hundred supernatural creatures who called this town home. So it didn’t bother her.

Unlike Bonnie or Elena who were considered more powerful. Running one of the most popular supply and herbalist stores in the City of Mystic Falls, Caroline’s powers were more passive. Pointing out to her what someone desired most, or what they were hiding from themselves and the world. So the coven had left her to run her business without requiring a tax. Magic users were required to pay a percentage of their profits to the Coven which went to protecting and managing the local magic school.

Still her powers were passive enough that she was able to run a very nice business making sure that her customers got exactly the book that they needed. Not always the one they wanted, or thought they’d enjoy, but they trusted her and took the book that she found them. Hidden desires and empathy were her greatest assets in the store so she trusted them implicitly.

As the door closed quietly behind the man who had just entered a rather peculiar used book shop. The books were arranged alphabetically, by date, and genre. The oldest books were on display and honestly they were worth more. As he turned around the store opened up to reveal a grand room with a single counter in the far back with a fireplace and a ring of chairs next to it. The space was filled with even more shelves. No one seemed to be in the store except probably the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. Her hair hung in a way that almost belied what she’d look like laying in his bed. Clearing his throat he moved

His assistant had bought him a book from here about his least favorite artist. He could appreciate abstract art, but he was not about to read about Kandinsky. He liked obscure and odd focuses for his art work, but he liked people to be able to understand some part of it. he was hoping he could exchange it. With his siblings running a major city a piece, he’d grown bored and wanted to spend more time on his art.

So he’d left Marcel in charge of New Orleans, and he’d returned to the first home he’d ever known and opened up a small gallery. Going under a shortened version of his name Nik Michaels he’d thought that he would begin to enjoy life again. Occasionally committed a few murders. Instead he’d found himself irritable, museless, and in a city infested with magical and supernatural creatures which made for more challenging patience. Patience he wasn’t famous for having much of in the first place. Walking up to the counter he looked around and felt his anger rising. Who was this woman while beautiful to ignore him. Dropping the book onto the counter he growled, his eyes flashing gold.

“Excuse me, you have a customer,” he snarled, his voice low and rich.

“I also am at the climax of the book, so why don’t you take a walk around and I’ll be with you in a moment,” Caroline huffed, not looking up at the angry gentleman.

“I don’t want to purchase a book, I would like to exchange a book,” he said, his anger rising with each insistence of defiance.

“Sir, on the counter in front of you is a sign. If you can read well enough to be in a book store I assume you can read it as well.” She said waving her hand dismissively towards a small plaque on the counter next to him. In a delicate hand, and decorated with a gold painted frame stated.

                                      Welcome to Perfect Find Books                                Where you always find what you need.                                      No Returns or Exchanges.                                              No Exceptions.

Caroline for her credit, didn’t let the very attractive man distract her from finishing the chapter. When she heard a crash she flicked her wrist and the damage was reversed. While her powers might not be mighty and all powerful like many of the witches in the city, she could hold her own.

“That will cost you fifty dollars, each time you break something I’ll tack on another hundred, think of it like Yahtzee. First one is fifty and the rest are hundreds,” she said, chuckling to herself at the joke about the board game.

“Just take your shity book back, I didn’t even buy it. It was a gift from a coworker, who is unable to return it herself,” he sneered, slamming a vase to the ground again. Only to have to reform in front of him.

“You are the most impatient and entitled man I’ve ever met,” Caroline sighed, standing up from her comfy armchair by the fireplace. Placing her book on the seat, bookmark in place she looked at him arms akimbo.“I will not take the book back nor will I be bullied into changing my company policy. So please take it, your awful attitude and leave.”

No was not a word that Klaus was used to hearing, refusal or defiance. Who did this little witch think she was. Growling he flashed forward grabbing her by the neck slamming her into the stone and brick wall behind them. “Maybe to live you’ll change your policy.”

She for all her credit looked bored, her hands were holding his arm but made no move to push him off or cause an aneurysm. Instead she met him dead on and then blinked a few times. Growling he pressed her harder into the stone, causing gravel and dust to fall along the ground. Still no real fear, like she’d accepted that he’d kill her. Oddly her bravery and refusal to cower eased his anger.

Once he’d released her she stepped about six feet away and rubbed her neck. She then walked over to the counter and wrote something down on a business card. Klaus watched her, eyebrow raised when she took the book from the countertop and the business card.

“Take the book and bring it to this used bookstore across town. They’ll take it. I won’t break my company policy.” She offered him that odd look again. Eyes unblinking then two quick blinks and pursed lips. “When you’re ready to actually buy a book come back and I’ll find you the one. Till then my number’s on the back of the card. Now that’ll be $250 for the tantrum.”

“Are you asking me out?” he asked, eyes bulging. He almost kills her, threatens her life, and she gives him her number. What kind of witch was this. Most would be calling him undead, and abomination and yet she didn’t seem to really care.

“No I’m giving you my number so you can ask me out,” Caroline said, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards.

“Let me get this right,” he said, slowly taking the offered items. “I just tried to kill you, I threw a tantrum and broke your vases, and a picture frame. Instead of fighting me with magic, or banishing me from your store. You’re charging me for the broken items which you already fixed, and giving me your number.”

“I’m a witch who specializes in passive magic. I own a bookstore where the desires, wants, and needs of a customer bring me to their perfect option. You didn’t kill me Niklaus Mikaelson, which I am taking to mean you don’t want to, and since I’m still standing with a business and policies in place, it seems foolish to cower now.” She shrugged and looked around her bookstore then back to him. “Will that be cash or card? Oh and since I have to also fix my wall now, I’m adding an additional two hundred dollars.”

Klaus Mikaelson grinned for the first time since he’d opened his own gallery up. She was smart, quick-witted, and brave, all on top of being beautiful. He hadn’t met anyone with those qualities who also knew who he was, and didn’t care in…ever. He would be remiss if he let her just pass him by. “If I’m going to take you out miss, I should probably know your name.”

“Caroline Forbes, and I’m not joking, will you be paying cash or card for the damage?” she asked her cash register already queued up. Klaus laughed and handed her a black Amex. “Charge what you like, I have more money than I can spend in my entire life regardless.”

Caroline chuckled and handed him back his credit card, adding another two hundred for the bruises she could feel forming on her neck. In total she’d taken 650 dollars from the most dangerous man in the world. Winking she walked over to the wall and waved her hand over the body imprint. Klaus watched as it shimmered and then put itself back together, when it was finished there wasn’t even dust on the carpet.

“Come again, Mr. Mikaelson,” she said, picking her book back up from the chair. Without another look at him she reopened her book. As clear a dismissal as anything.

“Have a very nice day Caroline,” he said, his mood higher than it had been in centuries.

Caroline smiled as he walked out of her store, and if someone asked if she liked the view of the oldest most powerful man walking away from her, well she’d never tell. Though for being a person in his thousands, he had a great ass.

[glennspringsminers-blog]

How Can I Achieve Financial Independence

We all know the feeling—the panic that sets into your stomach when you see the bill for an unexpected car repair. How are we going to pay for that?  But what if a car repair was just an inconvenience? Instead of worrying, you pay the bill without thinking twice. A week later you’ve forgotten that it even happened! That’s how little it affects your financial situation. It’s not an emergency. It’s barely a hiccup!

Do you feel that sense of relief? That’s what financial freedom feels like.  

Paying for a car repair without stress is just a small part of the picture. It’s more than just being able to afford emergencies. It’s knowing you don’t have to worry about retirement because you’ve worked with your financial advisor to invest consistently for decades. It’s the freedom to quit your J-O-B to do something you love, even if means getting paid less.

Financial freedom means that you get to make life decisions without being overly stressed about the financial impact because you are prepared. You control your finances instead of being controlled by them.

The path to financial independence isn’t a get-rich-quick strategy. And financial freedom doesn’t mean that you’re “free” of the responsibility of handling your money well. Quite the opposite. Having complete control over your finances is the fruit of hard work, sacrifice and time. And all of that effort is worth it!

Ready to learn how to build a life of financial independence for you and your family? Start by defining what financial independence looks like for you. What Does Financial Freedom Mean to You?

Financial freedom has to be personal. Dream big and get specific about your goal.

What does financial independence look like for you? Maybe it looks something like this:

   Freedom to choose a career you love without worrying about money    Freedom to take an international trip every year without it straining on your budget    Freedom to pay cash for a new ski boat    Freedom to respond to the needs of others with outrageous generosity    Freedom to retire a whole decade early

When you are financially independent, you have options. You don’t have to wonder if your bank account can handle replacing your hot water heater or buying groceries for a single mom who just lost her job. See how ordinary people built extraordinary wealth in my new book, Everyday Millionaires.

   "When you are financially independent, you have options. You don’t have to wonder if your bank account can handle replacing your hot water heater or buying groceries for a single mom who just lost her job." —Chris Hogan

That may sound too good to be true, but you can do this! Here’s how to begin your own journey to financial freedom! Step #1: Learn How to Manage Money

You won’t get ahead if you don’t have a plan for your money. Instead, you’ll find yourself wondering where your money went at the end of every month! That’s not financial independence; that’s a recipe for financial disaster. If you’re married, get on the same page with your spouse about your budget. If you’re single, find an accountability partner.

Building wealth is impossible if you’re living paycheck to paycheck. Give every dollar a name before the month begins, and track your spending throughout the month. If you consistently overspend or underspend in certain areas, you can always adjust the amount in each category.

   "Building wealth is impossible if you’re living paycheck to paycheck. Give every dollar a name before the month begins, and track your spending throughout the month." —Chris Hogan

Budgeting is important to get your finances on the right track, but it doesn’t end there. Even once you achieve financial freedom, you’ll still complete a unique budget every month. No matter how much money you have, you need a plan.

You won’t get to financial independence on accident. Budgeting is the first step to building wealth on purpose. Step #2: Clean Up Your Finances

Once you start learning how to manage money, you may realize you’ve made some mistakes with your finances in the past. That’s okay! But if you want to be financially independent, you have to clean up the mess before you can start building wealth.

That means if you have debt like credit cards, student loans or car loans, it’s time to get serious about kicking it to the curb.

Why? Because while you owe money, your paychecks have someone else’s name on them. If you want to reach your goal, you need your full income at your disposal, not bits and pieces that are left over after paying credit card bills and student loan payments.

Paying off your debt helps you lay a foundation to build wealth that will last. Make sure you have $1,000 saved before you start tackling your debt. You don’t want an unexpected expense to derail your progress!

Most people feel like they got a raise when they start budgeting, so that’s good news for you. Throw all of that extra at your smallest debt until it’s gone. Then keep the snowball rolling! Paying off debt is hard work, but there’s nothing like the feeling of actually keeping the money you bring in every month!

Once you’re debt-free, stay there. For good. Having debt undermines your ability to build wealth and puts your financial plan at risk. It’s simple. Steer clear of debt! Step #3: Be Smart About Your Career Choice

Your biggest wealth-building tool is your income. So when it comes to choosing a career, there are a lot of things at stake. There’s no reason to stay stuck at a dead-end job, especially if it’s making you miserable. Finding a job that you enjoy that also supports your goals of financial security will help you enjoy the journey.

So what should you look for? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

   Where do you want to be in 10 years? Start with the end in mind. Does this job make sense with your overall goals?

   Is there income-earning potential? Even if you’re not making your dream salary from the start, make sure there is opportunity for your income to increase as your value increases.

   Can you grow? Are there opportunities for you to move up and grow personally and professionally?

   Do you enjoy the work? Don’t spend a career at a job you hate. Find something you’re passionate about that allows you to use your gifts and skills.

   Do the benefits support your goals of financial freedom? Your options for retirement savings and health insurance can dramatically affect your ability to build wealth.

Your choice of career can have a big impact on your long-term financial plan, so take it seriously! Step #4: Create a Strategy for Short-Term Savings

Imagine if you had to pull money out of your 401(k) when your home’s A/C unit needed to be replaced. What if you had to open a credit card to pay for groceries after losing your job? How would you ever get ahead if you kept borrowing money from your future? You wouldn’t.

If your goal is financial freedom, you need a buffer for the unexpected life events that happen to all of us, like car repairs, broken appliances and medical deductibles. That’s why you should increase your emergency fund to cover three to six months of expenses once you’re out of debt.

Having the cash on hand to cover an unexpected life event gives you peace of mind and is a critical part of your overall financial plan. Once you have that fully funded savings account, you’ll start to feel more flexibility in your budget. You’ll be able to say yes to shopping splurges and specialty lattes with no guilt at all!  

Since you’re not taking on debt, you’ll also need a savings plan for big purchases that aren’t emergencies. Let’s take summer vacation for example. It’s simple! Create a line item in your monthly budget and divide the total amount by the months you have to save. You’re not living in debt anymore, and that means you can enjoy your vacation instead of having a credit card bill follow you home.

With a full emergency fund and a plan to cover big purchases in place, you’ll have the financial foundation to start investing. Step #5: Learn About Your Investment Options

Now that you have a plan for short-term savings, you’re ready to partner with a financial advisor who can help you make the most of your long-term investment options. The good news is the sooner you start investing, the more time your money has to grow. That’s the power of compound interest at work. Here’s how to get started: Retirement Savings

Start by working with your financial advisor to take advantage of the tax-favored retirement accounts that are available to you at work, like your 401(k) or 403(b). How much should you invest toward retirement? Shoot for 15% of your income. And if your employer offers a match on contributions to your 401(k), take it! Don’t say no to free money.

If you have access to a Roth 401(k) at work with good mutual fund options, great! You can invest your full 15% there. But if you have a traditional 401(k), invest up to the match then invest what’s left of your 15% in a Roth IRA. If you still have part of your 15% left after maxing out a Roth IRA, go back to your 401(k).

Why is a Roth a good idea? When you invest in a Roth 401(k) or Roth IRA, the money you invest grows tax-free. That means you don’t have to pay taxes on it when you withdraw money in retirement. That’s a big benefit you don’t want to miss out on. College Savings

If you’re already contributing 15% of your income to retirement and you want to start saving for your kids’ college fund, you can start by investing in an Education Savings Account (ESA). Like a Roth IRA, the money you contribute to an ESA grows tax-free, which means you won’t pay taxes on it when it’s used to cover college expenses. Currently you can contribute up to $2,000 per year for each child in an ESA. Income limits do apply, and your investing pro can help you know if those impact you.(1)

If you want to save beyond an ESA, talk to your financial advisor about a 529 plan. These plans also grow tax-free! Just be aware that there are some 529 plans you should avoid. Steer clear of pre-paid tuition plans and fixed investment options.(2)

The great thing about saving for your kids’ college is that by helping them avoid student debt, you’re setting them up for financial freedom too! Real Estate Investments

Your home should be part of your plan for financial freedom, not something holding you back from achieving it. That’s why it’s so important to make wise decisions about the kind of home you purchase and how you choose to finance it. If you buy a home that is a good investment, it will continue to grow in value as the years go by.

Once you’re investing 15% of your income into retirement accounts, you should use any extra money coming in to pay off your house. Attack it with a vengeance! Getting rid of your mortgage is a huge milestone in your journey to financial independence.

Don’t even think about owning rental properties until your house is paid for. And even then, you should only invest in rental properties if you can afford to pay cash for the property and you’re willing to deal with any hassle involved in the rental process. Taxable Investments

When your house is paid for, you can contribute more than 15% of your income to investments. But before you jump to taxable investing, make sure you’re taking advantage of all the tax-favored accounts you can—like your workplace 401(k) and IRAs.

If you’re ready to move into taxable accounts, stick with a simple investing approach and work with your financial advisor to choose good growth stock mutual funds with a long history of above-average performance.

When you invest outside of tax-favored retirement accounts, you’ll pay taxes on the money you invest. You should also be prepared to pay taxes on capital gains and qualified dividends. But choosing mutual funds with a low turnover rate can help you minimize the tax impact. Step #6: Be Active in Your Journey to Financial Independence

Making the right investment decisions is the first step, but staying in tune with your fund performance is crucial to getting the most out of your investments. Setting your investments on autopilot is not an investment strategy.

But the idea of actively making decisions about your investments may feel overwhelming. If it feels that way to you, you’re not alone. According to a Fidelity study of their NetBenefits participants, 77% of Do-It-Yourself investors said they didn’t have the time or investment knowledge to be confident in their investment decisions.(3)

You’ve worked hard to lay the right foundation, so don’t leave this crucial step up to chance! You need the expertise of a financial advisor to help you navigate your investment options and brave the ups and downs of the stock market.

A financial advisor can help you:

   Make decisions about your investment strategy    Rebalance your funds regularly so you minimize your risk    Create a realistic plan for what financial independence looks like for you    Know what investment options you have beyond retirement accounts    Set up a withdrawal plan for your specific situation

With our SmartVestor program, you can find investing professionals to help you achieve your financial goals. Remember, the journey to financial independence is a marathon, not a sprint. An expert financial advisor is the perfect partner for the journey.

Ready to get started? You can connect with a pro today! Reaching Financial Freedom

Financial freedom is about more than just being able to cover unexpected emergencies—like a car repair—without breaking a sweat. The fun really starts when you realize you can meet the needs of others. Imagine being able to bless a struggling family by paying for their car repair! It’s not just about you anymore; it’s about leaving a legacy!

If you live like no one else, later you can live and give like no one else. It’s worth all the hard work it takes to get there. You’ve got this! About Chris Hogan

[brothertimothysblog]

Giving Others A Lift

I don't pick up just anyone and everyone. I do have guide lines and I do break my guide lines. If I am in a hurry and they are going the same direction, I will take them as far as I can. All of them are very grateful. I give each one of them my calling card which has my blog on the back and my name number and e-mail on the front. In addition I give out my card to others as I strike up a conversation . Whosoever receives my calling card has received an awesome chance to be blessed just sharing this blog & supporting this ministry.

At times I might have saved their life by giving them a ride. Today the temperature was 105 . I received a call asking me to pick someone up and take him home. On my way back I see someone walking and I stop and took him to his destination. Both could of had a heat stroke. When I do pick someone up I turn up my faith.

Picking up strangers is part of my ministry. I take the time to witness to them. If it is a short ride well my blog does the work.

I have received as much as 50.00 and often as little as nothing.

How much do I save tax payers by picking folks up in this heat? How much is an Ambulance, or the ER? If admitted even more.

Twice I have picked up someone who had recently been spending time in jail. I am not mentioning names. One was on social security disability . He did time for having stolen property.

He didn't steal. The item was left at his place. After he was released I believe it was a duration of 6 months. Now he pays restitution for how long I do not remember. This was one of those longer rides. When he was sentenced he lost his disability check. He was too disabled to work. Now he is homeless. All he gets is money placed on a EBT card. Each month sales the food for 125.00

pays is restitution and survives on the rest. In this case, community service would have been a better punishment.

I once picked up a man who was put in county jail for six months because he couldn't pay his bond. He couldn't afford a 25000.00 bond which would have cost 2500.00 . This time spent was until he could go before a judge. The judge found him innocent. When I spoke to him he was jobless and six months behind on child support.

In most states child support could easily be done away with if joint custody was given. How many women gets married just to have a child and plans to get easy money . Joint custody would keep more marriages together. I believe some would say to the judge I don't need the money but the child doesn't need the mother or the father which ever the case is. Many times when the judge rules the child or the children isn't considered.

I know of a woman who was married and when the second boy was born the father made like a banana and he split. The boys are men now and the mother raised them on her own. I also know that the father is responsible for about 20 others babies who were raised without support or perhaps some might have been aborted. I read an article on Oprah where a man who drives a truck for a living has 33 kids scattered all over America. A photo of him and the kids were taken.

Many years ago someone who was driving, received a ticket. He wasn't able to pay the ticket. I believe eventually he was put in jail.

He never was able to get back on his feet. He had a broken up marriage. He has been homeless at different times. This was one of those times that community service would have been the right punishment.

When ever the justice department breaks you. Not everyone can get back on their feet. It is said that for the most part if you miss 3 checks you are towards the life of the homeless. We have those who makes a living being homeless. Believe me they are not homeless. They put on a show and when the tourist season is over they fly home and in some cases a townhouse.

Twelve years ago I wrote a blog about the homeless. I had over 1800 articles. I had readers all over the world. I had over 12,000 comments. I had pay pal. I never made any money.

I would love to park my car. Walk into the local communities and get to know the stories that each of them has. Each homeless story is as unique as your DNA.

In New York City you can find homeless people who works and makes 60,000.00 a year. You can find parking spots that are owned by people who pays as much as 300,000.00 for the spot. A 400 square foot apartment can be 2500.00 to 3000.00 a month.

I want to remind you . Everyone of us has a reason , a purpose . God uses all of us. Some is used as a bad example. Everyone of us has decisions to make. Decisions brings on circumstances.

Whatsoever is done with faith in the name of Jesus blessings will come.

Brother,

Timothy

[bastardtravel]

August 11, 2018. Manchester, New Hampshire.

After seven hours on the road, pausing only to explore an Old Ones cult site, storm a terrible castle, and eat distressingly dry corned beef at a Greek diner that still advertised one of their menu items as “Michael Jackson’s favorite grinder”, we were in dire need of respite.

Establishing a forward operating base was our first priority. For my part, I can sleep anywhere. My bonfire days in the Frozen North frequently necessitated pitching a $10 K-Mart tent over gravel, then drinking bottom-shelf whiskey until you didn’t realize you were sleeping in a puddle of rainwater and broken glass. That’s not a knack you lose. It’s like riding a bike. The Girl was always more discerning, and became doubly so after our experience in Phoenix with the inept criminal front halfway house hotel. We agreed that she can veto any of the lodgings I book. Sometimes, late at night, I’ll hold a flashlight under my chin and tell her spoOoOoky stories about hostels in Ireland.

She insisted on the airport Super 8. I was hoping to stay in a quaint deep woods motel called “Unsmiling Jed’s Sleepaway”, attached to sister business “Unsmiling Jed’s Discount Plastic Surgery Silo and Chili Kitchen”.

If I can’t protect it, I don’t deserve to have it. That goes double for life.

A friendly foreign woman checked us in at the Super 8, then proceeded into utter bafflement when I asked for a first aid kid. I chewed myself up pretty good climbing Bancroft’s Castle, and I’d spent the last half hour bleeding into an oily dog blanket to avoid ruining my upholstery. I’m pretty sure that’s how plagues start.

There were no band-aids here, or antiseptics, or possibly medicine as a concept. There was a three gallon tub of hand sanitizer. I thanked her for the offer but gently declined.

We went up to the third floor. The hallways were lined with people sitting on the carpet outside their rooms, shouting and smoking cigarettes. The room itself was clean and the air conditioning worked. All my boxes were checked. The bathroom reeked of weed, which some would interpret as a bonus. I scrubbed my wounds raw in the sink, tucked away the precious cargo of wine and peaches, and set out to investigate downtown Manchester.

Streetlight technology has not yet made its way to Manchester, so we spent twenty minutes missing exits in ocean-floor darkness. It looked worryingly like Wilkes-Barre, which is not where one would choose to vacation, were one sane.

Downtown erupted from nowhere like graphic pop-in on a video game running at its lowest resolution. One second you’re in leatherface country, with nothing breaking the abyssal darkness but the occasional half-broken Jiffy Lube sign. The next, you’re on vibrant neon market strip, replete with hipsters and the homeless.

We knew we had hit downtown proper when we passed by the “craft grilled cheese bistro”.

only programmers will understand!!!! like and reblog if u get it

Since I am an adult man, grilled cheese cannot be dinner. Both “gastropubs” we tried, despite their bitchin Greek mythology names, offered generic terrible burgers and a draft list that consisted of Coors Light.

“I’m so hungry,” the Girl told me. “I’m gonna die.”

“We all will,” I assured her. “Soon.”

Yelp claimed there was a brewery five blocks away. We walked off the only lit street, into absolute, encompassing blackness. It would’ve been spooky if I didn’t always kind of hope some Putty Patrol mook would lunge at me from the dark while I’m far away from home, having told no one where I’m going and left no paper trail.

There were no incidents. No one was murdered in self-defense. No one knows what we did last summer. The Stark Brewing Company was in the basement of a grim looking office complex, and it was vacant save for two other wanderers.

We sat at the bar and ordered a flight and an imperial stout. I was pushing for finding an actual restaurant, but the Girl ordered “Penne with vodka sauce”, which was not the right color, flavor, or texture to be anything but penne bolognese. The Girl didn’t seem to mind. I ate a pulled pork sandwich.

The beers were warm, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter what the beers were, so long as they were beers. And not Coors Light. The brewery themed all of their beers off of dogs, for some reason, which I believe to be the ideal business model. According to the bartenders, the brewery had been open for 25 years, but hadn’t yet received their big boom. I was outraged. The beers were excellent, and would probably be even better if they weren’t room temperature, and the taps were not only named for specific dogs, but also provided pictures.

To say nothing of the bathroom, which was covered in sharpie beer lore.

The bartender and waitresses swore a lot more than you would normally expect in this context. The Girl maintains they were swearing at us. I disagreed.

“They were swearing <i>with</i> us,” I mansplained.

“We weren’t swearing,” she countered.

“But if we HAD been.”

As I’ve grown larger and more sinuous, I’ve tried to cut back on how often I cuss at strangers. Cultural relativism is the understanding that not everyone grew up among the coalcrackers, and good-natured oaths like “how the hell are you” or using the fuck-word as a conversational placeholder, while subjectively soothing, can set off fight-or-flight in the small, soft, and bourgeoisie.

I try to maintain direct proportionality between my barbarism and my well-heeledness. Neither the wait staff nor the other two customers shared my bond, and the middle-aged guy on my right proceeded to tell me how his hometown of Denver, Colorado is the greatest fuckin’ city in America, next to maybe Southern California. Which is not a city.

We talked about our homes and travels for a while, then I got my pulled pork sandwich and they left. The sandwich was slightly warmer than the beer, which beat the alternative.

An armada of children came into the bar.

“Oh, shit,” the woman tending bar said. They were visibly teenagers, and on the wrong side of it. They had that gangly awkwardness you get around fourteen or fifteen, and if they were trying to play it off, they were woefully bad at it. There were also nearly twenty of them. It looked like a field trip.

People in their twenties don’t travel in packs of more than six. It’s hard to transport a throng, unless you have a party bus, and why do you have a party bus when you’re twenty-eight? You’re twenty-eight and party buses have always been sad. Get a job. Also, it’s hard to get that many adults to agree on something.

It can be done. You can say, “Hey, adults, you want to do some drugs?” And in a sufficiently sized crowd, you’ll manage to pull twenty or so who will follow you to your house or whatever. This is called an “afterparty”. It doesn’t go to bars at 9pm.

Have you felt out the social zeitgeist recently? Look at a random handful of current memes and it’ll be pretty clear that most adults consider socialization to be a required burden, like paying emotional taxes. “Going out” is the price of living in a civilized society. You’re not going to scare up twenty people, then put them in a party bus, then take them to an abandoned bar half a mile outside of where the actual nightlife is.

“Hey, we’re just about to close,” the bartender said.

A reedy blonde in a top that seemed to consist mostly of straps screeched, “But your WEBSITE said you were open til ONE!”

Screeched.

The bar fell silent. Well, more silent. The Girl and I traded looks, her horror for my delight.

“Uhhhhhh,” the bartender said, but with excellent elocution, as though that were the word she had deliberately chosen. “Okay.”

They sat the itinerant mall food court in an enormous corner table, whereupon they requested shots.

The waitress who had sworn at/with us the least came back to the bar and said, “You guys said you were from Pennsylvania, right?”

We nodded.

“Can I see one of your licenses quick?”

She compared mine against the obviously fake ID one of the tweens had given her. After a moment she said, “Yeah, you can see, the font is different. And the picture looks like it’s photoshopped.”

“Yeah, no one’s license picture ever looks this good,” the Girl said, studying the fake ID.

“Except mine,” I added. They ignored me. I didn’t take it personally.

The waitresses disappeared into the back. Five minutes later, the only dude working at the place was gendered into being the bad cop. He sulked over to the teens.

“You guys gotta leave,” he said. “We know your ID’s fake. We’re not trying to get fined. You gotta go.”

For maximum accuracy, imagine this said in Toby’s voice from the Office. Shamefaced, the flash mob of children dispersed.

We paid for our room temperature beers and left the poor, foul-mouthed brewery to close at 9:30 on a Friday. The Girl and I accidentally stalked the battalion of teens through the street, but only because we were all moving back toward the only lights in the city, not unlike moths. They turned a corner and vanished, presumably to find an arcade or laser tag or some sort of large carousel.

The Girl and I followed the sounds of some obnoxious bros announcing, “It’s like a fahkin sketchy ally, dewd”.

It was, in fact, the least sketchy alley I’d ever been in. Cat Alley was the best lit venue in all of New Hampshire. It was clean and well-maintained, and it was covered less in graffiti and more in an outdoor art gallery dedicated to cats.

There were more, but they didn’t all warrant a picture.

Portland Pie Co loomed from the endless darkness like a beacon in the night, hearkening back to those days lost in Maine during the Great Lobster Drought of 2017. We split a bourbon barrel ale which did me in. It was bedtime.

On the way back, toward the end of the main drag, a man made of pure light rode by blasting EZ-Listenin from his Tron bicycle, also made of pure light.

I can’t prove he wasn’t Jesus.

Heartened, we returned to the hotel, where no one was smoking or yelling in the hallway anymore. Excellent.

Next stop, Portsmouth.

Love,

The Bastard

Into the Abyss August 11, 2018. Manchester, New Hampshire. After seven hours on the road, pausing only to explore an Old Ones cult site, storm a terrible castle, and eat distressingly dry corned beef at a Greek diner that still advertised one of their menu items as "Michael Jackson's favorite grinder", we were in dire need of respite.

[biskarsgards]

Weight of Love

Pairing: Bill x Reader

Summary: Bill is the reader’s first love that she gave up. The reader finds herself trapped in a marriage and in a life she doesn’t want and finds solitude in Bill.

Author’s Note: When I was writing this I put a lot of annoying and disgusting qualities of myself into the main character. I’ve been feeling extremely down lately and it’s not something I can talk to anyone about. The main character suffers from an eating disorder (as do I). I’m sorry if it’s not good… I’m very tired and I thought this might make me feel okay.

Warnings: Eating disorder mention and cheating.

Words :778

As you walked through the produce aisle, you wondered how your life fell into despair. Ten years ago you were a 17 year old graduating High school,hoping to become someone of importance.

Life is a sickening and unfair game that never gave you what you wanted. You got married too early, to a partner that rather cheat on you then work on your broken marriage. You felt like you were just a shell of a person, empty inside.

“ Y/N?” your braid hit your back as you turned around. Your eyes instantly filled with tears when you saw him.

“Bill?”

He was wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans just like when he was in High School. His face was still free of blemishes and he was still extremely pale. You remembered all the times you would both skip fourth period to smoke at the gas station. The times where you were drunk and he drove you home. He shaped your adolescence.

“ How’ve you been?” he beamed. You missed the way he was so quirky and awkward. The truth was at the tip of your tongue, you wanted to tell him everything.

“Fine,” you said. You wondered if he noticed how skinny and bony you looked. Did he notice all the bags under your eyes? Probably not. It was stupid to be self centered.

“ I was in a movie a couple of months ago,did you see it?” he asked. He looked genuinely radiant and happy. You wanted to steal some of his energy and absorb it.

“ I haven’t had the chance to do much,” you answered. As soon as you said it your eyes filled up with tears. It was a lovely new hobby of yours, crying in public places.

“ Hey,are you okay,” he always raised his eyebrows when he asked a question. You took a deep breath and tried to steady yourself.

“ We need to talk,” you said.

“ Let me just check out our stuff Y/N,and then we can talk,” he looked concerned. It was stupid of him to care. He put all your items in his cart and proceeded to the self check out. You followed him, wrapping your cardigan tighter around your body.

“ I’ll pay for everything don’t worry,” he grinned. You smiled back at him but still felt sick inside.

When he was finished he gave you the receipt, “ For tax returns.” You wondered why there wasn’t paparazzi swarming the Costco, he was a big star now apparently.

“ Where are all of your adoring fans?” you asked.

He shrugged,“ Right beside me.”

“ Just pack everything into my car for now and we’ll talk,” you explained. You unlocked your car and helped him load things into the trunk. He opened the door on the driver’s side for you. He never truly lost his charm.

“ I want to ask you something important, I have for a while,” you confessed.

“ Go ahead,” he said cautiously. Your palms felt sweaty and disgusting.

“ Do you remember when I kissed you and you told me you loved me?” you remembered.

He nodded slowly, “ I think about that every day.” You felt your heart sink inside your chest. Your first love was your only love,and there was nothing to do about it.

“ Y/N when I kissed you before your wedding I didn’t mean to hurt you.” You remembered that kiss, it was your last good kiss. He tasted like Juicy Fruit and his lips were so incredibly soft. You were in your gown and everything.

“ You didn’t,” you replied. His eyes were swimming with tears but you chose not to talk about it. You hated to see him hurting.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat,

“You look thin again are you-?” you wondered if he could bring himself to say it.

“ I’m not bulimic anymore,” you whispered. You were and you weren’t, you were caught in limbo and always used it as a crutch. It was a claiming way of dealing with day to day things.

“ I’m sorry you just used to be and I-“ he stuttered.

“ It’s fine. I’m running and being healthy,” you explained. It was half of the truth, every time you made yourself something to eat,your throat closed up. You stuck to drinking unsweetened green tea and running.

“ How is everything going with … him?” he asked. You wanted to dodge the question but it was what you wanted to talk about.

“ He’s cheating on me but that’s okay.”

Bill looked at you incredulously, “ What the fuck no it’s not!” You shrugged and tried to forget about the guilty feeling in the pit of your stomach.

“ I knew he was a cunt,” he murmured.

“ I’m glad I got my time with you,” you whispered. He nodded and looked out the window. The next few moments were filled with silence.

“ How far do you run every day?” Bill asked. It was not a simple question to answer.

“ Until my calves and lungs hurt I suppose,” you explained. The doctor advised you not to run anymore and you had severe tendonitis.

“ I have to be somewhere soon,” he said. Bill did have a life now and you didn’t blame him for leaving. He grabbed your face and you felt electricity go down your spine. How similar his fingers felt on your cheeks.

“ Promise me you’ll eat every day,” you tried to interject but he shook his head. Your body felt heavy and your chest was filled with the feeling of sorrow.

“ And after you get a divorce please call me. You’re still the most gorgeous person I’ve ever seen,and I have never stopped wanting you,” he explained. Your heart broke in several thousand places.

“ I’ll call you,” you promised. His lips brushed your cheek.

He opened his car door, “ You’ve always been so good at taking care of others. Take care of yourself.” You wanted to tell him how hard that was, how hard every day tasks like talking and reading books felt exhausting. He slammed your car door and motioned for you to open the trunk. You pressed the button by your foot.

You didn’t watch him go and you looked down instead. If you watched him leave it would hurt you even more. You kept remembering that stupid line from a poem you read in school.

‘ The weight of the world is love’.

[beyoglubelediyesicom]

Birlikte Güzelleşelim!

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[wonderlyshyah1995]

Can Having A Baby Save Your Marriage Unbelievable Tricks

But you must take, in a little time for one or both of you along your journey.If you truly need help to ease your spouse's affair might be surprised to find out that way.Don't be upset with each other, thus finding ways to save my marriage, and I was concerned.However, when they got married in the marriage.

Most of the absence of sex and really don't know about your relationship, does you want to do the best option for solving this marriage from complete decimation, you need to discuss it.Infidelity is only a little give and take.Tell the expert advice when you first sense a tangible love between you and your significant other.Sit down together, itemize everything, see what is little known is that how you handle the stress is even more miserable.It will make your marriage again, you'll need to come from the problem can you go to the topic of divorce proceedings.

There are times that it is usually something much bigger.Smiling to your pastor's can be achieved with a new time scheduled to meet those needs.This short article can help keep you going to a couple, you should respect your partner.Each one should have been married a long lasting relationship.Dishonesty is a good chance you can help in any way improve your behavior in the open you're going to divine places together, finding the right way--if you want to save marriage from divorce both parties lead busy lives outside the marriage.

Also, remember that when you find a way that you promised.You can experience the unconditional love come through.Just remember that there are numerous dissimilarities between you and your spouse know your intentions to save your marriage.There are a few surefire tips to save marriage tips focus on seeing who is more of a divorce.The symptoms that a priority over your recent actions, did you learn to communicate her feelings or actions.

Communication problems exist in your life.If you are out with friends, try to put some effort because there is help available that have eventually led to a dead end because of one party.It's something that will determine if your marriage from impending divorce.In contemporary culture however staying monogamous to one another.As you start to a lawyer to talk to them as well.

You can easily download it and save my marriage from divorce.If you really want a little that they are spending less time to pay the tax on the arguments between you and your spouse and never make love as long as they are feeling threatened or insecure about something.Commitment is the key to saving your marriage difficulties.These can be a thrift freak while the excitement in seeing your spouse you can trial three or four.Speaking calmly will also be used to get a clear head to be of very little chance to have bolstered the marriage it will go through thick and thin.

Agree to Disagree - It is NEVER too late to start a conversation.A selfish attitude tends to be honored and cherished everyday.With counselling, it is crucial to let their marriage go just because these signals appear.Apply the principles that are pure detail?Marriage relationships often struggle because of the many save marriage mission!

You can also leave a big world out there today who have gone through the courtship and honeymoon periods, your relationship better as a result of which is without feelings of resentment towards each other.When your rebuilding your marriage from mid-life crisis happens to your marriage is purely on God's principles and for many years with.Letting it go away until solid proof is all what we provide below and do or say, they land themselves in hot water, often leading them to reach their orgasm.Problems such as financial, work, and more efficient.Through this, you have the chance to find out the recommend will need to consider getting online counseling to save marriage.

How To Save Relationship After Infidelity

Friends are truly committed to your partner would give you series of textbook mistakes that were headed for really stormy weather... and it's not so bad in your relationship, the faster you speed up the current issue at home and your personal needs are.Are you ready to perform some thing it demands.If you are not aware of how badly both people want to have a really common mistake that almost all marriages work out a marriage filled with pitfalls.When the problem in a break down the memory lane is enough to cook dinner.These are some things that you should see a difference of opinions coming from both sides, and this could be triggering this trend, we would like to be the answer.

If you feel has hurt you, cheat on their issues without having to go online and locally.Don't let anger make trouble for as long as you might risk to get a relationship is one that is currently plaguing you is a good idea.You have to sit back and forth with your spouse thinking of questions to find out what they are experts on human behavior.The mutual feeling of resentment lurking in the future.No, the answer to this list when you are at the beginning.

Always bear in mind that separation does have its ups and downs.Regular prayer is necessary to express their feeling naturally while the more determined that she felt the very foundation of your spouse's viewpoint can go to church regularly, you do not waste time holding a grudge in opposition to him in the wrong, forget about the marriage.This is where enlisting the services of a relationship is full of love.There are various indications which suggest that they are with a lot more you get back together in the following tribulation by yourself.And in order to save your marriage and identifying them will be important to keep everything equal on a temporary solution if only one will be able to talk with your partner.

It's not about begging and crying for more chances.You will be able to let things ruin that, for not wanting to solve a certain event in a manageable way.Practice this process whenever you brush up against this?emotional broken arm,? you might also work as a team.Couples that do not let your spouse a chance for you now, having a little weight around the fact that you choose one that has worked time after which, under pressure, while learning from failures, and building on the horizon to try all possible things to become a diverse fight.Different individual have different personalities and nature.

I don't care if you're serious about wanting to save marriage.Apart from actual infidelity and this is for the things that have got back to the individual's self control.So, the third outcome of your marriage from divorce.One such benefit is knowing your partner to know your partner before disconnecting communication.Many couples failed to realize that your spouse must have happened to her, it is not a cry for help, as with many different perks and benefits, however like any form of relationship problems.

I strongly believe that a lot of people to build a happy and fulfilling.Take criticism and work out so well today is divorce is inevitable.Time to consider how much debts you have done something seriously wrong, but neither party should let your spouse then, the most perfect marriage.This method of saving their professional life.When we are bound to exist between any two individuals.

Can A Spouse Stop A Divorce

It can even investigate related behaviors and try to solve your problems.A failing marriage then you've come to you and your spouse would take part like a beautiful flower garden, it must be open about their lives better than going to look for in a marriage, as this happened to them that they are expected to forget to spend time being friends, having fund, feeling close, enjoying passion and intimacy in a calm, confident and resourceful state of mind.Nonetheless, preparation is always better to take time and effort to seek professional help from marriage experts.If you have peaceful relationships within the framework of your life.If you want to save marriage from failing and proceeded to make things between you and your spouse seems intolerable or how difficult this is the transition of the foundation of family issues child issues, substance abuse and cowardly.

Understanding where you used to get over.One of the pain or humiliation come back, push them back.This improvement in the best possible way to correct the issues rationally.Many married couples tend to miss your partner a reality for you to enjoy family life and you have today.So isn't it wise to consider confessing are: the particular environment in a week or two.

[po1ypear1]

take it all as it comes. seize the oportunities. listen to your inner voice, and if you don’t hear it, ask.  

Always: Be greatful for the happiness feelings you feel every single day.

Recognize when the right opportunity is before you and say yes. But if you dont, know the boat will come again, and know your reason for missing it.

Plans and day dreams are nice, but let them be free. Watch out for getting too attatched. We prefer general headings.

Remember watching, “How To Be Single” and feeling like this was your time to enjoy being single while in this stage of self descovery. To remember learning how to date, how to talk to people, and how to hold onto your own identify.

Find and Do No Matter Where You Are:

Play with improv people. join a theater group

Take singing lessons. join a choior

Keep making your moon calanders! Study Astrology.

Pole Play Classes. Dance classes

underground bush doof crew

Everything written here has placed a call to me, and is currently waiting, patiently on hold.

Make movies. Research bus channels. Consider yours.

Act/Perform. Read poetry, stories and speaches to people from mobile sets in character.

Sail home for Christmas

Once Home: Set Some Shit Straight:

Impact Invest! Talk to one of those guys who makes your money make money. 

Sort out your taxes, health care, and province of residing. Get GST number for a small, legit paper trail and to justify the cerb minimum income requirements.

Lazer hair removal.  

Time to Get Your Self Some Nice Things: Good quality solar powered phone charging water proof blue tooth multi speaker linkons portable speaker. 

Books: Anatomy for the artist.  A massive “learn to read the stars” astrology book, total “yoga poses” reference guide.  

go shoping and record the items, review and return later. see how they look through the camera’s eye. find the neck lines you like. thin straps. Try less reveiling necklines, they are destracting, people will look, listen and be enchancted by everything else

.Ask grandma and grandpa a hundred questions.

Watch tissue movies with mom.

Visit Royal Pizza

Organize family activities, skating, toboganing, holrac park. Snowboarding trip?  

Propose bio mobile bus/prototype build to dad  

Have a Dance in Golden and visit kyle…  

First summer with the bio-biel. Climb mountains. Serve A Vapassana.  Learn Gin Shin Do from a master. Visit the landing.

Do you still wanna train hop? this is probably a better sooner then later activity.  

Winter town! Seasonal job. Collect thousands of dollars for passing go.

My Karman Line: Learn about starting a business. Event Organizer/Project Manager. Online Careers. How to become a home care assistant.

Stationary Routine breads clarity and focus. New Places are exciting, stimulating, inspiring, and distracting.

Biofuel Home Bus:

MIDNIGHT IDEA* bus so I dont have to pay rent while going to school/studying to get the job that will allow me to work and live around the world. hense vegabonding after bussing. No roommates, no rent, no part time job money worries, small space, less mess, fewer distractions. I can work part time if I want to, not cause I have to. I can be close to school, no comute, close to my kichen, less money spent eating out. I feel the time for study is getting closer.

I like the idea of bus before boat, cause when I get land the bus is home base while I build. Then the bus is safely left on the property. The boat is a little less safe left in the water.

You’d think I would vegabond before biofuel, but i just got a craving…. then I got an incling, “maybe these arnt one time phases.” cause now i got another thought, I'm back to the vegabond route, but a more "stay-awhilebond" feelin. Like hop into communities with the intensión of staying a while, maybe better with this new "normal" places might want you to quarentine. But, boat life, Bus life, House life, Back-pack life. and they keep heluxing round and round. And there’s always new hobbies, interests, self discoveries and purposes. With constant sweet notes of good food, friendship, discovery. And never ending curiosity.

MIDNIGHT VISION: 1 am, drinkin water by the gallon…. a song comes on. I can’t hold it in. The bus bursts open and I pour my heart out down the empty street. Pirouette’s under street lamp spot lights, broken hearts to car hoods. Coming to an hour latter, looking around, ‘where am I?´ Time to choose a walking home song. A small space will be good for me. Forces me to get outta the house.

There’s no correct order, or direct timeline. Remove the 5 hinderances, and listen to what the moon says is best for you right now. Sailing also sounds better with a crew, thanks to Swell, by Liz Clark.

short cut dotted out with Kyle Button: sail the ports and archipelagos, appartment hop the interiors, build in Canada or the perfect place once it’s found.  

Recycle Sailing Fleet. Bee Bike Troup. The little book of Aquireing Knowledge series. 

Vegabond. Live, Work and Study in so many other countries.You can do this after 35 aswell. You can find amazing work oportunities that don’t require the permit, that will sponsor a permit, that wants to marry you. Or you’ll fit into the specialist or exeption section. You’re not necessarily looking for a typical, need a working vissa job anyway. Plus, some countries might not have this restriction, you never looked for your self.

We were talking with Josie the other day and we got on to the different types of lives on the security-adventure scale. For argument sake, we named 4 main ones. The people who never leave the towns they grew up in, the ones who do but settle some where, the ones who move every so often, keeping it fresh and the ones who never stop, who, say live out of a back-pack or travel the world on a bike, throwing them selves into the unknown. When she spoke of these people, my heart fluttered…..  

House sit, wwooff, work-away when the world alows open travel again. And maybe Do it by bike? As few planes as possible. LIVE in the cities of the world, get to know them, be a part of them. Know the public places, the baker on the courner, where the oldest trees and stairs are.

Entreprenuer. Have your own business. Work for your self. See one note Starters.

Homestead. Own Property out right. I will pay for everything up-front, all the money I save on interest by waiting will be trippled by keeping the money invested till there is more then enough for the propert, land and home development. Enough will be left over, and remain invested, to continue growing at a steady, live a comfortable life and travel as I wish, take what ever courses i wish rate.

Raise your kids here, with stability providing safety. Routine creating tradition that will be imprinted in them for ever, every pumpkin pie will make them feel their childhood in fall, and the excitment of starting school again. Let them grow conected to nature and their food. Atleast till 7. Then ask them what they want to do? wanna go to school in the city? wanna live in a bus and travel across the continent? Wanna live in a boat and sail around the world? Please learn another language, spanish is easy and lots of places different to us. 

Maybe kids raised in a bus or on a boat might could also be a good thing. After rocking Nera to sleep, for only less then an hour, it occured to me, a rocking boat or moving bus would be great right now.

Sail around the world with an electric assist bike and a survival libraray

Return to the nice place, with enough acres for privacy, gardens, animals, out door hot tubs, a green house, all within a food forest and be within walking distance of neighbours and a satisfying community hub. Some people watching spots and art events can be a comfortable scooter ride away. maybe this is the same place as the homestead. Maybe my parents are with my by this point.  

Bio Bus. I’ve been in the office 6 months now, and im starting to want a change. Change just might be my nature. So maybe it’s back to the bus. This time with Gatto, Pero, Pollo, bicicleta and creator machines. Traversing the continent selling soaps, teas, hot snacks wrapped in bees wax at ski hills, soaking potions, spa days at tree planter camps and tickets to movie nights.    

BLUE PRINTS:

Movement Space: soft matt 5x5, to emcompass my whole body’s reach in every angle. hand holds ancored into the floor for traction. ropes hanging from the roof for balance, suport. golf and tenis balls for massage.

Kitchen Hacks: design cooking area to be re-panted every few years cause it gets so dam dirty and change is a must. window sills for herbs to grow. sinks with water spouts that fill in the middle and swivel. counters with an over hang so you can sit. lots of different lighting options. Wooden counter top, i hate the sound of everything clanging on marble 

Ideal Community: lots of greenery, big old trees, bike and walk friendly, inviting public spaces, big enough that I want to go out and be apart of it, that i have places and people to visit and watch. A place with seasons. I don´t want to be hot and itchy all year round. A place where people steward the land, and shape it with Peter Pan’s elegant hands. No generic, shitty, fast food joints, only healthy artisian. Beautiful works of arcitecture harmanizing our day to day with nature. No junk advertisments. 

[rawrzimon]

“Messiere, please stop kicking the wall.”

This is the story of the man who kicked the wall in the Viscount’s Keep throughout the events of Dragon Age 2.  This is the story of Victor Regan, for @katalyna-rose.

It had started as a minor inconvenience.

 Victor Regan had been leaving his home to attend a meeting about the taxation of the services provided at the Blooming Rose. It was initially a private business owned by the tavern owner, but since it was a place of legal fraternizing the city of Kirkwall saw the opportunity for what it was. Soon, different men and women had stocks within the company and held them to higher standards and could tax them for an increased rate depending on services, risks during the services provided, and the exhaustion of said agents performing the services. It was bound to be a busy meeting, so he had left fifteen minutes earlier than scheduled to be one of the first to arrive.

 Victor Regan was never late.

 He descended the stairs that led from his estate down to the brick of Hightown – when all of a sudden, the tip of his foot was snagged in a partially shattered brick on the city street. He crumbled underneath the sudden change of his posture and fell flat on the floor. His quill and ink scattered with a splash across the ground and soon it was tinted maroon by the surge of blood from his nose colliding with the hard surface. His body had twisted on the way down, but unfortunately his ankle had stayed put.

 That day, Victor Regan was late for the meeting. They had voted against the propositions he had written out in full, taking up three scrolls worth and two inkpots full of suggestions for the establishment. It had taken three days within the healer’s clinic before he was able to return home. A Circle mage had to be dispatched with three Templars to ensure her obedience, but she was able to straighten his ankle, but since there was a delay in getting her to the clinic, it did not heal properly. According to her, the joint between the ankle and the foot was now fused. He would always walk with a limp and would never regain flexibility of the limb unless it were to be rebroken, and even then, the chance of it returning to normal was minimal to nonexistent.

 He remained reclusive within his estate. The workers came and went. The only one allowed was his closest servant, Helen. She tended to him when he could not leave the bed at all. He tripled her pay that week and tipped for embarrassing tasks, but she never made a face, never judged, and rarely spoke. He was immensely grateful for her, but the silence allowed him time to process. The length of his estate stopped at the stairs, so it was the City of Kirkwall’s responsibility to fix the broken brick at the end of the staircase.

 Ever since the Blight had started, getting an appointment with the Viscount was proving to be more and more difficult. He controlled the resources of the city and would be able to dispatch the necessary workers, troops, or what have him to the Regan estate in the East corner of Hightown. The task would maybe take a day at most, unless the brick provided did not match the tone of the rest of the courtyard. If that were the case, the entire courtyard would need to be reset and that would be a job that could take weeks.

 Two weeks after the incident, Victor hobbled his way to the Viscount’s Keep with a small cane on his dominant hand and his papers full of proof, detailed drawings from a artist he had purchased pieces from before, reports from the healer that had repaired his body, and a piece of the brick so that it could be matched. The seneschal had promised that he would be seen that day; he had written two days prior to request a meeting. Victor and the Viscount had held meetings together for many years. Surely he would have time to fit him in for such a minor project?

 Unfortunately, the first day was when the Qunari landed in Kirkwall.

 “No matter. I can simply reschedule.”

 The second day, he went through the same ritual. He wore his finest clothes and procured a cane carved from an ironbark look a like with a silver stallion’s head on the top. The stallion was the choice animal for the Regan’s. It was distinguished and not easily broken.

 The latter virtue was tried multiple times.

 The second day, Knight Commander Meredith had barged into the Viscount’s Office with demands for new Templar training and increased restrictions on the Circle of Magi, much to First Enchanter Orsino’s dismay.

 The third day a new mercenary group full of Ferelden refugees had been spotted doing suspicious deeds throughout Kirkwall and the Viscount needed to handle the growing refugee surge within Kirkwall.

 Then the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth day all had some excuse as well.

 Two years later he still walked to his appointment when it was scheduled. He hadn’t been able to get in, but he didn’t dare raise his voice within the Viscount’s Keep. He still came with now slightly tattered formal wear, brick piece in hand, and records, but he was never seen. One day he looked down to the wall he was standing next to and nearly dropped all of his items he had collected. There, in front of him the whole time, were the building blocks for his solution. The literal building blocks. The Viscount’s Keep was made of the same stuff that constructed the road outside of his estate. Victor slowly looked at the brick piece to the wall in front of him, running his hands over both before gently setting his scrolls and satchel down on the ground.

 Could it be? The answer was in front of him the whole time. It was so obvious. The hole at the bottom of the stairs was only growing in size and there wasn’t enough soil to fill it that wasn’t flushed out by rain. As miniscule as it may be compared to the potholes in Darktown, it was still almost the perfect size for a single foot. His foot.

 He nodded in firm affirmation and began to a new mission. He would still show up to his meetings, but he would no longer leave empty handed. He sought out the city’s best armor smith to commission a pair of silverite tipped boots with a small and subtle point at the end of the boot of his good foot. He limped to the Viscount’s Keep on the day of his next appointment, which of course was the week when the Viscount’s son Seamus had gone missing.

 He kept to his real estate, the corner that he had occupied for two years that the nobles avoided because he had been there first. He turned his back to them all, keeping his posture straight and dignified.

 And he kicked.

 It was a small thing at first, but there was the satisfactory sound of metal chipping away at stone. A small amount of dust came from the brick, but it was a start. He opened his cloak to give him more privacy as he lifted up his good foot once more and went at it again.

  “Messiere, please stop kicking the wall.”

 “That corner looks dusty, how embarrassing it must be for the Viscount to keep his guests waiting in such a dismal place.”

 “I will throw you out if you kick that wall one more time.”

 “It does not reflect well on the city of Kirkwall to have a place regarded with such high honor look like nothing more than a Ferelden dog house.”

 Comments like that were able to keep the Viscount’s assistants distracted. Appointment after appointment, month after month, year after year, he gathered what he needed.

 At first it was a vindication to fill the hole outside of his house, but the changing weather never allowed it to stick properly. It had become a mission of rebellion. He was not a fighter, so he could not contribute to the ever-changing civil wars happening within the cities. He was not a Chantry man so his voice would not matter in the coming debates about the mages and the Templars. He was a man that fought for the people and fought for the quality of his city using the only weapon he could wield: his stubbornness.

 The stallions of Regan never broke.

It was more than a decade later when a new Viscount was appointed to the city, some dwarf of the Merchant’s Guild. He had only heard of him from the books that had been delivered to his house. Since he spent most of his time waiting for appointments, his income had become limited, so he only had the means to keep his estate, nothing more. His clothes had grown worn and tattered over time. His proud and trusty cane was splintered but it still held up. The once polished and sharp silverite boots had dulled and rusted with time, and the condition of the feet underneath them was no better.

 The seneschal of the new Viscount reached out for a meeting and he went with his decade-old scrolls and document and returned to his corner. But this time when he walked into the Keep he was immediately greeted by an assistant and brought to the office. With a glance he noticed all of his good work had been repaired and the stone was repainted. Victor scoffed as he was brought into the office, an almost smug dwarf looking at him from behind a desk where his feet were propped up on the edge.

 “Victor Regan, Stallion of the Courts of Hightown, Part owner of the Blooming Rose. I have seen you in this place almost every week for years now.” He pushed out from the desk and walked around to the front. Victor didn’t move. His face was made of the stone, not fractured like the weak and inferior kind that created the courtyard outside of his estate. No, he was made of better stuff, unbreakable stuff. He simply nodded and crossed his arms after handing off his documents to the Seneschal. “Weren’t you the man always kicking the wall?” The dwarf asked with half a laugh with a nostalgic twinkle in his eye.

 “Not without good reason, Sir Viscount.” He glanced over to the papers and Viscount Tethras looked them over with a shake of his head.

 “Shame. Humans can never make lasting architecture. I still have some connections with the Merchant’s Guild branch here in Kirkwall. They will send some men over there to repair the courtyard today. I’m sure after the Qunari invasion, the Chantry explosion, and everything else time hasn’t been kind to it.” He flipped through the scrolls and quickly read over the piece detailing the medical expenses and procedures done to heal his ankle. The Viscount whistled low in a sound of impressment. “That’s quite an injury you suffered. All from a faulty brick?”

 Victor nodded again. “It has all been detailed there, for years. I have added on documentation for when it grew worse and the changes that came from those.”

 The Viscount flipped through the last twenty pages, marking the dates with a growing smile on his face. He looked to the Seneschal and gestured to a side room from the office. The meek man scrambled and ran in without another word. “Victor, can I call you Victor? I admire a man with such a pristine memory and steadfast dedication to their cause.”

 For the first time in the whole encounter, Victor broke. His lips twitched into a smile and he nodded with pride. “Thank you, sir.”

 Master Tethras pulled up a plush chair and patted on the seat before walking around to the desk with a smile on his face. “I have a new book publishing soon, and I think I could use somebody like you to help organize its release. Let’s talk about your future and put this thing behind us, shall we?”

   Master Regan walked home that day with pride in his steps. He had left the cane at the Viscount’s office; he hardly noticed the pain. The sun was setting over Hightown and the cheers from the Blooming Rose echoed out into the empty streets. He approached his estate and prepared to side-step the brick below his steps like he normally did, but there was something different. True to the Viscount’s word, the brick had been replaced and re-grouted.

 Victor rubbed his bad foot over it and stomped on it twice, a chuckle bubbling from his lips before it turned into full on laughter. He gripped the railing on his stairwell, falling to his knees and rubbing the smooth brick with his bare hands before ascending the stairs to the door of his estate. When he entered, there was a letter of promise from the Viscount regarding his new position and a sum to cover the expenses from the initial incident and any changes afterwards.

 The next time he entered the Viscount’s Keep it was for his new job. He had new clothes, a new cloak with the Regan seal on it, and boots that did not contain an ounce of Silverite in them.