#i’m a senior in college and the real world is fast approaching which actually makes me physically i’ll

[residentrookie]

.

[irwintry]

Garden Guru

Warnings: swearing

Author’s Note: i should rly work on some new stuff

Word Count: 6k

You didn't understand your mother's love for Gerber daisies. Personally, you were a petunia gal yourself. The yard had plenty of each, along with a million other flowers that had been purchased in spurts throughout the year. Ever since you could remember, the garage of your family home never housed cars, but pots and planters instead to contribute to your mother's love for gardening.

This "love" spread elsewhere by the time you were fourteen. She'd gathered enough money to buy out the old abandoned fresh food market on Locust Ave, and in under a year, the final renovations revealed a spectacular flower shop made with all kinds of love. The porch was filled with annuals and perennials, even succulents that you talked her into ordering. She asked you to paint the great big sign that would dangle from the entrance, and even though you've never been much of an artist, you complied. Betty Bloom Florals was now open.

While you were away at college, your mother ran the shop all by herself. She felt thankful for summers especially; sales were out the wazoo and you were there right by her side. When she wasn't managing Betty Bloom, she was offering herself off as a gardener for anyone willing to pay the fees. Her background in landscape landed her roles through the Parks and Recreation department of the town, which made it harder for her to "be the boss". Though she didn't necessarily sell Betty Bloom, it opened under new management. Now, she owned but never operated.

The yard of your childhood home was your favorite landscape design of all time. The patch of green by the back fence housed a willow with a tire swing younger Y/N used to love. To its left, a fairly large greenhouse (for a backyard, at least) sat, filled to the brim with flowers, fruits, and veggies. Just off of the porch, a stone path hugged by two ginormous flower gardens led back to the greenhouse.

The garden your mother created was the love of your life. When she couldn't tend to it, you took charge. She wasn't picky per se, but often, she'd tell you what she would have preferred. Nonetheless, she never complained. It wasn't just her garden; it was yours as well.

It was the summer before your senior year. Working was going to be the same as every year had been since you started high school, but those plans fell short when your mother asked you to help out with landscaping instead. You jumped at the opportunity; however, that meant more days cooped up at home in her office while the two of you tried to agree on many, many decisions.

You loved being the daughter of a florist/ gardener because most of the time, life felt so simple.

"Y/N?"

You hummed, stirring in your sleep as you dreamt about what you would be doing now if you had gone to Hogwarts. Would you be an Auror? Okay, maybe not. They're, like, the elite... You've got to be really good.

"Y/N!" That voice was no longer a whisper, and you were no longer thinking about wandering through the Ministry of Magic and glaring at the certain wizards you disliked.

"Hmm?" You blinked your eyes open, but they had nothing to adjust to. It was still pitch dark in your room. Maybe you were hearing things. You closed your eyes again.

"Y/N." It was your mother's voice. "I think there are kids in our backyard."

"Mmm kay."

"Y/N."

"What?"

"There are kids in our backyard," she repeated.

Your eyes shot back open, and you nearly sprung out of bed to take ahold of her arms. "The flowers!"

"Yeah, the flowers," she mocked, folding her arms meanwhile freeing herself from your tight grip. She glanced toward the window that faced the backyard and nodded towards it. "Maybe you can open your window and listen in."

"Won't they hear me?" you asked. Your stomach began to hurt; you had gotten up way too fast.

She shrugged. "Yeah, and? I think they're drunk. And, they're ruining our garden."

You liked that she said our garden, even though most of the gardening had been done by her before you came back from school. You huffed and stomped over to the window, kneeling down so you could get a good angle to open the window. You tried your best to keep quiet as you did so, but apparently, they hadn't heard a thing.

"Have you fucking found any?" one asked after a long moment of rustling.

"I can't see jack shit, Luke," another replied. "Get off my butt."

You looked back to your mother, even though she was barely a visible silhouette. The kids below had flashlights – off of their phones most likely, and they were shining all over the place. There looked to be about five or six separate people darting around the yard.

"I think I found so– Nah, sorry, it was an actual weed."

Behind you, your mother huffed. "I don't have weeds."

That was when it hit you. They didn't happen upon your yard randomly while trying to sneak out somewhere, they were trying to find pot. That was also something your mother didn't have (to the extent of your knowledge), so naturally, these drunk boys were trespassing for no real reason at all.

"That's what they want," you whispered.

"What?"

"They're looking for weed," you said. "Not weeds." You shut the window slowly and began in the direction of the stairs to the first floor. "You don't happen to grow pot, do you?"

Your mother gasped as she followed you. "Oh my gosh, you're kidding me! That's what they're looking for?"

"Yep."

You opened the sliding glass door with a loud bang, and immediately a bunch of distressed swears followed. A second later, you had switched on the light. Both you and your mom stood with your arms crossed, but when the light illuminated your backyard, only one perpetrator could be found. The tall blond boy was staring at the two of you, his eyes wide and watery, his mouth hung wide open. His hands were shaky as he held them up, meanwhile shining you right in the eye with his flashlight.

"I-I-I'm– I'm s-so– "

"What's your name, sweetie?" your mother questioned slowly, her tone sharp yet calm.

He swallowed, hardly moving anything but his mouth or head. "L-Luke."

"Ah," you chuckled. "You're Luke. Did you get off of that guy's butt?"

It would have been a better joke if Luke hadn't looked so damn terrified. A part of you wanted to shrug and tell him to get the hell out; he looked too scared to be guilty of anything. But then, you took a look at the garden. Your mother seemed to be on the same page, for she had to sit down on a patio chair to keep her heart from racing too hard.

"We're calling the police," you said, trying your best to sound stern. In reality, you wanted to go back to bed. You wanted to curl up under your sheets and go back to dreaming about live in the wizarding world, but now you were having to deal with a cute trespasser with drunk intentions just to find weed.

He began shaking his head, and even from far away, you could see his lip trembling. "Please, I'll– I'll do anything."

"I'm sorry, but– "

"Anything?" your mother asked. The question itself sounded as sketchy as it was written. She uncrossed her legs before standing up, her arms still folded while she stared this Luke guy down.

He nodded. He still hadn't moved otherwise.

"You've torn my garden to shreds for what– weed?" She had a way of scaring people without yelling, something you realized early on when you were a child. It was her discipline tactic. "Gardens don't take minutes to plant and grow, so my proposition for you is– "

"Anything," he said. "Promise." This poor Luke needed a break.

"I'll give you the tools, and you fix my garden back up just the way I had designed it." Your mom walked back to the sliding door. "Come back here tomorrow at nine in the morning. You're pulling everything."

"I-I... I don't know how to garden."

She shrugged. "Y/N will show you."

You had been nodding along, and the sentence almost escaped you. Your eyes widened as your head snapped in her direction. "What? No. This is all his fault." And his other friends' of course, but if you knew guys any better, you knew that there was no way he'd be able to get his other friends to help. They weren't in the kind of trouble he was. Surely, he was going to be pissed at them.

"You work for me, so I'm asking you to help him out," she whispered to you. "Look at those eyes. Maybe you'll fall for the felon."

You sighed and glanced back at Luke. His arms were starting to lower back to his sides, but his sad eyes were as large as Jupiter. You didn't want to admit that your mother made a convincing argument; now that you'd gotten a better look at him, he was as cute as a button. And, he was so freakin' tall. How on earth a normal human could look like the embodiment of Gumby, you had no idea.

You glanced around at the stirred-up hell he and his friends created, the anger bubbling in your stomach at the thought of the hard work you and your mom put into the garden. Now, you had to do it all over again, this time with a stranger that caused it all. But, your mom was right; you work for her.

"Fine," you said. "Nine tomorrow. Bring money. We've got a lot of shit to buy because of you."

He nodded, holding back a gulp as your mother prepared to head back inside. "Thank you." His voice had strained confidence in it, almost as if he was now trying to sound less-wimpy.

Truly, you didn't think he was a wimp. If you had been in his shoes, you would be terrified of getting arrested as well. The thing was, you liked the fact that he was scared. He deserved it for the mess he made.

You gave him a smile. "Don't thank us yet, Gumby."

-

You half-expected this kid to show up twenty minutes early (mostly because he looked so damn scared the night prior, so you figured he'd do anything to make it up to the both of you), but when he arrived at 9:30 in a flannel and jeans, you couldn't help but laugh. This was what you had to work with, someone who showed up late and in inappropriate clothing for the job.

"Are we going to like, Lowes or something?" Luke asked as he approached you on the front porch. He looked hungover and exhausted, but he was no longer in shock like he had been last night.

You slung your small backpack over your shoulder and brushed passed him without a second glance. "Sammi's Greenhouse. I hope you got a nice dandy playlist for the hour-long drive."

"Hour?" he questioned. He hadn't moved from his spot on the path to your house while you were now getting in the driver's seat of your car. "What the fu– "

You shut the door and turned on the ignition. When you looked back at him, he was rolling his eyes and finally making his way to the car. So, what? He was annoyed? You were dreading this now, and you were definitely going to text your mother a super long message once you arrived at Sammi's. By this rate, you were sure this garden would take the entire summer to manage. It would be too late by then.

"What are we going that far fo'?" he asked as he slid in the passenger seat. He made a face as he took in the interior of your car. Sure, it was somewhat messy, but Betsy had been through hell and back with you. "It's gonna take us all fuckin' day to get this dumb garden fixed."

"Listen, Gumby– " You took a breath as you began backing out of the driveway. "Clearly, you don't know shit about gardening, so how 'bout you start off by not speaking at all. Okay? You're damn lucky we're not reporting you. Suck it up and follow everything I do. You're already a pain in my ass and we haven't even left the neighborhood."

"Jesus... fine," he whispered as he began playing with the rings on his fingers.

"And, I hate to break it to you bud, but this dumb garden is going to take a little longer than one stupid day to fix," you continued. You were trying not to make your nerves known through your tone.

"What?"

Your eyes widened; his "what" had been so high and loud, you nearly slammed your foot on the brakes.

"How long's this gonna fuckin' take?" Meanwhile, as he spoke, he slipped on a pair of sunglasses that looked way too expensive to be worn in a car like Betsy. In fact, he looked way too expensive for Betsy. It made you wonder why he was scavenging around your garden for weed when he could most likely get as many grams as his dumbass wanted.

"Well," you said with a sigh, "to plant... maybe a week. Which, in all honesty, is the minimum approximate time I can give you. It's a big garden, and everything needs to be perfect to satisfy my mom. If one marigold is where a petunia should be, then I wouldn't be surprised if she threatened the police on you again. I mean, hell, Gumby, you all fucking dug up almost the entire garden."

"How do you know I didn't work alone?" he questioned, surprise lacing his tone. "Also, why do you keep calling me that?"

"What? Gumby?" you asked innocently. "You know Gumby, right?"

"That clay dude?"

"Yeah, you look like him," you said. You turned down Locust Ave.

"I do not."

"Hm, kinda do."

"No, fuck you, I– "

"Anyway, my mom and I heard you all from my bedroom." You didn't want to bicker with him at this early in the morning. "You guys weren't necessarily trying to be quiet."

"We were drunk." Luke had his entire body facing away from you as he watched the buildings go by outside. His fingers were drumming along the side while he spoke.

You chuckled. "Yeah, we know, dumbass." You took a short pause before continuing on with your previous thoughts. "But... not only are you going to help plant the garden, but I'm assuming my mom wants you to help tend to it too so you can count on being at my house a lot more than just a week, that's for sure."

"What the fuck," he muttered under his breath.

"Get some tunes ready, sweetie," you said. You certainly didn't like being around Luke, but you hoped to at least get along with him eventually. "It's gonna be a long road ahead."

Luke groaned but pulled out his phone nevertheless.

"So..."

"So?"

"You got a Pokey, Gumby?" You couldn't stop smiling.

He huffed. "Fuck off."

-

You knew the flowers your mother liked to plant off the top of your head, but apparently, it would have been helpful if you had written things down. On your own, shopping would have been fine; however, you were with Luke who had no idea how to tell the difference between hydrangeas and dahlias (which, quite honestly, you weren't that peeved about considering the fact that they were placed right next to each other in the greenhouse and the blooms were the same color).

"What do you think of these?" you asked as you glanced around at the pansies. It had already been about an hour since you arrived, and Luke was certainly having the time of his life as you took ten minutes picking out which flowers you deemed perfect. "My mom is kind of lenient sometimes when it comes to the flowers I prefer. Orange or blue?"

"Look, I literally don't– "

"Orange or blue?" you repeated, now agitated. He had been pissy ever since you arrived – well, he had been pissy all damn day technically.

"Blue," he replied. "How much is this all gonna be anyway? I don't need my bank callin' and askin' why I purchased a thousand dollars' worth of fucking flowers."

You shrugged. "Maybe they'll just assume you've actually found a passion for once in your life."

Luke clearly did not like your response. Not only had you avoided his question about the price, but you had also insulted his personality in a way. Granted, you knew nothing about him, so it was rude to assume he had no passions. Maybe he wanted to be an astronaut. He'd have to behave a bit better to get there.

"I'm in a band," he seethed. "I'd honestly rather be in jail right now than be here with you."

You laughed, but it stung. Laughter was your coping mechanism. Humor – in general – made you pretend to feel better about a lot of things. "'m sure bail is much more than this garden will ever cost, sweetie."

"Okay, don't call me that," he said. "Again, how much is this going to be?"

You tried to think back to previous years while you eyed the impatiens. According to your mother's garden plan, you needed a lot of those. You hadn't gone shopping with her since before college, and now you were nearly about to start your last year. Her garden designs had certainly changed since then, but you couldn't imagine the prices being too terribly different.

"A few hundred," you answered honestly. "Not more than five, I believe."

You couldn't tell if he believed you, but he stayed silent for the first time since the two of you met completely sober this morning. Luke rubbed his eyes and pushed the cart closer to you so you could begin loading a few plastic pots. Poor old Betsy would not be able to handle this load, so, like in years past, you would have to get Peter to transport a few as well.

Peter was a friend of your family's. He had been working at Sammi's for as long as you could remember, and ever since you and your mom became garden goddesses, he had been helping you out. Most often, he'd take the heavy load of flowers or bushes in his pick-up, and then you'd give him a generous tip at the end. Even though Luke was paying for the whole purchase, you were going to give Peter the tip for personal reasons.

"'m not sure this is even legal," Luke mumbled after a few quiet minutes.

You winced; you had been hoping for more silence. "What?"

"You should've taken me to court," he said, "and then you could've given the judge an alternative. According to the law, 'm not sure you and your mum can make the rules."

"You scratch our back, we'll scratch yours."

"Don't think that's the case, darlin'," he replied, and he even cracked a smile. That was the first time he had given you a genuine smile that wasn't a fake or mean laugh of some sorts.

You put one foot up onto the cart and began pushing with the other so you could ride with it. The weight of the many flowers kept the whole thing from tipping over with you. Behind you, Luke muttered a "Jesus" under his breath, but he laughed anyway.

"You do it, too, Gumby." You nodded towards his own cart – also full of flowers. It was most likely time to start loading the car before coming back for more. "Make fun of this escapade."

He simply shook his head as he unbuttoned his flannel one or two times. "There's nothing fun about this escapade. I wouldn't even call it an escapade. And, dunno if ridin' a damn cart like a four-year-old will make it any better."

You shrugged again. "Not with that attitude." You were kind of surprised with how well you and Luke got along, despite the fact that it appeared you two disliked each other strongly. Truthfully, you were starting to like bantering with him, and you could tell he was lying about not having fun. At least you were having fun. "Hey, can I ask ya somethin'?" You sped down an aisle, kicking the concrete as if you were riding a scooter.

Luke trailed slowly behind you as he said, "you just did."

You rolled your eyes. "Okay, stupid. Whatever. Why were you and your friends in our yard anyway? Why did you think we had weed?"

"Someone pranked us, I think," he answered and pulled his cart up next to you. "Need geraniums?"

"Yes, thank you." You eyed the many colors and began picking the pots up one-by-one.

"Mhm."

"Pranked you?" you asked, picking up a pot of lavender-colored geraniums and putting them into your very full cart. "How so?"

Luke let out a cough. It sounded like he was clearing his throat, but it came out much louder than he probably suspected. "We were tryin' to find some at this party because my friend Cal's dealer didn't show, and this one dude gave us the address to your house because he said the owner's – you and your mum – grew some. Think he just knew you both loved gardening 'n shit. I do feel terrible."

"'s quite a story," you said. "Ya looked fucking guilty last night, so I get you're sorry. Sorry you have to endure all of this with me."

He chuckled softly. "You're all right, I guess. I just don't know shit about gardening."

You set one last geranium into your cart and turned to Luke with a great big grin. "I'm the garden guru, sweetie. Just wait, by the end of this summer, you'll know everything there is to know about gardening."

"Again, don't call me sweetie."

You sent him a wink. "Let's get ready for round two, sweetie. Time to buy some bulbs."

-

The first week went better than you had imagined it to. Luke finally knew how to dress appropriate for gardening and hot weather, and the two of you no longer sent each other glares when the other said something wrong. At least, by this point, you both knew what not to say.

You were glad a portion of the garden had been salvageable. Some of the perennials were still a-okay, so you didn't have to buy as many bulbs as you did with buying pots of annuals. However, you did have to buy a shit ton of soil because your mother insisted that the other was soiled. She joked about it, but you were somewhat annoyed because that was more work than needed.

So, the garden was looking... better.

Luke could only work in the mornings due to his actual job in the afternoon, which meant that not a lot would get done. On the days he was late, his presence felt pointless. It took over a week to actually get one thing planted. He and his friends had unrooted nearly everything (aside from that one portion), plus the greenhouse was a fucking disaster.

As a token of your mother's gratitude, she offered you up to make Luke lunch on the days he was working. While you weren't happy about it, you did it nevertheless. He hadn't put up a fight since the proposal was offered the night he trespassed. His attitude surely sucked sometimes, but he did want to make it up to the both of you. The least you could do was feed him.

He met your dog Bubbles on a Tuesday. Your dog was nervous around people, so it was a slow introduction that ended in Luke being attacked with kisses. It shocked you at first. In all of your years of owning Bubbles, he had never once been fond of any of your friends. You hoped he liked Luke solely because you weren't friends.

"Why do you have animal crackers?" he asked on a Friday morning. It had been two weeks since he began helping to fix the garden. A lot of things had been planted, and the next plan was to figure out where to get replica items for your mother's old fairy garden. "And, what are Whales?" Luke tossed you the box of Cheez-It's you had asked him to reach for you since he was standing, and the food was in the top cupboard. "Why do you need these many crackers?"

"Stop being mean," you whined with a pout. "Those are the frosted animal crackers, and they're good. And, you have to try Whales. They're like better Cheez-It's."

"Then why are you eating Cheez-It's?"

"Shut it, Gumby."

Luke mocked your tone with incoherent words but he still opened the box of Whales. You watched as he took a few in his mouth, and you waited for his reaction after he finished chewing.

He hummed. "Not bad. Not better than the white cheddar Cheez-It's though."

"Oh no," you gasped. "You like white cheddar? Have fun in jail."

"Ha-ha." Luke turned to the fridge, but before he opened it, he examined the magnets and pictures on the front. "Is this you?"

"Hm?"

He held up the picture of a little girl – you – holding up two lollipops with a cute grin on your face. You were always told that you wore your happiness well as a child. You had been so excited to win lollies in school that your mother actually kept the picture.

"I won a spelling bee," you said. "Got two lollipops as a reward."

"Huh, cool."

"The final word was knives," you chuckled. "I don't know why I remember that, but I also remember feeling confused as to why the other kid didn't know how to spell it."

Luke set the picture back under a magnet and opened the fridge. "You were cute," he said as he pulled out a yogurt. "Can I have this?"

You nodded. "Did you just compliment me, Gumby?" You pretended to be shocked, even faked a gasp, but you actually were kind of surprised he had said that.

"I said were, darlin'," he replied with a smirk. "Why would I compliment someone who calls me Gumby?"

"It's endearing."

"Not one bit, Pokey."

You let out another gasp, except this time, this one was as real as climate change (which is very, very real). "I'm your Pokey? I'm so honored."

Luke rolled his eyes as he peeled the film lid off of the yogurt. He didn't reply, but he smiled. To you, that said enough.

-

You started noticing your feelings right when the two of you were finishing up planting. The garden wasn't flourishing as of yet, but for the most part, the dirty work had been done. Now, all Luke had to do was visit in the mornings to water. You honestly believed that he enjoyed this work now. He no longer complained, nor did he whine or groan when he had to bend over. He even stayed longer into the afternoon even though you were positive he had another job.

He laughed at your jokes. Your dry, corny humor couldn't please a child, but he laughed, and it felt genuine. His eyes would crinkle, and the harder the laugh, the higher the pitch. It made your heart swell. It was because of his laughter that you were able to recognize the feelings it gave you. And, it sucked.

Most of all, it sucked because your mother was right.

You were falling for the stupid felon.

"Did you ever tell your friends off for leaving you that night?" you asked. You were nibbling on a granola bar while Luke was turning on the hose. "If my friends did that to me, I'd probably– "

"No," he said sharply. He began watering right away, his hand tight against the handle of the spray nozzle he had been forced to purchase. Somehow, someone had snapped the handle on the old one the night of the trespassing. "'m not very good at talking to people about stuff that upsets me."

"Does that upset you?"

"What, that I can't talk to people about what they did wrong?" he questioned.

You nodded.

Luke shrugged as he wandered over to the bushes by the fence. "I guess."

"Well, there ya go!" you exclaimed. You set down the granola bar wrapper on the table nearby, and afterward, you nearly tripped on his glorious stonework on your way over to him. "'s solved. Now you can address it."

He sent you a playful glare, and you could tell it was playful because of the small smirk that had adorned his face. He had a beautiful smile, you had to admit. It was accompanied by a damn good pair of lips as well. You especially liked making him smile.

"'m not good at anything, really," he mumbled. "Singing... I guess. Shit at gardening and shit at feelings."

"Okay, first of all," you started, "you were shit at gardening. You had me so you're pretty damn good now, I would say. I can officially give myself a pat on the back for that one." You were beaming. Talking to him made you happier than you wanted it to.

Luke pushed his curls back from his forehead, giving you a perfect glance at his ring-clad fingers. He even had his nails painted a dull red. The color had started to chip, but it suited him nonetheless. "You givin' me a compliment?"

"Oh, no," you said, shaking your head. "I'm giving myself a compliment."

Luke shook his own head as he started to cackle quietly. Suddenly, he had the hose turned on you, and you began to shriek as his laughter became the cute squealy laughter that made your insides burn.

"Fuck, fuck!" You started to run around, but Luke was hot on your tail as he changed the settings on the nozzle. What had been the shower setting was now the jet setting, and you were being pelted. "Ow, you dummy!"

His giggles only got louder as he hit you with the cone setting, and at least the water on that one hurt less than the fucking jet. "Slow down!" he shouted after you. "I've missed a spot on your ass." He cornered you by the greenhouse, and just as he thought he had gotten you good, you were able to grab the hose from his slippery grip. Luckily, the hose was long enough to reach this far back in the yard.

"Payback, bitch," you said with a grin as you sprayed him. You expected him to run away as you had done, but instead, he stepped closer to you.

His laughter died down only slightly, yet you hardly noticed the change before he closed the space between the two of you. The water hit him directly in the stomach as his hand found the back of your neck to pull you into him. Your lips met in a sloppy yet comforting kiss, the kind of first kiss that people talked about for years. It was like kissing in the rain, but also completely different at the same time.

He pulled away almost as fast as he had initiated the kiss. His hair was hanging in his eyes, the strands dripping wet as he wiped the water off of his nose. That only caused you to aim the water at his face as another fit of giggles erupted through your body.

"Gonna fuckin' get you for this," he muttered, taking you by the waist and hoisting you over his shoulder.

"No, no, no!" you shrieked, hitting his back and spraying his butt with the jet setting.

"Hey, that's inappropriate," he whispered into your ear.

You lifted the hose again, hitting him in the face once more. "Eat my butt, Gumby."

You did not mind falling for the felon one bit.

-

You saw Luke less after that. It was partially due to the fact that the garden had been finished, and all he needed to do was stop by and water them. But, he never stayed to talk. This not only crushed you but made you resent letting yourself open up in the first place. The steady banter had been comfortable, and you should have kept it that way. You let yourself fall for someone who wasn't ready for anything in the first place.

You wanted to believe that you spoke too soon the day he pecked your lips goodbye. He made sure to wink and wave on his way out, yet somehow, your heart fell deep into your chest. Someone who didn't want to give you everything wasn't worth your time. Luke said had a tendency to avoid talking about things that upset him, but you weren't going to let yourself do the same.

"Hey, Gumby," you said, your tone a little too harsh as you approached him one morning.

He had taken his shirt off due to the incredulous heat index of the day, and it was only ten in the morning. He turned as soon as he heard your voice. "Hm?"

"Do you have feelings for me?" you questioned. You weren't going to sugarcoat anything. You wanted the answers as straightforward as possible.

Luke released his grip on the handle of the nozzle. "What?" His eyes had widened slightly, and if he hadn't already been red due to the heat, you would have assumed the question made him blush.

"Do you like me? Are you into me? Would you fuck me? Just let me know."

He blinked rapidly. "Why are you asking all of this?"

You shrugged, but you knew why you were asking all of this. You let out a laugh before you continued. "Because you fucking kissed me, you dumbfuck. You kissed me twice, and that was it! You've hardly talked to me since. Were you just doing it because you knew I liked you? Or do you actually fucking like me back?"

Luke dropped the hose and ambled towards you, his long legs taking him to you in under a second. Both of his hands grabbed hold of your cheeks as he pressed his lips to yours. The kiss grew heated in a matter of milliseconds. His tongue slipped in between your lips before you could register what had even happened. You felt warm all over, and it wasn't because of the hot air.

His lips left yours a moment later, slipping away with a filthy pop before he began kissing along your cheeks and forehead.

"What does this mean?" you whispered lowly and gripped his wrists loosely.

Luke retracted, looking right into your eyes so he could say exactly what he wanted. "It means I like you back," he responded. He swallowed thickly and pressed another quick kiss to your lips. "And, I'm bad at feelings," he whispered, "so I'm sorry I did that to you. 'm really sorry."

His hands found your waist as he started kissing you again. You wound your fingers in his long blond curls, not even worrying about how sweaty they might be. You couldn't find it in yourself to worry about anything but how well you were kissing him. Your lips were numb as he pulled away again, and you found yourself glancing down at his exposed chest so you wouldn't have to look into his eyes.

You were too giddy, but looking at the hairs on his chest was not helping your case one bit.

Suddenly, Luke was bending over and reaching for the hose, quickly turning it back on and spraying you like had done a week or two prior. His loud giggles filled the air, and even though you were screaming for dear life, you had never felt happier.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WRITING, MANAGER'S SCHEDULE, STUPID

Or we can improve it, which usually means encrusting it with gratuitous ornament. Working slowly and meticulously is premature optimization.1 I'm told it derives ultimately from Marvin Minsky, in the worst case it won't be for too long. But that approach is very risky. And because startups are in this sense doubly valuable to acquirers, acquirers will often pay more than an ordinary investor would. So you want to start them. So whatever it costs to establish a mediocre university, for an additional half billion or so you could have a great one. Audiences like to be flattered; they like jokes; they like to be swept off their feet by a vigorous stream of words.2 They're like a food that's not merely healthy, but counteracts the unhealthy effects of things you've already eaten. Just have building codes that ensure density, and ban large scale developments. And if the answer is a thousand than if it's ten.3

That may be what public speaking is really for. But because he's sitting astride it, he seems to have done ok. A nerd looks at that deal and sees only: pay a fortune for a small, dark, noisy apartment. Historically there have always been certain towns that were centers for certain industries, and if you're smart your reinventions may be better than what preceded them. If investors are easily convinced, the startup never happens.4 That was all it took to make the software easy to use. Because they come at the end of that year we had about 70 users. A startup with the best people. Hard, but doable.

After the lecture the most common form of failure is running out of money while you're trying to decide whether to start one it's important to understand that.5 It's practically the standard ending in blog entries—with the addition of a heh or an emoticon, prompted by the all too accurate sense that something is missing. You must feel really tired. The startup hubs in the US knows what it means. As in science, the hard part is seeing something new that users lack. The competitors Google buried would have done them already. We both had roughly zero assets.

In that case, you might ask, why not wait longer? The guys with kids and mortgages are at a real disadvantage.6 I was disgusted by the idea of having a lot of experience themselves in the technology business. Google, but the trouble is, they're not drifting. Why are they so hot to invest in a startup.7 You have to get them beaten out of you by contact with the real world. Professional means doing good work, not elevators and glass walls. A lot of startups involve someone moving. Keep doing it when you start a startup.8 Blue staters think it's subjective, and red staters think it's subjective, and red staters think it's for sissies.

Where the just-do-it model is fast, whether you're Dan Bricklin writing the prototype of VisiCalc in a weekend, or a carefully cropped image of a seacoast town in Maine.9 For example, in a recent essay I pointed out that because you can only manage 1%, it's a sign you haven't yet figured out what you're doing, you can compose expressions however you want. But it certainly wasn't true, and hadn't been true for centuries, that students were serving apprenticeships in the hottest area of scholarship. But I don't wish I were a better speaker like I wish I could say that force was more often used for good than ill, but I'm not sure where I'm heading. Could Americans have nice places to live without undermining the impatient, hackerly spirit you need to know about you and don't want their money, because a lot of good co-founders meet is at work. But should you start a startup? It's as if a chunk of time to try to discover something no one wants. What happened to Don't be Evil?

Google's case the most important thing that the constraints on a normal business protect it from is not competition, however, you're in a powerful position.10 Starting one is at first no more than commitment. The essential task in a startup, but what they want to live at the office in a startup hub, because economically that's what startups are. This won't work for all startups, but most reduce to this: look at something people are trying to do in an essay. That was as far as I know has a serious girlfriend, and everything they own will fit in one car—or more precisely, will either fit in one car or is crappy enough that they don't mind leaving it behind.11 Silicon Valley. If you've lived in New York, where people walk around smiling. For nearly all of history the success of a society was proportionate to its ability to assemble large and disciplined organizations.12 If you think investors can behave badly, it's nothing compared to what they pick up on their own internal design compass like Henry Ford did it to the manufacturers of specialized video editing systems, and now Apple is doing it to the manufacturers of specialized video editing systems, and now Apple is doing it to the expensive models made for professionals. If two companies have the same revenues, it's the company's growth rate.13

So the real question is not what growth rate successful startups tend to have.14 Another thing you can do in a startup. In fact, I could see them thinking that we didn't count for much. What's the difference between Google and a barbershop. There you're not concerned with truth. The good news is that the customer doesn't want what he thinks he wants.15 Perhaps high schools should drop English and just teach writing. That's the connection between technology and liberalism. Several times a week I set aside a chunk of time to meet individually with all the other seniors; no one regards you as a failure, because your own personal bias points in the same way the classic airline pilot manner is said to derive from Chuck Yeager. A startup that grows at 1% a week will grow 1.

Notes

Even the cheap kinds of work have different time quanta. I don't want to lead. But let someone else. Steve hadn't come back.

This was partly confidence, and 20 in Paris. Down rounds are bad news; it is because their company for more than just salary.

Otherwise they'll continue to evolve as e. This phenomenon will be as shocked at some of those things that's not directly exposed to competitive pressure, because it was the least experience creating it. 5% a week for 4 years. Dealers try to avoid becoming an administrator, or can make things very confusing.

Siegel points out that taking time to come if they seem to be a lost cause to try, we'd ask, what that means having type II startups, you can't distinguish between selecting a link and following it; all you'd need to run an online service. A professor at a 5 million cap, but they're not influenced by confidence. Public school kids at least one of these companies wish they weren't, because the remedy was to reboot them, if you start to finance themselves with retained earnings till the Glass-Steagall act in 1933. Or it may be a product of number of restaurants that still require jackets for men.

College English Departments Come From? Trevor Blackwell points out that this had since been exceeded by actors buying their startups.

The reason not to make programs easy to write it all yourself. Microsoft itself didn't raise outside money, and others, and it introduced us to Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, both of which he can be useful here, because some schools work hard to say because most of the things attributed to Confucius and Socrates resemble their actual opinions.

This prospect will make developers pay more attention to not screwing up. All you have to. Eric Horvitz.

Emmett Shear, and as an adult.

It's unpleasant because the kind of intensity and dedication from programmers that they imitate even the flaws of big companies weren't plagued by internal inefficiencies, they'd be called unfair.

And no, you can talk about it.

How much better that you can't tell you that if the similarity extended to returns. Put rice in rice cooker and forget about it.

Even though we made comparatively little from it, this thought experiment: set aside for this type are also much cheaper when bought in bulk.

I use. But no planes crash if your goal is to do, just those you can see how universally faces work by their prevalence in advertising. You're going to give up your anti-dilution provisions also protect you against tricks like a headset or router.

When you get bigger, your size helps you grow. Trevor Blackwell presents the following scenario. Maybe at first had two parts: the attempt to discover the most famous example. Whereas the value of a social network for x instead of using special euphemisms for lies that seem excusable according to some abstract notion of fairness or randomly, in the sort of mastery to which the top VCs thus have a moral obligation to respond promptly.

And frankly even these companies unless your initial investors agreed in advance that you're being starved, not because it's a bad idea was that the stuff they're showing him is something special that only a sliver of it, there is one of these groups, which have evolved the way investors say No.

[your-dietician]

Gov. Pritzker signs NIL bill at State Farm Center

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/ncaa-football/gov-pritzker-signs-nil-bill-at-state-farm-center/

Gov. Pritzker signs NIL bill at State Farm Center

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Vederian Lowe remembers sitting in the dorms as a younger player on the Illinois football roster and joking with his teammates that though money flowed into universities and towns based on revenue from the football team, they never saw a dime of it. Yes, they received full-ride academic scholarships, stipends and food — and that’s not to be overlooked — they couldn’t do anything to cash in on their own name, image, and likeness.

That changed on Tuesday at the State Farm Center where Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law SB 2338, the Student-Athlete Endorsement Rights Act, to allow college athletes in the state of Illinois to profit off of their name, image, and likeness beginning on Thursday. It’s a fast-moving change to the college athletics landscape and one that will put money into the pockets of student-athletes in the state as they build their brand.

“With this law, Illinois is at the forefront of taking some pressure off of some talented kids who are torn between finishing their degree and cashing in on the big leagues,” Pritzker said. “But to be clear, the benefits of this law don’t stop at kids bound for the NFL or NBA. Any student-athlete can partner with businesses in their college towns, as well as brands big and small to see financial benefit from the hours they pour into their craft. This isn’t just a win for student-athletes, it’s a win for the future of our entire state.”

Pritzker was flanked by Lowe, Illinois women’s basketball player Eva Rubin, men’s basketball player Trent Frazier, men’s gymnast Dylan Kolak, Illini athletic director Josh Whitman, university chancellor Robert Jones, former Illini football player — now a state representative who sponsored the bill — Kam Buckner, soon-to-be Northwestern athletic director Derrick Gragg, DePaul athletic director DeWayne Peevy, and others.

“This is something we’ve all been dreaming of and now it’s reality and we’re very grateful for that,” said Lowe as he spoke during an hour-long press conference. “This is all something that we think that we deserve and we need. We put countless hours in. It doesn’t matter what sport that we’re in, whether it’s football or basketball, track and field, volleyball, swimming, any sport, we all see each other and we all know the amount of work that we put in to try to become national champions. This is something we’re very excited about and we’re glad the moment is finally before us. …. This is a historic change and it will change the way collegiate sports will be viewed for years to come.”

According to Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger, Illinois is the 14th state that has NIL laws going into effect on Thursday. On Wednesday, the NCAA is expected to approve an interim policy that allows all student-athletes to monetize their name, image, and likeness, regardless of state legislation.

But on Wednesday, Pritzker, Whitman, Illinois speaker of the house Chris Welch and Buckner each touted Illinois being at the forefront of the legislation. Student-athletes, according to state law, will be required to disclose all of their endorsement deals to the university and the university has partnered with the app Opendorse to help streamline and create a smooth process for endorsement deals.

Buckner was the co-sponsor of the bill and was back on the campus where he played college football and where his own beliefs about student-athlete compensation changed after a trip to the mall with former Illini running back Pierre Thomas. A jersey on the rack was clearly meant to be Thomas’ jersey but he didn’t have the money in his own pocket to buy it and would never see the money from that jersey sale. Buckner’s beliefs began to shift about athletes’ compensation.

Though Illinois athletes won’t be able to represent the school — they cannot wear any Illinois gear or identify themselves as an Illinois student-athlete in these endorsements — plenty of opportunities will exist to put money in their pockets.

“This bill is about equity, it’s about parity, it’s about autonomy, it’s about fair market, it’s about the legal tenet that we call the right to publicity,” Buckner said. “But more over this bill is essentially about fairness. Fairness. Fairness. Fairness. I really feel fortunate to be able to have led this fight just 14 years after I took off my Illini uniform for the last time.

“The Illinois Student-Athletes Endorsement Rights Act modernizes the college athletics landscape. This bill is long overdue. What we are signaling here is we cannot continue to economically suppress these young people while they infuse tremendous amounts of money into our economies. I want to be clear: This is not just a win for the star quarterback or the star point guard. This gives the women’s tennis player the opportunity to be compensated for teaching lessons back in her hometown during summer breaks. This creates an apparatus for the women’s softball player to lend her image to the local pizzeria for fair-market value.

“We’ve seen states around the country begin to address this issue and rightfully so, but I’ll be clear that this is the most comprehensive and forward-thinking legislation in the entire country that addresses this issue.”

According to the Chicago Tribune, the bill “would prohibit college athletes from promoting sports betting, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, vaping products, adult entertainment or any other product ‘considered to be inconsistent with the values of a postsecondary institution’ or which would bring ‘embarrassment, scandal or ridicule’ to a college or university.”

Some student-athletes have gotten a jumpstart on making it known their services are open for business come July 1. Frazier has been active on social media, urging companies to reach out to him for potential endorsement deals. Thanks to an NCAA rule that granted an additional year of eligibility because of the COVID-19 pandemic Frazier, a fan favorite, has one more year in Champaign and plans to cash in on the brand he’s built over his first four seasons. He said he’s been preparing for two weeks on the best way to approach July 1 to maximize his exposure.

“I’m a businessman now,” Frazier said. “Obviously with the bill passing, like I said, I’ve been working for two weeks now. I wanted to take full advantage of this opportunity and use it and not take it for granted. Obviously with this being my last year, I wanted to make the most out of it. Obviously taking care of my family. I want to be able to have some money in my pocket that I can give to my parents. I’m just trying to set myself up for after this until I see what my next step in life is.”

Rubin, a senior on the women’s basketball team, is a Type 1 diabetic. She’s spent time volunteering and in internships with the American Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Those are fulfilling in their own rights. She met a seven-year-old while she played at Arizona State who wasn’t sure if he could play baseball because he was diabetic. A year later, the child’s aunt found Rubin in a mall and informed her that he was playing baseball again following their conversation. Those talks matter and can happen without NIL, but the new law allows her to continue to build her platform with the potential to make money at the same time.

“Those were all volunteer things, and I love to do that stuff,” Ru bin said. “But now I’m at a point where, OK, maybe the company that makes my insulin pump or the company that makes my glucose monitor — I can’t really play my sport without those two things — maybe they want me to post on Instagram and show other diabetic athletes, ‘Hey, this is what I use so I can play collegiate sports and you can do it too.’

“… It was really exciting. I know myself and my fellow student-athletes, we thought right away of a couple brands or a couple companies that we love or we would love to work with, and it’s different for everyone. We all have our own little things outside of our sports world that are really important to us so now this is another bridge between us and those things we love so much and a way for us to benefit and for the company to benefit as well. It’s just a great opportunity for us. It’s great for us to learn about the process and have the university here supporting us and helping us learn how to take those risks and manage them.

“Being able to actually make a profit off of our name, image, and likeness, that’s another way for us to develop ourselves. That’s another way for us to figure out what we’re going to do when the ball stops bouncing and another thing for us to put on our resume. A lot of athletes struggle to build résumés because we’re so busy. Us being able to make a profit and work with these different companies, that’s huge for us.”

When Illinois head football coach Bret Bielema hired director of football branding and creative media Patrick Pierson, NIL was near the front of Bielema’s mind. He wanted to get ahead of the curve, to begin preparing his football team for the opportunities that would eventually be ahead of them.

First, Pierson said, football players began to understand what their own brand is and what they want it to be in the future along with the platform that will help elevate that brand. From there, they began to educate and prepare the team for what was going to come, particularly through the use of Opendorse. Illinois athletics can not set up endorsement opportunities nor advise them other than to make sure it falls within the legislation’s morality clause.

Now comes the time to put all of the educational pieces to practice in real time.

“They’re ecstatic,” Pierson said. “They’re all nervous because it’s an unknown just like all of us trying to figure it all out. There’s a lot of guys, I mean Vederian obviously has an immediate family and kids and there are other guys in that situation and there are other guys looking to provide money to send home. People don’t think about that too. They’re excited. They’re all nervous because they don’t know about the world of opportunities ahead of them, but they’ll learn fast and we’re here to help them, educate them and guide them.”

Years after sitting in his dorm, talking with teammates about not being able to capitalize on their name, image, and likeness, Lowe is in a position to take advantage of any opportunities in front of him. He’s still laying out the best approach for himself but plans to reap the benefits of the legislation.

The veteran tackle had a massive decision as last season ended about what to do with his future. He wanted more tape for NFL scouts but has two children, is the guardian for his younger brother and is recently married. A paycheck certainly would have helped. For him, this bill exists as a stopgap before what he hopes is his NFL payday.

“It means a lot to me and will help me a lot with things I have going on in my life and things I’m dealing with at home and everything,” Lowe said. “It will help me try to put my family in the best position possible because I want to take over that role of being a provider for my kids, my wife and my brother as well. It means everything. … It’s something everyone is excited about. I’m definitely going to get in touch with the right people so I can approach this the right way.”

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[charlieharry1]

The entrepreneurial mindset – transcript from my tedx bundaberg communicate

So, the phrase entrepreneur, permit’s begin there. Has everybody ever seemed this up in the dictionary? I’d never heard the word entrepreneur whilst i used to be at faculty. By no means did every person  Digital Marketing Companies Stafford say “you! The lady that talks in magnificence and receives kicked out a whole lot”

 “you! The lady that gets suspended”

 “you! The girl this is smart – but doesn’t appear to be engaged in a whole lot of this content”. That became me. Nobody ever said “you realize what? Maybe you ought to think about being an entrepreneur.”

 and this is pretty surprising to me because in case you haven’t already picked it up, i’m from wellington, new zealand and that i went to a definitely modern faculty – it became called wellington high college which is now over 100 and thirty years antique. We referred to as instructors by their first names, it became co-ed; boys and women, we didn’t wear a uniform. In the senior years it was go in case you need and don’t pass in case you don’t want – which didn’t in shape every body. We may want to study subjects like journalism and horticulture which turned into first-rate, but nevertheless, the handiest pathway they ever supplied to us in 1994, which become the 12 months i finished high school, become that you cross right through to 12 months 12, which you then move and get a tertiary education and you then get a process. That’s all i ever knew. Both my parent didn’t run companies, one changed into a teacher at my college, so you can imagine how mortified he became at my behaviour at times. Nobody ever supplied this idea of being an entrepreneur. When i have heard the phrase entrepreneur over the years, occasionally it’s were given bad connotations, hasn’t it? Take a look at these words on the slide at the back of me. I suggest who desires to be a wealthy person? A rich person? A dealer? What approximately a wealthy person, or a massive shot, or a large wig? Or even a whizz-kid. So using the phrase “entrepreneur” certainly dates again to the 1800s and it’s a french phrase. And over the years it has grown in popularity. I feel like in latest years if anything, the phrase entrepreneur has taken on a lifestyles of its own and is perhaps even over used – wouldn’t you agree? These days, i’m pretty certain while you’re growing up in new zealand, australia or someplace else within the international that pretty probable, and that i genuinely desire this is real, you're advised approximately the possibility to move on a path of constructing your personal business – if that’s what you want to do. And i implore all of you too, that even when you have taken the traditional direction of studying and going and getting a activity. That at any time you could choose to do a “side hustle” or even mission out and start a new commercial enterprise. Did you already know that the colonel from kentucky, that made the well-known kentucky fried chook or kfc, didn’t begin his commercial enterprise till he was in his 70s?! So in case you want to be an entrepreneur or you simply need to have an entrepreneurial attitude that’s a bit more like an entrepreneurial individual – what does that imply? To me it way numerous different things. It approach to assume in a different way and all those instances i used to be at excessive school getting into hassle, struggling with the academic paintings, it’s due to the fact i notion in a different way, and i just didn’t in shape the mould. So in case you’re taking into consideration a person right now that seems like that, whether it’s your very own baby or a nephew or a niece or someone you’ve taught, perhaps, just perhaps, they’re an entrepreneur too. To inform you how i got here to workout i used to be an entrepreneur (and how it wasn’t such a terrible element and has in fact brought me a lot of awesome opportunities on this life) permit me inform you a piece about my journey. As i said, i started lifestyles in wellington new zealand wherein i was born and bred until the age of 21. I created my first commercial enterprise when i used to be 17 years antique after i decided to begin a newspaper whilst at school. As i said, some of the subjects at faculty weren’t for me – i’d never contact computer systems till i needed to do a journalism direction and had to discover ways to type out my story. Then my dad said “you need to begin a newspaper and also you have to do it on game,” and i thought “that sounds high-quality to me because i really like sport!”

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 In fact at that point i used to be inside the new zealand crew for water polo for my age group and i skilled loads. I also did a whole lot of swimming and a whole lot of surf life-saving and i gained a variety of medals. I was a water toddler i bet you can say. And the issue that were given me genuinely inquisitive about beginning the newspaper – all of us need to be encouraged by means of some thing – and for me, at age of 17, it became money. I wanted money to pay for my game, which became unfunded. My parents didn’t have the money to keep installing to pay for the uniforms or the journeys and all of the costs associated with recreation. So, i started that newspaper. And in those days, for the ones of us old sufficient to remember, it was bromide, no longer virtual at all. And i had quite a few pleasure losing off in my little crimson mini to every excessive school in wellington, a package of newspapers. And because it become made by means of youngsters, for kids, they devoured it! Then i get this enterprise name from an american man who stated ‘you’ve stolen my concept!’ he was splendid annoyed at me so i stated “how ought to i have stolen your idea? I’ve in no way met you, i don’t know who you're or what your idea even is!”

 Properly it seems that this guy have been planning to begin a secondary school sports newspaper plenty like mine for approximately two years. And here became me, coming alongside in any respect of 17 years antique and that i just began this issue, and i idea things like $2 hundred complete web page ads changed into excellent for putting in the bank to pay for my sport. So he demanded a meeting with me and right here i'm, my first boardroom meeting as a 17 years old, with my dad there for assist, reducing my first business deal. And also you’re probably thinking what that frypan reference is up on the display screen? I’ll inform you currently. Years later, a guy in silicon valley said to me, “ you recognize businesses are a lot like pancakes – you stuff the primary one up,” and that i stated, “ oh my god, that’s so actual for me!” due to the fact that newspaper was the primary commercial enterprise and without know it i reduce that deal and it ended up being a clearly horrific enterprise deal when i appearance back. It became a salary, a small lump sum and that i had to continue to paintings for him for the rest of the 12 months. Which for me, become excellent on the time, because i simply wanted to educate and get the cash to go and play against australia later that yr. Properly i did what i used to be asked, and i learnt my first very good commercial enterprise lesson. Which is, if making a decision to enter commercial enterprise with a person, or some thing it's far you decide to do as an entrepreneur, make certain it aligns together with your values. On this experience, his values and my values did not align. And it didn’t exercise session. On the quit of the yr we parted ways and that turned into the end of my first enterprise. For the next seven years, from age 21 to twenty-eight i travelled the world and that i supplemented my travels with journey writing, so i guess you may say i was a journey blogger earlier than it became even a thing. In order that’s my second tip on becoming an entrepreneur or developing an entrepreneurial mind-set, you want to create your very own opportunities. People aren’t necessarily going to mention “hello, you ought to try this” now and again you’ve just got to think “i want to do that. How am i able to make it appear?” then make it manifest! Fast forwarding in my story, i fell pregnant at the tablet, in london, and that i had to work out what to do subsequent. With the aid of this degree, i used to be the editor of a newspaper at age 26. So, i was doing pretty well with the career aspect. However to fall pregnant at the tablet unexpectedly in london, truely made me re-suppose existence and what i was going to subsequent. We in the end had the child, and for some time there we caught it out in london seeking to make matters work, but when it have become too tough we determined to move back to in which our family lived, which became australia. So then, some years pass, i locate some work in australia and then i have a 2nd infant. So now i have a 3 yr old and a new child at domestic and i assume, “how am i going to earn cash now?!”

so i start some other commercial enterprise! Operating from domestic round my youngsters had been the humble beginnings of my 1/3 business, the creative collective. And actually, i didn’t mention that in among my “pancake enterprise” (the newspaper) and my profession in london i additionally started out a web commercial enterprise selling t shirts known as “tikanga teeshirts”. Tikanga means “subculture “and tikanga o te wa – those are maori words i’m the use of – means fashion. I created that enterprise due to the fact i used to be truly proud of our indigenous culture and language in new zealand. Although i am not maori, i used to be delivered up with it. And i desired to share with people that i used to be a proud new zealander and here changed into our subculture. So the teeshirt business i started in 2002 with no capital. I put up a website up after coaching myself html, and four years later, sold it for 5 figures. So that changed into an excellent final results, doing the entire cycle of the enterprise, really higher than the first pancake. However the 0. 33 commercial enterprise, the innovative collective, that’s wherein it all truely began. I got a emblem designed via a friend, i were given that revealed in an a3 layout and laminated, positioned it up inside the have a look at and increase we’re in commercial enterprise! I then threw up a website (now we’re absolutely in commercial enterprise), i made a enterprise card (whats up everybody, i’ve got a business!)

 In the ones days it wasn’t very common for mums to work from home – or it didn’t appear to be it become. I didn’t have many friends to name on. However it’s turn out to be increasingly more popular now and i think that that is high-quality, that dad and mom who select to stay at domestic and lift children can still earn an income and do some thing they love. Now today, the innovative collective has 12 personnel throughout offices at the sunshine coast and newcastle and approximately forty contractors. I personal a business building that we perform out of at the sunshine coast and we've customers all over australia and even a few global ones. It has a spinoff company called the schooling collective, in which we teach human beings digital skills. And importantly, we’ve had loads of amusing with it all. Now there’s a high-quality metaphor obtainable approximately what it takes to be an entrepreneur that i’d love to share with you. An entrepreneur says to a mentor, “be my mentor, show me what it takes to be an entrepreneur.”

 The mentor says, “okay come meet me down on the water early when it’s truly honestly dark and cold out”. The entrepreneur meets the mentor and on arrival the mentor says “walk with me” and fully dressed heads straight into the water. The entrepreneur says to the mentor “wait! I need to get undressed. I’ll get moist…”

the mentor says “no you don’t just stroll for your clothes”. So they enter the water, which is clearly in reality bloodless, and are up to their knees in their garments. The entrepreneur says “oh man this is uncomfortable! What are we doing? This is terrible!”

the mentor smiles and lightly says “that’s proper, simply hold strolling”. So they hold on foot deeper and deeper into the water, and that i should virtually complicated in this tale, however the factor is, they walk till they’re as much as their necks, and the entrepreneur at this factor is certainly suffering to hold his head above water due to the fact his garments are wet, he’s freezing bloodless, and the whole thing is weighing him down.

“i hate this!” he again complains to the mentor.

“i want to get out! I will’t cope! I’m going to drown!” he yells desperately to the mentor. And when he gets to date, the mentor says, “my friend, that is what it takes to be a an entrepreneur. You’ve got to be prepared to get from your consolation zone. You’re going to swim into un-chartered waters. You’re going to be uncomfortable, and also you’ll every so often experience like you’re sinking. At instances you can even think you’re drowning, but you’ve just were given to preserve going. You’ve got to try and swim even if things are weighing you down.”

 in order that’s every other tip i have for all the budding entrepreneurs obtainable. You’ve were given to be prepared to get from your consolation quarter and make it work! My first step to get out of my consolation area, turned into getting into a enterprise award. I were in business simply six months with the innovative collective, and i idea “good day, i need to marketplace my commercial enterprise, or supply some thing a pass right here to get the word available about my business.”

 so i throw my hat into the small commercial enterprise champions awards, and that i couldn’t consider it. I gained! I received the younger entrepreneur of the 12 months award in queensland in 2007. Out of this revel in i realised that coming into business awards labored quite properly and that i'd want to do extra of that because the telephones started out ringing, and enterprise began coming in. I also met some fantastic people at that event. Off the back of winning that award, i were given presented to go on tv, on a country wide display approximately extraordinary corporations. On it they depicted me because the mum who worked from home juggling my two young ones that's precisely what i was doing at the time. That equal piece came out on channel nine, after which featured at the vodafone internet site and on qantas’s inflight television and things in reality took off. And this become all from going outdoor my consolation region and coming into a commercial enterprise award. The alternative things i’ve found out along my years of being an entrepreneur, is which you want to be open to new studies, places and people. That's exactly why i say, sure to driving three hours to speak at a bundaberg tedx occasion. I wanted to come back up to fulfill new people and have a brand new revel in in a brand new region. Through my entrepreneurial/commercial enterprise journey, i’ve simply been capable of do this. For instance this is me in ny, getting into the international women in enterprise awards. And in that yr, my kids had been elderly 2 and 5, the foreign exchange rate become horrible and that i felt so responsible leaving them to attend these awards. I didn’t win that award, but it was nonetheless so really worth going and being open to these new reviews. Due to attending that event, that night, i went night clubbing, as you do with the ceo of the whole awards. And he provided me an opportunity to sell these awards in australia and new zealand, which i then did for the subsequent 10 years. And that has became having connections with some of the excellent enterprise people in australian and new zealand, which has been an outstanding ride as properly. I assume you want to put your self available, and remember you have got as an awful lot proper to be there as everyone else. Through getting into some other enterprise award software, the telstra enterprise womens awards and winning business proprietor of the 12 months in queensland, extra possibilities unfolded for me. I were given invited to go to silicon valley, which if you don’t know, is the tech capital of the arena. But anyway, it become a lifestyles-changing revel in to go to the offices of the likes of fb, to satisfy the founding father of eventbrite, visit the linkedin offices and sure, just as they are saying, they all have brilliant workplaces. The linkedin workplaces have a band room, so in case you want to head and jam for an hour for your lunch destroy, you may. And yes, facebook has free meals simply as they say, they all do. Three courses, day or night time, any time. Additionally they have unfastened ice cream, free barbers, it’s a international unto itself. So i were given so far and i was wondering what's this all about? What does all of it suggest? What do i do with all these connections and reviews i’m having? After which i remembered a teacher back at wellington high school pronouncing to me, “what do you want to be remembered for? He also stated that in case you are an remarkable mathematician or inventor you can spend your whole lifestyles seeking to training session one math equation, or to create one invention, and you may or might not be successful. But he stated to me, in case you’re to write one poem, one music, paint one artwork piece – however desirable or bad – it will be remembered, as it lives on. He become speakme about legacy of course. And that i determined i in reality liked that concept. I realised i’d always had in me a burning preference to write down a ebook. So i’ve virtually written a couple. I wrote one about my grandfathers existence, which i launched in 2006, only a few months earlier than my grandmother handed away so it changed into outstanding to try this. And that i launched another e-book in 2014 after i gained it female of the year, at the countrywide iaward due to the fact i felt pressured to make a contribution and provide back to what i knew which became in which the it industry was going and what sort of this changed into changing things and how we had a responsibility to research greater approximately technology in order to enhance our kids in a technology driven international. This phase noticed me speak to and have an effect on ministers, do lots of media observation and encourage humans to educate youngsters coding. Which now of route today is widespread in faculties. And these are all things which befell in my entrepreneurial journey. The very last tip i desired to give you nowadays, is tapping into whatever you’re captivated with, what you love to do. So, in case you do rise up each morning and go to paintings and think “i hate this, i hate those human beings, i hate this region” or “i don’t sense any experience of my soul being ignited, i don’t experience joy or whatever….” then maybe it’s time to alternate. And whether that requires quitting your job to move into something you’re greater obsessed with, or initially reducing your hours, or going returned and reading or completely converting careers, or starting a side-hustle or a totally fledged business – be courageous! If you have a burning preference or something you’re passionate about doing, i say do it! In precis, i suppose the entrepreneurial mind-set is a way of wondering. It’s specially approximately the manner you approach demanding situations and mistakes. Now i was very conscious about setting together my talk, and hoping it doesn’t come upon as pronouncing, “observe me i’ve had this exceptional lifestyles and all of these simply cool things befell,” but i need to make certain , there’s been lots of hard stuff, the treading cold deep water full dressed metaphor stuff. I’ve had the ato name me up on a friday and want $forty,000 off me on monday, due to the fact i had a crappy accountant who gave me the wrong recommendation. I’ve had team of workers and pals (no longer my friends), stealing my highbrow property and now not seeing an difficulty with it and starting up very comparable businesses, with similar names and things like that. We have consistent breaches of our trademark definitely and we’ve had to move and attraction one absolutely currently. There’s been sincerely tough life stuff. I separated from my accomplice of 18 years, and the daddy of my kids and thru this i nonetheless had to stand up and visit work. It’s tough stuff. Demanding situations with raising teens, fitness problems, money issues – therehave been weeks wherein i didn’t even recognise how i used to be going to do the payroll. You realize, among all this joyous life, there’s nevertheless those difficult matters you have to arise and cope with. But, if you maintain finding the right human  Digital Marketing Company Stafford beings to be around, and if you could just hang in there and that cold water with the ones clothes on, you could definitely experience it too.

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Innerview: M.L. / ​University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA

April 2008

Image: MO Fine Arts Academy Name Badge / Logo: Roman Duszek

Note: ​Interview for a design student’s art history lecture​.​

Introduction:​

I wanted to know if you would be willing to answer a few questions for me. I really like your work, because I really appreciate the super hand-done and collage quality of it. I think it’s a way of working that’s often forgotten and overlooked, but personally I really like it, and your work really appeals to me. I’m especially interested in your work with show posters, so if you would be amenable to a short interview I would really appreciate it. You can just shoot me back an e-mail, or if you prefer a phone interview that would be fine too. Thanks! ​0​1) Did you go to school for art, or are you self taught? I was fortunate to attend one of the best kept secrets in design schools at Southwest Missouri State University (SMSU) in Springfield, MO. Shortly after I left, the name was simplified to Missouri State University. (Rewind A Bit to 1996) The year before my ​F​reshm​a​n fall semester, I was selected for the first annual Missouri Fine Arts Academy, which was held on the campus of SMSU. Before my senior year of high school (back in 1996) I thought about pursuing a career in architecture design, in particular, the area of sports stadium design. Though, after several years of lying to myself that I would eventually kick my math deficiency, I got a kick in the gut that this might not be my best choice. I loved to shut myself in my room for hours at a time drawing everything from comics to sports logos to buildings and such. I loved the creative aspect of this and felt that not only might I lose some of that personal one-on-one with architecture (though, nothing short of creative, but it’s a relatively computer and technical group effort), I would be held responsible to make the designs actually “work”. Being that I was terrible at math I didn’t want to be held accountable for future building flops. So, at the Fine Arts Academy I did a little bit of re-discovering of my own wheels, as I realized that I had more to offer from my fingertips. Raised from the dirt of a farm in the middle of the mid-west, I was pretty naive to most all things having to do with graphic design, I just knew that I should head in that direction, yet not limit myself only there. And I had shown signs of graphic design earlier on by way of winning a small town logo competition for a skating rink / bowling alley in the fifth grade. I just had a hunch while in creation of the identity (they kept the original, but i still have the newspaper clipping copy depicting my original entry) that I would be chosen out of the dozen other area schools and get my creation up on that big sign. Well, come time for the grand opening of The Fun Factory, my school principal forgot to notify me or my parents that I was the celebrated one to christen the new establishment. The next week she apologized, but i didn’t really give a care as I don’t like such sanctions of attention, and I still don’t. Most kids would have been struck with disappointment by the loss of a free chance to be the first to scuff the freshly waxed lanes with boulders and the new floor with skates, but the deep gut spoilage came to me by way of finally getting to see my logo up on that sign. I was devastated. My design had been butchered. This was my earliest memory of design sabotage. How could somebody take my vision and just ruin it? I look at all things in my life to have lead me up to this point in the writing, and so I feel that early little burnt spark in my gut that day told me something important…pour yourself into your work and protect that. (Fast Forward To 1996) To shorten the story, I came back from those three weeks of Fine Arts Academy in a born-again sense within my own talents, though still unsure of how to officially tap into it like I once had before body hair and outside influences and distractions pushed “play”. Being inspired by a couple of graffiti artists that I observed at the Fine Arts Academy, I began studying the art of typography (though, I had no idea what that word meant then) by way of this whole new world of urban language. And being that I tried to keep my nose clean and lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere, I just practiced my own graffitied typography twists and turns by way of perfecting one-of-a-kind personalized locker names and special birthday certificates for my classmates and friends on cheap Wal-Mart sketchbook paper. I was never so thankful to be attached to my small school in such a way as I only had two dozen classmate name plates to hand draw and color and diecut. If I did that now, my hands would surely buckle. I didn’t need to do it then, but I saw it as an investment towards the future growth of my work, or some way to start my last year of schooling fresh. My senior year was mostly spent in my bedroom making things. All of my friends had girlfriends and I had my work to sit next to on weekend nights. I also was inspired by a new art teacher at the school named Allen Heck. He was a real artist and not just some fluke or painter who couldn’t sell work so in-turn dropped on the totem pole to teach a crummy low-budget art program. Allen had a business head and an artistic head and he meant business in a classroom that spilled creativity. Even though there were a couple of art teachers before Allen that I admired, most art classes before his were mostly afterthoughts or throwaways. Places where the jerk-off kids could goof and ruin the atmosphere for the ones who wanted to be there to learn and develop, just like at most any school, i suppose. Anyway, I found an excuse to be in Allen’s classroom as much as I could and he sorta guided me on some design paths. I also helped him teach several of the elementary classes (we had K-12 grades all under one roof) that year. At this same time I was getting really involved in devouring music and an early mining idea of combining art and music started to strike, though it wouldn’t cement until several years later. Outside of Allen’s classes I landed a logo for the local Future Farmers of America chapter, along with other little so-called “best artist in the class” projects. A title that I didn’t really think I deserved as a friend of mine was ten times the draftsman that I was. Anyway, for my not-so troubles with the Future Farmers (I wasn’t a member and I didn’t want to follow my blood line), I got a giant canvas carrying case for artwork big enough that a beefy baby calf corpse could take a nap in it (I use it now to stuff my dirty clothes in for the laundromat trips). In early 1997, my guidance counselor set-up a special solo trip for me to visit an area company that specialized in yearbook designs. I went and wasn’t completely enthused about this place that seemed to put a lock on creativity in a darkened room with eyes staring at computer screens, shuffling around items given to them, though, I lied to myself that as I would grow older, this is what I might want. It just didn’t really say “Happiness” to me though, more-so (to quote The Beatles), “Happiness is a warm gun”. Still, I decided to go on ahead with going to a college that had graphic design courses. As graduation loomed on the purple and white horizon, I began to think a bit more seriously about applying for schools to further my education. Being that I had some solid fortune at the Fine Arts Academy at Southwest Missouri State University, and being that Springfield, MO was four hours south down the black top road (far enough from everything, but not too far for a weekend visit), I registered with no time to spare. Thoughts of the Kansas City Art Institute loomed, but they were more expensive, and i felt some sort of strange magnetism to SMSU. I ended up getting in by a scrape to the only college I applied for. I had the lowest common denominator for test scores and was in the top half of my graduating class as I was 12 out of 24. That was all the requirements I needed, the deal was set. The transition from high school to college art class (like most I assume) was a little challenging for me as I soon realized that the mold I was in previously had to be broken as I wasn’t comparable to skill with my new classmates. Though, the drawing classes frustrated, yet intrigued me, I did do fairly decent in my fundamentals design classroom. And this is where I learned more about making like-minded, potential life-long friends, a skill I hadn’t perfected much since my first day of Meadville first grade. All of my friends in foundations course were annoyed with working in cutting blades and paper and such…whereas, I flourished a good reputation in those departments and at times neglected all other areas of my studies to perfect my art skills. On break one early spring morning my friends spoke of much better things to come in the coming semester. Their minds were on the computer. They couldn’t wait as they had backgrounds in computer-related image creating in their high school yearbook classes. My school had one computer until I was a senior, and then we got a baker’s dozen or so. Other than that few hour visit to the local yearbook factory, I was naive to the idea of a computer as the essential tool for the modern day graphic designer. Exhausted by their comments, anxieties swelled in me and out finally popped my ignorance to the subject, “I plan to take the direction in graphic design that is done without the computer. I’m going to take the courses that are all hands-on.” And instant mockery, was I. My friends ripped me a new one and basically said I better learn pretty quick because graphic design wasn’t conquered without the computer. This is all really quite humorous to me know (possibly to them too) as I’ve somehow managed some mild success with my hands-on design approach and most of them are staring at computers all day in jobs they dislike or not even doing graphic design at all. Later that year I found out where the design kids were stuffed as I climbed aboard a twenty minute bus ride to the small downtown area of Springfield and up an elevator zooming past vacant floors housing archives of university products and collections to the top of a five story building where the world of graphic design officially opened up to me. Did it open wide at first? That answer is a giant NO as I was still so naive to what the heck I was getting into that when my friends early-on claimed, “I can’t wait until next semester for typography class”. I said, “Cool! We get to design maps?” ​0​2) Were your areas of interest in school (artistically) the same as they are now? My artistic whatevers were put on hold the first few semester of design school. Not only that, but they were run thru the emotional and physical gambits over and over. Being thrown on a computer was very troubling for me and there was a time that I almost quit design all together because I didn’t feel a connection to the work anymore thru the screen barrier. So, I struggled to find myself again for about a year and a half. Though, at the same time the design instructors at SMSU were (and still are) old-fashioned in a sense with their training and we still did many hands-on projects. I shined more in these areas, though my work still seemed more like decorating than me trying to say something. True, design is pretty much decorating and saying something, but, I couldn’t really find myself and it felt more like doing my chores than anything else. I think it can be dangerous when the designer is hogging the avenue and only speaking for their ego or style and not client intentions. Sometimes a healthy dose of both works, sometimes not. Anyway, I just didn’t “get” what I was doing and basically was doing an incredibly OK job at fulfilling my instructor’s projects. Which is fine, but it took me a while to really enjoy design. All of the instructor’s at SMSU were (mostly still are) from Eastern Europe and Russia. This was a great experience for me as it opened me up to not only a unique education in design, but also one in culture. I felt a strange connection to this as I was somewhat foreign being an artistically-challenged kid from a farm in The Sticks, Missouri. There is an exciting mix of design and passion going on down there on the fifth floor of that building. New wheels in me started to get greased around this same time and my eyes started to open a pinch. And they really thumped when I went on a limb to attach illustration classes to my already full plate during my junior year. I was starting to get hungry and / or full…full in a sense to where I needed to get the work out of my system. It was time for me to find my voice. ​0​3) How did you get started working as a​n​ illustrator? Growing up and drawing a lot, I thought I was pretty decent at it, but nothing more special or ordinary than creating strange, graphic WWII battles and mimicking comic book characters. I even had an epic, life-sized drawing of Batman I worked on at my grandma’s almost every week after school. Sadly, I think it was thrown away recently when she moved. However, on the back burner to the drawing, there was a side of me that always did a lot of cut-outs and saving and archiving of things. I think most every kid at some point cuts things of interest from magazines and tacks them to their wall or jumbles words cut to make “cool” sayings glued on paper. My older brother and I did this a lot. Mostly, we were just never bored and always doing something and always being inspired by anything and everything. We even created our own little magazine (I still have a few issues) at my grandma’s. My grandmother was a good influence on my creative side too as we were always making homemade things there. My siblings and I recreated any event we went to or anything we watched on television / movies in our sandbox, tree house(s), forts and bedroom. I was fortunate to have a large intake of popular culture and mix that with the experience of farm life and a lot of room to play. All of this fueled my creative side to where at a younger age I had a lot of options to choose from and I enjoyed and loved them all. Though, it took me a while to re-discover this within myself in design school. I was getting deeper into school and the ever present “What do I wish to do with my life” question(s) (among other personal mind trappings and inner wrangling). This especially was asked after I signed up with other design students on several professional studio visits. Every time I would come home with an empty heart from these “creative” places that felt more like controlled meat markets than anything remotely creative. Some people thrive in certain areas and not everybody wants the same thing, but the typical trappings of community computer screen shuffling didn’t offer me much hope at all. I have always enjoyed being alone making things. I’ve also been very protective of my creations and I didn’t want to be thrown into a factory-like design setting unless it was my own to where I could do what I wanted, when I wanted and have parental rights and control. Coming back to school from these studio visits was very discouraging to me. I felt confused and as if my career path was in a box already. Around this time I toyed with the idea of taking illustration classes to help push myself a little more as I wanted to keep what little fire I had in me from burning out. However, I wasn’t confident in my illustration skills as I thought I wasn’t solid enough at regular drawing. This is a terrible mistake that I feel many students make. I sorta had to shovel deep and realize the way I created when I was younger and that really helped cultivate a new side of me as I learned how to pour myself into and out of my work again and it was fun and special. Looking back, I think mustering up the courage to find confidence in illustration helped me in the long run. Though, at times I still struggle with thinking that I’m still not good enough at particular things. The only competition I have is with myself. ​0​4) Did it take you a long time to find a working style that you are satisfied with? For the most part I advise for makers of things to stay away from the trap of a “working style”. And it’s mighty easy to stumble or choose something and milk it, which is the feeling I get from the majority of artists and designer’s portfolios. It’s easy to stick with turning over the same old tires on the same old asphalt. I realize I have a certain feel to my body of work, but each day my head’s approach to life is so different (heck each minute sometimes) that I try to trust my gut instincts. I just try to speak from my heart, which ends up in my gut sometimes. A lot of times I trust good ol’ intuition. Of course, some projects require a bit more fine tuning than others as something like a logo has more life than say, a concert poster. Even though the logo might have more of a lasting impression, I’d rather put my butter to the blank paper bread of the poster. I love to try new things and just reach and grab at whatever I have around me and in my head, marriaging that with the band and the music in some strange brew. At times it can be quite intoxicating and when you do it enough and for a long while, you end up not even thinking, rather just doing and it’s fluid and non-calculating. This is when it becomes pure, this is when design becomes true language. I’ve had some projects where I’ll be told about it from a client and I’ll immediately have a vision in my head of how it should look, and then go home and start teaching it how to walk. Items like CD packages are very similar to logos because you’ve got to really give out something that you don’t mind sticking around a while in the lock-down of identity for a product or persona. There have been a few CDs that have happened out in a matter of a couple hours. The majority though, I like to have enough time to tackle and build in three separate sessions. But, I really don’t like sitting on projects for a long time. And usually the client has more of a personal care for a CD than a poster, so it might take a three act play or teeter tottering until all sides are fixed to fancy. I’ve had a few CDs that have stretched to almost a year. Being that my work is recognizable to a hands-on aesthetic, I’m sure most think that I don’t touch a computer. This is true and not true. I try to build as much as I can by hand as I love that connection I get. The screen barrier between me getting dirty with my work has bothered me and created anxieties with my work since day one in formal design class when I was thrown on a computer to mash buttons. I do what I can by hand and then use the computer as a layout and printing tool and I use it to correct or help put the finish on some items. Most designers forget that the computer is only a tool. If I could have it my complete way, I wouldn’t use a computer at all. I have made several projects in this way, but it’s hard to do it all in this fashion anymore and I have a wide format ink jet printer to print a lot of my more complex poster works with. The computer has ruined and helped designers. But, overall I feel that if it’s treated with respect and not used as substitute brains, then a designer will truly show his or her meat and potatoes. For the most part, I get a little disappointed in the output from a vast majority of designers as it all feels far away like an afterthought that doesn’t count, or simply as a decorating kit or pre-fabricated template you buy at a craft store. But, I try to keep my disgruntled burly bears close to my own heels. As long as I am creating what needs to be created from my own little corner of the basement, then I am a pretty happy camper. Though, the computer has broken many a bulb, not only with designers, but also with attitudes toward treating the designer with respect. Maybe it’s always been this way, but it’s easy for me to think that I can throw an iPhone and hit somebody who thinks they know graphic design because they can change the colors on their myspace or blog (and I’d have to borrow their iPhone to do so). It’s great that creativity is being fused with daily interaction, in a sense, but it can get a little confusing for people. I don’t think it should be reserved for a certain few, but I feel that everybody thinks they are a graphic designer now. It’s like trying to keep the raccoons out of the patch of sweet corn. You’ve just got to find the right gauge of wire to shock the perimeter with so they will find other food to steal and nibble. And there are still those who are hungry enough to go find and get the good stuff on their own. I suppose I’ve found myself to be more in tune to old folk artists and with the mindset of the old school designers and illustrators. Folk art is as pure in art and language as cave painting and daily ancient living. I like the idea of somebody just up and making something out of the blue because they’ve got to get their story out for themselves. Last summer I went from The Museum of Modern Art to the American Folk Art Museum in New York City in an afternoon and found a more pure-incentive to making things from the folk artists than the artists and designers across the street. It was refreshing. I had been enjoying my personal study of folk art history the past four or five years, but seeing it out of the pages of a book or web site really gave it a new light. And to see that most folk art has pushed into some avenues of the mainstream is really interesting, though chokes the purity from it original conceptual intention. I find that a lot of artists and designers are just as much about making themselves as important as the work they are producing. I just have never understood this idea. So, what individuals are my art and design in kin with? There are many, and it goes beyond just one field, but here is the short list: Grandma Gibson / Jim Henson / Stanley Donwood / Lester Beall / Saul Bass / Seymour Chwast & Pushpin Studio / Paul Klee / Ivan Chermayeff / Henryk Tomaszewski / Art Chantry / Vaughn Oliver / Edward Gorey / Saul Steinberg / Bill Traylor / Ray Johnson / Eric Carle / Cy Twombly / Robert Rauschenberg / Henry Darger / Hans Schleger…to name a few. There are a few items I’ve created that I can tell don’t speak right in retrospect (and they are probably obvious to others as well). These were the ones that caught me in a bad mood, exhaustion or in a lack of time. It’s so hard not to let the daily life and emotions influence the work. And in my case I’ve never been able to just chase my dreams, as I’ve had to work full-time day jobs and at times part-time jobs on top of those, and then slide my work into late nights and weekends (and I always had a girlfriend on top of that…now, a wife). It can be a hard struggle for a healthy balance. I just try to approach it with the idea that I am a man and a man who happens to make things. I am doing what I need to be doing and working hard towards the goal of some day having all of the clocks wound on my time. I have been fortunate in my choices of day jobs. I admire those who wish to live in near-poverty designing for bands and independent projects, but there is no money in it at all and it’s easy for people to take advantage of you. I tried it for a few short stints, but got tired quickly of scraping by and relying on musician’s responsibility of paying me and I ran out of belongings to sell to pay the rent. Throwing out the few bad apple clients, I must say I can’t complain too much as I’ve been blessed with some great people to not only work with, but also to have relationships with beyond the art. Janitorial and groundskeeping had me for 5 years and I loved it. The pay isn’t great, but I was alone and within my thoughts and had time to write and actually make a few things while on the clock. Also, I was able to bring home whatever stuff I could dig out of the dumpster. I’m still chipping at a 15,000 page stack of bricked paper that I found in a dumpster 6 years ago. Currently, I am in the second year of being trapped in a cubicle as a data entryman. It’s a great job, it’s not too difficult, I work with people I know, I walk to work, I’m able to get my teeth fixed and am setting aside some money now for my future, but I don’t plan to marry it as it’s not what I need to be doing with my talents. Many days I can’t sit still because all I can think about is going home and making things. Design is a way of life for me. It’s easy for it to start to take over at times, but I’ve been working on a better balance of it by getting up at 5:00 in the morning, before the “junk” pollution of the day. I love getting up before the crickets and getting to work. Even if I’m filling up on books and movies, it’s still work for me. But, it’s not really work, it’s just what I enjoy and I kinda need it to aid survival. If a designer only puts their design mind onto paper / screen into a 9 to 5 crack, then they might want to think about looking into other lines of life work to chew on. ​0​5) Do you do a lot of self promotion, and how? I’ve been in an interesting position to where my work has been trickling word of mouth for the most part. I’ve been surrounded in positions where I’ve been around musicians a lot and in general, people have been attracted to my creations to where they too want me to make them something. With age, I don’t get out as much to shows, nor do I live with musicians anymore (thankfully). Those days were great, but that kind of lifestyle can’t be taken seriously forever. But, it helped shape me in some way. And I’ve established myself, somewhat. It still amazes me that my work is speaking in the volume that it has. It’s certainly nothing of major impact, but it means a lot to me. For many years I’ve also been at a constant with submitting large quantities of my work to yearly design magazine annuals. This breaks my bank for sure, but it’s the best way of promotion as the work gets spread around the world quickly. I have contacts in many countries who found me this way and thus, offer me entry into their books, magazines, contests or give me a shot to make something for them. The internet is a great source too, of course. Recently I’ve somehow caught a breathe of fresh air from the web currents and realize the easy importance of putting myself out there on it. It’s a strange world though, and I’m still a bit ignorant of it, but I’m becoming more comfortable. I used to not be into self-promotion much. Not only that, I just didn’t have much time with it, being weighed down by day jobs and life stuff. And I’m a believer of the work speaking for itself and letting it take time to mature and incubate. Right now I’m looking at how much weight my portfolio has gained and am seeing what alternate routes I can walk with it. I’ve always planned to be doing my best work, for me, but I’ve never really pushed it as hard until now, as the big No. 30 looms. True, I am making what I want to make, but I don’t wish to be working a full-time job much longer. I have alot more to say and in different varieties of value packs and I just need more second hands to say it in. 0​6) Lastly, because I’m interested in doing show posters, do you have any advice on positioning oneself into that market?

I tell a lot of people a similar thing that I’ve heard Quentin Tarantino say to aspiring filmmakers, (to paraphrase here) “Just go and make what you need to make and do it at whatever cost.” Just get out there and make things and get those things out, even if you go broke or worn out doing it. Catch fire and start a paper trail. I was fortunate to not only love devouring music since the day my ears could, but ended up in positions to where I was surround by musicians and / or individuals with like-minded inner ear infestations. Most importantly, I found that I could merge the things I loved into a cohesive music and art stomping ground. My last couple of college​ ​years I befriended several bands and musicians and had my own little business on the side from class, making show posters and CD packages. After four and a half years of college and exhausting all my design class options…AND ability to fail Algebra four times and even an art history course…I had a higher calling to quit spinning my own wheels and dropped college from the daily schedule, among many other things weighing me down at the time. It was gutsy, but one of the most crucially sound decisions I’ve ever made. I moved from the Bible Belt Buckle comforts of Springfield and into a big, orange, dilapidated house in the middle of a shady section of Kansas City, Missouri with a band that had become my best friends. I almost didn’t do it as my pants pockets were turned inside-out and thoughts of sticking around the family farm to save up money kept me down. I think a lot of people were very disappointed in me too for quitting school. But, my decision was made and I believe in following the heart instead of stopping up the artery. I would have been miserable to stay at home and I had bigger fields to plow and sew. And I didn’t need a piece of paper saying what I was supposed to be doing. Most importantly, only I can tell myself what I should do with me. -djg

[southsidestory]

Things Not Seen

RATING: Mature

SHIP: Rey / Ben Solo | Kylo Ren

SUMMARY: It can’t be love, what he’s feeling. Not the real thing anyway. It’s irrational and possessive, too unhealthy and unwanted. But whether or not this is the kind of love he’s been taught to revere, Ben thinks about Rey through the rest of Christmas break. He daydreams about his professor's smart mouth, the way her expressions always start at the curve of her lips. How she tasted when they kissed.

WARNINGS: emotional and physical abuse (not within the reylo relationship), religious fanaticism, grief / mourning, depression, past suicide attempt

NOTES: This story is for the @reylofanfictionanthology’s 2017 Anthology, Celebrate the Waking! My celebration / theme was Reunion. Thank you to @xxlovendreamsxx and @reylotrashcompactor for their help as betas for this piece. <3

PROVERBS 4:23

Above all else, guard your heart,

for everything you do flows from it.

—

Ben takes Intro to the Hebrew Bible in the spring of his freshman year because he wants to get a headstart on his 200-level courses. Most of his classmates have no idea what their majors will be, and they change their minds every few weeks, but not Ben. It’s Religious Studies for him, which he knew before he even sent out his college applications.

Old Testament is an eight o’clock class, and because Ben likes to be early for everything, he shows up at 7:45. He unpacks a clean notebook, his freshly printed syllabus, a new black pen, his NOAB (New Oxford Annotated Bible, 4th Edition, which he despises), and his personal Bible (King James Version, which he loves).

There’s only one other student, but she looks so out of his place that he almost wonders if he’s in the wrong classroom. She’s tall and leggy, with brown hair pulled up into a high bun. Her blue jeans are nearly worn through at the knees, her sneakers battered and cheap. Scholarship student then, which is rare enough at a college like Litton. But she’s also too old for a 200-level RS class, typically populated by sophomores and particularly motivated freshmen, like him. Probably some senior who’s hoping to wile away her last semester in low-level courses while she works on her thesis.

“This is Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,” Ben says, not quite making it a question.

“It is indeed.” The girl doesn’t look up from her phone, which she’s tapping at aggressively. From the beeping sound that she hasn’t bothered to silence, he thinks she must be playing some kind of game.

She’s pretty, despite her ordinary clothes and messy hair. She also looks utterly unprepared. The only thing she has with her, apart from that noisy phone, is a thermos.

When she shrugs out of her fleece, he sees that she’s wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath. Dark green, with an image of a Bible across the chest, the proud words “Jewish Zombie Saves the Universe” emblazoned across its cover.

“If you don’t like Christians, what are you doing in an Old Testament class?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

The girl finally sets down her phone, looking startled and amused. “Excuse me?” she asks. The start of a patronizing smile is tugging at the corner of her mouth, like Ben is simply the most adorable thing she’s ever seen.

He gestures at the offensive shirt and says, “You’re obviously not Christian. Probably not even an RS major.”

She snorts. “Well you’re not wrong.”

Ben doesn’t like being laughed at. Never has tolerated it well. Thirteen years of relentless bullying throughout public school will do that to a person.

“What are you then?” he asks, even though he doesn’t have to. He’d bet his tuition that she’s an atheist.

“Human,” she says, and now her smile has a sharper edge to it. Good, he’s glad to be getting to her a little. “But I suspect that that isn’t the information you were fishing for.”

Ben rolls his eyes, then busies himself with rereading the syllabus, anything to keep from talking to this obnoxious girl. He shouldn’t have engaged her anyway. Pastor Snoke always says it’s a waste of time to bother with people like that.

She goes back to playing on her phone, and they ignore each other until 7:55, when the other students start filtering in.

“Hey, Professor Jones!”

Ben looks over, and for a moment he wonders how he could have missed the professor arriving—until he realizes that the student who spoke is talking to the rude girl in the awful green shirt.

“Hi, Rachel.” She smiles and asks, “Did you have a good holiday?”

Rachel says she went on a ski trip to some resort in Colorado, but he barely registers any of that, because the girl—no, his professor—smirks at him, and Ben stares at the table, cheeks scalding hot. He hasn’t been this humiliated since Todd Baxter pantsed him in the seventh grade, exposing his privates to the entire middle school during a pep rally.

I want to die, Ben thinks. I want to actually die.

He grips his left wrist, squeezes until the pressure calms him. Then he shoots his professor the nastiest look he can muster, because she just let him talk to her like she was a student. Allowed him to make an ass of himself, and now she’s wearing a self-satisfied grin, as if it’s the funniest thing in the world.

Professor Jones starts class at precisely eight o’clock, which Ben would appreciate if he didn’t dislike her so much.

“Welcome to Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,” she says. “I’m Rey Jones. You can call me by my first name, if you’d prefer. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that it will diminish my authority over you, because it doesn’t.”

She says this lightly enough that the class laughs, but Ben can tell she means every word. This woman might be young for a professor, but she’s tough as nails. How in the hell did he take her for a student?

Some suck-up who claimed the seat to the left of Professor Jones compliments her shirt. “I guess Jesus is pretty zombie-ish, huh?” he asks.

Professor Jones shrugs. “Actually, if we’re applying fantastic terms to Jesus, he’d be more properly categorized as a lich than a zombie.”

Everyone besides Ben laughs again, and Professor Jones smiles. “All right, please introduce yourselves. I had most of you last year for 101, but I’d like to put names to the new faces.”

Professor Jones asks each of them to give their name, year, major, and one interesting personal fact. Ben listens to his classmates just attentively enough to discover that he’s the only freshman in this course. Evidence of his over-achievement usually makes him feel proud, but right now he’s too annoyed for that.

“Ben Solo,” he says, once it’s his turn. “Freshman. I’ll be majoring in Religious Studies as soon as I’m allowed to declare. This isn’t very interesting, but it’s a fact about myself: I’m awful at judging someone’s age.”

A subtle smile flickers across Professor Jones’s mouth before she looks to the next student.

It’s a standard first day, just discussing the objectives of the course and the texts they’ll be studying throughout the semester. At least it’s only a fifty minute class, and Professor Jones kicks them out a quarter-hour early. “Use this extra time to get started on Friday’s reading. You’ll probably need it.”

Ben stuffs his things into his bag and hurries out of the classroom. He doesn’t look back to see if his professor is laughing at him, because he’s certain that she is.

—

RS 270 quickly proves to be Ben’s most difficult class. Logic, Intro Greek, and Southern Literature are almost too easy to keep his attention, but Hebrew Bible is something else entirely.

Professor Jones assigns twice as much reading as his lit professor, and she expects her students to keep up with it. Her classes are discussion-oriented, fast-paced, and demanding. As much as he’d prefer to hate her style, Ben actually thinks Professor Jones is one of the best teachers he’s ever had. She has a way of explaining difficult ideas with great clarity while still conveying the complexity of the concepts. To her credit, she doesn’t seem to hold their conversation before the first class against him.

She’s intelligent and engaging, if blunt, and she’d probably be Ben’s favorite professor if he didn’t hate her approach to the Bible. It isn’t that Professor Jones is mean or dismissive of his beliefs, but he questions whether she has any respect at all for the texts she’s teaching. She shows him how to see the Old Testament in new ways, to better understand its books through the cultural contexts they emerged from. It’s fascinating and eye-opening—if a little galling to be utterly schooled on Biblical knowledge by a woman who probably has a stronger faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster than in God.

By the middle of the semester, he can’t help but think of her as Rey. Half the class calls her by her given name, just as she invited them to do, but there’s more to it than that, an urge Ben can’t quite explain, that makes him want to know her better

—

Rey always returns his papers within a week of their due date, the margins littered with annotations in green ink. Suggestions to improve his arguments, questions, sometimes rambling comments that seem to have little direction or purpose.

She writes A- at the bottom of each one, along with some note about his paper as a whole. No matter how stingy or effusive her praise is, the grade remains the same. The essay she hands back after spring break says, Perfect. A-

That’s what finally drives him to her office. He finds Rey hunched over her desk, scribbling in a notebook, the sleeves of her plaid shirt rolled up to her elbows. He expected her office to be disorganized, considering her perpetually sloppy hairstyles and wrinkled clothes, but it’s spotless and neat.

“Ben,” she says, without looking up from her work. “It’s five o’clock on a Friday. My office hours ended at three-thirty. I know you know this.”

He closes the door, takes the seat across from her, and lays his latest paper on her desk. “If my work was perfect, then why did you give me an A minus?”

Rey sighs, sets down her pen, and looks at him. “Because you can do better.”

“Better than perfect?” Ben asks.

“Your papers are excellent. More cohesive than mine when I was your age, and that’s saying something.” She points to the wall, at a dozen framed awards and diplomas. BA from Stanford, MA from Indiana University, PhD from Duke.

Ben shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Rey says. She leans forward, frowning. “Your arguments are well constructed, and your ideas are clearly expressed, but it’s all very safe. I think you know how to write to appeal to your professors’ interests—which is a great strategy if your only goal is to graduate summa cum laude in three years. But if you want to develop your own voice? Not so much.”

“Are you kidding?” It takes all of Ben’s self control not to shout when he says, “I bend over backwards to write the kind of papers you’d want to see, and that’s not enough?”

Rey flips to the third page of his paper and taps the second paragraph. “Your analysis of the Pentateuch reads like a response to my last book. What’d you do, check it out from the library?”

Ben snatches his paper out of her hands, and he doesn’t care how rude that is.

“I don’t want to read a paper that’s engineered to flatter my ego,” Rey says sharply. “Next time, write about something that matters to you, instead of something that matters to me.”

Yes, he checked out her book, and yes, he read it from cover to cover, but she’s wrong about why he did that. It had nothing to do with flattering his professor, because Ben never imagined that she’d notice the influence of her writing on his own work. He’s been reading through Rey’s bibliography all semester, consuming every book and journal article that she’s authored.

Ben isn’t about to admit that, so he stands and says, “See you on Monday, Professor Jones.”

—

Ben lives in the library throughout finals week, researching and writing for six days straight, only stopping to take short naps and coffee breaks.

His asshole roommate, Armitage, orders him to stop crashing into their dorm at all hours of the night and day just to rest for thirty minutes and head back to the library. Apparently this is disrupting his beauty sleep.

If Ben wasn’t a Christian, he’d tell Armitage to fuck off. Instead, he finds a nice, out-of-the-way nook in the library and takes his naps there, curled up in a fluffy armchair.

Ben spends countless hours on his final paper for RS 270, a close examination of the Book of Job, exploring the role of suffering in faith. He’s never put so much of himself into an academic project, his passion and his convictions. If Rey slaps another A minus onto this one, he’s going to give her a piece of his mind.

—

Ben snatches the manila envelope out of his student mailbox, rips it open, and flips past all the green ink that litters the margins of his final paper, looking to the grade and the comment at the end.

Insightful and original. Better than perfect. A+

ECCLESIASTES 1:18

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;

the more knowledge, the more grief.

—

Going home is different when you don’t have a real home to go to.

Ben would never say as much to Pastor Snoke, but sometimes he misses his mother. Maybe it’s just nostalgia borne from separation, because when Ben lived with his mom, he spent most of his time wishing to get out from under her roof. They fought whenever she was around, which wasn’t often. Neither of his parents spent much time with him, but there’s no point in resenting his father over that, not anymore.

Ben ran away a month after he turned eighteen, and Pastor Snoke welcomed him into his family’s home, just as he promised he would.

Mom had given him far more freedom. She never kept up with where he was going or how late he’d be out, but strangely, Ben feels less confined in a house where there are rules. Pastor Snoke’s expectations may be high, and the punishments for disappointing him harsh, but at least he knows that someone is paying attention.

Ben tries not to think about his mother on the way back to Cottontown. He spends the bus ride listening to music and rereading Rey’s comments on his final paper. He traces her handwriting, fingers lingering on the uneven curves and sharp points. You should be proud, she’d written on the back.

He finds Mrs. Snoke waiting for him at the bus station. She hugs him and says, “We’ve missed you so much, Ben.”

“Missed you too,” he says, before pulling away.

Mrs. Snoke makes pot roast for dinner, one of Ben’s favorite meals, and Pastor Snoke allows him to say grace. He feels less like an intruder, a lost boy interloping on a real family, when he holds hands with his mentors and asks for God’s blessing. Afterward, Mrs. Snoke washes the dishes. She always cooks and cleans, an arrangement that Ben has never felt comfortable with, because he knows what his mother would think of it.

—

Starbrook Church of Christ has the largest congregation in all of Cottontown, and sometimes Ben worries that he isn’t worthy of inheriting it.

He’s known that he’s going into ministry since he was sixteen, when Pastor Snoke saved him and offered him a place at his church. But it wasn’t until January of last year, after he ran away, that Pastor Snoke told him he’d like for Ben to lead the Starbrook congregation someday.

“You’re as good as a son to me, and you have what it takes. The drive, the talent, the uncompromising faith.” He’d looked at Ben with such confidence, and it was elating, intoxicating, for someone to believe in him like that. How could he say no?

Ben leads Bible study on Sunday mornings, teaching little kids about the Passion, the Three Wise Men, Jesus turning water into wine. This was easy last summer, because he’d wished someone had taught him these things as a child. So much would have been easier if he’d been raised in the faith instead of having to find it for himself.

It isn’t so easy this summer. He hesitates. He doubts. There’s only goodness in teaching a five-year-old to love her neighbors, but when Sarah asks why only boys can lead activities, he doesn’t know what to say.

The correct answer is, Because this is how God made us. Men lead and women follow. This is the way it’s meant to be. But Ben’s mother is a leader through and through, and he just spent a semester following the most brilliant woman he’s ever met. He wants to believe, but by the end of summer break, the right answer doesn’t feel so right anymore.

—

Some of Ben’s classmates resent his rigidity, but he has nothing on Armitage. His roommate obsessively organizes his notes, keeps his desk spotless, and maintains a system of color-coded calendars so that he’s perpetually early to all of his classes and extracurricular engagements.

On their first day back at Litton, Armitage kicks Ben’s unzipped suitcase and says, “Keep your clothes in your dresser this year. If I find dirty socks laying around they’re going straight in the trash.”

“Don’t touch my things,” Ben says.

He’d love to punch Armitage in his sneering, pink face, and maybe that’s showing, because his roommate makes some excuse about going to the library and disappears for the rest of the night.

It doesn’t matter. He’d rather be alone anyway.

—

The Litton College Catalogue is clear about the nature of RS 233: Pain, Suffering, and Death.

A seminar that examines critical issues and problems of crisis experience involving pain, suffering, and death using various disciplinary perspectives and pedagogical methods, including interviews with healthcare professionals. Designed primarily for students considering health or human service vocations (e.g., medical professions, counseling, social work, ministry), but also of interest to others.

Ben signed up for this class last semester, when he was too enthralled by Rey’s instruction to care what she was teaching in the fall, because he knew he would take it. Now RS 233 is almost here, and he spends all night dreaming about his father. In the shower, he scratches at his left wrist until the verse tattooed there is obscured with abrasions, blood-spotted and sore. The ache of it reminds him that he’s here and alive, grounds him until he’s calm enough to pray.

When Ben walks into class fifteen minutes early, Rey says, “Back for more?”

He claims a seat two chairs down from hers and fidgets with his sleeve, tugging it lower over the bandage on his wrist. “I like a challenge.”

“Well, that’s good, because this class isn’t for the faint-hearted.”

Rey runs a hand through her hair, which is as messy as ever. That should probably be off-putting, but Ben finds it charming. It’s an effective distraction, if not a very smart one, to focus on his pretty professor instead of the father he buried five years ago.

He tries to smile. “I don’t think anyone faint-hearted would sign up for Pain, Suffering, and Death.”

Rey rests her elbows on the table and leans forward, just the slightest bit closer to him. “Are you all right?”

Ben hasn’t talked about his father with anyone besides Pastor Snoke, but for some reason it’s almost easy to tell Rey, “I’m not sure I should have signed up for this class. I think it’s going to hit too close to home, and I can’t afford to let—for personal issues get in the way of my education.”

Rey nods slowly. “If that’s how you feel, there’s still time to drop it.”

Ben’s stomach lurches, sickened into knots, but it uncoils when Rey says, “I wish you’d stay, though. Studying this sort of thing can be good in the long run. Difficult, but cathartic.”

Ben doesn’t drop the class. He tells himself it’s for the good it might do him, but the truth is, he’s slightly less afraid of facing his grief than losing the chance to see Rey three times a week for the next four months.

—

He spends the first half of sophomore year interviewing trauma surgeons and hospice nurses, reading everything from medical philosophy to The Stranger. It’s fascinating work, but every bit of it reminds him of his father.

Ben is usually outspoken, but he doesn’t contribute one word to the group discussion on euthanasia. Rey keeps shooting him worried looks while other students are speaking, and he thinks she might mean to corner him after class, but he doesn’t give her the chance. Ben rushes out as soon as nine-fifty hits, goes straight to the nearest bathroom, locks the door, and bends over the sink, gasping for breath. He turns on the cold water so that no one standing outside the restroom will hear him crying.

—

Here’s what Ben knows of pain, suffering, and death: there’s no reason to it, no divine plan that can possibly explain why his father had to die slowly and painfully before his forty-ninth birthday.

He remembers the blisters on Dad’s chest, where radiation treatments had burned his skin raw; the wet, rattling sound of his father’s breathing; the blood he left on napkins when he coughed; statistics about his lung function and the size of his tumors, numbers and scans that never offered any hope. Ben remembers asking Mom what DNR meant, how the smile she gave him trembled when she said it was short for do not resuscitate.

Pastor Snoke has explained the mysteriousness of God’s mercy a thousand times. Before his baptism, Ben searched inward for answers, and since then he’s read enough Christian philosophy on the problem of evil that he could write a dissertation on it. He’s grasped at every straw, and for awhile, Pastor Snoke’s promises gave him the comfort he needed to breathe. But no explanation is comforting anymore, and Ben doesn’t know what to do.

—

When he doesn’t turn in a final paper, he receives an email from Rey, warning him that his grade will decrease by ten percent every day that it’s late. He ignores her, and she sends another email telling him to come to her office. If he doesn’t turn in this paper, he’s going to lose his scholarships, Pastor Snoke’s patronage, and his home.

Good. At least if he drops out, there’ll be no one left to miss him, and it’s not as though he deserves any better.

Ben shuts down his laptop and takes a nap.

He doesn’t drag himself out of bed until lunchtime the next day. Baked chicken has never been less appealing, but he’s starving and food is food. Three bites in, Ben remembers feeding his father his last meal, not that he’d known it for what it was at the time. Now he can hear winter wind rattling the window frames, the clank of silverware hitting ceramic plates. Chatter, laughter, and arguments buzz around him, all of it rising toward the vaulted ceiling and echoing around the refectory.

He leaves his plate where it is and goes outside, into flurrying snow. Ben walks slowly, tries to stay calm, but he can’t breathe and all he can think is that he has to get out of this school, out of this town, out of this place, out of here—

He barely stops short of knocking over Rey. She has to grab his arm to keep from slipping on the icy sidewalk, and he wishes that he could feel the warmth of her touch, but there are too many layers between them. She’s always beautiful, but with her nose ruddy and the tips of her ears hidden under a grey hat she looks girlish too, more like the student he mistook her for the day they met.

Ben wants to touch her, hold her, kiss her, and it isn’t the sudden desire that surprises him; what surprises him is that this desire isn’t sudden at all, and he’s been lying to himself for almost a year.

Rey looks up at him, frowning. “Ben? Are you all right?”

He wants to answer, but his voice feels stuck, caught at the base of his throat. When she pulls away, panic digs its way into his chest, squeezing his lungs until he grabs her shoulders and says, “Don’t.”

Rey’s eyes are wide, her expressive mouth slack, wind-chafed cheeks flushing from pink to red. But she stops, stays still under his hands.

Ben lets go of her and steps away. He’s hot all over, must be blushing from his hairline to his toes. It’s from embarrassment, mostly, but yearning too, and that only makes the embarrassment worse. He runs away, cutting across the lawn to the wooded copse behind the refectory, then further, until he reaches the labyrinth. It’s nothing special, just a circular pathway made up of frost-glazed stones that twist and twine around each other, but he’s come here to pray in the past.

Now he’s breathing hard, more from cold and anxiety than exertion, and he can’t find the focus to reach out to God right now. He sits at the wooden bench, rests his elbows on his knees, and bends forward, lacing his fingers together over the back of his head. He breathes deeply and picks out five things he can hear, the way his high school therapist taught him to do: snow-bearing wind, the crunch of icy grass beneath his feet, chirping birds, some skittering creature in the woods, his own restless breathing. Then four things, then three, then two, then—Rey’s voice, calling his name.

Ben sits up, rubbing his gloved knuckles over his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

Rey freezes, looking more confused than concerned now, like she hadn’t stopped until this moment to consider the wisdom of running after him. She stands straighter, steadier, and says, “You looked like you might be… unsafe. I only want to make sure you’re all right.”

“Unsafe?” Ben grasps his left wrist, at the tattoo of Hebrews 11:1 that hides under his sweater sleeve. The verse stretches halfway to his elbow, inking over the scar underneath. “I’m not planning to off myself, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He’d hoped to deter her with crudeness, but Rey crosses her arms over her chest and says, “That’s exactly what I’m worried about. You’ve seemed depressed for months, you never turned in your final paper, and now—”

Ben shrugs. “And now I’m running off behind school buildings to cry like a little boy. Got it. Your concern is duly noted, Professor Jones.”

“If you need help, there are counselors you can talk to—”

“What good is talking going to do?” He shakes his head, pulls at his sleeve, and whispers, “Talking won’t bring him back.”

Rey takes a careful, half-step toward him. “Who won’t it bring back?”

“My dad.” Ben makes himself smile, because if he doesn’t, he’s going to break down again. “He signed a DNR after his last bout in the hospital, let a bunch of nurses shoot him up full of morphine, and died two weeks later. I was there when it happened. I let it happen. I just—just stood there and watched him die—”

“No,” Rey says. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

There’s an impossible softness in her eyes, sympathy bleeding into pity. Looking at him this way is the cruelest thing she could have done, and it drives Ben to his feet.

“I was fine before I met you! I had it figured out, all the answers I needed. Losing him only meant saying goodbye for now, not forever, and now I don’t know what to believe.”

His insides have been turned outward, every nerve in his body raw and exposed. He wants to get away, wants to free himself of this pain. Ben goes to Rey, stands so close to her that he doesn’t feel like a student anymore. Only a man, strong and tall enough to tower over a woman he wants to touch. It can’t even the playing field, but it creates enough of an illusion for him to pretend that the imbalance between them doesn’t matter.

Rey’s gaze darts up and down the length of his body, like she’s assessing him. Ben can’t tell whether or not she’s trying to evaluate a threat, so when he leans down he does it cautiously, gently, giving her plenty of time to stop this if that’s what she wants.

She makes a soft noise when he kisses her, then gasps as he runs his hands down her back, her waist, her hips. She tastes like nothing Ben can place, and he wonders if all kisses feel this way, like he’s drunk (or maybe awake) for the first time—

Rey tears herself away and wipes at her swollen lips with the heel of her hand. She’s shivering, shaking her head, saying frantic, regretful things that all mean this was a mistake.

Ben bites his lip, but there’s nothing of her taste left there. Any trace of their kiss has already faded from his mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t thinking straight.”

He walks away before Rey can challenge any of his lies, and he isn’t surprised when she doesn’t follow.

—

One week into Christmas break, Ben checks his final grades. He expects to see his first academic failure, but instead he finds that he received an A- in Pain, Suffering, and Death. Ben knows that it’s only a misplaced apology, or possibly a bribe for his silence, but he hopes that Rey simply thought he deserved to pass.

I CORINTHIANS 13:4

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

—

It can’t be love, what he’s feeling. Not the real thing anyway. It’s irrational and possessive, too unhealthy and unwanted.

But whether or not this is the kind of love he’s been taught to revere, Ben thinks about Rey through the rest of his break. He daydreams about her smart mouth, the way her expressions always start at the curve of her lips. How she tasted when they kissed. He only risks jerking off in the shower, where the noise of running water will cover his gasps, and when he touches himself he pictures Rey. Her long legs wrapped around his waist, her head thrown back to expose the pale curves of her throat, the sounds she would make if he pleased her.

He thinks Rey might have kissed him back. Ben remembers her leaning in, deliberately opening her mouth to his in the fraction of a second before she pulled away. It’s probably a figment of his imagination, a consolation his memory has constructed to soothe the sting of her rejection, but he wants it to be true. He wants it to be true so badly that he can’t be sure it is.

Not that it matters. Even if some part of her does want him, Rey made her feelings clear enough at the labyrinth.

At first Ben prays for freedom from this infatuation that’s buried itself under his skin. When that fails, he prays for the wisdom and patience to move past it in time, but if anything, he only feels less wise and more impatient as the days between Christmas and the New Year crawl by.

When Ben forgets to say amen after Pastor Snoke’s eloquent grace, he gets slapped. Shame shivers along the ridges of his spine, but Ben swallows down the impulse to hit back, to argue, to cry.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Pastor Snoke cups Ben’s cheek, the same cheek he struck, his touch gentle now.

“I know you are,” he says, smiling. “Now eat your dinner.”

—

Ben wakes with the smell of cigarette smoke in his nose, the sour ash scent that never quite faded from the living room curtains, even years after Dad quit smoking. He dreamed of blistered skin and bloody napkins. Of his father’s tumors, showing silver and nebulous against black X-ray film, like clouds drifting across a night sky. Innocuous, almost pretty, for such ugly, dangerous things.

He misses Rey.

Ben speaks to his blank, empty ceiling for ten minutes, begging for forgiveness and help, when something unwelcome tugs low in his belly. Uncertainty, mistrust.

“Are you even there?” He has to whisper the question. It’s too dangerous to give much voice to.

Ben hears nothing, feels nothing. So he does what he always does when doubt creeps in. He slides his fingers along the tattoo that marks his left arm, mouthing the words without looking at them. This ritual eases his fears, even if it doesn’t bring much reassurance that someone is listening.

—

On the last Sunday before going back to school, Pastor Snoke takes Ben behind the church and says, “You’re distracted, falling down on your responsibilities here and at school. I know you almost lost your fellowship because your volunteer hours barely met the minimum requirements. That isn’t acceptable.”

Ben knows that Pastor Snoke has connections at Litton. It’s half the reason he was accepted into such a high-profile school when his high school GPA was less than stellar, thanks to his disastrous freshman year. He wonders whether it was a snitch from financial aid or the Casterfo Fellowship committee who told Pastor Snoke about his rocky semester.

“You’re right. I’ll do better, it’s just—” Ben resists the urge to shrug, because Pastor Snoke hates it when he doesn’t stand up straight. “I had a difficult few months.”

“I don’t want excuses. I want improvement,” Pastor Snoke says. He grasps the back of his neck in a gesture that might be fatherly if it wasn’t hard enough to hurt. “If you hadn’t lost focus, you could have found the guidance you needed to do well. The Lord never gives us more than we can bear, Ben.”

Then I wish I wasn’t capable of bearing so much.

“Of course. I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

Pastor Snoke’s frown deepens. He looks upward meaningfully and says, “It isn’t my disappointment you should be worried about.”

Ben nods as respectfully as he can manage, since it seems he can’t say anything right today.

—

He’d been disappointed last semester when he couldn’t fit any of Rey’s classes into his spring schedule. Now Ben is thankful that his only RS class is Living Religions with Professor Îmwe. Advanced Greek and Astronomy are a welcome respite after the academic hell he went through last fall, although Krennic’s class makes him want to rip his hair out. It’s more his professor’s attitude that bothers him than the subject matter, but Ben still hates sitting through ninety minutes of poli sci every Tuesday and Thursday.

At the end of January, Ben goes to Rey’s office. She’s there, naturally. She works so much that it makes him wonder what kind of life she has outside of this college.

It’s the first time he’s seen her in more than passing since the day they kissed. Her hair is in a loose braid instead of its usual bun, and she never bothered to take off her coat, despite the space heater running in the corner.

Ben walks inside without knocking, points to the heater, and says, “Those aren’t allowed on campus. It’s pretty irresponsible for you to have one.”

Rey shoves a stack of papers into a folder, staring steadily at her desk. “Did you need something?”

Ben pulls the door shut behind him. He takes three deep breaths, sends a quick prayer heavenward, and says, “We should talk about what happened at the labyrinth.”

She finally looks up. “No, we shouldn’t. It’s better left alone, and—well, I assume you won’t be taking more of my classes anyway.”

“Why would you think that?” Ben asks.

Rey stands up and lays her hands flat on her tidy desk. “Because it’s not appropriate.”

Ben grips the edge of her desk and bows low enough that, if he worked up the courage, he could kiss her again.

“What I feel for you isn’t appropriate, whether I’m in your classes or not,” Ben whispers.

Rey straightens, backs away from her desk, and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She moves with the swift clumsiness of restless fear, so far from the confidence and composure she usually exudes. Rey is a brilliant teacher and an accomplished scholar, but under that, she’s just a person. A regular person like any other, and he’s been an idiot for keeping her on a pedestal.

“We’re not going down this path,” Rey says. “It would only hurt both of us.”

His desires are unwise, but maybe not unreturned, and if Rey wants him back there’s a chance—

“So you don’t want what happened between us to compromise my education, but you’re excluding me from your classes, which are the best in the whole department.” He walks around the desk and closes in on her space until she’s backed against a bookshelf. “In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s going to compromise my education.”

The top of Rey’s head barely brushes his chin, and her soft breath warms his throat. Still, her voice comes out firm, almost harsh, when she says, “I’m sorry, Ben, I am, but I don’t see you like that. You’re a great student and a—a bright kid—”

He cups Rey’s face between his hands, strokes his thumb over her cheek, and watches her gaze flicker toward his mouth. She bites her own lip, then turns away, breaths coming in short, sharp pants.

“You’re not as good at lying to yourself as you’d like to be,” Ben says.

Rey pushes him, and the shock of being struck makes him stumble.

“Get out,” she says. “Get out, and don’t come back.”

She sounds more broken than fierce, but he does as he’s told.

Later, alone in his bed, Ben realizes that he always follows wherever Rey leads him, and no matter how much he’d like to, he can’t get around the distance between her authority and his. She’s ten years older than him, smarter, better educated, with the power to ruin his future if she wants to. No matter how fiercely they disagree, in the end, he dances to whatever song Rey plays. Maybe that’s the problem.

—

Ben has managed to get through nearly two years at Litton without making a single friend. It wasn’t difficult; he’s always had to work to earn anyone’s affection or interest, and until college, his peers seemed to enjoy making his life hell. At least here he’s mostly ignored.

He can’t stand Armitage, and Armitage returns the (lack of) sentiment. But by virtue of sharing a room, they spend more time with each other than anyone else, and they agree to live together at East Village apartments next year. Better the devil you know, Ben supposes.

They’re both awake at three o’clock in the morning on a Thursday in April when Armitage closes his business textbook, pulls a fifth of whiskey from the bottom drawer of his desk, and asks, “Do you ever drink, Father Solo?”

“I’m going to be a minister, not a priest,” Ben says, but for once Armitage’s ribbing only makes him laugh. “And no, I don’t drink.”

Armitage takes a glass from the pretentious shelf of dishes next to his mini-fridge and fills it with whiskey. “Shocker.”

“I used to,” Ben says. “I used to drink all the time. Too much.”

The look Armitage gives him isn’t quite one of respect, but it’s close. “Really? I never would’ve guessed you for a budding alcoholic. Were you a man-whore too?”

Ben closes his laptop, turns to his roommate, and says, “No. I didn’t want to be close to anyone. I just wanted to…”

Disappear. He wanted to disappear, but even if Armitage is being decent for once, Ben can’t share that truth.

Armitage turns up his glass and drinks half the whiskey in one go without even flinching. “Well, here’s a piece of advice, for whenever you manage to foist your virginity off on someone: fucking doesn’t require intimacy.”

Ben ends up drinking whiskey too, then passing out. He wakes up with a dull headache after a night of dreamless sleep, feeling empty, wrung-out, and blessedly calm.

—

Ben goes to his first Greek party the weekend before finals, where he avoids getting wasted by winning game after game of beer pong. Even when he spent half his time drunk or hungover, Natty Lite was never his drink of choice, and his aim has always been excellent.

His beer pong partner is Jyn, a junior who’s famous for calling Professor Krennic a cunt in the middle of the refectory last year.

Her boyfriend Cassian has been stalking the edges of the party for the last hour, clearly pissed off except for when he looks at Jyn. Ben gestures at him and asks, “How long have you two been together?”

“Ages. For better or worse.” She makes a perfect shot. The ping pong ball sinks into a red cup at the opposite side of the table with a satisfying plop. Bodhi—another RS major who Ben knows in passing—drinks his beer, pulls a face, and tells Jyn in the most polite way possible that she’s the worst friend he’s ever had.

Ben considers flirting with Jyn. He’s heard from two-hundred-pound football players that Cassian isn’t one to fuck with, and he hasn’t been in a fight since Pastor Snoke saved him. It might feel good to be hurt, even better to hurt someone else.

After their third win, Jyn claps him on the shoulder and says, “If I keep playing with you I’ll never get drunk.”

He smiles at her, cool enough to be on the safe side of friendly. “You’re not too bad yourself.”

Ben drinks soda for the next hour, doesn’t start any fights, and ignores Jessika Pava when she flirts with him. He leaves while the party is still going strong to walk around campus. Loneliness makes him feel even more disappointingly sober, so Ben goes to the labyrinth. The woods are green and lively, full of the impending promise of summer, but he can see this place covered in frost, can almost taste the sting of winter wind.

It isn’t his fragile faith that held him back at the party, because there was little temptation to resist. Ben isn’t particularly interested in getting drunk, or fighting, or testing out Armitage’s love-life advice with a girl he barely knows. All he truly wants is Rey.

—

Ben should have declared his major months ago, but he’s been putting it off. When he finally files the appropriate paperwork, he also picks up a blue form for requesting an advisor change. Now that he’s officially a Religious Studies major, he needs a professor from the RS department to mentor him.

Rey blushes when he shows up at her office with the request form. They small talk for a minute, the most they’ve spoken to each other in three months, but then she says, “You know I can’t be your advisor.”

He smiles, as brightly as he’s capable of. “Of course you can. You’re the best.”

“My credentials have nothing to do with this. Try Professor Îmwe, or maybe Malbus—”

“Malbus hates me. Îmwe is great at his job, but he teaches world religions, and I’m going into ministry. You’re an expert on the history of Biblical interpretation, American religions, and modern theology. Which makes you the perfect advisor for me.”

“Ben…” Rey looks at him with such softness that it sends an ache through his chest and heat to his belly.

He shrugs. “I don’t see the problem.”

Her softness turns sharp in an instant, and she says, “Yes you do. Don’t be obtuse.”

“I’m not being obtuse,” Ben says. “But I am hoping you could clear something up for me. I should’ve failed 233 and lost half my scholarships, but instead, here I am with my semester paid for and my GPA intact. Harassing you about being my advisor, because you won’t talk to me for any other reason.”

The silence between them grows thick, heavy with the gravity of what they’re saying—and not saying. Ben chews the inside of his cheek, waiting. Hoping.

“I’m sorry,” Rey says, so low and small that her voice would be lost if not for the stillness of this room.

“For which part?”

“I gave you that grade because you’re one of the brightest students I’ve ever had, and you didn’t deserve to lose your education over grief.” She glances down at her desk. “And I’ve been avoiding you because it’s the best thing I can think to do in a situation where nothing seems right.”

Ben counts five things he can see in this office. Bookshelves crammed into a space far too small for them. Rey’s degrees, decorating the only free wall. Fountain pens and folders scattered across her desk. A flowerpot in the window, housing a plant that’s either dead or very neglected. And Rey, so beautiful with her cheeks flushed, eyes greener and glassier than usual.

“You knew I was going to kiss you. You knew, and you let me do it.”

Rey is looking at him, and at least she has enough courage, enough respect for him, to meet his eyes when she says, “Yes.”

Running away hasn’t served him very well so far, so maybe it’s time to stand his ground.

Now or never.

“Let’s see each other,” Ben says. “No more dancing around this thing, trying to fight off something I want, and that I’m pretty sure you want too.”

“Do you realize what you’re suggesting? The consequences we could face if we got found out?” Rey picks up a pen and fidgets with it, turning it over and over. “I’d lose my job. The administration would watch you like a hawk for the rest of your time here, and most of your classmates would crucify you.”

Ben can’t keep a grin off of his face, because she isn’t saying no. It almost hurts to smile so widely. “Then we’ll be careful.”

Rey opens her mouth, but says nothing, and he can see it, the nervousness that’s keeping her quiet, and he can’t—he just can’t let her back out when she’s so close to giving in. Ben stands up, walks around the desk, and gets on his knees before Rey. He feels ridiculously like a man about to propose.

“Please.” Ben grasps her hips, then wraps his arms around her waist. Pulls her closer, to the edge of her seat. She’s a tall woman, but light. Easy to manhandle.

Rey grabs him by the front of his shirt, and Ben scrambles to his feet. He doesn’t let go of Rey, doesn’t stop touching her even once, as she stands, hops up onto her desk, and pulls him down for a kiss.

It’s wet and messy, all hunger, tongues, and sharp teeth. She’s biting at his lips as much as kissing him, like she means to take him apart one piece at a time.

—

They made it to Rey’s apartment, even into bed, but not out of all their clothes. Ben’s pants and boxers are tangled around his knees, his shirt unbuttoned. Pressed flat against the mattress with Rey on top of him, he feels frantic and overcome, drunk on the taste of her, the sight of her undressed from the waist down, riding him.

He slides his hands under Rey’s shirt and bra to grasp her breasts. They’re small, soft, her nipples peaked under his hands. He moans, rocks up harder, faster, meeting her movements. Each thrust draws a high, keening noise from Rey, quiet but desperate. And he loves all of it: pleasing her, feeling the warmth and wetness of her sex around his cock, watching her thighs work as she takes what she wants from him.

Rey looks down at him like she’s needed this every bit as much as he has, and it’s good, so much, too much—

“Wait,” Ben hisses, but he can’t stop lifting his hips, bucking up into her. “You’ve gotta slow down, or I’ll—I’m—”

“It’s okay, I want it, I want to watch you come.” Rey pulls her shirt over her head, then her bra, so he can see her, all of her, while she—

Ben bites his knuckles to keep from shouting, but he still moans loud enough that her neighbors can probably hear it through these thin walls. He can’t care, because he’s close, so close, and then he’s there. Lost under Rey, buried inside her, while bliss hits him in waves. He can hear her whimpers beneath his own, goading him on, coaxing him to the end until he’s wrung out, boneless and spent.

The room hasn’t quite settled around him again when Rey falls to the bed by his side.

“How was that?” she asks, breathless.

By the confidence in her voice, he thinks she already knows. Which is good, because all Ben can muster the intelligence to say is, “I don’t have the words for it.”

Rey laughs. “Well that’s a first.”

Then she nods in the direction of his groin, and says, “You might want to get rid of that condom.”

“Right.”

Ben would rather not think about the condom. He hadn’t known how the hell to put it on, which clearly wasn’t lost on Rey, although she had the tact not to comment on it. He goes to the bathroom, throws the condom away, and cleans himself up.

He undresses before climbing back into bed, and has to smile at the soft, stupid expression that steals over Rey’s face when she sees him naked.

“You’re really something else, you know that?” Her voice breaks on the question, and it might be as satisfying as the sex to witness the effect he’s having on her.

She lets him hold her close and play with her hair. It’s soft and fine, almost wispy, and prone to snagging when he runs his fingers through it.

“Did you come?” Ben asks.

Rey shakes her head, then nudges his calf with her foot. “I’m not too worried about it. I expect you’ll make sure I get mine before the night’s through. You are an overachiever after all.”

“Well that’s certainly true.” Ben tries to smile, but it feels weak.

“What is it?” Rey asks. “You look sad now.”

He untangles his fingers from her hair. “I don’t want to be a disappointment.”

Rey sits up, cradles his face between her hands, and looks at him with such steady, blazing attention that as much as he wants to look away, he can’t.

“Ben. Listen to me: there’s nothing disappointing about you. Not one thing.”

He should pull away. Making love once, holding each other, basking in the smallest sliver of her affection—that’s all it takes for Rey to claim every part of him that matters.

This is foolish and selfish, no good for either of them, but Ben thinks maybe, despite that, what he’s feeling could be something like love anyway.

ECCLESIASTES 6:7

Everyone’s toil is for the mouth, yet the appetite is never satisfied.

—

Ben barely studies for his last exam because he goes to Rey’s apartment every night he can spare. They spend most of that time making love, then lying together in the aftermath, getting to know one another while they share tender touches and quiet words.

The night before he leaves for Cottontown, they’re entwined in a pile of inside-out clothes on the living room floor, breathless and grinning at each other.

Ben props himself up on an elbow, leans over Rey, and says, “Tell me something about yourself. I want to know you better.”

She laughs. “You already know me as well as anyone does.”

“I do?” He almost laughs with her, but then Ben notices that the smile around her mouth is empty in her eyes.

Rey touches the crook of his elbow, slides her fingers along the skin of his left forearm, following the lines of his tattoo and the scar underneath it.

“If I share something personal with you, will you tell me about this?” she asks.

Ben kisses her forehead. “Sure.”

It isn’t as if the worst of it (of him) isn’t in plain sight anyway.

“My parents dumped me at a hospital in Arizona when I was six. They left me there.” Rey looks up at the ceiling, the smallness of her voice fading into the shadows. “They left me, and they never came back.”

“That’s terrible,” Ben tells her, because it is, and because he doesn’t know what else to say.

Rey shrugs, still looking upward. “I guess so.”

He imagines Rey as a little girl, lost and alone until someone found her. Lost and alone even now, maybe, if he’s the closest thing to a friend that she has.

“Your turn,” Rey says.

Ben lies on his back beside her. He thinks there might be a water stain on the ceiling, but with only the waning blue of twilight to see by, he can’t be sure.

“I missed my dad. Missed him all the time, so I found ways not to think about him. I bullied kids who were smaller than me, just to have someone to hurt. Then I started fights with seniors, to get someone to hurt me. I drank all the time, so much that even my mom noticed. And she wasn’t—” Ben scrubs a hand over his face, counts five things he can hear, and says, “She was a good mom, but she was busy. Always so busy, dealing with a million things that were more important than me, and after Dad died, she found enough distractions to keep her even busier.”

“Like you did,” Rey whispers.

“No, not like me,” Ben says. “Anyway, I’m sure you’ve guessed where this story’s going. Nothing helped, not in the long-run. So I tried to do something that would end the pain for good.”

He doesn’t tell her about bleeding all over his bathroom floor, the flood gushing from his wrist, so bright and warm that it terrified him. He was too scared to hurt himself further, but frozen, determined not to call for help. He sat there, curled up on the tile, turning his white bathroom red red red, until his mother found him.

“Why’d you tattoo over your scar?” Rey asks. “To hide it?”

Ben shakes his head. “I tried to kill myself because I was hopeless. So when I found my faith, I wanted to cover up my scar with the thing that gave me hope again.”

Rey scoots closer to him, wraps an arm around his waist, and says, “That’s beautiful.”

No, it’s stupid, Ben thinks, but he keeps that to himself. His ability to believe has become a meager thing, too shameful to share, even with Rey.

In the silence between them, Ben offers his hand. Rey takes it, and they stay this way for a long while. Lovers who only love with their bodies, holding hands in the darkness.

—

A year ago, having sex before marriage sounded impossible, if tempting, and now he’s done it. It isn’t until he’s back at Pastor Snoke’s that Ben feels the gravity of his choices. He learned how to fear God in this house, and how to fear Pastor Snoke even more. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, because respect begins with awe, awe requires intimidation, and intimidation is born through fear. But Ben’s fear of God has waned with the awe he used to feel, and without enough respect for the path he set himself on, he simply doesn’t care enough to keep away from Rey.

At church, he’s an imposter among the faithful, the sort of wolf in sheep’s clothing that Matthew 7:15 warns about. It’s easier to see the hateful lies he swallowed, now that he better understands why he was so hungry for them.

Pastor Snoke reads Psalms 139:13—for you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb—and when he condemns the women who end their pregnancies, Ben thinks of Rey at age seventeen. Six weeks along and living out of her car. She told him, in the middle of the night a few weeks ago, that she had an abortion, went to college, and tried not to look back.

Not so long ago, Ben believed everything Pastor Snoke is saying now.

He stands, runs out of the church as fast as his legs will carry him, and finds a quiet place behind the church to hide. It keeps him from vomiting in the front pew, but then he thinks of what will await him at Pastor Snoke’s house. Hours in his locked room, or maybe a simple slap to the face. It’s too late to go home, and he can’t risk losing his place at Litton, his place beside Rey—

Help me please help me I can’t do this alone somebody help me—

Ben doesn’t know if he’s praying to his father or God, but maybe if he calls out loud enough and long enough, someone will answer.

—

He doesn’t have to go to church the next week, because the bruise on his cheek still hasn’t healed.

Ben spends all of Sunday morning writing a letter to his mother. It starts with I’m sorry and ends with please forgive me, but he can’t bring himself to deliver it. His home is only five miles away, but with the blame and betrayal he’d have to cross to get there, it might as well be a thousand.

He never has been brave. It’s a hard truth that Ben accepted years ago, after he had to look away from his dying father, and in the blink of an eye, missed the most important moment of his life.

—

Ben talks to Rey on the burner phone that he bought right after finals. He hides in his closet and keeps his voice pitched low, feeling more like a child than a twenty-year-old man.

“I miss you,” he whispers.

“I…” He hears Rey take an unsteady breath, her voice two hundred miles away, yet right in his ear. “I miss you too.”

Ben chews his lip, worrying the bruised flesh between his teeth so that the sting ties him to the present. “So, what are you teaching next semester? I’m taking Malbus again for—”

“I don’t want to talk about work,” Rey says, snappish enough that its sharpness rings in Ben’s ears.

“Well then what do you want to talk about?” he asks. “Because it doesn’t seem like you want to talk about us either, and those are the only two things we have in common.”

“Don’t be dramatic. It just seems—it’s not right for us to mix this up with—” She sighs, then her voice lowers, softens, when she says, “I don’t want to confuse you. There’s what we’re doing… and then there’s what we are to each other. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Their affair and their relationship lead to the same thing for him. He isn’t a student fucking his professor; he’s just a man making love to the woman he’s devoted to. But he only says, “Yeah, of course. I get it.”

—

“I expect better from you this year,” Pastor Snoke says. “Don’t let anything steer you away from the right path, no matter how tempting it is. If you’re not vigilant, it’s easy to be seduced by the world, to forget what needs to be done. Remember my lessons.”

Ben nods, fidgeting with his keys—keys to a gently used Toyota that Pastor Snoke gave him a week ago.

“I’ll do my best. And you won’t have any reason to hear about me this year, I promise.”

The drive back to Litton stretches on and on, the same highway view repeating a thousand times. The sidelines broken by meadows, cornfields, and roadside woods, dotted with billboards for churches, jewelry companies, fast-food restaurants. Plain black promises on white canvas claim that THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH, half a mile down from a Hustler Hollywood.

By the time he reaches his school, Ben needs a shower and a nap, but the first thing he does, even before unloading his belongings into his new student apartment, is search out Rey. Her office is locked and silent, but it’s easy enough to find her in the library, wandering through the stacks with three books already under her arm.

She’s beautiful. Hair pulled up into three buns today, something new and a little silly that makes her look younger than thirty.

He pretends to examine a book near her and whispers, “Go to the restroom down the hall and wait for me.”

There’s a smile that Rey is trying to hold back, but it shows at the corners of her eyes. “Well hello to you too, darling.”

Ben pulls out a heavy book on the phenomenology of religion and flips to a page on Eliade. It’s boring, but reading it gives him something to think about besides the ache settling between his legs, tightening his throat, beating in his chest. Lust, homesickness, love. He glances around, checking for students that he already knows won’t be there.

“I need to kiss you,” Ben whispers. “Need to get my mouth on all of you.”

Five minutes later, they’re locked in the third-floor bathroom, kissing and biting at each other, pulling at clothes. Ben holds Rey against the wall, one arm braced over her head, the other unbuttoning her loose jeans. She’s a tall woman, but when they’re pressed close this way, both on their feet instead of in bed, she seems small, slight. Easy to have however he wants, so long as she wants it too.

Rey shivers when he tugs at her zipper, a shiver that turns to steady trembling as he yanks her pants and plain cotton underwear down her hips and thighs, lets them drop to her ankles.

He gets on his knees, and he loves it, loves everything about this. The sharp jerk of Rey’s fingers in his hair as she guides him closer, the whimpers she muffles around her own knuckles. The mindless calm that settles over him as he lets her take charge, giving orders and pulling his hair and bucking against his mouth. He loves the taste and smell of her, the heat and salt musk on his tongue. Wet, so wet, even more so as he unravels her with each lick, all slick warmth across his mouth and around his fingers, crooked inside her. He feels it when she comes, the quivering of her sex that he’s touching from within.

Then he pulls away, climbs to his feet, wipes the mess from his mouth with his shirtsleeve, and turns Rey around so that she’s facing the wall.

“Do you have—?”

“Yeah. I made a pitstop on the way here.”

Ben unfastens his jeans, gets them down to his knees, tangled with his boxers, and pulls a condom from his pocket. God bless Hustler, he thinks, and he doesn’t even have time to feel guilty about it before he’s inside her, and then that’s all he cares about. Rey, pressed flat against the wall, letting out the quietest of whimpers every time he thrusts. Rey, moaning his name again and again, telling him to fuck her, to have her harder, faster, to make her feel it tomorrow.

I love you, he thinks, when he’s close, when he comes, when he’s falling down from the high of pleasure. And later still, after they’ve straightened their clothes and parted ways, and he’s lying in his bed alone that night, he thinks it again: I love you. I love you so much that it’s tearing me apart.

He wishes Rey was here, to sleep beside him. That he could wake up next to her each morning, until he’s earned the intimacy of her heart as much as the intimacy of her body. That he could fall asleep in her arms at night, taking turns being each other’s protectors.

It’s becoming misery, to need someone so fully, and be needed back only in the basest, barest possible way.

—

Ben wonders how long they can keep this up. By December, he can hardly stand it. He turns twenty-one just before finals, and Rey promises to take him for a drink when the new semester starts. Plans for something like a date sustain him through his exams, distracting but elating, and he’s motivated like never before to do well.

He aces every exam, doesn’t even need to see his grades to know it, and when he tells Rey, she laughs. Throws her arms around his neck and says, “You really are brilliant. It’s a shame how well you know it, though.”

During Christmas break, he’s lost. Divergent schedules and the need for discretion keep them apart more often than not, but at least at school he has the privilege of seeing Rey. Even if it’s only a glimpse of her, walking around campus or grabbing a meal in the refectory (where she always goes back for second helpings of the dishes she likes).

When they’re together, he needs her so fiercely that it feels like something inside of him, something deep-seated and important, is being pulled from its place. Ripped out and exposed, made raw before this woman who owns him. And when they’re apart, he aches. That same part, that necessary piece of self, hurts to be away from Rey.

But she doesn’t feel the same. It’s obvious from the reservation he often feels behind her touch outside of bed, the gentle way she always cues him to leave her home before sunrise, that Rey’s desires run shallower than his own. She’s glad to use him and be used, but nothing more.

And Ben knows, as much as he doesn’t want to, that this isn’t sustainable, could never stand the test of time. An uneven love will eventually overbalance.

—

It ends as abruptly as it started, on a cold night in April.

A storm rages outside, and a clap of thunder startles Ben awake. Muzzy-headed and still boneless from lovemaking, it takes him a moment to register that Rey isn’t beside him. He climbs out of bed, pulls on his jeans, and wanders through her apartment, calling her name.

He finds her outside, on the patio, grasping the railing with a white-knuckled grip. As if that hold is the only thing that might keep her from hauling herself right over the balustrade and falling three stories to the pavement below. Ben grabs Rey by the arm and yanks her around, because he can’t tolerate it, seeing her lean so close to the edge like that.

Lightning flashes, a fork of purple-white fire branching across the sky, illuminating the whole darkness, and the whole of them, standing half-naked in the watchful night.

She’s crying. He’s never seen Rey cry before, and he knows, even before he asks, “What’s wrong?” that this is it. This is the end.

“I can’t—” She sniffs, runs a hand through her soaked hair, and says, “I can’t keep doing this, Ben. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

The wind is cold on his skin, ferrying a thousand icy raindrops that beat against his body, that could eat him alive, and for a moment, that’s all he can feel. The wind, the rain, the cold.

Then the rest of it hits, and he runs inside, to get away from Rey more than to get away from the storm. He pulls on his shirt and shoes, grabs his backpack from the coat closet, and rushes into the hallway, down the staircase, running as fast and as far as he can when he can’t think, when he can’t breathe.

“Ben, wait!”

Rey followed him outside, still dressed only in a drenched sweater, long enough to cover any sight of her panties. She’s shivering, hair soaked flat against her face, barefoot and sobbing in the rain.

“Let me explain! Please—”

He rounds on her, doesn’t even think before he pushes her against the brick wall. “Why? You’re kicking me out, aren’t you? So I might as well go.”

She bites her lip, looks up at him with swollen eyes, her lashes wet with tears and rain. “I’m trying to do the right thing by you. This is hurting you. I can see that it’s hurting you, and I—” Rey looks down, and he knows that whatever is coming next will be awful. “I don’t feel the same way you do, Ben, and you deserve better than to be strung along.”

“Strung along?” He leans closer, bows low enough that he could kiss her mouth if he wanted to. If she wanted him to. “You’ve tied me up into knots, wrapped me around your little finger. Do you really think there’s anything right left that we can do here?”

She tilts her head back, angling her lips a shade nearer to his own, showing her throat to him, like prey.

“I love you,” Ben says, and finally, the words are out. He’s free of carrying them around like a weight on his shoulders, growing heavier each day they go unspoken.

Rey only nods, then whispers, “I know.”

It’s not her rejection that hurts the most. That, at least, he saw coming. It’s the softness in Rey’s eyes, the cloak of her pity that settles over him, that hits hardest.

He kisses her, presses her against the wall more roughly, taking her mouth and caging her body with his own so that, at least in this way, he can be the one in control. Bigger and stronger, with the power to make her whimper and kiss back and moan. To quiver under his roaming hands—

Rey pushes him. She isn’t strong enough to throw him off of her, but Ben still backs away.

They watch each other. Rey cries so hard that her chest heaves, and the rain keeps falling, the heavens keep roiling with a spring storm. Indiscriminate, unmoved by the display below them.

When Ben walks away, he doesn’t look back.

SONG OF SOLOMON 5:6

I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had left; he was gone. My heart sank at his departure. I looked for him but did not find him. I called him but he did not answer.

—

His faded faith must be written all over him, because Pastor Snoke asks him flat-out in the middle of June, “Do you even believe anymore, Ben?”

This is the time to lie, to claim a faith he’s been leaving by the wayside for years, inch by inch, verse by verse. Lying would protect him, secure his final year of school, keep a roof over his head.

He thinks of blood on the bathroom floor, and his father’s last breath—the one that he looked away from, the one he missed, because he’s a coward. He thinks of Rey, crying in the rain, throwing him aside like trash. If he’s learned anything, it’s that there are many ways to give up, and some hurt more than others. But this one isn’t going to hurt at all.

“No,” Ben says. “I don’t believe in any of it, and I don’t think I ever really did. I just wanted to be free of my grief, and you dangled the Word over me like a worm over a hungry fish. So I took it.”

Suddenly Pastor Snoke’s wholesome face turns into something ugly, low, and foul. The scar across his cheek stands out, white and twisted with the sneer around his mouth. For the first time, Ben thinks he must have earned that mark.

“I thought you were the son I never had,” Snoke says. “But you’re just as much a disappointment to me as you were to your father.”

Ben punches him, and it feels good, it feels so satisfying, to finally hit this man back.

Snoke barely flinches, but it isn’t his pain that Ben wants anyway. Just the simple act of reclaiming himself, of taking back a small measure of the power that he handed over—no, that Snoke took from him.

The pastor touches his mouth, and it comes away bloody. “Get out, and don’t ever show your face here again.”

“Don’t worry,” Ben says. “I won’t.”

—

There aren’t a lot of resources for homeless twenty-somethings in Cottontown. After Snoke sent him away, he walked around for two days with nothing but the clothes on his back. All of his money came from Snoke, and he hates to spend even the thirty-two dollars in his pocket on food.

His mother’s house is so close. He could walk there in no time, he could say that he left the church and beg to come home. But he doesn’t have any right to that home, doesn’t have any right to her forgiveness, even if she’d grant it.

He borrows a stranger’s phone while he’s shopping for bread and bologna at Walmart, dials his mom’s number, then hangs up before it can ring. He calls Rey after that, and even though he doesn’t expect her to pick up, it still hurts when she doesn’t answer.

Ben smiles at the little blue-haired lady who let him borrow her ten-year-old flip phone, thanks her, and leaves the shop without buying anything.

—

The summer heat is a new hell, the kind that almost makes Ben believe in the devil again. Every day is a fresh exercise in heat exhaustion, so he finds the coolest places to lurk. Shaded park benches, the community center, under the red-striped flower shop awning.

Mrs. Miller, the shop’s owner, gives him ice water and invites him inside whenever he likes. Ben uses her bathroom to wash up with hand soap, but he knows he still looks ragged and dirty. He won’t repay Mrs. Miller’s kindness by lingering in her shop, driving away customers.

He goes to the Hope Center at the beginning of July, and when he explains the situation with Pastor Snoke, they agree that it’s terrible, just terrible, that a man of God would do such a thing.

Ben shrugs. “I would’ve run away if he hadn’t kicked me out first.”

I’m good at running away.

The women at the center help him find an apartment by the middle of July, and the first night he sleeps inside, cradled on an air-mattress in a cool bedroom, he almost cries.

The next day, when he brings Mrs. Miller a box of chocolates as a thank you gift, she offers him a job.

Working at the shop is easy enough for Ben. He’s always been meticulous, attuned to the fine details of things, whether it’s the nuances of a religious text or the careful pitch of Rey’s cries as he drew her closer to coming. That pays off once his days are consumed by caring for and arranging flowers. Mrs. Miller teaches him that too much baby’s breath only makes arrangements look tacky, the meaning of flowers is useless information unless you’re trying to sell Valentine’s arrangements or guilt-roses, and no, carnations never stop smelling like funerals.

August comes, and August goes, taking the start of a new semester at Litton with it.

—

His mother walks into the empty flower shop on September 29th at exactly one o’clock in the afternoon, and Ben knows he’ll remember this day for the rest of his life. It’s going to be tucked away in his memory for safekeeping, like flowers between the pages of a Bible.

She doesn’t see him at first, too busy examining a display of white roses, so Ben takes a moment to watch her. Her long dark braid is streaked with silver now, the fine lines by her eyes more prominent. She looks as beautiful as ever, but older. Of course she does; it’s been three years, eight months, and six days since they last saw each other. Not that he allowed himself to count, until recently.

“Mom…”

It chokes out of him before he even means to say anything, but she turns immediately, her brown eyes going wide, wider, then glassy with tears. She doesn’t let them fall, though. His mother has never been an easy crier, not like him.

“Ben?”

It stings to hear so much reservation in her voice, hope colored by disbelief, by mourning.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he says.

Ben steps around the counter, gripping its edge to keep himself steady. His mom walks over, holds out her hands, trembling, tentative, and asks, “Can I hug you?”

It isn’t until he has her wrapped in his arms that Ben realizes how much he’s missed this, missed her.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Mom, please—”

He doesn’t even know what he means to say. Don’t hate me? Still love me? Let me come home? It doesn’t matter, because she burrows closer, and buries her head against his chest. Was she always this tiny, this delicate?

They finally fall away from the embrace, but then his mother stands up on the tips of her toes to cup his face between her hands. “You’re so tall,” she says, crying now, finally crying like he is. “When did you get so tall?”

Once they’ve (mostly) managed to let go of each other, Ben locks up the shop, calls Mrs. Miller to tell her what happened, and follows his mom to her car. His voice is stuck in his throat all the way back to Peachtree Street, and as soon as they reach the house, he almost starts crying again. His mom repainted the siding from white to a soft, sunny yellow, and there’s a garden around the porch now. It’s his house, but not as he remembers it.

There are a few cars parked in the driveway and on the lawn around it, one that he recognizes as his grandmother’s, another that he thinks might belong to his godparents, Bail and Breha.

“What’s everyone doing here?” he asks.

“Oh, shit, I didn’t even think to tell you. The family gets together on the last Friday of every month now, sweetheart. After you left—well I thought it might be a good idea for all of us to stay close.”

Before Ben can figure out what to say, his mom smiles at him, as warmly as if no time has passed at all. “Come on. It’s the perfect day for you to come home.”

—

His grandmother sobs for ten minutes straight and won’t let go of him until Mom says, “All right, give him a chance to breathe. Don’t want to run him off again.”

Ben laughs, more out of shock than good humor, but he’s thankful that there’s so little his mother finds too sacred to make fun of.

“This is a day for family, Ben,” Uncle Luke says, smiling. “Once you’ve had some time to let that sink in, it might be good for you to think about it.”

Ben hugs Uncle Luke once more, then his cousin Finn and Breha, then his mother. He can’t get enough of pulling her close, smelling the comforting floral scent of her perfume, one thing that’s still the same after all this time.

The house is loud and boisterous, overwhelming but beautiful. Once, the noise would have bothered him, but now he doesn’t care. Through the laughter and the music and hollering from one room to another, all Ben hears is joy. A home full of joy, when he needed it most, and he can only be thankful for his family’s warmth and grace.

Maybe Luke isn’t wrong. Being here, today of all days, makes him believe for the first time in a long while that something greater than himself could be at work.

—

That night, after everyone else has gone home, Ben stays up until the early hours of the morning, talking with his mother. He tells her about living with Pastor Snoke. About college and Rey, and feeling lost without her. Most of all, though, they remember Dad together.

When dawn starts creeping through the windows, warming the kitchen with golden light, his mom says, “He’d be proud of you, Ben. So proud.”

They laugh and cry and laugh again, and this is it, he thinks. This is what he needed all along. Time for the sharp edges of his grief to wear down, and someone to share this with, the burden of love cut short. There’s no magic cure for loss, but he can do this. He can keep going.

—

Ben is lying in his childhood bed, listening to morning birdsong outside his window, when he finally calls Rey.

She answers on the second ring. He doesn’t even get through a greeting before she says, “Ben! Where the hell are you? I’ve been worried out of my mind. First you don’t answer my calls, then you never show up at school? I’ve—I didn’t know what—I was afraid you’d hurt yourself.”

Rey takes three shuddering breaths, and he thinks she might be trying not to hyperventilate.

He sits up, cradling the phone between his shoulder and his head, and holds out his hands. Then he feels stupid. It’s not like he can touch her from here.

“It’s all right, I’m all right. Now, anyway. I’m home—with my mom, I mean, and—”

“I lied,” Rey says. The words come out in a rush, like she’s been holding them in since the last time they spoke, letting honesty fester in some hidden corner of her heart.

“Lied about what?” Ben asks.

He can hear her mouth opening, the start of her voice, trembling over the line. It gives him the illusion that she’s close enough to kiss, despite the distance between them.

“I told you that I don’t feel the same way you do,” she says. “I lied.”

They spend all morning on the phone, talking through hard truths and simple ones. Being together, truly together, won’t be easy. But this time, they agree that it’s a risk worth taking.

HEBREWS 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

—

That afternoon, Ben goes to the creek behind his house. His mother would probably find this silly, but he’s always found more meaning in ritual than she does. He takes off his socks and shoes, rolls his pants up to his knees, and walks into the hungry water.

Ben wants to cast off this person he’s been for the last eight years: arrogant and selfish, whether devout or doubtful. He’s done this once before, stepped into living water in the hopes that it might wash him clean, but this is different. Today, Ben isn’t running away. Today, he’s walking toward something.

He looks up, unsure of who he’s speaking to, or if anyone is even listening, but certain for once that it doesn’t matter. “Hi,” he says. “It’s been awhile.”

[sulltopia]

[trans] sulli for grazia korea (august issue) - full interview

Sulli, who is building her career as a beauty icon and an actress, adorns the cover for the August issue of fashion magazine <Grazia>. In the beauty pictorial, she applied five colors of Estee Lauder's 'Love Lipstick' and used different expressions and moods for each. Despite the busy schedule after the release of <Real>, she lead the set's atmosphere with her bubbly charm and showed off her 'refreshing' and 'alluring' looks. When Sulli was asked about the directions on how to have pretty lips like hers, she gave an amusing answer, "I apply the lipstick a few hours before I go out to let the color stain my lips. When I think that 'this is my color for today!', I decide what lip color should I use before I start to dress up. My face [make-up] should be done before I dress up". On the same day, Sulli used Estee Lauder's burgundy-colored 'Love Lipstick' named 'Rose Excess' for the cover. It suits August issue the best because this is where the summer ends while the autumn awaits. In addition, Sulli used a dark autumn color lipstick close to aubergine (eggplant color). "I thought that 'Since when did dark lips match me this well?'. I guess my face matches heavy colors", Sulli expressed her thoughts about the shoot. Do you like interviews? Yes, I enjoy talking like this. What if you are interviewing someone else? Me? I've never thought about interviewing anyone. It's interesting. If I look at it in a different angle. If that happens, what would you like to interview? Whether a person or an object. The flower vase right here. "How was your day today?" Hahaha. Ah pretty girls! I really like pretty girls. The film <Real>'s 'Song Yoo-hwa', you liked the character. I was really indulged and attached to Yoo-hwa, I felt extremely sad to say goodbye. I thought that 'we can never see each other again?', I wanted to shoot additional scenes but I couldn't. Wow, [you liked it] that much? The filming set was the only place where people welcomed me when I totally become Yoo-hwa. But now, there is no place for Yoo-hwa to be the main character anymore. It feels like leaving a friend? Is there anything that you prepared for today's pictorial? My face and lips' condition? Hahaha. I have this habit of biting my lips. When I apply lipstick, I become tense so I don't bite my lips. Particularly when I apply Estee Lauder lipstick, the dead skin cells calm down and my lips feel comfortable. 'Sulli is **뭔들'. Haha. Please show us the make-up products you always carry in your pouch. Lipstick and eyelash curler, I recenlty discovered Estee Lauder's 'Little Black Primer' mascara. Mascara is stifling that's why I don't apply it, but this is flimsy and it remains in place. It doesn't smudge under my eyes too. **뭔들 = whatever you do is beautiful and looks good on you What is the best skin care routine that you use these days? I always apply oil because I have a dry skin. Actually, when I feel like 'I want to be a princess for today', I put and let the toner, eyecream and moisturizer to spill down altogether. Is it my beauty day? Aside from that day, I usually apply Estee Lauder's 'Advanced Night Repair (brown bottle oil)' and let my skin breathe/relax. Does it feel good to hear that you are beautiful everyday? The more I hear it, the more I like it. However, I always wonder. I think something like, 'I like my face because it's good, but why do other people say that I'm beautiful?', and try to figure out if there's a different reason. I often hear that 'because it's unique' and whenever I do, I ask them in return. "There are many unique people in the world, why me?". Is it being cautious? No. It's out of curiosity. I know my thoughts well but I keep asking about what others think because I am curious. Do you get misunderstood because of your frankness with your words? Yes, people who are close to me tell me that all the time. What I say can be misinterpreted, it goes like 'Let's listen to Jinri's point'. But isn't it their freedom to misunderstand too? I think that if there is a misunderstand, it will be solved one day, but this is wrong. I often hear that I'm inattentive. It's kind of unfair but explaining everything that I do is not my personality. What are you into lately? Books. I go to comic book stores sometimes, I went to a library in Paju yesterday. I saw a book's title called <Because I Love You> and read it right away. The book inside my bag right now is Charles Baudelaire's poem <The Flowers of Evil>. It's Baudelaire's old book of peotry, you're like a lady in old times. What are the recently trending fashion brands do you like? Rather than the brand, I enjoy wearing one-slip wearing style such as minimal sleeveless top or sleeveless one-piece. During mid-20s, it is the time to try things and find out what suits your taste. Have you found yours? There are so many things that I want to do, and my taste keeps on changing while I'm trying to find it. Things that I like always change too. Rather than choosing, I prefer liking new things. That's why I save photos that I like at the same moment. Personally, I like Sulli's voice. Isn't it a slightly hoarse and 'damp' voice? Do you like your own voice? Oh really? It has not been a while since I got to like my voice. I thought that my voice sounds like a baby's and dull. The tone that I want is an adult announcer's voice. But when <Real> was released, I was surprised to see comments like 'Sulli's voice is good'. I used to think that when I watch a movie, the actors' voices were really like movie stars'. I think that Sulli's tone sounds like an actor's voice in <Real>. Really? I feel great but I don't know. What? Ah I don't know. I'm not gonna think about it. If I think about it, I may not be able to do it further. Heuheuheuheuheu. You laugh a lot too. I wish these laughters will be vividly conveyed in the magazine. And your personality is brighter and more cheerful than I thought? I like making new friends. If I like a person, I'm the type to approach first. There's this person that I extremely like and is shy around strangers, but I approached way too immediately. I should've been more cautious but I said "I want us to be friends!". Ah.. I hope that I will get closer to that person someday. I haven't let go of it just yet. (Laughs) I'm curious. If you do become friends, please post in on SNS. Oh, I will. Even if you will not know who would it be. Heuhaha. Do you think that 'If I'm the one to approach, we will get closer'? If you know me, I think you will not dislike me (laughs). Since I'm a celebrity, there will be preconceived thoughts. But they have those thoughts because they don't know my condition. If I talk to them first, they will go "Oh, this girl is like this". I am brave in this kind of side. I will say things like 'Do you want to be friends? Would you like us to be close?'. You have a lot of different friends. Recently on <Hyori's Home Stay>, Hyori felt sorry for herself and it made her feel sad when she was 25 after she saw her lively 25-year-old friends. Hyori felt lonely because she doesn't know how to approach other people besides the people she worked with. Is Sulli spending her 24 well? Yes, I think I'm spending it well. The thought of "If I don't do this, I will regret it later" comes fast. If I live being shy of strangers, I will regret it. If I don't make friends, I will regret it. I've always wanted to go to college, but I couldn't. If I don't go to college, I will regret it, so I'm going to college at any cost. I wish that you can to college for you to not have any regrets. I'm worried that if you go to college, you need to be good at studying. It's been a while since that last time that I went to school. I almost don't manage my image, will I not be make fun of? (Laughs) You can get closer to it easier. I want to experience it. It's a small world that you enjoy before getting into the 'real' world. Which group will I belong to in the world of college? Is it the minority, majority...? It's philosophical. It was a bit difficult at first because from the start, I became a part to a very big group of 'celebrities'. I want to know how it feels if I experienced being in a small world. My friend who was studying in Washington wanted to quit college. So, I stopped her from quitting. I said that even if she's having a hard time there, it's also a learning experience, and that she should bear it a little more. You have a surprisingly mature side too. You must have younger people around you right now? I recently have two new staffs who are younger than me, it's very exciting. I don't mind if they call me by my name or speak to me impolitely. Eonni is fine to hear it, but it's somehow strange. I was always the youngest, that's why I feel uneasy when I'm with them. When I look at them, it's as if they are glass bottles that could break easily. I don't know how should I call and treat them. What do you call them? Like 'excuse me~~, Ms. (name)~~'. 'Ms. Sulli' is seriously funny. What kind of person do you feel attracted to? Someone who has a distinct character. A person who makes me care about them. What role would you play if you cast yourself in a movie or drama? A role of an old person. Like Marie Antoinette, a role where I can wear that period's fancy outfits as much as I like. For a drama, all of the roles senior Jun Ji-hyun did are my taste. I think something that I can do well? Hahaha. Do you think acting is a lifelong career? I think that's what I feel like lately. I thought that 'this place' is going to work for me. There was also a time when I believed that this place will not suit me. I thought that 'It's not me, but these people should be celebrities instead'. But these days, my thoughts turned to 'Oh it's not? Well, I have my place too'. I have confidence, and I have sense of accomplishment and responsibility for my work as well. Then, what about 'Choi Jinri' when she is not a celebrity? I become a funny person. Sometimes I'm a six-tear-old girl then suddenly become a girl in her puberty and in some days, like a 60-year-old  grandma who lived her whole life. If I feel gloomy for all day, I will cheer myself and say 'Ah, let's do something fun!'. I think it's a bit weird when I say it, but people around me say that when I'm with them, I'm really funny. [I'm funny] at this moment too, right? Yes, that's right. You seem to be very talented and inquisitive, but don't you think you want to learn arts besides acting? It seems like you'll do photography in the future. To be honest, I want to draw and [take] pictures. But if you want to do fine arts, you need to learn the precion of figures and theory of shading or shadows. I hate that. The same goes with photography. If you don't want learn from the standard procedure, you can try it with your own style. I think it would've been nice if there is such gathering. Or a get-together of people who are bored in life? I really like get-togethers. Hahahaha. It would be nice if there is a game where people can make unique ideas. I feel sad because people seem to hide too much. I suppose. We had so much fun talking that an hour has already passed. Do you want to concentrate on anything for the rest of the year? It's work. I'm actually learning English for my work. Ah, I'm learning English harder these days. Are you going abroad? Rather than that, I meet various people when I go to a global brand event or party. I want to be good at expressing my feelings. Though it's just brief, it's pleasing to convey my feelings and share a conversation. Since I approach first, and if we have empathy for each other, then we can be friends immediately! You can't have friends if you stay stay silent. That's why when I'm out of work with my friends and if there is a foreigner, we do it without hesitation. To have a real conversation. It's a great intention. Do you have any plans? I read whether scripts of a drama or movie. One of the mistakes people make is when they think 'I could do this, but I can't because of this', but what I do is I immediately admit that 'Honestly, it was something that I couldn't do'. If I can do something, I make up my mind as soon as I can. As always, I have no regrets. SULLI'S TASTE I Check Messages Immediately vs I Don't I don't check it immediately. Eyelashes vs Eyebrows Eyelashes. Baby vs [Pet] Animal [Pet] animal. Give Love vs Receive Love Receive love. Refreshing Looks vs Alluring Looks Alluring looks. Spongebob vs Minions Neither of the two. I like 'Guu'. Batman vs Spiderman Guu! Strange Place vs Familiar Place Of course, it's strange place~! Which is the best color you used today? 'High-Voltage'. Since it's a bit purple, I knew that I would look sick, but I was surprised that it came out elegant rather.

credit: yoohwa

[joie-university-rp]

Dear BEATRIX SYLVESTER,

It is with great pleasure we invite you admission to Joie University! Welcome to the Thunderclap family!

–

Congratulations, JAY! Please be sure to check the New Members’ Checklistand send in your character’s account within 24 hours from now. We cannot wait to see all that you will bring to this roleplay! We love you already!

OOC INFORMATION:

Name/Alias; preferred pronouns: Jay; They/them

Age, Timezone: 23, CST

Activity, short explanation: 6 out of 10. I’m in my last year of school and also have a campus job, so I won’t be around during the mornings and sometimes afternoons.

Ships: Beatrix/chemistry

Anti-Ships: Beatrix/no chemistry

Triggers: RFP

Preferred photo for Character’s ID (please give a link): tumblr_pv7skhXd1P1tq1us5o3_400.png

Anything else: I know I sent this well after the acceptance time and I’m not expecting to get accepted today, I just wanted to get my app in.

IC INFORMATION:

Full Name (First, Middle, Last): Beatrix Louise Sylvester

FC: Zoë Kravitz

Age/Year at University (Freshman [1st Year], Sophomore, Junior, Senior, or Graduate Student): 25/Junior

Birth date: September 4th, 1994

Hometown (please be sure to check the hometowns listed for characters your muse is related to!): Lima, Ohio

Gender/Pronouns: Cisfemale & she/her

Sexuality: Pansexual Demiromantic

Major(s): Physics

Minor(s) [optional]: Astrophysics & Computer and Information Science

Housing request (remember, only the president of a Greek Organization is required to live at a Greek House to be in it!): Sylvester Apartments triple

Extracurriculars (Click here for the list. Be sure to specify any executive board positions [i.e. president, secretary, etc.] If something isn’t listed, please put it here and we will add it to the masterlist!): Art Club, Science Club, World Languages, Cheer & Volleyball

Greek Life Affiliation [optional] (Please be sure to specify any executive board positions [i.e. president, pledge educator, etc.] or if your character is not yet a member, but plans to rush): None

CHARACTER PROFILE:

[At least] 3 Headcanons for your character:

[Triggers: mentions of addiction, drugs & alcohol]

Born to a drug-addicted mother and an absentee father, Beatrix had already been dealt a bad hand when it came to the game of life, yet she didn’t let it get her down. Despite having to grow up and be her own caretaker, she was always an enthusiastic child regardless of what life threw at her. Part of her wished she could have more than the money she begged for and the things she stole, but she knew a life other than the one she was living was only a pipe dream. But it seemed the universe had been listening to her because the events that lead to her adoption was like a dream come true and quite possibly the best moment of her life. She never would have assumed that attempted burglary would be how she got a family, but that day revealed that Sue Sylvester wasn’t as mean or ruthless as everyone made her out to be, at least in the eyes of six-year-old Beatrix. (Even more so considering she was sure Sue was going to make her change her name.)

Carrying the Sylvester name came with its perks but there were more downfalls than she could have ever imagined. Because of her upbringing, Beatrix had always found it easy to speak her mind regardless of what came out of it. She never meant to cause any harm with her words but sometimes things would come out a lot harsher than she intended, so she had a bit of a tough time making friends. Due to her standoffish and sometimes rude behavior, people often assumed she was just like her mother despite the lack of relation, so she began to change her personality to fit their narrative. Joining the cheer team and embracing her inner bitch weren’t the best decisions she could’ve made. In fact, they made her feel like less of herself each day, but it did help in terms of her making a few friends. The attitude change opened a lot of doors for her, most notably, a cheer scholarship to attend the University of Kentucky. If she were thinking with her head instead of her heart, Beatrix would have gotten the education she needed right out of high school, but instead took this as a chance to “rebel” and move out to California.

Her move was frowned upon, but in order to stay in her mother’s good graces, she attended the University of Southern California so it would appear as if she was doing more than just having a good time. Freshmen year in a new state went off without a hitch. Beatrix was happy with her classes, making friends with just about everyone and even genuinely enjoying her time on the cheer squad. Though her focus began to wane when she was introduced to the partying lifestyle. It started with just a few parties here and there accompanied with a horrible hangover the next morning, but as her second year approached she cared more about having fun and getting drunk than she ever did about school. She cared about it so much that she managed to get a job as a stripper as a way to make up for the partying she wasn’t doing.

Life as a dancer got boring real fast, but Beatrix needed to make a living now that she was no longer in school so she kept at it. After a year of spending her life in the club, she was approached by a man claiming to be an agent, who told her he could give her a life that didn’t revolve around dancing for money. She didn’t believe him at first but she still decided to humor him, and it surprisingly worked in her favor. Beatrix never thought she would ever be a model, and in the beginning, she was sure the man was some sort of con artist until she saw her face in the Sears catalog. It took her a while to get adjusted to life in the industry, but once she was in it she was beyond comfortable. She didn’t even let her career take off before she found herself back where she started. Smoking, drinking and doing drugs became her life again as she began to blow off photoshoots. Beatrix didn’t realise she needed help until she woke up one day in an entirely different city with little to no idea as to how she got there.

Finally accepting that she wasn’t ready for a life in the city of angels, she packed up what little she had left and moved back to Ohio. She never went into detail as to why she came back and she had planned to keep it that way. Instead of seeing what the workforce had in store for her, she decided to try her hand at college again. It helped that she was back with family now so she felt a little more grounded than she had before. Beatrix managed to get her credits transferred from USC to Joie so she could stay close to home and get another fresh start on her college career. Although the’s not too keen about having to be around the life she left, she’s looking forward to going back to the girl she used to know.

STUDENT CENSUS SURVEY:

(Please answer the following questions IN CHARACTER. Responses can be as long or short as you see fit!)

What made you want to attend Joie University? “Since my decision to move back home it seemed like the most logical choice if I’m being honest, and the easiest if you consider the fact that my mom is an alumnus.”

What are at least 3 positive or neutral and at least 3 negative traits that you believe you possess? “Well, let’s see. I’m resilient, extremely versatile, and I’m pretty loyal if I trust you enough. I also like the think I’m pretty generous but that’s up for debate. There are quite a few words that come to mind when it comes to my negative traits, but instead of naming everything that’s wrong with me I’ll just let you know that I’m blunt, indecisive and extremely cynical.”

Which of your traits do you value most? “I for one really enjoy my bluntness. It might not be anyone else’s most valued trait, but being able to say what you feel right on the spot without trying to sugarcoat it is truly a gift. Do you know how many people wish they could say what they’re thinking more often but can’t? It’s crazy!”

How can that trait benefit the University (or its student body) as a whole? “Maybe I could help people learn to speak their mind without mentally debating if it’s a good idea or not. A closed mouth never gets fed, so saying what you need to say when you need to say it is sometimes better than saying nothing at all.”

What do you hope to gain from your experience at JU? “The value of friendship as cheesy as it may sound. I don’t think I’ve had an actual friend that’s not family since high school.“

What is a quote or song lyric that describes you? “I’m not heartless, I’ve just learned how to use my heart less.”

[heartsofstrangers]

What has been one of the most challenging things that you’ve experienced or are currently experiencing?

“Currently I’m reexamining myself as an artist, as a photographer, and trying to gain the confidence to show my work and to feel that it’s valid, and to sort of revisit, or visit for the first time, why I do what I do as a portrait photographer.”

What inspired you to get into photography?

“My dad had a darkroom when I was growing up, so I was exposed to photography. My parents bought me cameras as I was growing up. I was an oil painter and a printmaker, and I always took art classes. I always took pictures. My senior year of college, the photography department started up where I was going to school, and I took the class and liked it—I loved it. I just needed more formal training, so I continued my education at New England School of Photography. That was almost thirty years ago. That was my foray into photography.”

How did you come across your niche, so to speak, of doing portraits?

“When I was younger, I always took pictures of my younger cousins, so I was always taking pictures of children, even as a child—I was a child myself—and they were always good. As I got older, I dated an actor who liked having his picture taking, and then I lived with a bunch of actors, so they needed tons of pictures taken. I was really good in portrait class when I went to school, so I went with it.

“It was always people I knew, but in recent years—not recent years—in this tech age, I’ve explored photographing people I don’t know, and it’s been a way for me to get to know people without really having to go through the traditional channels, like going to a bar, meeting at a party, or having to actually sit over coffee and talk. It’s a way for me to get to know people fairly intimately, and it’s definitely been a way for me to have a piece of people—which is a little embarrassing, but it’s true, whether it be a portrait or . . . Sometimes I’ll go to parties and I’ll hide behind my camera and just take pictures all night. It’s a way for me to have a piece of people.”

What do you mean by “a piece of people”?

“I have a representation of who they were at the time we were together. That’s sort of proof that we were together—see, we’re friends—and . . . I don’t know. Each person is different. Some people I enjoy having a part of them, a portrait of them; others, I couldn’t care less. The experience isn’t always great, but the time that we spent together is documented for me. I know, for them, it’s different, because I’ve run into models who don’t remember me as much because they were with me for an hour, whereas I have their face embedded in my brain because I’m editing, I’m studying anyway. It’s an interesting experience. In the world of social media, where there’s so much proof of the people that I’ve worked with . . . I don’t know.”

You mentioned at parties, sometimes, hiding behind a camera. Do you experience social anxiety?

“Oh yeah. Yeah.”

How does the camera help you with that?

“It’s sort of the same thing: It’s an excuse to approach people versus actual conversation, having to answer questions or having to listen to people talk about their children—no, scratch that, that’s off the record—talk about their lives—no. I guess it’s more me talking about myself. I sometimes will look at a restaurant, and look around at people and hear them talking, and I’ll say to my husband, ‘What on earth are they talking about?’ When you see people that are just blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, and I’ve always wondered: How do people do that? It’s the same way at a party, even though it can be a bunch of people I know. I don’t have the gift of gab in that situation. One-on-one I do, but not at a party; I get too tense. The camera is definitely something where the conversation is brief, and rather than saying, ‘Oh, if you’ll excuse me, I need another drink’, ‘I need to use the restroom,’ it’s ‘Oh, if you’ll excuse me, I see someone else over there to look at who’s more interesting than you.’ I don’t know. It’s during a wedding.”

So it gives you an opportunity to float freely around social situations with a purpose, it sounds like.

“Right. Yeah. And I end up leaving with the documentation that everyone’s gonna want to see, so I get even more attention. Let’s see Paul’s pictures from the party; post them on Facebook and tag me; all that stuff. But I do enjoy it.”

You mentioned growing up with your father and the darkroom. What was your childhood experience like?

“Oh boy. I had a wonderful family. My siblings are fantastic and we’re good friends. I did, however, have problems making friends outside of my house. I wasn’t sporty; I was a gay child, and I got picked on for it, and even the people I was growing up with in my own neighborhood—once you hit a certain age, I was shunned. The neighborhood kids didn’t want to hang out anymore, so I was a loner. It’s hard.

“It’d be difficult in this world of Facebook and Snapchat. I can’t imagine what it’s like for a child who’s lonely to live in this sort of climate. I would be devastated to see things that were going on and not be included. So it was hard, but, you know, I managed.”

What sort of impact did it have on you?

“I think it made me a person who has difficulty talking to people at a party. I’m paranoid. There are a lot of things, actually, that I notice that I do that are reactions to certain parts of the way I was treated as a kid. I always assume the worst in people. I always assume that people aren’t going to like me. I’m very uncomfortable around men, straight men especially, assuming that they’re going to make fun of me.

“It’s very strange as a 47-year-old, but I definitely noticed it recently, this summer after the class that I took that I’m sort of revisiting. I just am very aware of people and my fear of people, which is unfortunate, but I assume exploring it is the first step to helping get over it or accepting it. I don’t know. What was the question?”

How has it impacted you?

“I think a lot. I think too much. I worry. I worry what people think.”

How do you navigate your way through that, your paranoia or assuming people are going to hurt you or not accept you in some way?

“Sometimes I catch myself. This is an awful example, but this happened yesterday, while I was here. I was leaving the swimming area to go to the highway to walk to where I was parked. As I was walking down the highway, which isn’t incredibly safe, a big truck was coming towards me, and my immediate fear was that someone in the truck was going to yell out something derogatory, or anything: ‘Faggot! Get out of the road’, knowing where I had just come from: a gay swimming hall. I caught myself and thought, ‘Oh my God,’ because that would happen as a child: A school bus would go by, and I’d get spat on, or ‘Faggot’, ‘Fairy’, and it fascinates me a little bit because I’m seeing it, I recognize it, versus maybe two months ago or in the past, I would have just felt afraid but not really acknowledged it, just waiting for the truck to go by, but now I’m like, ‘This stuff did impact me.’ I think it’s good that I recognize it.

“When I’m driving, I’m a very defensive driver, and I think that also stems from when I was younger. I learned to just calm down. People aren’t tailgating you because you’re gay, or because you’re someone they dislike; they’re just bad drivers. Stuff like that. So I, hopefully, am giving people the benefit of the doubt and opening myself up a little bit more, and not being afraid, because it’s a waste of time.”

Were there times when that anxiety was unmanageable or overwhelming?

“When I was in college, I didn’t sleep, I was on medication. This was the early ’90’s. I had panic attacks every night, and it was horrible. Horrible. The medication at the time—I don’t feel I need medication now, nor do I want it—I think at the time it was sort of a beginning. Doctors were testing out different types of drugs, and at the time it was Xanax, and I just remember having a panic attack on Xanax and it felt like it was a panic attack but in slow motion, and it’s like, this is not helping at all, because it just made it last longer. So honestly, the panic attacks ended when I was—I don’t know, I guess I was out of the relationship I was in. I don’t know if it had anything to do with him personally, but they subsided. I’ll still get one occasionally, but nothing like that. Ugh, it was awful. Awful.”

What does a panic attack feel like?

“To me, it feels like I’m in real life and things start to get faster and faster, and then keep going, and get faster and faster and faster. Nothing is really changing, but in my mind, everything is sped up. I also feel like my brain—or my mind, not my brain—is being held by this thread to my sanity, and at any second, that thread could snap and I could just sort of go into a black hole. When I did have the panic attacks, I was in therapy, and one of the things was breathing exercises, breath in, all that stuff. It felt like things got fast and fast and fast, when there was a side of me that could see that everything was still. Nothing was moving or going fast.”

What are some of the techniques that helped you? You mentioned breathing. You mentioned Xanax didn’t really help, just slowed it down.

“I don’t remember. It’s sort of thing I felt like I just had to go through, and little by little, it went away. Maybe I got used to it. It was probably just breathing. Especially at night, I would wake up and gasp, in complete panic. I don’t want to say I outgrew them, but I managed them. I don’t remember. I just remember, little by little, it subsided. I felt fine.

“I still get them occasionally. I noticed I get them when I’m hungover. I hated that. Especially if I was driving on the highway the next day after drinking too much. It wasn’t like I was—I don’t think—drinking more than anyone else, but it was a symptom, it was something my body chemistry was just like, ‘No.’ You’re dehydrated. Whatever alcohol does. It’s a depressant. It would make me depressed, it would make me dehydrated, and it would give me a panic attack. So that definitely changed, because I don’t want to have those anymore, where I can place what the cause was, especially alcohol. Beyond that, I guess I kind of grew out of it.”

Did people in your life know you were experiencing these attacks, and how did they respond to them, or to you?

“The first one I had, I felt like I had no sense of control. I was with my partner at the time, and I just flung out of bed. I felt like the whole world was spinning. He was a very nurturing partner, at the time: ‘What can I do?’ But it was the kind of thing where any sort of talking, ‘You need to shut up. I can’t talk.’ Or, ‘What does it feel like? Tell me what you’re going through.’ And you can’t. It’s sort of beyond that. Describing it made it worse; it sort of validated it. I think my parents knew. I mean, I was in college, and I did see a therapist who prescribed the drugs, so he knew. I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.

It sounds like your peers who picked on you in school had a very traumatizing effect on you that has carried on into your adult years. It’s funny, because—well, it’s actually not funny—there’s a saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me,” but names and words do hurt, and they do last. They become part of that audio tape that plays in our brains long after we’ve removed ourselves from those situations. What were some of the events that stand out in your brain that really had an impact on you? You mentioned being spat on from the bus and being called names.

“There were periods with every school year. Once I hit fourth grade is when it all started, because I feel like, at that age, little boys have to start becoming little men, and I was not. In junior high, changing in the locker room, eighth grade, there would be a group of boys on the other side of the lockers that would spit over and I’d be covered in spit. It was disgusting, absolutely disgusting. They’d pee on me. It was awful. It was so ridiculous.

“I used to always get sick during gym class, and I’d end up at the nurse, and then finally the gym teacher, Mr. Hill, pulled me in his office and asked me what was going on. I couldn’t tell him. I remember saying, ‘I don’t feel good.’ I think he was trying to get it out of me, but I just did not feel safe. Who would want to go into a locker room when they’re getting pissed on, and spat on? Just horrible, horrible kids. Really. Those were problematic, and that was when I made the decision that I didn’t want to go to the public school anymore. I just wanted to start over, and I knew I had the option. I went to private school, even though I told everyone my parents were making me. I needed out.”

Was private school any better?

“The physical abuse was gone. I didn’t get pushed into lockers, I didn’t get peed on. Actually, once I did, Freddy Wallace, this little shit, he knew it was wrong. I got picked on like twice, and I remember this one time, this woman who is still a friend to this day, thirty years after the fact, a guy picked on me, and she told him to knock him off, and she was a cheerleader, so he kind of looked at her and went, ‘All right.’

”But yeah, it stopped. I was unable to talk. I couldn’t socialize. I was too afraid, too damaged by this point. I did join the drama club, and I was on the swim team, but socially, every weekend I was alone. It was hard. I knew it wasn’t healthy. I knew I wanted to be around people but was afraid, but it was better than the alternative of being in the public schools in my hometown and dealing with the bullshit that happened there. I felt safe. Safer.”

Did you parents know what was happening?

“Yeah. My mother taught at the junior high I went to, and they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know the full extent, no; I didn’t tell them I was peed on, that I was basically gay-bashed. How do you admit that to your parents? Which was why when I said I wanted to go into another school, they were like, ‘Okay, let’s get you out of here.’ My parents were very non-confrontational back then, and I think it was just easier to say a prayer. I’m sure that’s what my mother would do, say a prayer for me that I would be okay. I don’t know. I don’t believe in that, so whatever.”

Were things better when you got to college? Had you come out?

“I went to college for a year before I came out of the closet, but I did make friends. I drank way too much. I pretended to be straight, but who the fuck believed that? I would hang out with this woman who lived in a different living area, and I would come home to my dorm room and the people on my floor thought I was hooking up, and I just went with it. I drank a lot, which was not good.

“The summer after my freshman year, I fell into a group of people, and we all worked at the mall together. Three of them came out of the closet, and it was sort of my wake-up call that okay, this can be done, and I’m gonna do—plus I was completely in love with one of the guys, and I couldn’t hold it. I had to tell someone. I was 19.”

What was that experience like for you, coming out?

“Overall, good. I had good friends. There were people who let it be humorous because I was flamboyant and, quote-unquote, ‘obviously gay,’ which doesn’t bother me, but they made me laugh at myself. ‘Oh really, Paul, you’re gay? Glad you finally found out.’ They were good friends, a few from high school, a few from college.

“I was in the art department, and I started hanging out with the guy I had the big crush on ’cause he was coming out, and he wanted to just go full-force. He wanted to date. He wanted to have sex. Not with me, unfortunately. I still was paralyzed by stuff that had already happened, thinking that people would like me, but it certainly was easier to not have the element of being gay-bashed by other gays. Now it’s just being judged for my haircut, stuff like that. Or music I listen to—that’s always a big thing when you’re 19.

“My parents didn’t take it well. My sister came out of the closet about a year before I did, and that was very damaging for my mother. It was an angry period as far as my relationship goes with my mom.

“I dated. I was pretty much married, my first relationship. Had I had more fun the way the guy did, I don’t think I would be what I am today, obviously not, sleeping around, or dating a lot. I had one person who made a beeline for me. I was flattered, thrilled, and I went for it. I said, ‘Okay, you like me? Then we should date. You like me? We should move in together.’ And then that unraveled. And then I did it again for 12 years. ‘You like me?’

“But my parents came around. I had my sister as an ally.”

Were your parents religious? You mentioned your mother praying.

“Catholic.”

Catholic, okay.

“My coming out was ’88, so being gay back then was AIDS. The two were synonymous, and it was scary. We weren’t educated. So for my mom, when she did finally acknowledge it, she said, ‘Does AIDS mean anything to you?’ To us, 25 or 30 years later, it seems so foolish, because AIDS should mean something to everybody, but back then, that’s what it meant to be gay: You would die of AIDS. So that was difficult, but it was an education.”

Have your parents since turned around?

“Oh yeah. Yeah.”

What was the catalyst for that? Was there one?

“I remember when my mom—I don’t know what year it was—there were two events that I saw in my mom. She was a hospice volunteer, and she was with this one guy for a long time as far as hospice care goes, Herbie. I really feel that her experiencing the deaths—I mean, she lost parents, but I think—she’s never talked about it—it was such a hands-on thing that she kind of kept her religion to herself, respected me and my sister. I started dating someone new who was sort of welcomed into our family, more so than the first boyfriend. David was sort of —he made money. He lived by the books, so I think my mother was relieved: ‘Oh, he’ll be taken care of.’

“But then also my sister, who was in a relationship, adopted three children, and I definitely think that changed my mom, because those kids are just as much her grandchildren as my biological nieces and nephews. They were the first grandchildren, and I really think it was a wake-up—I mean, my mother didn’t need to be woken up at that point, but it kept her going on the path of loving her children and not giving a shit anymore about the whole gay thing. Yeah, it would be nice, but I think she finally saw us as just normal people.

“Since then, I went through a divorce and I started seeing someone new, and when my new partner and I got married—I’d never been officially married before because it wasn’t legal—but this was it. This was the real deal. My parents were there, and I think they’re thrilled with my partner and my husband. My mom is one of my best friends. She’s come around, and I think she’s lucky to have two gay children, because I think her life would be somewhat limited, not as exposed to people and lifestyles. I hate that word, but by her having two gay children, her life has opened up. Again, at the end of the day, there are three children that my sister is raising, and those kids were meant to be in my mom’s life, and my mom, I think, knows that too.”

You mentioned a class or something that you took this summer that helped you sort of reflect on some of the trauma, maybe, that you still carry. Talk about that.

“Having to examine my work as portrait photographer is what the class has forced me to do. I was afraid before the class that the reasoning, which I do believe has to do with my childhood and the stuff I went through. Now my portraiture is a means to get to know people; it is connected. I felt that, as a 47-year-old, it was somewhat trivial, that there are more important things in life. Get over it. Live your life. Move on.

“But I’ve accepted, or I’m beginning to accept, the idea that my artwork is an important part of who I am, and that where it came from is important as well. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and it’s fascinating to realize—I mean, I’m not obsessed by it or anything, but I do find it important to, as an artist, and to understand other artists, revisit the things that made you who you are.

“So that’s what the class has done, and it was very important for me to talk about it and be validated by the other students but also the teacher, who is someone I have so much respect for and I admire. He said, and I knew this about him, that his work has a similar path. His work is about his relationship with his dad and growing up gay, and exploring that for himself. It really made me realize that it’s okay, and it’s necessary.

“The bullshit of the world, the Donald Trumps or whoever, is still going to exist, and there are going to be horrible things that happen, but maybe, maybe, my work will help someone who either is experiencing similar stuff, and maybe it will change my interaction with the people I work with. I don’t know; I haven’t gotten there yet. Or who I choose to work with. I think sometimes I choose people and think, ‘Well, this will get me on the popularity path for sure,’ but then I realize that it’s such a boring road. It’s been fun and unnerving, but necessary, and I’m glad I did it.”

So where do you find yourself now in your life and your career of photography and your relationships?

“I think I’m still going to keep working the way I work, because I enjoy it. I like the way I work, I like the way I approach people. I definitely like trusting my gut. Sometimes I’m wrong about people I choose to have in my life forever, but sometimes I’m right, and the experience is wonderful.

“What I want to do is focus on those, though, because a lot of times I look at my portfolio and body of work and think, ‘I have a fantastic picture of this gentleman I photographed, but I know that it doesn’t really mean anything to him.’ Versus a year ago, I brought a gentleman here and we did this series of photos. It was such a nice experience. It was definitely give-and-take, whereas the other model was more about, ‘You’re going to make me look good, right?’ What the fuck does that mean?

“So I want to focus on the people who give me something, too, who are part of the whole experience versus just being a model. It’s tough, because there are certain people that you photograph, and they create good exposure. They’re hot, or they’re sexy, and people like that, but I really want to focus on people who might not necessarily feel that way about themselves. Let them experience a photoshoot, or let them be the center of attention, not worrying about how they look.

“It’s a tough call, because one side is business and the other is personal. Social media, if I post a picture of a hot guy in the ocean with a nice ass sticking out versus a slightly overweight woman whom I find fascinating and beautiful, the attention goes to the hot ass. I know that, but I don’t always want to have to go there. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s fun, but it’s been done before. Where does it lead? What’s the point?”

So what makes your photography of males, or anyone, different than what has been done before? What do you think makes your work different from someone else’s?

“I don’t know if I can be the one to answer that. I know for me, it’s different because it’s me, I’m the one creating it, I’m the one looking, I’m the one sort of immortalizing this person who’s in front of me. The feedback I get sometimes from people, like in this class I took this summer, this woman said to me, ‘There’s something about your portraits that you capture the spirit of the subject. And I’m like, ‘Ah, wow, great.’ I’m trying to think, off the top of my head, of a contemporary who works the way I do, but I don’t know anyone who works the way I do, who will hit people up on Scruff and meet for a photoshoot. That’s how we sort of connected. But using social media as a way to meet people for subjects. I certainly know of other photographers who photograph people, but I just think my work is a little more personal, a little more intimate. I hope collaborative.

“I’m thinking of one photographer in particular whom I met in P-Town last year. His work is lovely, and it’s sexy. We’ve definitely photographed the same people, but there’s something sort of generic. It’s all about the sex with his pictures, whereas mine, I’m more drawn to eyes and what a person’s thinking. There’s sex in my pictures. If it’s there, it’s there. There’s no escaping it, but I want more than that. I want the viewer to have an opinion of the subject beyond, ‘Oh, he’s hot.’ And I think I do that. I hope.”

Sounds like you’re looking for more depth than just a hot subject.

“Yeah. I’ve found that I would sometimes pursue certain subjects because they were hot, because it’s fun, but some of them have just been the biggest disappointment. No substance. I mean, good exposure online, because of their hotness, but recently I did a photoshoot of the guy out at Herring Cove, this gentleman Eric. He’s adorable. He’s so sexy, but so nice. I felt so comfortable with him and we worked so well together. When that happens, it’s like, ‘Wow, this is fun.’ But it doesn’t work with everyone. Same with any job I have. Some brides I click with, others I don’t.”

It sounds like photography is a lot about connecting with the subject and connecting with your audience as well.

“Mhmm.”

What are some of the most valuable things you’ve learned over the years, having grown up repressed or bullied in a lot of ways, having found a way to communicate your message through photography?

“I’ve learned to make photography my own. When I used to interview for weddings, I would tell the story of when I was younger, I would go into my grandmother’s basement and see her old photographs and be really entranced by seeing my grandmother as a nine-year-old in Dorchester, or to see my mom receiving her First Communion, just old pictures. I loved it, loved it, loved it. I would say to potential wedding clients, if they would ask me why I was a wedding photographer, why I’m a photographer in general now, is the idea that someday, fifty years from now, no matter what the picture is, or if it’s a wedding album, that some kid fifty years from now could come across a series of my pictures and be so fascinated by the people in them, whether it be, ‘Wow, they look so 2010,’ through the fashion, or . . .

“I don’t think I’ll be around to fully understand what my photography could do. I’m hopeful it brings people, when I’m gone, a sense of people who are here now—not that everyone is a fan of that, but I was. I know there are other people who are as well. So I know that I am creating that sort of legacy for other people to enjoy, whether it be my nieces and nephews now, or their children.

“I guess I just keep learning to accept that my true feelings toward my art are valid. That was one thing I used to say all the time, and I didn’t always believe it; it got me jobs, though. I remember one bride was really touched by it, and just thought that was beautiful. I agreed; it is beautiful, but not everyone sees it, but I still say it, to this day, because it’s true.”

What have you learned about yourself through these experiences?

“I believe I have a good instinct with photography, especially in this day and age, when kids can have an iPhone and you can take pictures of anything and have it recorded. I believe I have an internal instinct as to what works—lighting, compositionally—the stuff that art is looked at for. I’ve learned that about myself, and I’ve learned to let my instinct take over. A lot of shoots, I’ll say, ‘I’m overthinking; I’m overthinking,’ and as soon as I do that, I let it go.

“I’ve learned I’m funny, that I can get along with people, that I’m helpful for people. Growing up, I don’t know if it was the gay thing; I don’t want to say I was asexual, but I wasn’t super sexual, and I was afraid of that side of me. I’ve definitely embraced sexuality and had fun with it. It’s different. It’s such a spectrum of what that means. Certain things I’ll take pictures of, I’m like, ‘I’d do that,’ whereas even fifteen years ago, ‘I’m not doing that.’ Now I’m just like, ‘Fuck it, I’ll do it.’ I’ve learned to have fun with my work, and it has been fun, almost every time. It’s always fun. We as photographers are lucky that we have this medium. It’s an accessible medium, and it’s a fun medium.”

How is your self-esteem today, many years, many decades after having that damaged and crushed by being bullied and picked on?

It’s always in need of repair. I’m still not there completely. I try not to care as much. I embrace my solitude. I think as, someone who was younger, teenagers, twenties, even thirties, there are expectations of what you’re supposed to do socially, how many friends you’re supposed to have, and that is what defines you, but now as someone in my late forties, I very much enjoy being alone, and it’s okay. My second partner David once said, ‘I always had this panic because there’s always a big party going on somewhere in the world, and I was afraid because I wasn’t invited.’ That was sort of this air that I had about myself, but then my new husband basically pointed out, ‘But if you were invited, you wouldn’t go.’ I’m like, ‘You’re right. I wouldn’t go.’ I realized that just because you’re invited to the party doesn’t mean anything.

“I learned to embrace my own company, and I like it. I have tons of JPEG files to edit. I’m happy being alone and not to quote Marilyn Monroe, but she once said, to paraphrase, I don’t mind being alone; I just hate being lonely. When I was younger, I was definitely alone and I was lonely. Now I’m alone lot, but I’m never lonely, ever. There are people in my life I can call upon, and it’s a different life.”

What advice would you have offered to yourself as an adolescent? If the adult Paul now could somehow whisper some message of hope or advice into that child’s ear, what would it be?

“Not to worry so much. Being alone doesn’t have to mean that you’re lonely, or that you will be lonely. Through most of my childhood and, again, in my twenties, I remember this sense of panic over certain situations, and I don’t think I’m the only one who lives this way, but we sort of make life out to be like a movie: There’s a beginning, there’s a middle, and there’s an end. I think my junior high years, the beginning, the getting picked on; the middle, getting spat on and beaten on; but in the end, it was me being free and going off to a new school, but there was no end. Life keeps going, and I think when I realized that the idea of, not to sound cliché or quote Dan Savage, but it gets better, and it does get better if you believe it can. I would tell myself, ‘It will get better.’ Don’t take things so seriously. Embrace yourself as an artist, which I wish I had done at a younger age, not just someone who’s blessed by God. I think that’s what I’d say.”

You’ve already mentioned a couple of quotes, Marilyn Monroe and Dan Savage. Is there a particular quote that resonates with you, or a bit of advice someone has given to you over the years that you reflect on often?

“I’m trying to think of something profound, like the speaker at my graduation or something, but no, I think I just gather stuff over the years. The older I get, words like that mean so much more than they did when I was younger; they didn’t quite resonate. Having Marilyn Monroe as someone you quote is a little tragic, because you know . . . but yeah, nothing in particular.”

Is there any other quote that you’d like to share in this interview that you like?

“No. No, I don’t know.”

How about a song lyric?

“A song lyric? Oh goodness. I don’t know. The songs I’ve been listening to since the class . . . A lot of times, I’ll create slideshows in my head of my work, sort of like a music video, so I’ve been thinking about stuff from when I was younger, so the songs I’m listening to are from that era. I’ve created music videos to one song, the Cars, Drive: ‘Who’s gonna drive you home tonight?’ Always thought that was a cheesy song, but I listen to it and I think, oh my God, I remember it was released in ’86. That was a very difficult junior year of high school.

“No, I don’t know. I don’t really.”

What does that song mean to you, besides the nostalgia of the year?

“Well, the lyrics I think are about: ‘You can’t go on thinking nothing’s wrong. Who’s gonna drive you home tonight?’ For me, it was about who I was going to be with. Back then, I would stay after school, and I lived so far from the school, and I had to find someone to drive me home, but that’s a little too literal, but now that I’m older: ‘Who’s gonna pick you up when you fall?’ ‘Who’s gonna hold you down when you shake?’ And in my head, I have a slideshow of images I’ve taken and especially with the self-portrait series, just me chasing after people. Who’s gonna comfort me? Again, very literal. But I think it’s okay to take art and enhance the drama, a little bit. So, the point being, these are lyrics I’ve been listening to.

“I’m really into the song, which I really love but don’t want to use in the slideshows, Oh Father by Madonna. The song is definitely about the relationship she has with her father, but for me, it’s about my relationship with God and men in general. In men, period. ‘You can’t hurt me now. I got away from you.’ There are lyrics I’d love to incorporate, but I’d never want anyone to think that—my father was great. So again, these are lyrics I’m listening to.”

Would you consider yourself a spiritual person? It sounds like you’ve removed yourself from your religious background or upbringing.

“I don’t know if I always practice it, but I do believe in putting good energy out into the world. It sends forth good energy. If you do something nice for someone, then that person will do something nice, guaranteed. That’s what I believe. I can’t say I always practice it, but that’s sort of the core of my religion.

“I don’t really believe in heaven or hell or afterlife. This is it, and when you’re gone, you’re gone, but I believe while you’re here, there’s so much anger that it’s our job, whether it be driving a car and not tailgating, or just smiling at someone, it’s simple things, saying hello to the person at the grocery store. Stuff like that. Again, I don’t always practice it, but I hope that I will. Just doing simple good things for people is the best way to go.

“Do I believe that God punishes people in Italy and therefore throws an earthquake at them? Absolutely not. There’s no rhyme or reason to any of it, to nothing, there really isn’t, so while you’re here, why not put out good energy? There’s no guarantee that you’re not gonna walk out and get hit by a bus.

“There’s this photographer who, although I love his work. I would call him a contemporary, even though I think, business-wise, he’s a little bit more successful. I don’t know the full story, but while he was on a photoshoot, he slipped and fell. He was high up, and he broke his back and he’s paralyzed. This has been documented on social media. I haven’t been able to look. The point is not to say that he deserved that, but to look at that person and say, for me, be nice now. Enjoy life, because it could have been me. And how would I handle that? How would I handle being paralyzed? And as a photographer, I certainly wouldn’t be here in a wheelchair, so appreciate things that are happening now, and try to make other people feel good. That’s my spirituality.”

You touched upon a lot of important things that I think are a part of anyone’s faith, spiritual, or religious practice, hopefully, which are being in the present moment, practicing gratitude, and kindness. Love and kindness. How has it felt to share these thoughts and experiences with me today?

“Great! You’re so easy to talk to. I knew that the first time I met you. I don’t feel like I’m in therapy; I feel like I’m sharing myself as an artist with someone who I feel is an artist, so it feels great. I feel great.”

Do you think it’s possible, by sharing a little bit of yourself today in this interview, that you might inspire or give hope to someone else out there who can relate to any piece of your story?

“I hope so. Someone could hear the story and appreciate my work a little bit, so that could affect them somehow, or they could be in a similar situation and feel the same way about themselves as an artist, and that can help them. There are so many ways that people help, that I view people—I hope so. Again, what’s the point?”

[ladystylestores]

Beverly Johnson Talks About How to Turn Her Diversity Plan Into Action – WWD

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How do you create structural change in the upper echelons of fashion for Black professionals?

For model, activist and businesswoman Beverly Johnson, that is the fundamental question for not just the fashion industry but corporate America. Days after launching the Beverly Johnson Rule, which calls for companies to commit to “meaningfully” interviewing at least two Black professionals for any openings for executive boards, c-suites, top editors and other influential positions, Johnson is now mapping out a strategy to see that through. Eager to see “a real shift,” she said, “It doesn’t involve anything but a commitment to where your heart is. We also know that the bottom line is going to be great.”

Talking about change won’t result in systemic change, said Johnson. “We’ve been in this movie before. And I’m trying to create a new movie.”

Over the next few days, Johnson will be putting together a multimedia campaign, shooting videos and photography with Michael Letterlough Jr. With the help of her fiancée and business manager Brian Maillian, she plans to draft a letter to send to various companies seeking their support and explaining how they can adopt her rule. Johnson is considering approaching the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Condé Nast’s Anna Wintour about how to expedite her strategy to create structural change. In August 1974, Johnson became the first African American model to land the cover of American Vogue.

Referring to what is needed to execute her signature plan, she said, ”We want to let people of influence to know that this is something that is doable. It really doesn’t take a lot of energy and time and money. We also want to explain possibly how it worked in other industries. To really be able to say, ‘Yeah, we did this, look what we’re doing now and look where it’s brought us.”

Retrouvé’s cofounders Jami and Klaus Heidegger have committed to Johnson’s rule, making their company the first to do so. Johnson said she has heard from six or seven other companies, including from a few in the fashion sector, who started their own namesake companies that she didn’t identify.

With millions of people calling for change, Johnson discussed what the most effective way is to make sure that actually happens. “What keeps people’s interest is when they actually see it. When they can come out and say, ‘Well, so-and-so made a pledge…’ You have people saying, ‘I’m going to buy Retrouvé and I’m not going to buy from other people.’ People get that message. If we can bring on a few people, then that’s what really keeps it going,” she said. “Also, what keep things going is when we see something implemented that is actually working – not just lip service,” she said.

While Johnson described the CFDA’s recently unveiled initiatives — such as scholarships for Black college students and donations to the NAACP — as great, she said ensuring more Black professionals have senior-level and c-suite jobs is crucial to changing the fashion ecosystem. Johnson said she is open to helping luxury brands and other companies improve their diversity efforts by serving as a board director or on diversity and inclusion boards.

On another front, another one of her projects is being fast-tracked. Warner Bros. is developing an eight-part series based on Johnson’s best-selling memoir “The Face That Changed It All” that she hopes to release via Apple TV.

“Now with what’s happening in the world, you move up because it’s very relevant. Now they are really pushing us to the front of the line, which is great. There is a sense of urgency because of this moment that we are living in today. We are now finally having that conversation about race and racism in America that we have never had before,” said Johnson, adding that Mara Brock Akil is the producer.

Helping to make more people familiar with the work of Black professionals and creatives like Akil and Letterlough is another element of Johnson’s commitment. Giving them the opportunity “to be seen, heard, interviewed and join in an industry that they love so much” is key, Johnson said.

Johnson also is a partner in the start-up shoe company Thesis Couture, a label that “reengineered” stilettos, she said. The patented technology was developed by former head of talent, innovation and design at SpaceX, Dolly Singh. “Our biggest sales to date have been in bridal, so bridesmaids don’t have to take their shoes off [due to uncomfortable stilettos].”

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The 2008 Class that Explains Elizabeth Warren’s Style

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The 2008 Class that Explains Elizabeth Warren’s Style

In the middle of the volatile fall of 2008, with foreclosures skyrocketing and companies failing and unemployment spiking and the stock market sinking, 80 rattled first-semester Harvard Law School students stood outside a classroom and watched the Dow plummet yet again. Then they stepped inside and took their seats for their contracts course with professor Elizabeth Warren.

“And professor Warren’s like, ‘We’re actually not going to talk about contracts,’” former student Danielle D’Onfro told me. “‘We’re going to talk about what’s happening in the world.’”

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Warren ditched the syllabus and instead gave a lecture on the cratering economyand its causes, encapsulating the collapse as she understood it. In interviews over the past couple weeks, her former students described it as “riveting” and “engaging” and “eye-opening.”

“She basically proceeded to explain the financial crisis as it was happening,” Nigel Barrella said. “It was pretty amazing—at a time when no one else, really, seemed to have answers like that—that she would come in and talk about credit default swaps and collateralized mortgages, junk mortgages, carved up into tranches, and sold to financial institutions as high-quality financial products.”

Her impromptu primer on the crisis spanned two days, November 12 and 13, according to the calendar of one of her students, and their takeaway was twofold: (1) Professor Warren sure had a knack for talking about this stuff, and (2) this skill might take her somewhere beyond even the august confines of HLS.

“I think for all of us sitting there at that moment,” D’Onfro said, “we realized that, you know, this person is not just going to be our contracts professor.”

They were right. Warren’s gift for explication has led her almost inexorably from there to here—from explaining at Harvard, in classes, in a reading group, on a blog and on panels of academics and in the popular press, to explaining in Washington, where she came to prominence as a piercing watchdog before she was elected to the Senate. And on a historically crowded presidential campaign trail, she has steadily distanced herself from most of the field with her grasp of detail and capacity to break it down, standing as the top-polling Democrat not named Joe Biden heading into this week’s curtain-raising debates.

Warren’s professorial background, and her history as a Washington player on an issue as complex as financial regulation, has led some political observers to ask of late whether this particular gift could be a mixed blessing—a talent that also defines her ceiling, especially with the working-class voters who could make the difference in a presidential election.

“She’s lecturing,” David Axelrod, the top Barack Obama strategist, recently said of Warren in theNew York Times Magazine, wondering how that approach would play with non-college-educated white voters. (“I regretted that the rest of my thoughts were excised,” he told me in a subsequent conversation, saying Warren has “phenomenal strengths.” But still: “I think this is the last big hurdle for her,” he said.)

He’s not the only one who’s consideredthis. “It’s a fascinating question,” former Jeb Bush senior adviser Michael Steel told me. He called it “a huge challenge … figuring out how to explain her policy positions, the problems they purport to address, and how it fits in with her theory, in a way that somebody sitting on a stool in a Waffle House will understand and agree with.”

Others, though, push back on just the basic terms of this conversation. Progressive consultant Rebecca Katz said in an email, “Let’s call the attack on her ‘lecturing’ what it really is: sexist.” Added Boston-based political analyst Mary Anne Marsh: “She’s beendefiningthis race.”

On the debate stage Wednesday night, facing off against nine other contenders, Warren will have a platform, if a narrow one, to make the kind of vivid and persuasive case that grabs voters. In the Democratic Party, at least, there are footsteps for an expert explainer to follow: Obama had a professor’s demeanor and rhetorical tics, and Bill Clinton laid out big ideas and policy nuances at length, all while forging personal connections with a wide variety of audiences.

Some who’ve gauged her as a candidate think Warren is honing these same skills. “I thought at the beginning of the campaign watching her that she was lecturing,” longtime Democratic strategist Bob Shrum told me, “and then as time has gone on, and she’s done these town meetings, she’s gotten better and better at explaining and relating what she’s saying in human terms.”

Republican consultants I contacted concur. “I think she’s a much more formidable politician than a lot of people, especially, on the right, think,” Liz Mair, a communications strategist who’s worked for Scott Walker, Rick Perry and Rand Paul, said in an email.

If Warren grabs the spotlight on that crowded stage, there’s a group of former law students who can explain why.

***

“Will the Middle Class Survive?”

In the fall of ’08, that’s what Warren called her reading group, a quasi-extracurricular klatch of a dozen students who had signed up to explore the topic at the heart of her life’s work. The reading: some chapters from a book about class, some chapters from a book about health care and some chapters from a book of her own—The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke, which she wrote with her daughter and was published in 2003. “I’m looking forward to this,” Warren wrote to the students, according to emails one of them shared with me.

It took no time at all for current events to scramble the group’s schedule.

“Class Mattersis beginning to feel a bit dated,” Warren wrote to the group ahead of its first real get-together.Class Mattershad come out just three years before. “Would you like me to talk with you about how the subprime crisis started and what might be done about it? If that would be more timely, I’m glad to do it.”

The students made plain what they wanted. “Your responses overwhelmingly favored talking about the mortgage meltdown,” Warren wrote.

The rest of the semester, meeting on intermittent Thursday evenings at Warren’s dark green Victorian house with a wrought-iron fence, Warren served them salmon and ribs and ordered in Redbones along with peach cobbler that almost every student I talked to mentioned without prompting. They drank herbal tea and talked, taking turns petting Otis, Warren’s convivial golden retriever. They discussed the reading—but their conversations, members of the group told me, couldn’t help but veer away from the pages of the texts and toward the topsy-turvy economy.

“There’s a tendency in elite law schools to just remove yourself from the realities of the world, and it was a really strange time to enter law school, when the economy was collapsing around you,” Rachel Lauter said. “And I remember feeling incredibly lucky to have her on the ground floor explaining what was happening.”

“She can talk to normal people and explain complicated things in a way that’s comprehensible,” Jad Mills said.

“That’s not always how law professors communicate,” Libby Benton said.

Neither is this: Throughout that fall, Warren penned op-eds (families losing their homes were “casualties of a financial system that saw them not as customers, but as prey,” she wrote in theChicago Tribuneon September 22), she blogged at creditslips.org (the $700 billion bailout was “keeping me awake at night,” she wrote on September 23), fired off quotes on network news shows (she called a credit card “a poisonous snake in your wallet” on ABC’s “Nightline” on September 25) and lit up panels with fellow academics at Harvard.

At one, “The Financial Crisis: Causes and Cures,” she proved to be “an audience favorite,” according to the student newspaper, describing subprime mortgages as “35-cent bananas” that should’ve cost 15 cents. She was the only woman on the panel with five men.

“They were talking, just trying to explain the basics of, like, credit default swaps, and what a securitized trust was, and what had happened generally,” one of Warren’s former students told me, “because no one really understood what was going on, period. And so I remember that other people on the panel would speak and everyone would sort of tune out. … But then Elizabeth started speaking, and it just, like, made so much sense, and people were, like,cheeringandstanding up, and it’s hard to get a crowd on their feet when you’re talking about credit default swaps! … It was one of the most incredible things that I had ever seen in terms of somebody being able to take these really arcane concepts and make them feel relevant, accessible andoutragingat the same time.”

Back in the classroom, in another meeting of students, Warren asked what they would do if they were in charge of a big financial institution. Hunker down, some said, and tighten up. She made it clear that wasn’t the answer she was looking for. And then students’ hands started to shoot up. The answer, actually, was the opposite. “You grow as fast as you can. You buy as much as you can with borrowed money. And you lend and borrow from as many other large institutions as possible. Because then the government can’t afford to let you fail,” Warren would recall a student saying. “It took my students about two minutes,” as she put it later, “to see how to build a bank that would be Too Big to Fail.”

Warren’s teaching style was amped-up Socratic, fostering lightning-quick dialogue one student I talked to likened to dodge ball and another compared to machine gun fire. Her teaching assistants kept index cards to track who’d been called on how often, and it was standard, according to former students, for every one of them to be called on once if not twice every class. “Very demanding,” Marielle Macher said. “It was the class that we were all the most prepared for,” Caitlin Kekacs said. Warren’s classes, Charles Fried, her Harvard colleague who served as one of Ronald Reagan’s solicitor generals, told me, were “electric,” and her student evaluations were effusive. And she was known, at least inside the law school, specifically forneverlecturing. So what happened on November 12 and 13 was decidedly different from what she usually did. Mainly, on those days, she just talked—and her students just listened.

In its way, many students told me, Warren’s lecture was strangely comforting.

“The world’s ending,” Dan Mach remembered. “And here was a professor who knew a lot about it and could explain it better than other people,” Dave Casserley said. It was something they mostly weren’t getting from their other professors.

Larry Tribe, the preeminent constitutional scholar and Warren’s Harvard colleague, told me he heard this sentiment from students that fall. “That has stuck with me,” Tribe said. “It’s also stuck with me partly because of my own memory when I was a law student at Harvard when dramatic, terrifying things would happen. I mean, I was actually a first- or second-year law student when Kennedy was assassinated, and I remember coming to class the next day, barely able to hold myself together. And the professor, who was someone I really liked and admired, not only then but years after, barely paused. He basically said, ‘Terrible things are going on, but we have our work to do.’ And then he went right back to discussing complicated issues of civil procedure. And that was kind of an inhuman and inhumane environment. And in some ways Elizabeth Warren is … the absolute opposite of someone who would treat legal education as an insulated bubble separate from the world.”

Tribe told me, too, about the way Warren at the time helped the woman who would become his wife. Elizabeth Westling was going through a divorce, riddled with worry, when her therapist gave her … books—The Two-Income TrapandAll Your Worth—by Warren. “I thought to myself, ‘Well, this is ridiculous. What would I need this for?’” Westling told me. “But I went home, and I read them, and lo and behold, it really transformed my psyche, I think, because what it did was give me a sense of empowerment and confidence.”

It’s something I heard from many of the 19 former Warren students I talked to for this story. What they got from her in 2008 was not only edifying but also eased their anxieties about the economy. She helpedthembecause they felt she maybe could be a part of helping to fixit.

And on the evening of November 13, hours after finishing her lecture on the economy to her contracts class in Pound Hall and minutes before hosting a third of them for the first of three straight nights of dinners with students at her house, she got a call from Harry Reid. The Senate majority leader asked her to take the oversight position. And she was off to Washington. “Harry Reid,” she would say, “forever changed my life with that phone call.”

The next day, Reid made the announcement about Warren’s new role.

That afternoon, she sent an email to her students. One of them shared it with me. It was … not about her new role.

“Some of you have met Otis, the 100-pound golden retriever who lives with us,” Warren wrote. “He’s sweet and he’s lonely right now—desperate for someone who would like to play. If you are around and would like to have some puppy love, would you drop by to get Otis?”

***

Midday this past Saturday, in Columbia, South Carolina, I stood near the rear of the main hall of the convention of the South Carolina Democratic Party and took in what quickly turned into an episode of the prosecutor versus the professor.

Kamala Harris was first up among the catalog of 2020 Democrats, and she gave a spirited personal statement to the near-capacity crowd of 1,800. She said she knew how to “take on predators”—she didn’t need to say the name of the person she was talking about—and then built to a crescendo. “I’m going to tell you we need somebody on our stage when it comes time for that general election who knows how to recognize a rap sheet when they see it and prosecute the case!” she said. “Let’s prosecute the case!” Her speech elicited raucous cheers.

Warren came on some 20 minutes after Harris. She introduced herself as a practically accidental politician, self-identifying from the start as a teacher, although she didn’t mention Harvard. “Teachers,” she said, “understand the worth of every single human being. Teachers invest in the future. And teachers never give up.” In a checklist rundown of her “big plans,” she said her proposed 2 percent tax on net worth above $50 million could pay for universal child care and pre-kindergarten, tuition-free college, zap student loan debt, make billion-dollar investments in historically black colleges and universities, and provide higher pay for teachers. But her seven minutes on stage felt a little rote and a tad flat. As Warren spoke, I stood next to the raised platform made to be an MSNBC set and watched Harris get interviewed live.

Something that’s helped Warren vault past Bernie Sanders and others in the polls and into that second slot behind Biden? Her town halls. In Iowa and New Hampshire and other early states. Even in places like West Virginia. And on CNN and MSNBC (but not on Fox News). She’s generally better, most observers and analysts agree, interacting with voters rather than delivering speeches. “I’ve seen her be very effective in small groups,” Axelrod told me. It’s the sort of setting that allows her to delve more deeply into her myriad detailed policy proposals.

An hour or so after her convention appearance, just across the street, Warren bounded into the homier, more intimate environs in the building hosting Planned Parenthood’s “We Decide” forum. In front of a gathering perhaps a quarter of the size, sitting between two women asking her questions instead of standing behind a lectern, Warren was kinetic in a way she simply hadn’t been at the convention. Here, she answered questions from people in the crowd. Here, she came off as a teacher but also as a fighter. Asked aboutRoe v. Wade, she was nothing if not animated. “The truth is,” she said, “we’ve been on defense for 47 years. And it’s not working. … I say it is time to go on offense!” She held her microphone in her right hand and gesticulated energetically with her left. She sat on the edge of her seat. She dropped a “by golly.” She left to a standing ovation.

A little later, up one floor, Warren darted into a small room set aside for candidates to talk to reporters if they wanted to and plucked a grape from a picked-at tray. She popped it into her mouth and faced the hasty half-moon of cameras. She was asked about Donald Trump. She dinged him for his “ineptitude.” She was asked about Pete Buttigieg and his trouble at home. She said she wasn’t going to criticize her fellow Democrats. And then she was asked why people should trust her. She gave an answer that would have sounded familiar to her first-semester law students in the fall of ‘08.

“This is a fight I’ve been in for all my life, long before I ever got engaged in politics of any kind,” she said. “I’ve spent my whole life on exactly this issue. What’s happening to working families in this country? Why is America’s middle class being hollowed out? Why is it that people who work hard every day find a path so rocky and so steep and for people of color even rockier and even steeper? And the answer is a government that works better and better for billionaires and giant corporations and kicks dirt in everyone else’s face. Well, I say: In a democracy, we can change that. And that’s why I’m in this fight.”

At that, it was time to go. It was her 70th birthday. She had a flight to catch to get home to continue to prepare for Wednesday’s debate. She reached for another grape.

“We got cake in the car,” a staffer said.

“We got cake in the car!” Warren said.

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[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT LOUD

Scholars had to figure out a way to make the language very abstract. Startups yield faster growth at greater risk than established companies.1 This essay is derived from a talk at Defcon 2005. If that's true, most startups that could succeed fail because the founders don't devote their whole efforts to them. Will people create wealth if they can't get paid for it?2 About what, and why?3 It's not only economic statistics that ignore the value of safe jobs.4 Fights between founders are surprisingly common. Perhaps more dangerously, once you take a lot of money on a watch you could get a 30% better deal elsewhere?

A competing product, a downturn in the economy, stupid. Want to make someone dislike a book? Essays should aim for maximum surprise.5 They don't need to. That's why I write them. Sometimes you start with a promising question and get nowhere. Computer science is a grab bag of tenuously related areas thrown together by an accident of history, like Yugoslavia, get broken up into its component parts. Most startups fail because they don't make something people want is so much harder than it sounds—almost impossibly hard in fact—because business guys can't tell which are the good programmers. In my case they were effectively aversion therapy.

If you look inside good software, you find that parts no one is ever supposed to see are beautiful too. It would be suspicious if it didn't meander. If you raised five million and ran out of ideas. Big companies want to decrease the productivity of the people who've had to write about English literature. Raising VC scale investments is thus a huge time sink—more work, probably, than the startup itself.6 But when you understand the origins of successful startups have had that happen.7 There are more digressions at the start, because I'm not sure where I'm heading. It seems odd to be surprised by that. I need to talk the matter over.8 Colleges had long taught English composition. So what's the minimum you need to launch is that it's only by bouncing your idea off users that you fully understand it.

So eliminating economic inequality means. It's as relaxing as painting a wall. You're thinking out loud. It's no wonder if this seems to the student a pointless exercise, because we're now three steps removed from real work: the students are imitating English professors, who are merely the inheritors of a tradition growing out of what was, 700 years ago, the rich get richer.9 At the time, though. These things don't scale linearly. But Balzac lived in nineteenth-century France, where the problem is well-defined. The problem is, risk and reward have to be. Surprises make us laugh, and surprises are what one wants to deliver. Nearly all failure funnels through that.

When people care enough about something to do it, you'll just get far more people starting startups. I suspect one must now for those involving gender and sexuality.10 The trick is to use yourself as a proxy for the achievement represented by the software.11 Technology Will technology increase the gap between rich and poor generally look back on the mid twentieth century. If you want something, you either have to make us poor to make themselves rich. Platform is a vague word. Along with composers, architects, and writers, what hackers and painters are among the most pleasing of foods, were all originally intended as methods of preservation. And report back to us. Fortunately it's usually the least committed founder who leaves.12 It's in your interest, because you'll be one of them.13 But Reagan, a former actor, also happened to be even more charismatic than Carter whose grin was somewhat less cheery after four stressful years in office.

Pundits said Carter beat Ford because the country distrusted the Republicans after Watergate.14 Maybe. I know drive the same cars, wear the same clothes, have the same kind of furniture, and eat the same foods as my other friends.15 It's absolute poverty you want to write essays at all. It would be suspicious if it didn't meander. The Lever of Technology Will technology increase the gap between the productive and the unproductive. I didn't mention anything about having the right business model. The first George Bush managed to win in 1988, though he would later be vanquished by one of the most unobservant people, and promoted from within based largely on seniority. The other way makers learn is from examples.

Whether or not this is a list of predicate logic expressions whose arguments represent abstract concepts, you'll have a lot in common. For hundreds of years it has been part of the traditional education of painters to copy the works of the great art of the past is the work of a painter in chronological order, you'll find a degree of skepticism helpful.16 Decreasing economic inequality means taking money from the rich. And yet, if they are, we have to go back seven paragraphs and start over in another direction. But it is not all the sort of wealth that becomes self-perpetuating through an alliance with power. And at least 90% of the work that even the highest tech companies do is of this second, unedifying kind. Colleges had long taught English composition. When it comes to code I behave in a way that would make me eligible for prescription drugs if I approached everyday life the same way.17 Technology companies win by attracting the most productive people, and the hackers merely implement the design. 90% of what ends up in my essays was that they hadn't formally acknowledged their implicit debt to employees who had done good work and expected to be rewarded with high-paying union job a myth, but I know that when it comes to surprises, the rich led a different kind of selling. And make the topic so intellectually bogus that you could not, if asked, explain why one ought to figure out what Aristotle said before they could figure out what he meant.

In port cities like Genoa and Pisa, they also engaged in piracy. I found that I liked to program sitting in front of me. And that might be a great idea for someone else to do as a startup? Microsoft Word, for example. And the only thing you can offer in return is raw materials and cheap labor. Just listen to the people who say that the answer is that he got to look that way incrementally. I liked to program sitting in front of me. The only external test is time.18 They don't need to prevent people from being rich if we can prevent wealth from translating into power.19 Before he died of drink in 1925, Commodore Vanderbilt's wastrel grandson Reggie ran down pedestrians on five separate occasions, killing two of them be seen side by side. There are an infinite number of questions. The time was then ripe for the question: if the study of ancient texts is a valid field for scholarship, why not modern texts?

Notes

It is the number of startups is a new version sanitized for your pitch to evolve. More often you have good net growth till you run through all the free OSes first—. Or rather, where there is the place of Napster. And for those interested in you, however.

Google is not a chain-smoking drunk who pours his soul into big, messy canvases that philistines see and say that's not art because it consisted of Latin grammar, rhetoric, and if it gets you there sooner. When I was a strong one. That follows necessarily if you get older or otherwise lose their energy, they sometimes say. I'm not saying it's impossible to write about the nature of the x division of Megacorp is now the founder visa in a situation where they are in a company, though it's a net win to include things in shows that they consisted of Latin grammar, rhetoric, and partly because they are like sheep, but instead to explain how you'd figure out the existing shareholders, including that Florence was then the richest of their due diligence tends to happen fast, like architecture and filmmaking, but in practice that doesn't lose our data.

It seems more accurate predictor of success.

He devoted much of a reactor: the quality of production. Not in New York. Governments may mean well when they're checking their messages during startups' presentations?

In my current filter, but also very informative essay about it.

Which means the investment market becomes more efficient.

You'll be lucky if fundraising feels pleasant enough to turn down some good ideas buried in Bubble thinking. Which means it's all the investors talking to you.

The way to find a blog on the East Coast. And for those founders. We're delighted to have them soon.

You won't always get a definite commitment.

A preliminary result, comparisons of programming languages either take the hit. But in this new world.

Trevor Blackwell, who probably knows more about this from personal experience than anyone, writes: True, Gore won the popular vote he would presumably have got more of the previous two years, but this would give us. Max also told me about a form you forgot to fill out can be surprisingly indecisive about acquisitions, and have not stopped to think about where those market caps will end up saying no to drugs.

The state of technology. The company is common, to a partner from someone they respect.

And that is actually a computer. Since the remaining 13%, 11 didn't have TV because they need them to stay in business are likely to have confused readers, though it's a significant effect on the spot, so the best response is neither to bluff nor give up more than we realize, because investing later would probably only improve filtering rates early on? During the Internet Bubble I talked to a 2002 report by the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914 on the spot, so it may not have to keep their stock. Angels and super-angels gradually to erode.

The situation is analogous to the point of saying that because server-based apps to share a virtual home directory spread across multiple servers. The cause may have to tell them what to think of a handful of consulting firms that rent out big pools of foreign programmers they bring in on H1-B visas. Prose lets you be more at the end of economic inequality is a significant startup hub. Many famous works of anthropology.

Associates at VC firms regularly cold email. To say nothing of the first meeting.

This is similar to over-hiring in that sense, but this could be pleasure in a large pizza and found an open booth.

But you can discriminate on the web was going to visit 20 different communities regularly. The examples in this algorithm are calculated using a freeware OS? Japanese.

Though nominally acquisitions and sometimes on a valuation cap.

Corollary: Avoid becoming an administrator, or Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia needed Airbnb? But if you have to be a quiet, earnest place like Cambridge will one day be able to at all is a meaningful idea for human audiences. If you want to help a society generally is to trick admissions officers. Believe me, rejection still rankles but I've come to writing essays is to claim retroactively I said yes.

[templeofgeek]

Katie York is a photographer from Los Angeles, California. I first met Katie in early 2015 through the Doctor Who Community. She was a Twelfth Doctor Cosplayer at the time. I ,myself, was also a Doctor Who cosplayer and also from the surrounding Los Angeles area. I began to follow her on Instagram and very quickly formed a friendship with her. Our shared interest stretched far beyond just Doctor Who and Cosplay.  We talked daily about our fandoms, our lives and our passions. One passion we shared and cared very deeply about was Cosplay Photography. For us cosplay photography was just as important as the cosplays themselves. Photography was our way of celebrating our fandom. Doing our best to bring out the hard work and effort that had gone into making these cosplays. Doing our best to do justice to the cosplays and the cosplayer. Most of what I have learned about cosplay photography I have learned from Katie. She has a very unique style and approach to shooting cosplays. To me, her photos seem softer and more sophisticated than a lot of the Cosplay Photography I have seen out there. She brings out the personalities of the people she photographs just as well as she does the loveliness of their cosplays. It is this unique style that makes her so sought after as a photographer. Her Wonder Woman Cosplay Project, which you will read about below, is touching  and brilliant. I am very honored to be sharing her work and her story with you. 

Photo by VXV Images

Your story, tell us about yourself. Hi all, I’m Katie! I’m a purple loving lady who moved with my mom and my dog from the east coast (New Hampshire) to the west coast (Southern California) to pursue a career in film post production. I love many things, most of them being my family, my fandoms (Disney, Wonder Woman, Sherlock and Star Trek to name a few.) and my pretend boyfriends (the most recent being Taika Waititi, Karl Urban and Chris Pine). When I’m not behind the lens of my Nikon I can be found running around my second home, Disneyland!

How long have you been interested in photography and storytelling? Photography has always flitted in and out of my life for quite sometime. I tinkered with disposable cameras all throughout my childhood years. I’d like to point out that most, if not all, of those photos were terrible wide shots of my disinterested dog and my startled Grandma. As I grew older I loved watching America’s Next Top Model for the sole reason of seeing how the photos from the shoots turned out. I was obsessed with the concept shoots and how interesting and fun and statuesque the models always looked. However, if I was to pinpoint when my love for the art solidified it was probably my senior year of high school into the first few months of college when I got to develop and process my own black and white film. At the time I had really NO idea what I was doing but I enjoyed doing it. Shortly after graduating college though, my camera fell by the wayside while I began building the foundation of my career in post production. Fast forward 5 years later, with my very first bonus check from my first real SERIOUS job in my hand, I bought my first DSLR camera and it’s been a passionate love ever since.

How long have you been interested in cosplay photography? I’ve been interested in cosplay photography for a little over 2 years? I never really thought it to be something I’d be interested in until I started regularly going to conventions around 3 years ago. Walking around the convention floor you can see all the love and dedication these people have for the craft and for the characters they wear. It’s infectious and since I’m nowhere near as handy as they are I felt compelled to contribute to this community somehow. So the photography just fell right into place. I like to consider cosplay photography as souped up portrait photography. The colors and textures and all the different faces make working with cosplayers so rewarding.

What got you started in cosplay/ cosplay photography? I was a Doctor Who cosplayer for a time and had some friends in our local community who were also into it. At the time I really didn’t even know cosplay shoots were a “thing”. We wanted to get photos outside of a convention setting so I reached out to a friend who knew a friend who had a camera. It’s been history ever since.

10th Doctor Cosplay

Donna Noble Cosplay

11th Doctor Cosplay

River Song Cosplay

Clara Oswald Cosplay

6th Doctor Cosplay

10th Doctor Cosplay

11th Doctor Cosplay

Is there any kind of equipment that you prefer to use when shooting cosplay? I’m not very fussy when it comes to equipment. As long as I have even, natural light and my workhorse lens (a.k.a my Sigma 50-100 mm f/1.8) I’m good to go! That said, what I keep in my kit is my Nikon D3300 body, Sigma 50-100 f/1.8, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 and Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6. Oh, and a TON of fairy lights. You never know when you need to get sparkly on a shoot.

You had a photo go viral recently. What is the story there and How do you feel about that? I did and it was such an incredibly wild experience! But to provide context, I met Steven and Millie a.k.a the Cosplay Parents at Long Beach Comic Con this past September. Running around various circles in the Southern California Comic Convention scene I had learned of Steven and Millie. I had seen many photos of their beautiful cosplays around the internet but I never had the chance to actually formally introduce myself. Until a week before Long Beach Comic Con when my friend looped me in on a tweet from them showcasing their latest cosplay confection. Diana Prince and Steve Trevor. Needless to say, I flipped and the subsequent tweets expressed my enthusiasm. We confirmed I’d love the opportunity to photograph them and that was that.

Fast forward to day one of the con and I had just stepped out of a panel with William Shatner only to look out over the balcony to find Steven and Millie taking selfies in the lobby. Cut to your girl running down three flights of stairs (lugging her gear bag behind her) to catch them. I am nothing, if not enthusiastic about snagging my subjects. Thus our first mini shoot was born and my friendship with them took off. Because the day AFTER that photo was taken, I posted it to my twitter and over the course of 24 hours it went VIRAL. 18k likes, 5k retweets and a retweet and comment by the Wonder Woman Director herself, Patty Jenkins. To top it all off, a week later Steven and Millie and our photo were featured on Mashable and The Chive! Needless to say, that Labor Day weekend became incredibly memorable for both the Cosplay Parents and I.

https://twitter.com/KatieBePhoto/status/904394171284197376

https://twitter.com/PattyJenks/status/904785780173717504

  It was so insane watching all of this go down. I wasn’t really expecting the volume of likes this photo would garner and Steven and Millie certainly weren’t expecting the reception they were given. It was such a positive experience not only to see my work so well received and the outpouring of love for what the CosplayParents do but also for the friendship I made with Steven and Millie since then. I know viral things don’t always have a positive outcome but I’m thankful this one was.

Do you have any photos that are your favorite or that you really proud of?  This is such a hard question as each shoot is very special and like a mother, I can’t pick a favorite out of all my babies, but I would have to say one photo I’m very proud of is a shot I took during my very first WWxKtBe shoot. This shot of Julia in front of these tall buildings encapsulates what I wanted this Wonder Woman project to look like. Powerful and strong and ready to take on the world!

From beginning to now: How do you feel about how far you’ve come in your photography? Oh without a doubt I am leaps and bounds better than I was when I first started. I’ve learned so much in regards to how I use certain kinds of equipment, to looking at light, to posing my subjects, to how I edit things. Everyday I learn something new and that keeps this hobby fresh and exciting for me. I just love it.

We’ve talked briefly on this subject before. While hopping around conventions, we noticed a lack of female photographers. Many times you and I have been the only female photographers present at a comic book convention.  How do you feel about the need for more female cosplay photographers? Like every aspect of the workforce there is without a doubt a gigantic need for more female cosplay photographers! I think we as women bring a different view to photography then men might have. As an art form and as a community we should want to see different perspectives from women. I’m very inspired by the male cosplay photographers I follow and would relish the inspiration from up and coming female cosplay photographers as well!

Tell us the story of your Wonder Woman project? I walked into a movie theater with my best friend Briana on June 7th eagerly anticipating my first viewing of Wonder Woman. I was certainly pumped for what I had seen in the trailers despite not fully knowing what to expect. Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins didn’t disappoint. Fast forward nearly 2 and half hours later to Briana and I walking out of that theater changed women. I’ve always prided myself on being an independent woman who had all the things that make a woman walk tall. But after walking out of Wonder Woman for the first time I found myself walking taller and energized. Thank God there weren’t any tanks nearby because there was a VERY good chance I would’ve tried to pick it up ala the No Man’s Land scene.

But something wonderful triggered in my brain that night while Briana and I stood in the empty parking lot taking selfies in my Wonder Woman tiara. I needed to create and I needed it to be focused on this iconic female character and how important she is to strong and impassioned women (like me and the women I surround myself with). I decided that I wanted to start working on an open ended series of photoshoots with all kinds of Wonder Women cosplayers, revolving around the idea that no matter size, age or color we are ALL Wonder Women. This line of thinking is also the same through line to most of the photo work I’ve done since I seriously picked up a camera two years ago. I wanted to highlight all of Diana’s qualities in the women I worked with, effectively boosting their confidence along with the confidence of the women (and men!) who happened to find my photos. This project would also showcase all her different looks, be it from the film, the comics, the animated series or concept work. You name it, I wanted to photograph it. Thus the WWxKtBe (Wonder Woman times Katie Be) project was born.

Since then I’ve done a handful of shoots for this project, which can be viewed here, and I’m looking to do more. So, if anyone reading this is interested don’t hesitate to reach out!

What is a cosplay photo shoot like for you? What do you try to get out of your photo shoots? I try to make my shoots as easy, comfortable and informal as possible. Usually it’s me and my subject on location during the early morning. The first few shots are always the most nerve wracking for me but once those have gone off, it’s off to the races. There’s something really special about the time in the middle of the shoot where both my subject and I are really gelling. That’s the sweet spot for me. It’s when the best photographs happen because the real personality of the cosplayer comes out. Long story short, it’s plain and simple magic.

Every shoot I do I try to capture the person’s essence. Sure, you can capture the same poses you see from promo photos released from the tv show/movie/video game but to me it’s boring. I want to see the light and determination in a Wonder Woman’s eye as she’s about to step onto No Man’s Land and I want to see the mischief in the set of Deadpool’s shoulders as he’s sneaking up to photobomb someone. THAT is what cosplay photography is all about for me. The emotion. You can have all the fancy gear in the world but if the face is expressionless the photo lacks.

What are your feelings about convention photography? What is your approach to it? I think convention photography is a skill in and of itself. There’s so much going on and there’s so many people milling around. You really have to understand your gear and how to properly use it because sometimes you only get less than a minute to get your shot. I personally found it difficult to get the space I need to take a shot with the equipment I use daily and that’s kind of frustrating. However, on the positive end of things, there are SO many fresh faces you can meet and network with. This past LA Comic Con I got the opportunity to photograph with a few people who follow me on Instagram as well as people I’ve never met before. Normally I’m more of a one-on-one, location shoot kind of girl but I’m hoping to get more and more comfortable shooting within the confines of a convention.

Doctor Strange Cosplay

Mera Cosplay

Merida & Ariel Cosplays

Brave Cosplay

Star Trek Cosplay

Wonder Woman Cosplay

Do you do other kinds of photography? I do! I’ve photographed weddings and families, headshots and landscapes. I love photographing everything and everyone!

What do you hope for the future of cosplay photography? I hope that the community continues to be inclusive no matter the skill set of the photographer and that more and more women start stepping behind the lens!

What new things can we hope to see from you in the coming year? More Wonder Woman shoots for sure. I also want to start stepping into fandoms I don’t normally photograph. I might not be familiar with the characters but that’s what makes it fun and challenging!

What advice do you have for new photographers out there? Keep photographing. Never STOP photographing. Take your friends out for mini shoots and practice, practice, practice. Look at what other photographers are doing and figure out what you like about their style and spin it to fit what you want your photographs to look like. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of other photographers and ask cosplayers to shoot with you. Watch as many youtube tutorials as possible. I’ve learned so much about editing from youtube it’s not even funny. Finally, just have fun, this is what art is all about, having fun!

Ariel & Merida Cosplay

Cosplay Fans

Steve Trevor Cosplay

TARDIS Cosplay

Star Trek Cosplays

LA LA Land & Up Cross Over Copslay

LA LA Land & Up Cross Over Copslay

Young Diana WW Cosplay

Young Diana WW Cosplay

Rapunzel Cosplay

Merida Cosplay

Bettlejuice Cosplay

Wonder Woman Cosplay

Doctor Who Cosplays

Clara Oswald Cosplay

  You can follow along with Katie’s adventures on her social media accounts: 

https://wwxktbeproject.tumblr.com

https://www.instagram.com/katiebe_photography/

https://www.facebook.com/pg/katiebephotography/

Cosplayers photographed above:

https://www.instagram.com/imaginedrealitiescosplay/

https://www.instagram.com/christina.is.crafty/

https://www.instagram.com/badmoosecosplay/

https://www.instagram.com/lotcosplay/

https://www.instagram.com/satinedice/

https://www.instagram.com/iamgeeklectic/

https://www.instagram.com/indymcfly/

https://www.instagram.com/thecurlydoctor/

https://www.instagram.com/juliajcosplay/

https://www.instagram.com/sylviaslays/

https://www.instagram.com/emma_bruton/

https://www.instagram.com/koruption_kosplay/

https://www.instagram.com/maryschwacher/

https://www.instagram.com/collectresscosplay/

https://www.instagram.com/thecollectedmutineer/

https://www.instagram.com/the_rose_explodes/

https://www.instagram.com/letdownyourgoldenhair/

https://www.instagram.com/young.fortinbras/

https://www.instagram.com/imperial_maddie/

https://www.instagram.com/cos_im_nikki/

https://www.instagram.com/miss_laneous/

https://www.instagram.com/dancingdragoncosplay/

https://www.instagram.com/spidermaiden/

    Q&A With Cosplay Photographer: Katie Be Photography Katie York is a photographer from Los Angeles, California. I first met Katie in early 2015 through the Doctor Who Community.

[dippedanddripped]

NAIROBI, Kenya — In Rwanda, it's chagua. In Kenya, mitumba. In Zambia, salaula — most African languages have a word for the piles of discarded garments that end up for sale across the African continent. Millions of people around the world donate clothes annually with the understanding that they will go to the needy or will be resold in secondhand stores.

However, while charities do financially benefit from some of the donated garments, many more enter a secondary marketplace governed by free market principles. A thriving and lucrative industry has emerged out of clothing outcasts that provide work for armies of resellers, distributors and market stall holders in developing markets like India or East Africa. But like any other business sector, there are winners and losers in this complex and booming trade.

The average American throws away 70 pounds of textile waste every year, according to the Council for Textile Recycling, so diverting clothing away from landfills and giving it a new life may seem like a good idea. But the mass influx of cheap hand-me-downs from Western countries has had a negative impact on local apparel industries and production in low-income countries.

Used clothing in good condition, which entered the supply chain as a donation, undercut new clothes produced locally. To this point, the governments of the East African Community (EAC) — the regional organisation that comprises of Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda — plans to outlaw all secondhand clothing imports by 2019, in a bid to boost domestic manufacturing.

Donating your used garments might be well-intentioned but they may be doing more harm than good.

“Donating your used garments might be well-intentioned but the situation on the ground means they may be doing more harm than good,” Dr Andrew Brooks, a lecturer in development geography at King’s College London, wrote in his book “Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-Hand Clothes.” While exact continent-wide figures are hard to come by, global used clothing exports from OECD countries stood at $1.9 billion in 2009, according to 2011 UN Comtrade data. Recent figures from the UN show that an estimated 80 percent of Africans wear secondhand clothing.

Interestingly, the US has recently hit back at the East African Community’s proposal to ban secondhand imports. Claiming that it would impose “significant hardship” on the US clothing industry and put 40,000 jobs in jeopardy, the US Trade Representative (USTR) has threatened to impose trade sanctions on African nations and launched a review of AGOA, a trade agreement that allows tariff-free access for thousands of goods from 38 African nations to the US.

Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda has already seen him withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), threaten to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and seek to renegotiate the US-South Korea free trade deal. It’s currently not clear whether the US will withdraw, suspend or limit AGOA before it expires in 2025 — all of which would have a significant impact on the EAC.

The trade deficit for many African countries is already stark. Imports from Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda to the US totalled $43 million in 2016, while US exports to the same countries amounted to $281 million, according to figures from the USTR. Currently, more than 66,000 jobs in Kenya are linked to AGOA, which earned the country 35.2 billion Kenyan Shillings (about $341 million) in textiles and apparel exports in 2016.

While they are popular with value-conscious consumers who get branded garments at low prices, discarded clothes are also a huge problem for India — the world’s biggest importer of secondhand clothing, according to 2013 UN Comtrade data — and many other developing countries, such as Poland, Pakistan, Ukraine, Chile and Guatemala.

Tracking the Journey

So, how exactly does discarded clothing end up in a Polish thrift store or a night market in Mumbai?

The journey begins when clothing is discarded and cannot be sold in a charity shop, such as Salvation Army or Oxfam, both which could not be reached for comment. Currently, only 20 percent of the clothing donated to charities actually get sold there, according to the Council of Textile Recycling. The rest goes into landfills — despite the fact that most textiles aren’t biodegradable, which means they can sit around for more than 200 years. Others are sold to textile merchants, who sort, grade and export the garments, converting what began as donations into tradable goods.

What clothing goes where depends on the type of garments. KCL’s Brooks found that white shirts frequently ended up in Pakistan, where there is a great demand among young professionals, while warmer coats often headed to Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, t-shirts and shorts go to India or Africa, where they can be sold for as little as $1.50 in street markets at Kanda, a seaport in the Gujarat state of India, or Gikomba in Nairobi, the biggest secondhand clothing market in East Africa.

Used clothing comes under two categories: wearable and mutilated. A government license is required for companies that want to import ‘wearable clothes.’ It also comes with the condition that they can be re-exported, as a precaution, so that undesired clothes don’t flood the market and hurt local businesses. But this is where the problem lies, says Bandana Tewari, editor-at-large at Vogue India.

“In India there is a massive business of smuggling. The real bulk of imports — about 60 percent — are mutilated clothes. But when the Indian government planned to increase the number of licenses, The Clothing Manufacturers Association Of India went up in arms saying that the market would be flooded with used clothes and put domestic manufacturers out of business.”

The Winners and Losers

While the secondhand clothing sector poses a major problem for those who work in conventional apparel industries, it is a lifeline for others. The Textile Recyling Association, which manages secondhand clothing recyclers and distributors in Kandla, employs some 3,000 people every year.

Meanwhile, Frip Thique, an Oxfam-run social enterprise in Senegal, enables workers — most of whom are women — to earn a decent living by sorting and selling clothes to local market traders. According to the charity, all profits go towards fighting poverty in the West African country. “Not only am I able to take care of more people, but also my parents and my sister who are in the village,” writes Dieynaba Coly, a staff association representative and clothes sorter, in a testimonial on Oxfam’s website.

Some used clothing can be recycled for good. “The influx of secondhand clothes has turned Panipat — a town about 90km from New Delhi — into Asia’s biggest textile recycling hub. One of the biggest companies in Panipat is Pal Woollen Industries, which creates 10,000 kilograms of yarn a day from 20 tonnes of used clothes. The yarn is then used for making blankets, school blazers and red-and-black check fabric that is popular among the Masai population of Tanzania and Kenya,” says Tewari. Goonj, a non-profit organisation in India, reuses cloth to make reusable sanitary pads for rural women. “In many parts of India, women still use newspapers, mud and ash during menstruation,” she adds.

Clothes are an essential item and if they become more costly, poor families will suffer the most.

But those benefitting the most are “the exporters in the US and UK, along with others involved in the trade, such as the wholesalers. This applies to [some of the] importing countries. It also includes consumers in developing countries, who can purchase good quality clothes for a fraction of their original price,” says Linda Calabrese, senior research officer of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), an independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues.

Calabrese argues that halting the trade of secondhand clothing isn’t the right approach and won’t enable the development of textile industries in developing countries alone. “The garment sector [in developing nations] needs more investment to expand production capacity. The sector is currently not receiving a lot of new investment to expand production capacity, and costs are outweighing profits. Transport is expensive, getting skilled workers is expensive, the energy supply is unreliable and costly compared to other regions, such as Southeast Asia.”

It could also have undesirable effects, like promoting illegal trade and smuggling in banned imports, if the population has to choose between buying new imported garments, or buying domestically produced second-rate goods. “Clothes are an essential item and if they become more costly, poor families will suffer the most,” says Calabrese, but adds: “To be fair, I think that East African governments already have a very good understanding of the existing challenges and are trying to address them.”

It’s possible that the proposed ban won’t pass. The thousands involved in the secondhand clothes trade in Africa will know their fate once EAC leaders meet for the November summit, during which the issue is expected to surface. Kenya is among the countries that have since withdrawn the ban, while governments in Uganda and Rwanda have raised taxes on used clothing by 12 percent and shoes by 15 percent.

But it remains to be seen if Africa can create or revive local manufacturing industries — which collectively could double from $500 billion in 2016 to $930 billion by 2025, while spending by African consumers and businesses could reach $5.6 trillion over the next decade, according to McKinsey & Co.

“I’m worried that the phase-out will send the wrong signal, encouraging investors to focus on the domestic market,” says Calabrese. “What is needed in East Africa is an increased focus on the export market [so that] more goods can be sold internationally. This is what much larger countries have done, including China and Bangladesh, who are global leaders in garment production.”

“At the end of the day, this is a big volume, low margin business. [Middlemen] are making millions of dollars for their own organisations or social projects, but not much impact is being made to help the really poor in third world countries, [especially] as the business is so unregulated and opaque,” says Tewari. “Once worn and torn by the poor, millions of clothes go into third world landfills, far from the affluent countries. Where is the accountability of first world countries dumping used goods on third world grounds?”

[freshoutofundergrad-blog]

One Month Into Post-Grad: Debt, Adulting, and Hotels (+ Books)

It’s been a while! I have to admit, when the end of June and the 4th of July went by and I still hadn’t updated here, I became more frantic in trying to figure out what to write. Spoiler Alert: Living at home and trying desperately not to spend any of your savings is a very boring existence. Relaxing? Mostly. Blog worthy? Not really.

With less than three weeks now before I head off to job training, I plan to start ramping up my packing, cooking skills, and figuring out the mess that is living in a hotel for a month during training.

This week, I decided not to dive into one particular topic, but to touch upon a range of Adult Stuffs that I have been reading up on and listening to these past few weeks, featuring student loan debt woes, budgeting, hotel worries, and some awesome books I’ve been reading.

1. First off, the worst: The horrors of student loan debt.

At the recommendation of a Bitches Get Riches post, I listened to the two-part student loan debt series on the podcast Death, Sex, and Money by Anna Sale. I am a podcast junky, so I was in love at first listen, but I recommend it to anyone else out there trying to navigate their oversized debt. Give a listen to others stories and know that you are among A LOT of Americans in the same situation. Especially us millennials.

Personally, I have been debating two methods of student debt reduction, known as the “snowball” or “avalanche” method. The snowball method is a method of debt reduction that tackles the smaller sized debts first. This has the benefits of giving the debtor a feel-good, accomplished feeling earlier and can help motivate you to work to eliminate debts faster. The avalanche method, in contrast, goes after the biggest and meanest of the debts, which means the debts with the highest interest rates. A more in-depth examination of the two is found here. The first method makes me feel all fuzzy inside at the idea of less debt-juggling and quicker achievements. Who doesn’t like the happy endorphins of getting something done? But I will likely swing toward the latter if possible, because the bitter side of me feels that high interest rates are a creation of the devil.

Now, lucky for me, I am still within the six-month grace period after college and will have begun my job by the time I have to start making minimum payments. I do plan on beginning with just my minimums, but once I have a handle on my finances, I want to get a bit more aggressive with my evil loans.

2. While we’re on the topic of money, let’s talk budgeting.

I did it! Sort of. I’ve started to try and track my money. To start off, I did a trial with a fancy electronic system online, which was great but also cost monies I don’t have. After my free trial ended, I kissed the fancy software goodbye, at least until it’s more feasible for me, and decided to turn to the handy-dandy spreadsheet. Luckily, I am definitely not alone on this: I found a useful spreadsheet on Half-Banked, a financial blog by Desirae Odjick, to start me off.

While Desirae’s spreadsheet is limited, allowing for tracking expenses and simple budgeting, it is a great base for me. See, earlier I said I’m tracking my money, not budgeting it, for a reason. Budgeting implies a solid inflow and outflow of money. Right now, without an income and living a lifestyle of mooching off my mom (thanks mom!), I have a limited amount of both of those. To flip that, once I start job training in August and start apartment searching in my new city, I will be spending way more money and actually making a real income. All I can do at this point, unfortunately, is try to create a budgeting system to use once that insanity begins.

3. Speaking of job training — I’m going to be living in two hotels. For a month.

I have two separate training programs in August: The first is a classroom style training to give new recruits information about how the non-profit works and provide us with skills training. The second involves actually working in another city on a mini-campaign to put our skills into practice.

I should mention that neither of these cities will (probably) be the city I finally call home for two years. Meaning, I will be living in two different hotels for a total period of a month.

[Cue panic over how this poor college grad with minimal resources is going to eat without draining my entire bank account.]

Facing the distinct possibility that I might have a refrigerator and microwave to my name throughout the month of August, I started to panic-slash-prepare for this inevitability. Putting on my best “earnest former student journalist” persona, I contacted the woman in charge of housing coordination and asked if my room would have a refrigerator and microwave. Luckily, I got a response only a few minutes later that I would have a mini-fridge in my room and have access to a common microwave. Phew, one worry down.

Thus, I have started to brainstorm food to eat on the cheap (I do not have enough shame to exclude PB&Js from the list) and already discovered the closest grocery store to my hotel. Eating out will probably be a strategic game of finding the cheapest places and making sure to always have leftovers to bring home with me. While the whole thing feels a bit like being thrown back into a dorm room, I can’t say it’s all bad. After all, I’ll be starting my working life looking out at Lake Michigan from the Chicago downtown coastline. Not too shabby.

4. Okay, now that ugly, adult stuff is out of the way: Books I’m reading and loving.

Oh, summer. I will miss you so dearly very soon, in part because all this free time allows me to lay around and read books with zero demands that I write an analytical paper about them.

I admit that I will probably never truly give up my young adult fantasy/sci-fi loves. I’m sure at some point I’ll grow into important, adult fiction that one talks about with cool adult friends, but for now I enjoyed the heck of Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes, a fantasy novel with dual narrators and a fast-moving plot. It features Middle Eastern mythology and has fantastic world-building that I am excited to read more about in the sequel. However, the sequel is currently still in hardback, so I’m lusting after it from afar. I have a small book tower to get through before I can justify that purchase just yet.

Next up, and more related to this blog, is the audiobook Adulting: How to become a grown-up in 468 easy(ish) steps. I’m caught between wishing I had bought a physical copy so it would be easier to go back to Kelly Williams Brown’s tips on the fly, and enjoying the snarky, witty narration by Anjili Pal. I am about halfway through this book and I enjoy the way in which it balances between providing advice that makes me think “I should know that" or "yay, I already do this” with the loving and firm message of “Look, it’s all good because you know this now, got it? Now don’t forget it.” It is definitely a fun listen meant just for someone like me, who has limited on-my-own experience and has an almost obsessive love with tips and life hacks.

This final book has my nerd self excited: The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev’s Freedom to Putin’s War by Russian-born journalist Arkady Ostrovsky. I’m not sure if I have mentioned it prior on this blog, but I have a freshly-minted International Relations degree with an unofficial regional emphasis on Russia and its periphery. Because I am a weird overachiever, I wrote a 80 page senior thesis on Russian state media influence in Latvia. You’d think I’d kind of be over the topic by now, after a literal year of my life obsessing over Russian ethnic minorities and state media, but apparently not. While this book assumes some base knowledge on the happenings in Russia in the last century, it so far seems pretty approachable. The book focuses on how the Russian media has played a key role in crafting Russian identity since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The reverence for the written word and discussion of free speech and the power of the press alone should make it interesting to those outside the wonky political junkies.

That’s all I have for today! I hope to be back with more regular posts, but between a pair of end of summer vacations and a surprise surgery — nothing too terrible, just unpleasant — my life will be speeding up again. Woo?

Woo!