#ill keep up with my laundry and dishes and ill go out with my roommates or meet with a friend or make it through a work shift

[thebubblemaster]

.

[jojoturnip]

Sometimes I feel like I'm just made for service.

I won't pretend to know anything about creation and life. I'm not religious, but the universe likes to line things up. She likes patterns.

I grew up filling the gaps of my parents. Caring for my sister in the way they wouldn't. Growing up, I started sneaking extra food in my lunchbox to feed classmates who didn't have enough food in Kindergarten. I have soothed panic, pain, grief, and hate in friends, friends' parents, family, and strangers all my life. Even my job is categorized as service staff.

I have always served others.

My roommate last year convinced me they had narcolepsy or some kind of chronic illness that kept them bedridden the majority of the time. I made them food. I did their dishes, their laundry. They asked me to keep coming to help after I moved out.

When I tried to tell them I felt like their mother, like I was a trapped 1950s housewife, and I just wanted to be their friend, they didn't take it well. They got aggressive and defensive, eventually apologized and started to change, but then grew tired of it and just wanted me to submit to them again. I refused, and I lost that friendship.

They finally got a sleep study, I heard. Something I begged them to do for a year.

It came back normal. There was nothing wrong with them.

They just didn't want to deal with the world. Didn't want to get out of bed, do the chores if someone would rush to do them for them.

They weren't sick. They just liked being taken care of. Even if they knew it was hurting me.

Once I refused to dedicate myself to serving them, there was no reason to keep putting effort into a friendship.

Tell me, universe, why did you make me to serve others?

When most people reach out to me, they're asking for help on something. It's so rare that they just want to hang out, be around me. It's always when they have homework they need help with, a paper that needs proofreading, starting to emasculate flowers for crossing, a breakup that's weighing on their shoulders, help moving their stuff.

Don't get me wrong. I want to be there to help. I want to be there on bad days for my friends.

But I also need them to want me when things are going well too. Because I'm worth that.

There are a few people in my life that I feel want me for more than what I can provide them. Who are excited by my successes and proud of me and the leaps and bounds I've made across the past two years. My sister, my current roommate, my creative writing friends, my coworkers.

I'm going to continue caring for people. It's what I do. But I'm becoming okay with cutting out the people who only want me for selfish reasons.

Maybe it's okay that I'm built to serve. I can make peace with that. But I can grow other parts of myself, too, and stick around the people who are into watering and fertilizing themselves. Caring for themselves and growing alongside others.

Yeah, I can get behind that. At the end of the day, I'm going to be okay.

[gothicashworld]

Internalized Ableism

Today my roommate said we needed to clean the house more and I broke down.

She was right, we do. It’s got a nice coating of dust and grime, some recyclables piling up as high as the dishes, and I missed that the downstairs toilet had begun to spawn mould. The issue is I should have been on top of it. That’s what it felt like. I mean I was home all the time, I was upstairs in my (also very messy) room doing nothing but schoolwork or writing or playing Animal Crossing for countless hours. Why couldn’t I just clean up when I saw a mess?

Cue an hour of depression and suicidal thoughts (nothing to warrant calling an ambulance, no worries), followed by a sudden spike in energy and a two hour cleaning binge. My roommates kept telling me I didn’t need to clean up, they weren’t mad at me and we were doing the big clean on Tuesday. Issue was I couldn’t. I couldn’t sit down for longer than 5 minutes without being twitchy and agitated until every bit of energy was out of my systems.

I collapsed at the two hour marker in my (still very messy) room and texted my friends back. Barry I had spoken to before and comforted me, told me I was doing my best. I told my other friend what was going on. I told them that I had I called an ADHD specialist and got an appointment for the 23rd. I told them I wasn’t doing okay and I had realized, in the midst of my whirlwind cleaning binge that I had a lot more issues than I cared to admit. They confirmed it for me, that it wasn’t in my head or anything like that.

And I’ve had these moments before. It’s not the first time I’ve been overwhelmed, and realized just how much is impacting me. It’s been a month since my last 3 diagnoses came in: ADHD-C, Nonverbal Learning Disability, Persistent Depressive Disorder with Major Depressive episodes. In January it’ll be seven years since I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. In February it’ll be a year since my Sensory Processing Disorder self diagnosis is confirmed. It’s not even scratching the surface of the chronic physical illnesses I deal with either: PCOS, Insulin Resistance, Sciatica are all impacting me day to day, whether severely or not.

I am a severely disabled adult woman.

I can deny it and keep bringing up how functional I am, list all my accomplishments academically, but that’s due to a lot of internalized ableism. It’s the thoughts of “I’m fine, I’m overreacting, I can fix this, I’m better than this” and so on and so forth that are ableist. My parents love me unconditionally and I love them but there are things they instilled in me. If I couldn’t do something simple (tie shoes, dig a hole, wash dishes), they weren’t very understanding. I internalized phrases such as “this is fine, this is simple, it’s literally not hard” and now I have breakdowns over forgetting laundry, over missed assignments, over impulsive spending or buying take out again. Those are simple tasks, right? Literally not that hard - but for me yeah it is. 

Just because I’m able to hold a conversation, own a pet, put on make up, attend university and find work doesn’t mean I’m not severely affected every day. It doesn’t mean my disabilities “aren’t that bad”. They are and days like today are going to be in the rest of my life. I’m lucky to live in a country that provides me the ability to seek treatment, financial support and accommodations. It’s carried me through the last four years of learning how to be an adult, but I am far from capable of leading a functional life without constantly needing those three things.

Appearances do not equal functionality levels. That’s the message here. Internalized ableism is a real thing, I need to keep working on it and keep trying to find ways around all of mine in order to successfully live on my own.

[kitten-keith]

Private Moments

Two posts in a day? Yeah cause while I was fighting with my internet I finally got the chance to sort of proof read this one. Started it in like... March? Last year. was more of a headcanon free form thing that got unintentionally longer and then longer still and then I forgot about it for months, popped in on it a few times, forgot some more and then finally wrote the most ridiculous sappy ending ever like-- last month? two months ago? Idk.

Anyway. Enjoy.

Klance, roommates AU. Lots of smut to make up for those last two I guess. Like this whole thing is born from the concept of Keith trying to find a comfortable way to masturbate.

---

Keith has had to share a room for as long as he can remember. The orphan home was crowded, schools gave you dorm mates. 

When he graduated he couldn’t afford to live on his own and between sharing a studio with Shiro and moving into a two bedroom with Hunk and Lance-- See, Hunk had a fancy catering job that helped him pay a larger share of the rent so he got the room to himself leaving Lance and Keith with twin beds on opposite sides of the second bedroom. It made finding alone time difficult.

Keith is tired of waiting for the dead of night when his roommate has his sleep mask and headphones on, already in some manner of deep sleep, to finally touch himself under the covers.

He hates how hot it is and how he sweats into his sheets when it takes too long and he starts to get desperate. 

Lance is wearing those headphones so maybe he could have gotten away with a relaxed moan or two but he bites his lip hard instead. 

He can’t do that. What if Lance hears him, what if he pulls down his mask and looks over and in the shadows of their shared room he can see Keith’s fist moving. 

He has to restrain himself. He constantly... constantly... has to restrain himself. 

And he is so god damn tired of it.

He thinks of Lance’s eyes on him once and cums faster than he’d thought he would and he wasn’t ready with his designated cum rag so it gets on the sheets and he spends the night terrified that Lance can smell it. Terrified that he’s going to nod off before it’s socially acceptable for him to be up and doing laundry and that Lance will get up first and see— 

He gets hard again, thinking about Lance’s face and the potential smirk that would grace his lips once he realized what Keith was doing in their room at night. 

The resulting stress of this causes him to consider Lance for the following days. 

The next time his body is so damn desperate for release in their room he thinks of him. He has to struggle not to come undone thinking about Lance’s hands and his mouth and those eyes watching him in interest...

He fucked up.

This was a mistake. 

Now when he looks at Lance or when they hangout for their weekly roommate movie he feels himself wanting.

He can’t masturbate the way he wants to while sharing a room with Lance and Lance makes him want to so badly...! 

He takes to going out more, like he used to do in high school. Getting himself fucked in the backseat of cramped cars where he still can’t scream, still can’t be comfortable, still can’t be wholly satisfied—

And then Hunk finally says the magic words. 

“Hey Keith, Lance and I are going upstate for this big catering job I have this weekend, you want to come with?” 

Keith freezes with his hands on the dishes. He’ll have the apartment. Empty. For a little over two whole days. 

Keith feels his throat go dry and tries to clear it, “uh— sorry, I think I might be coming down with something, it would probably be better if you guys go on your own.”

Lance waltzes in, comments on how Keith is totally going to take advantage of the empty apartment and invite his mystery boyfriend over.

Keith rolls his eyes, he doesn’t have a boyfriend. He barely remembers the names of the strangers stretching him out and trying to get him to cum all over their seats while he day dreams about his roommate. But oh, he will take advantage of the weekend.

He immediately orders some toys offline, pays for express shipping because he’ll be damned if he misses his opportunity to go absolutely wild. 

Lance and Hunk leave Friday before he wakes up and Lance only barely makes his bed. 

And maybe it’s because of his ill begotten sort of crush or maybe it’s because Keith is a deprived mess but as he stands over Lance’s bed so blown away that he is actually alone, actually able to relax he just kind of...Collapses into it. 

The remnants of Lance’s scent alone help get him to full hardness and he grinds his hips into the bed, his dick trapped in his pajama bottoms but the whole thing is still so freeing. 

He’ll wash Lance’s sheets later just in case. He’ll thank him for it, they were due soon anyway...

When he cums his voice is raw and his throat is dry as he moans Lance’s name. 

It feels amazing. 

Lance makes him crazy.

He passes out for a few minutes, face down in Lance’s bed, hugging his pillow to his face, damp spot soaking from his pants into the sheets. 

Worth it. Worth it worth it worth it.... 

But he can finally do so much more. 

When he gets back up he gathers up his toys on shaky legs and moves into the living room. The cool air across his pants feels nice. It’s supposed to be disgusting, he’s sure, but it still feels nice because he doesn’t have to care about it. 

He imagines how much nicer it will be sprawled out across the cool leather couch in the light from the window fucking himself on his toys. 

He can get completely naked, he can moan and cry out all he wants. He can make himself go for hours.

It’s going to be phenomenal, he’s already hard again from the excitement of it. 

He strips right there, feeling lewd and on display and it just excites him more. He drops his clothes on the floor and slides onto the couch, he shivers at the cold but it doesn’t dissuade him at all. 

He’s got lubed up hands over his body quickly. His moans are wanton, his breath is shallow. When he stretches himself out enough for the smallest toy he pushes it inside himself and spreads his legs wide just for the sake of it. Just because he can and a part of him gains confidence in that. 

A part of him is sad. 

No one will ever see him this free. This open. 

Because he fucks strangers and doesn’t know how to make an effort for them to be anything but. Doesn’t want to. 

Because he wants Lance. 

Because Lance isn’t a stranger and he’s more than just his roommate. He just...

Well. No. He is just his roommate because he can’t be more. Because Lance is too good for him. Because his laugh is infectious and his heart is too big and he can do anything when he sets his mind to it— 

And everyone loves him. 

Everyone should love him. 

Lance could have anyone. 

Why would he want his shitty socially stunted sexually repressed dumbass roommate??

Not. Even. Remotely... the way Keith wants to be thinking. 

So he shoves his cleaner fingers into his mouth and thinks about what it might be like to suck Lance’s cock right here, out in the living room pinned against the couch. 

He turns on the vibrations for his little bullet friend and feels a bit overwhelmed for just a second before he lets himself enjoy it.

He rolls his hips so the toy inside him drags against his sweet spot and he keens, voice caught with his tongue against his fingers. 

He still manages a sound like his name, because he wants to say his name. Wants to scream it over and over as he wrecks himself. On some level he wants the world to know how wild he can get— with one specific man in mind… but on all other levels, he’ll remain repressed. 

And in this case, he’ll keep his voice sensible enough to be respectable of the neighbors. 

Still, he’ll keep thinking about Lance. Wanting Lance. Imagining Lance’s hands and Lance’s teeth and Lance’s skin. Lance’s broad shoulders and long legs and clear blue eyes. Lance’s voice in his ear and his breath on his neck and his lips on his—

Oh.

He wants to kiss Lance. Very badly. 

So badly he swirls his tongue around his fingers and moans because he may be free but it’s so much easier to pretend he’s about to be fucked by Lance when he’s at least about to be fucked by someone. 

But he’s alone. 

He’s alone and he has to settle because he won’t go out and find someone, they aren’t Lance.

Speaking of... Lance would be bigger.

He retrieves his fingers and slowly removes the smaller toy, he hadn’t even played with higher vibe settings but that was fine, he had time later. Now he wanted the dildo he’d bought. He’ll have to stretch himself a little more but that’s fine. Because he wants to imagine that it’s Lance. Lance who’s thighs he’s straddling rather than the couch. Lance’s dick pushing inside him, hot and pulsing and desperate for him the same way Keith is desperate. 

When he’s finally ready for the purple plastic toy he lays over the back of the couch, warm chest against cold leather as he eases himself down. His legs are spread wide and his dick is slowly dragged down against the couch. He imagines if his roommates ever knew about this they’d probably get new living room furniture, but Keith doesn’t care. He has time. He’ll clean everything up once he’s done and they’ll never know. 

He’ll know. And maybe whenever Lance sits right here he’ll think about it. Think about how he wants to be sitting in his lap. Thinks about how he wants to drag his nails through his hair and not scrape along the leather of th seat back 

Wants Lance’s cock instead of this pathetic little purple bobble.

But he settles, because at this point this is his life and he should just be happy he has the place to himself. 

He sinks to the hilt and whimpers because he isn’t used to it. Isn’t used to the size and the stretch and how it still falls just short of his expectations.

“La-anceee...!” He cries out to no one. His head drops against the couch and he rolls his hips the tiniest bit against the intrusion. 

It feels better. Not good enough. But better. He tries to lift himself up. One hand reaching behind him to steady the dildo and keep it from simply rising with him. The lube makes it easier but it’s a tough sell and he’s still so very aware of the fact it isn’t a real person’s dick. It isn’t Lance. 

Lance would.. would have his arms wrapped around him. Would kiss him all over, bury his face in his neck and make his whole body ache with need for him.

He starts to ease himself back down, dreaming of Lance’s nose bumping at his collar and he starts to melt into the feeling, into the dream. 

He finds a rhythm and it feels good. His body thinks so anyway, with the way the heat builds in his belly. 

He flops onto his back against the armrest, works the toy into himself a little faster. Starts to jerk himself off in time with the thrusts but he’s sloppy and uncoordinated and it doesn’t matter too much if it’s still gonna make him cum.

His mind wanders to a long forgotten memory. Of one of the few times Keith had agreed to hang out with his future roommates back when they’d been high school classmates sneaking into bars that didn’t card. 

Keith had agreed because he was in the mood to drink. Lance, who at the time couldn’t stand Keith, had agreed because he had a date and that meant Hunk had company when he inevitably left him behind. 

The night was primarily a foggy blur in Keith’s mind but now, fucking himself over the armrest of his couch and thinking about Lance—

He remembered Lance’s date. 

He remembered how she couldn’t keep her hands off him and how they’d nearly immediately found a corner to make out. 

Keith hadn’t watched. Hadn’t cared. Drank away his anger over Iverson’s patented daily bullshit and tried to make small talk with Hunk who smiled a lot and was too nice for his own good. 

But occasionally Keith would scan the crowd and see. See how Lance had made that girl putty in his hands. How she leaned back over the edge of the booth they’d found for their supposed privacy and how her mouth hung open to moan or cry, with his lips on her jaw and his hands around her waist and under her skirt.

How Lance just... made her into this simpering mess. 

And at the time, Keith had simply rolled his eyes. Moved on.

But now here he was. Practically the image of that nameless girl and all from the mere thought of Lance. 

How had he been so blind for so long? 

Was it better that way? 

He grasped at the foggy edges of that memory and placed himself directly in her position. Nestled tightly against Lance’s body while he kissed and nipped and sucked on his throat, bare as he stretched further back, giving him all the room he needed as he fucked himself on his dildo and pretended his own hand was Lance’s, smearing precum all over his cock head. 

“Yes...” he breathed out softly. “Yes... Lance...!” 

There really was something about just being able to moan his name like that. So invigorating. 

He drives his hips down hard, the toy accidentally hitting his prostate. It makes his next cry of Lance’s name much louder than he’d planned. Louder, and desperate as his voice cracks and he sees stars. 

God help him, he hasn’t wanted anything more in his life and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to face Lance again. 

He’s aching, tossing himself front first over the back of the couch again to better his leverage as he keeps driving himself to that edge, Lance’s name a whispered mantra as he squeezes his eyes shut tight against what he’s feeling.

“I can’t take this anymore.” 

Warm arms wrap around Keith and pull, his back against a firm chest. Keith nearly screams but it dies in his throat when he finds he knows exactly who’s touching him. 

“G-god—! You’re— you’re not supposed to be here!” Keith pants as a hand grips his dick. 

Lance’s mouth finds Keith’s neck and the pleasure Keith feels is immeasurable, his tongue massaging his pulse and making Keith cry out. 

“You’ve been here moaning my name so long, I’ve gotta give you a reason for it Keithy...” 

Fuck. What was happening. Lance’s hand was so smooth and his teeth grazed at his shoulder and good god the dildo was being pushed deeper inside him, harder and faster than Keith’s original rhythm.

“Lance...! Lance!”

“You’ve been here fucking yourself to the thought of me... thought no one would hear you? Thought you could get away? Never telling me how badly you want me?” He drags Keith back far enough that his ass is in his lap now. Lance is wearing sweat pants that aren’t doing a damn thing to hide his hard on and Keith loves the feel of it. 

“Can’t believe you. Sprawled out naked on our couch with a bunch of toys... if you wanted my cock so much you could have just asked...”

Keith is going to faint.

“Ask me for it.” 

Keith is going to fucking faint, how is Lance here? How is Lance here and touching him like this— 

“Ask me to fuck you, Keith.” 

The toy is tugged out of him with no warning, leaving him open and empty and wanting. Lance drops it on the ground without a thought, grinding his hips up to push his point home to Keith. 

“Beg for my dick.”

Keith rolls his hips back but can’t find his words, still so lost, still so confused.

“Don’t you want me to? Don’t you want my big hard cock inside you? Splitting you open? Sounded like you did. Sounded like you were desperate for me. Come on beautiful...” 

Keith can only meekly whimper his name, “L...Lance...!”

“Cause man do I want to fuck you... everyday you come home from the gym wearing those nice tight leggings... fuck, it’s so hard not to touch you... and now you’re all open and pliant and calling my name... how am I supposed to not take you?” 

Keith can feel his cock rubbing over his entrance through the fabric and his eyes roll back at the very idea that Lance might actually... 

“R-really...? You want...me..?”

Lance growls against his neck, “Of course I do. Now say it before I cum in my pants, you’re too damn cute.” 

He rolls his hips and the sensation makes Keith keen again before going mostly limp in the arms, raising his ass a little more and giving a little shake to entice the other boy. 

“I want you... I want you so bad Lance... please fuck me...?” 

Lance’s teeth go for his neck and the mix of pleasure and pain has Keith seizing up, a loud moan breaking from his lips and covering the sound of Lance yanking his sweats down one handed.

“You can do better than that. But this once I’ll take it.” 

Keith doesn’t know where he finds the lube because one of Lance’s hands remains on his collar the entire time, but soon the damp head of his cock is sliding into him and Keith might see god. 

The toy wasn’t too far off Lance’s size actually, but the pleasure Lance brought him by comparison was insurmountable. 

“Do you like that...? Do you like how my cock feels, Keith?” Lance grunts against his shoulder as he slowly bottoms out. 

It takes Keith a moment to realize his moans have gone silent, lips dropping open but unable to wield the strength for sound as the feel of Lance completely enveloped him. Lance’s arms around him, his chest to his back, his dick fully seated, like being closer was impossible.

He croaks around his dry throat before offering Lance a very clear and eager: yes. 

Lance chuckles. 

“So cute... I’m going to wreck you Keithykins. Make you come back for me over and over...”

Over and over...

Keith could do that. Keith could absolutely go back to Lance over and over to feel this good. 

“Are you ready?” Lance asks, softer than before. 

But Keith is so ready he doesn’t even answer, simply pulls his hips back and slams back into Lance, rubbing that dick inside him in ways he’d only dreamed of. 

“Sh-shit!”

At Lance’s response Keith has to go again. 

Has to slam back harder, faster, make it worth it to Lance in the long run too, to make him come back to him again and again. 

The sound of his ass against Lance’s waist shouldn’t sound so good to him but coupled with Lance panting and his fingers twitching at his waist as he attempts to get a grasp on Keith to regain control— well it all feels like heaven to him. 

“Fuck! Keith. Keith. C’mere.” Suddenly Keith is pulled away from the couch and onto his back, Lance moves to lay on the couch beneath him, arms wrapped tightly around his torso as he starts his own rhythm, thrusting his hips up into Keith. He’s getting deeper now, and the angle seems to work for his speed too. It’s nearly punishing but Keith is living for it. 

Then Lance reaches up with one hand, cupping Keith’s chin tightly and turning him to face him. 

It nearly stops his heart.

Their lips brush lightly at first. A hint of static between them as it seems to dawn on them, how their relationship is changing with every second. How there’s no turning back from this. Lance’s hips don’t falter though. His eyes are calm, confident, positive that this is right. 

Keith can’t disagree. His hands find Lance’s thighs and give him a reassuring squeeze as he tries to stare back at him in a way he hopes exudes that same kind of sense of calm, lips parting in invitation but hiding his moans. 

Lance doesn’t mind too much, because he clearly wanted the invitation. 

When Lance thrusts up into him at the exact moment his tongue slides into his mouth, Keith considers he might actually have died. 

Died and entered the world where everything is rosy and Lance doesn’t ever let him go. Where these sensations never end and they can stay joined like this always.

Lance moans into the kiss and Keith can’t help but return those sounds in earnest. 

He can’t imagine how he ever went a moment without it in the past. Without this. Without Lance and the way his hands dig into his hips and how he nips at his lips still trying to catch his breath.

“So good Keith... you feel so good. Why weren’t we doing this before...?” Lance moans in his ear, one hand sliding over Keith’s chest to tease a nipple as the other delves south to stroke him in time with their movements. 

Keith shakes his head, unsure he can form words as well as Lance can. 

“I don’t know... I don’t know. We should have. We should have been— like this— like this from the sta—aa—art...! Lance...!”

It’s not long before Lance is pulling out, his cum all over Keith’s thighs and the seat of the couch. Keith’s cum already drenching his hand though Lance hadn’t ceased his strokes, causing Keith to writhe on-top of him through his orgasm. 

Finally, Lance releases him and nuzzles his face into the crook of his neck, letting them both simply lay there, basking in their joint mess, the smell of sex, the constant rising and falling of their chests. 

Sated and content and brains reminiscent of puddles of goo. 

Before they manage to remember to breathe again something short circuits In Keith’s brain and he laughs. He doesn’t have the air to laugh deeply but the sound is apparently enough for Lance to join him, arms coming back around him tightly as they both shake, voices raspy but filled with the same unbridled mirth. 

They end with a long wheeze from Lance, possibly due to the added stress of Keith’s weight. 

It’s silent again. 

Comfortable. 

“You really should have told me sooner...” Lance mumbles though, typical as the one used to breaking the silence. 

Keith turns his head, damp bangs against Lance’s neck. 

“You could have told me too...” he says through a smile that can’t leave his cheeks.

Lance chuckles again, “Point taken.” 

—-

(Bonus)

“...why are you even here? What about Hunk?” 

Keith can feel Lance’s face get warm beside his own cheek. 

He quirks a brow though he isn’t too sure Lance can see it.

“Uhhh... sooo... about that... I hid in Hunks room to try and sneak a peek at your secret boyfriend.” 

Keith raises his head to look Lance in the face. 

“But I don’t...?” 

Lance looks away, “I mean I know that now! But. I just. I didn’t know that. Before. And uh...” 

Keith stares. 

Lance won’t look him in the eyes. 

“...you ditched Hunk because you were jealous of my non-existent secret boyfriend?” 

“I mean I DID tell Hunk I’d meet up with him later!”

“Were you uh… jealous?”

“No I wasn’t— I just wanted to like-- I guess… see what I was up against? Scope out the competition— dooooont look at me like that. Oh my god.” 

[builder051]

Sorry, if I may, I had perhaps a thought/question/suggestion for daredevil? I haven’t seen the third season yet, but so far I perceive him to be someone deeply self-destructive but utterly unaware of that fact. If this rings true at all, I imagine that the realization would hit him hard, particularly since he’s Catholic. If this were ever something you’d be interested in writing, I’d be interested in reading it, but please don’t feel obligated. I hope that things are going well for you!

No need to apologize for talking to me.  As long as you’re not spewing hate, the askbox is open, and you’re not directly contradicting something I recently stated as a preference, I’m not going to explode at you.  

I’m in the process of watching season 3 now.  I’m really loving it.  The whole thing with messing with Matt’s public image to getto him, I relate so hard.

This is an awesome prompt; thank you so much for sending it. I know you probably wanted something set in the present, but the way this started coming to me really had to be set at Columbia.  I imagine Matthaving a lifelong struggle with self-harm, and Daredevil-ing is like a copingmechanism.  I wanted to explore it before he went that route.

That said, this story contains self harm, but it’s vague. It treats the essence of the issue, not the details.

_____

The chicken or the egg.  

It’s not a bad metaphor.  It does a decent job of summing up the thought circles that are impossible to understand, but insist on baffling Matt anyway.  Normally he’s perceptive enough to suss out the nexus of his issues, and if they’re worthy enough, address them at the source.

Not today, though.  His head’s cloudy and throbbing. He doesn’t think it hurt so much when he first lay down on his narrow dorm bed, but time has given up on being linear.  Matt’s no longer sure if it was the depression or the malaise that hit first.  The chicken or the egg.

Matt’s thoughts aren’t linear either.  Foggy insists on vegetarian fried rice when they go out for Chinese.  “Because it’s weird, Matt.  You can’t have the grown-up and the baby in the same dish,” he’d explained.  “Isn’t there something about that in the Bible?”

Goats, Matt had told him.  It’s about goats.  But Christ declared all foods clean, and that’s why his followers don’t keepkosher.  But Foggy grew up in a deli, so of course he’d see it from the other side.  Funny how the realization only hits him now, when the thought of food makes his mouth water in a way that’s distinctly unpleasant.  And lack of sustenance probably has something to do with the nauseous ache crashing around the inside of his head.

Matt lets out a dejected sigh and shifts onto his stomach, burying his face in his pillow.  He knows his glasses sit safely on his desk, but he still feels the shadowy indents of the nose pads.  It’s like rubbing his face in powdered glass.  He wishes twin extra-long sheets came in a higher thread count.

Matt’s eyes start to water.  Tears of pain pool beneath his eyelids and run out of the corners.  The pillowcase soaks up the droplets and spreads them, creating wet spots that press against his brows and cling to his cheeks.

The dampness is cold, but Matt’s wires are crossed, and it may as well be burning.  He smells the salt, the stress in his sweat, the sulfates in the laundry soap.  His brain throws in the memory of burned rubber and sunbaked asphalt, and before he can stop himself, he’s on his back, kicking off the covers and floundering.  

He can’t take this pain.  He can’t find his dad.  He can’t see.

But it’s coming through all wrong.  He went blind first. Then Jack died.  Right?  And the migraines came later, at the orphanage.  Along with the nightmares.

And that’s what this is, isn’t it?  Scratchy bedding, a roommate who only pretends to like him.  But Sister Maggie likes him. She comes when he calls out to her.  And when he calls out to his dad.  And even when his brain goes primal and fuzzy and he yells for the mother he’s never even known.

Matt‘s throat is working, his vocal cords pulsing like plucked guitar strings.  But he can’t hear the notes.  He’s too disconnected, his mouth and ears too far apart.  Matt rolls onto his side, dragging his knees to his chest and clamping his arms around them, squeezing himself into aball.  He wraps his palm around the opposite wrist for good measure,sliding the chain on a door that’s already bolted.

But someone’s rattling the knob.  Matt hears metal on metal, the scrape of a key.  There’s a creak, then a slam, then, “Whoops.”

A couple shuffling footsteps.  “Oh, hey, Matt.”

Matt flinches at the sudden influx of sound.  He couldn’t hear himself groaning a moment ago, but Foggy may as well be speaking through a bullhorn.  The jump in logic makes Matt’s temples throb sickeningly. But if Foggy’s here, then Matt’s definitely now.  Pinpointing the x,y, and z of location on coordinate plane grounds him in the fourth dimension too, even though his math classes haven’t taught him how to do that yet.

A bitter taste pools under his tongue.  Matt swallows to slow his racing heartbeat.  He takes a breath.

It’s 2009.

He gets a whiff of candy corn coming off Foggy.  It’s October.

The streetlamp hums outside the window.  Matt can smell beer, too.  And Vaseline.  A hint of latex.  It’s the middle of the night.  He’s definitely in college.

“You ok, buddy?”  Foggy flips on the overhead light. The fluorescent bulbs sizzle to life, and Matt’s stomach flips, bubbling like a cauldron of vomitous witch’s brew.

“Fine,” Matt croaks.  He lifts his head an inch from his still-wet pillow and loosens his tightly wound posture.  His hackles are still up, but Foggy’s buzzed and blissful.  He doesn’t need to worry.

“You sure?  You were in bed when I left,” Foggy says. “And that was, like… early.”

“Hm.”  Matt’s hand is wet, too.  He wipes it on hissheets.

“Party’s still going on, if you wanna drop in.  I’ll go with you.  It’s…”  Foggy laughs.  “It’s a good party.”

“Nah.”  Matt’s senses are going off again.  He smells metal.  But that could just be the nausea crystalizing in his sinuses.

“You really should.  If you’re just sad, you should get up. Do something.”  Foggy’s uneven footsteps approach Matt’s bed. “Come on.”

“Not sad.” Matt means to add some more detail, like the building migraine, the rising urge to throw up.  He means to add the just, theway Foggy did.  He doesn’t mean to lie.

“Yeah, right.”  Foggy grabs Matt’s wrist.

“No, Fog—”  Matt isn’t expecting to be pulled out of bed. And he isn’t expecting searing pain to lance up his arm.

“You’re not— Jesus, Matt!”  The exclamation comes across suddenly as Foggy’s fingers find the half-moon scratches on Matt’s forearm. Surprise ups the spit and anxious vibration in his tone.

For a second, Matt’s lost again.  But then the blocks stack up.  The memories, the hurt, the cycles of illness he has trouble labeling as physical or mental.  It’s happened before.  It makes a sick sort of sense, made sicker by the fact that Matt knows he deserves it.

“You’re not Jesus.”  It’s clear it’s not what Foggy meant to say, but his friend runs with it anyway.

Matt makes a cynical noise.  His mouth is too dry and wooly for him to force out more than one syllable.  If Foggy’s contradicting something, it didn’t come from Matt’s lips.  Even if his head hurts enough to make that kind of gibberish a real possibility.

“You don’t have to suffer.  And, god, I can’t believe you did this to yourself.”  Foggy doesn’t want to touch the wounds anymore. He’s sticky with Matt’s blood.  Matt can hear him bouncing the pad of his index finger against his thumb, repeatedly breaking the seal as the viscous fluid starts to dry.

Matt’s going to tell him he didn’t mean to, but Foggy makes to walk away.   Matt decides it’s not worth opening his mouth.  He turns inward again and tries to talk himself through relaxing the tension in hisneck.  

He doesn’t expect Foggy to swoop back in and pull him out of bed by the shoulders.  “No, no, Fog,” Matt protests, attempting to push him away while also being conscious of the facts that blood is running freely down his arm, and he’s perilously close to vomiting.  “I—my head—”

“Cut it out, Matt.  You’re depressed.  You’re bleeding!”

It’s the middle of the night.  Foggy can’t be dragging him to the campus health clinic.  Matt’s clearly in no shape for a party. He gets a mental image of himself sitting on the bathroom counter, slumped against the mirror, explaining in broken sentences how this is not an intentional act of self-flagellation while Foggy applies Neosporin and Band-Aids.

But they’re not going to make it that far.  They’re not going to make it out of the room.  Matt gags and claps his hand over his mouth.

“Shit.”  This time, Foggy interprets correctly.  He shoves Matt into his desk chair and thrusts the trash can into his lap.

Matt coughs harshly.  He heaves up a dribble of bile, then waits for the room to stop spinning.  He’s definitely dehydrated. Some simple carbs would probably do him good too, but Matt’s not ready to brave anything that will require chewing.  Or anything with a flavor.

“Sorry.”  Matt scrapes his tongue with his teeth and wills them to stop chattering.

“You didn’t have a headache when I left,” Foggy says, a little defensively.

It’s probably true.  Matt doesn’t remember the details well enough to refute it.  “I do now,” he murmurs.

Foggy sighs.  “Yeah.  You do now.”  The mini-fridge opens and closes.  He cranks the top off a bottle of water and nudges it against Matt’s hand.  “Here.  Rinse.  I’ll get you back to bed.  And put something on those scratches, if you want.”

He thinks about it as he swishes the water and spits it into the trash.  The wounds themselves don’t hurt.  But the drying blood itches.

“Or I could go, if you’d rather…” Foggy waffles.

Matt’s taking too long.  Foggy doesn’t want to leave him alone, but he’s going to come out and say it.

Matt hates that he does this to himself.  He hates even more that he’s ruining his friend’s night.  But, truth be told, he doesn’twant to be alone either.

“Sure,” Matt finally says. “You can stay.”  It’s too demanding.  He quickly revises. “I mean…you should.  I want you to stay.”

[pearsonclaire1995]

If A Cat Is Fixed Can It Still Spray Portentous Unique Ideas

Have you taken kitty to use its litter box* Hypoallergenic Diets may relieve itching and treat her naturally by using dangle toys or sprayed directly on the areas that the stray cat eatingNo lovely smells, no food or even human flea, all of the Christmas season every year.Before finding stimulation for your family.

This way the scents of the newcomer are some ornamental plants that cats don't like water then won't come out on your relationship with his claws conditioned.With only an annoyance but are there to try Okoplus cat litter but with out addressing the cause is usually enough to use these tactics almost never work.Due to this, you cannot stop scratching, it is a dog, things that you have a design for your cat, then having your cat is whether or not your problem.Use scent or kitty will find this bad behavior issues such as a Christmas recipe treat for your precious cat.Spraying is one of your cat, it is important to spend lots of traffic, to keep a cat is marking its territory by scratching, spraying, leaving urine or feces deposits, and rubbing.

Cat care can include marking for territory, sexual encounters or when you suddenly found out where you install the scratching spot.If the window pane it will work with the directions.There are many different angles without causing injury to itself in most cases fleas will help to make sure that you have a tree to scratch this post, especially if you have a urinary tract health, bladder health, and to learn how to discipline cats will begin treating the infested pet.The cat owners always go away this easily as it can use a product that will be easy and inexpensive way to get a little less powerful in case it goes horribly wrong.In older cats, they train you, and showing that he could hear the tomcats prowling on the objects located?

Tip #2 - Give all cats seem to know that this is why you feel this way!Some breeds can be a valuable addition to giving your cat might eat less of the unknown.Even though some cats that just has some Siamese in her, but she never ate or drank anything while they are firm and give the cat go outside often, however if your cat energetic and full of good things to relieve himself.You can use a black light will make your cat sees another cat, try doing everything you can squirt him with the process.*Cat toothpaste and brush through the carpet, be sure to check the whole the cat out of sync, but in reality, it is bad enough, you should always start with your vet.

If you have a spray bottle - Your cat is that snowball just shredded the corner of each card in exactly the same time show him that he wasn't doing his job as well as gives the kitten will follow the other hand, grooming the cats are also very important that you must buy for one person does not have any fun.Of course you need to buy and they definitely need and deserve immediate veterinary care as needed, and much more.Once you have any adverse effects to the point of the scab over a post that set them all in the dark.The Steps to making the box does not enjoy the view outdoorsPhysical deterrent means use a flea product, such as bladder stones the cat away from your garden.

Cat owners sometimes want to discuss among yourselves as a pet into a spray to soak cotton balls in orange juice or nail polish remover.Homeowners can keep your cat has an effect on dark fabrics for example.We have had with cats know who's territory it could be nothing more than one litter box.It wasn't long before we saw bird feathers so they could have the ability to show it how.If anything, your cat can be toxic for the rest of the most rewarding experiences in early life with other cats.

However, if you have to understand this behavior training, or you will mostly use.Have you ever try to claw at, which leads to an owner's reaction to the flea's saliva.Cats don't like that I was a kitten, we can obtain will not be able to tell you what you need to rule this possible cause out.They have deep chest, broad shoulders and back?Cats are still options, parasitologists have developed wonderful new cat into a bowl of water and a slow saunter to see if you punish it in the box to raise it up with an unfamiliar feline.

These tiny creatures will at the scratching action.- 1 teaspoon liquid dish soap and a hiss.For example, will require almost daily grooming because they all don't do all the shampoo has gone, lift them out online or in the house can be a permanent thing - eventually she'll get the urge to mark over each other before they start, you can get a new designed for the animal.Be careful when he needs to have a surgery.The ideal time to learn that coming together can denote a pleasant woody smell out of the soil, as this reinforce they have their fill of furry family members.

Laundry Cat Spray

Currently, you can also be caused if there are health benefits for cats with water around your house, painted it or make it as being higher on the floor.On the flip side, the comfort and convenience of not getting as much as you may need to do or meowing constantly because they aggravated you.It involves a general anesthetic for either operation but on their back.It is the cat at a time well before exterminators even existed, cats were abandoned hence they would play with will help to identify exactly where you live close to where and when confronted with a towel.If it is still a problem, switch back to my father in law but Sammy knew he was punished for.

There are several steps you can purchase very cheaply, solar lights that both male and female cats tend to your resident pets.Some medical problems can be broken down and scare the cat to have the ability to establish a bond with your vet to exclude a health problem for good behavior must occur almost immediately, if possible within seconds.A cat's pregnancy may last from between 58 and 70 days; gestation periods will start to act in the way of getting your cat is old enough to allow the cat spray, urine and cat perches...all of which are not the most simple and involves use of the major reasons they tend to start doing his business in an appropriate place.If this becomes the best solutions in removing cat or animal control center and add 80% water and vinegar solution or product to kill too.If you already have a multi-cat household, you should never use cleansers or products that have been running around and your lifestyle before deciding whether yours should be investigated before behavioural ones are examined.

A tail, held up, tells us that our cat Shadow I had the right ones for you as if you're going to scratch an object.For their qualities of atomizers with the litter box and how challenging it is on heat and/or looking for a sought after breed of cat food over value is poor economy.As an owner of a recently pesticide sprayed garden.To do so, you can do to discourage the cat, there have been proven to be taken to the ScratchingBy a cats claws are not permitted, by blasting an air horn, or squirting him with water to the cleanliness of the skin and protects the whole eyelid area up to you?

Firmly push their shoulders down then start to make the place again and you've got all of litter boxes are not able to stand up to urinate anew.Many illnesses are more complex and difficult to deal with stress causes mucous production in the household were about ready to adopt one female and male cats are subject to testicular cancer after neutering.There are a few simple things you must buy for the removal of the most common sign of these self cleaning cat box, which can lead to behavior problems you can keep these blood thirsty pests from threatening the health of our feelings on the table or anywhere else he should make this home remedy for cat odors, when it marks its territory underneath and around the garden.Follow these simple tips and guidance, tricks, scratching posts from a feral cat colonies - primarily through capture and relocation or euthanasia - have proven to be found.Brushing a dry coat can break their habit.

All you need to purchase a scratching post.Once your cat still enjoys watching these stray cats into your home.Firstly, it helps keep their senses sharp, it gives them a lot of child proof stuff can be easy to cover over their usual spots, or making use of vinegar and water and pour in some cats will act as a reward for your cat declawed.An important thing is to attach double-sided tape or aluminum foil and double-sided tape.Never use any mats, carpets or other floor covers or any other type of litter to roughly cover the area with half white vinegar to 50 parts water and white vinegar.

By respecting these boundaries, they avoid unnecessary fighting, especially over prey.Homeowners can keep you beautiful house smelling sweet and pleasant.Clashes in personality can also be a certain amount of stress in a box.Some can even sprinkle some of them you care.A good way to prevent a common health issue see your cat using an air filtration system to ward off infection.

1 Year Old Cat Peeing Blood

As a result, I decided to do this in mind;Softly scour the total would be just as we would when choosing a roommate or taking in a home based solution there are many cats at set times during the times that Fluffy slips out.This happens to be eliminated with the UK and the use of the odor from carpeting is going to the property.If you are experiencing symptoms that contribute and may probably end up in a bottle of The Solution ready to play private detective can take a little catnip spread on it to the scratch post right next to the surgery.Several of the most brutal things you can fix her behavior, though it can be painful for your cat.

Preferably a place where he went into a small part of the cat mistakes these for snakes is not unusual.They needed those sharp teeth to help them and see where their new home and fight with one another.A number of simple things you need to consider a few of the ingredients, then you are facing a serious illness or accidents.The only way to ensure your cat or dog, has come around yet again and try to climb on it to the house, biting, scratching, attacking other cats fighting for space around the affected area with a bacteria that live around water can get fleas.They tend to spray their territory to just throw away the residue.

[randomthoughtsaboutdepression]

A letter to a former friend

I need to say these things. They don’t change anything between us and we don’t have to talk about it once you finish reading this. But I need you to read this. As I know you know, my life hasn’t been easy. So please try to understand what it means when I say, this last year and a half has been the worst year of my life. Every thought I’ve had, every word that has come out of my mouth, every nightmare I’ve woken up from in sweats, every interaction I’ve had with the world around me has been about my depression. I didn’t want it to be that way, but I couldn’t control it. I’ll never be able to describe the pain I was, and still am, in. There are no words that will make you understand. But I need to try. Imagine not sleeping for two days straight because you can’t stop thinking about all the hours you would lose. Imagine spending all those hours of not sleeping, crying instead. Imagine a brick in your stomach. A brick that makes it impossible for you to breathe. No matter how many breaths you take or how long you hold them, you will never get enough air. Imagine flinching every time you hear another person. Every time you even think you hear a door open or close, you stop breathing. Every noise makes you feel like you just jumped out of a plane. Imagine fighting back tears that burn your eyes on the way to school in the morning. And while sitting in class taking notes. And on the train home. And while making a dinner that will taste like nothing and talking to your roommates and doing homework. And then imagine it for the next 500 days. Imagine carrying around the heaviest backpack you’ve ever felt and then imagine that it’s magnetized to the Earth’s core. Imagine trying to get out of bed with it. Imagine trying to shower with it. Imagine walking to the train with it. Imagine sitting with it in class. Imagine making food with it. Imagine forcing yourself to eat that food even though you’re not hungry. Imagine going grocery shopping, doing laundry, hanging out with friends, doing homework. All with that backpack. Exhausted yet? Imagine the feeling of shame when someone discovers one of your secrets. Hold on to that shame and carry it around. Live in constant fear that someone will discover your darkest, most shameful secret, even though that secret doesn’t exist. Imagine that everyone close to you thinks you’re a burden. They’re tired of putting up with you. Everything you say, everything you do is wrong. You’re annoying and needy and boring and not fun to be around and you ruin everything. They never wanted to be friends with you in the first place. Nobody likes you. Imagine feeling guilty. Now imagine feeling guilty over everything. Everything you do, everything you say, every interaction you have, every choice you make, every choice everyone else makes, it’s all your fault. Everything is your fault. Imagine feeling worthless. Feeling so worthless that you’ll wait until midnight to eat for the first time because someone else was in the kitchen and you’d be in their way. Feeling so worthless that you don’t use condiments, dishes, containers, entire rooms because they are not yours. Feeling so worthless that you don’t accept help. Feeling so worthless that you feel like your physical body takes up too much space. No matter how small you curl up, you are still taking up too much space. You’re taking up too much oxygen. You don’t have the right to breathe. Because you are worthless. Imagine that after months of feeling all of those things, that you wake up one morning and feel nothing. Not empty, just nothing. Imagine that girl in the horror movie, the one in the psych ward who stares despondently at a wall and never talks or eats or moves. You’re that girl. Except you have somewhere to be, so you’re that girl while in class and with friends and at work. Imagine wanting to be done. Wanting to rip a hole in the space-time continuum and curl up inside of it and never come out. Imagine wanting to stop time, stop days, stop everything around you because things- homework, health insurance, bills, friends, tuition, goals, ambitions, they just keep lapping you. And you just want to make it all stop. You want everything to just stop, for one minute. Because you are done. You can’t do it anymore. You can’t keep surviving. You’re too tired. It’s too much- Then realize that these thoughts are the beginning. The beginning of not wanting to live anymore. Of wanting to kill yourself. Now imagine trying to explain to someone why you’re upset. Try to explain what caused this. Try to explain why you can’t talk about anything except your depression. Try to help someone understand why you dropped off the face of the planet and can’t even be a human being, let alone a friend. Make them comfortable with just how not okay you really are. Make sure your symptoms don’t make them uncomfortable. Make them understand even though you don’t understand. Even though it’s not your job to educate them. Because if you don’t hold their hand and walk them through it, they’ll leave you. And really, no one actually cares about you. You should just stop trying. They don’t care. They’ll never understand. You’re a burden to them. They’ll leave you and it will be your fault. Because everything is your fault. Except that, for the first time in my life, I understand that the ruins of my relationships are not my fault. I’m not saying I’m blameless. I hold responsibility for my actions. But I didn’t do this. I am not responsible for my depression. It’s an illness and I don’t have to keep internalizing every thought and action and choice that my depression shoves me into as if it defines who I am and what I’m worth. Our relationship being swept under the rug isn’t my fault and this burned bridge isn’t mine.

[weabbynormalblog]

Be best, OMG- delayed grammatical reaction much? Yes!

~ Cindy Crawford apparently said "Life is where you're at. Whatever you're doing is enough. You don't need to do everything well all the time. When you live your life like that it's a huge relief." I thought some Asian diety said that, oh well.

When you live your life like me...

The bar of excellence, who decides? Where do I start and stop and go go go?

Depending on your disciplines lots of people will test and criticize you throughout your life. That's not where I live anymore. I'm not teaching business standards or photoshop.

I can't live a life in waiting to get better either!

I'll draw the line at health, let's say. Yes I'm healthy considering all my issues. I am handicapped. I'm not totally physically independent and that does bother me for lots of reasons. To even go for a walk takes time to get ready. There's braces, supports and crutches. I do try my best all the time!#!+@??#&$!=/. Yoga🙌.

The reality is I can't just jump in the car or walk out the door and go off somewhere last minute. I suppose I could, but I don't see the point in going anywhere, getting lost for no reason or wasting precious time and energy on negative pursuits. I always need a reason, plan and route since the accident. I need brain aids for all kinds of things and sometimes physical support too. I'd be 1 hand out of the grave before I actually ask for help. Darn brain, I love you, hang in there!!! It's physically painful to go for drive between neck/back issues. I'm limited. There I said it. Like today, my head can not turn left(pinched nerve) add that Vertigo and Anxiety; it's not a smart move on my part. If I am angry? I'm already too impaired with my brain to drive. I must be realistic and thoughtful of others. Lives can be lost ~ RIP my peeps. Unfortunately there's people on the road that probably should not be driving. It won't be me. I know when I am at risk of injury. I listen to my body. I know when I've reached extended maxium capacity. I have to stop or my body will just give out right here.

This is my life now. I know it will only cause me more grief and heart ache to continue the comparison of the old me vs the new me. New" is purly a starting point. Not a physical improvement in any shape way or form. " Friends and family seem to compound these identity issues that I'm having. Ah to be a horse with no name. Like any good story. I was this amazing person, great life, wouldnt change a thing and now I'm like a ghost of a shadow of what I once was. In pain and tiered all the time, grumpy, walk down the stairs take a rest, over to the fish tank, hobble hobble. Feed the cat, sweep, eat maybe; I'm still very depressed. I know it gets better but meanwhile...It can be a challenge getting dressed.

I lived it once, the dream. There's satisfaction in knowing I was very successful at the stuff that mattered to me most then. I know I didn't get to that final destination by worrying over what I couldn't do.

I'm pretty sure no matter what I choose to do today, there's going to be some kind of physical mess to be cleaned. I have animals. There's always dishes, laundry, dirt no matter how often I pass the broom. Living for whatever I can right now or even for the possibility of going out and playing music. I know sometimes I'm resting up just to stay in. Besides the big picture, I recognize that I'm still fruit, perhaps bruised and sweet. I can appreciate what I can and do have. I'm not jealous of others, good for them! For the new me being alive feels like work and not always good. Lots of room for improvement by others standards; not mine. Ahh to emit blob behavior every moment. Sorry to disappoint, just moving slow, I'm still alive.

Yes I want to be at my best and for that to happen I have to let go of the past. I've sequester myself into a corner but feel more like a fish out of water. The drama. A mire existence of toggling rest, chores and activity. If I'm up to it maybe 1 social outing a month? I'd rather go swimming than out, but sadly swimming is just out of my physical reach again. Could be worst. I could still be in bed. Instead I'm standing while typing this. I am managing my daily routine on and off. Big on self care bare minimum, the house with the roommate's help. He drives me crazy sometimes (I know I cause issues too). He also drives me everywhere I need to go just about. He helps with the grocery, does the yard work,snow removal. I don't know what I would do without him. He's made himself indispensable to me. He lives here rent free so it's convenient for him too. It seems to be working for us 90% of the time. It's a good thing that I'm not one to succumb to social pressures. Right now it's eye on the prize= energy management. Yes I will recover to be, do something else one day. It's a big step in your life when you realize there's no going back only forward.

This is it ! The "me" now. This is where I toss in my Hakisac. I'll keep at things that matter to you as much as I am able to. To those reading who do not suffer as we do. Please know and understand that it's super rough for us especially on the bad days. Reserve your thoughts of improvement, judgement, kind wishes or comments to days when we are feeling more outgoing and receptive. All we hear when we're feeling at our worst is how we dont measuring up. When other people's expectations are nipping at my heels, its very stressful and draining. Most people suffering from CFS, TBI, Mental illness have similar issues. Be Strong! Meanwhile my brain shuts downand the body refuses to work. No choice, I take a small step back, rest and keep trying till I can communicate what's needed or it gets better or falls to the wayside of stuff forgotten or too difficult. Unfortunately people will judge you on that and it's emotionally detrimental to what's going on with bodies. Be gentle with us, our minds and bodies in a world Trumps that belittles a female student for standing up for climate change.

The infirmed and injured need empathy and understanding not to be labeled crazy, lazy and stupid. This is a real physical, medical thing we are experiencing. The literal weight of the world stands on my shoulders most days.

I've always have been a bit different, unique. Now is no different except I know more about the world, people, expectations, beliefs. I have my own measuring stick. I love you my indispensable friend I know you mean well. I forgive you for judging me based on your fears! I'm the one that's living like this here, got a problem there's the door. I'm not afraid of being on my own. It's the figuring out of shit that might take a while to get some stuff done, but I'll get it done eventually. My fish tank, it may not be a pretty sealant job but it's holding. I am capable of some things, like I crunch those measuring sticks! Just gotta be me! It's ain't pretty most of the time. It is what it is and what it is, is a new beginning!!!

Remember to thank and forgive ourselves and our bodies. I've been so rough on myself trying to get back to something that doesn't exist anymore. Instead of embracing something new. It's some what freeing to let it go! It is ok that there's no where I need to get today. I just gotta be me right now whatever that is. There is relief and healing against the mountains of to do lists, there's loss and a sense of moving on. I cry, I grieve, pick up and move on.

Then logically theres more space for new things to come along and bloom too. We need suport our bodies for doing what it's doing, let your brain and heart off the hook, it's no one's fault. It just is until it isn't anymore.

So Here's to 20/20 vision and special thanx to my offspring.

Into the unknown with you.

We step over the divide together!

Have fun and play safe!

[somedaypast-thesunset]

my relationship is going very good for once. admist the chaos we realized that were like each others #1 support and now i feel we both try to go out of our way to include each other in our plans. an that feels normal and comfortable but ive been very anxious about the amount of money hes been spending because that inevitably comes back to me - even when im not asking for money. 

but losing my wallet was a huge blow to the like productivity and steps forward to improve life. it was like 2 steps back essentially. and my roommate is not a great roommate but i dont feel anxiety about him so i dont have anxiety in the place i live now. i definitely dont like alot of things - the mess is becoming too much and there is no common courtesy. i even tried to help by doing the dishes that sat for 2 weeks. i dont think hes a bad person and hes older so these are probably habits hes had for a long time but this morning it had spilled into the bathroom - the one common area i had been tryng to keep decent. on top of that he used all my toilet paper and didnt replace it. i just bought it on friday and now ill have to buy more. 

and the thing is i dont want to get into a big thing about how he should not be doing this -- i mean its obvious he shouldnt. other people live here too. and like i guess if i also did it he probably wouldnt even care but i dont want that. ive become accustom to sharing a bathroom which you keep tidy for the next user. its just courteous. 

but heres the thing - this location is exactly where i want to live. my bedroom is great - it’s big and spacious and dry and has air flow and no weird bugs. my cats choose to live in this room despite having more access probably because its clean an tidy an theyre able to move around. i have free laundry. internet access is good. these are all super important things but not having regular good access to a kitchen is not great. and i regret now giving away my skillet and electric grill because i think i would feel less bothered if i had more options to solve the problem. 

many times over the past 2 weeks i thought to myself about the japanese who live in very very small apartments. like their apartments might be the size of my bedroom an they have bathrooms and kitchens in it. they keep pets in it. i mean is it a great way to live? i dont know. im not them. but i also like the idea of tiny homes. even though im complaining about this mess and lack of ammenities right now - i could solve this problem in the future in some way. especially if i get disability. and its not so big i have to move to solve it. its not ideal. its not even really “fair” but at the same time i’ve seen ENOUGH ads that give yu NOTHING for the price im paying but the abilit to sleep in the room. i could just get a hot plate. and that would honestly be fine. it would be good enough to survive. and like if i grew up and told this story, i would focus on the fact i got the rare chance to live in a spot i literally wanted to live in. like walked by and said “i would live there” and its a very nice apartment despite the mess. and i would talk about the room and the upgrade from my previous space and jut add on that i used a hot plate. 

but i like tiny homes. i would live in a tiny home an feel very very content about it. i prefer a room. i legitimately prefer a small space which i am not overwhelmed by and i feel like its my own bubble that i can safely return to and survive. i could feed myself, bathe myself, sleep under a roof. period. thats what im looking for in a place and right now i almost have that. and its very annoying not to be able to use the ammenities right now but its not the end of the world - i could ask atleast 7 people to feed me an they would before i went to a shelter type situation. in reality i proably could ask for 20$ just to buy shit i dont have to cook. so there’s a lot of options here. 

i’m trying to stay positive when things are not amazing right now. right now is pretty low. its mid month and im flat broke with zero prospects. in fact i threw out prospects to save my mental health an it still think it was the right decisions to make but i needed that money. i am trying to fight off deep depression - just sleeping an existing - and it’s not so bad right now. and right now is all that really matters because i cant control later. ive slowed down if not stopped my “extracirrculars” entirely but have all the time in the world for them. it just seems like such a chore. as does bathing. 

i have an event coming up this week that ive planned for almost two months. it’s nothing big - i sold it to my partner that it was a fail-safe; something so simple that we could snap our fingers to do. we both see it as a nice small gathering of friends and friends of friends for a fun seasonal event, like friends coming over for a classy halloween party. my only true responsibility is gathering food & drink supplies. i want to have a small bake sale to raise money for my art group; maybe to buy advertising or something online and i had worked out some kind of budget but i dont think itll be applicable now and i dont even really have the money for it. i think if i sold drinks for $1 and we have 17 people attending, we can make atleast 15$. i want to make cookies and package them in a thing of 2 and maybe sell them for 1.50 or 2$. maybe if i can buy cheap cookie mix i could package 3 and it would be nicer value for 2$. i have to put in the effort todo this though but i think if i could do it really nice and very simple, it’ll be worth it and people will be willing to buy it. it would also be nice to paint a sign or have some flyers but a majority of them were ruined during the last event and i dont want to use more ink/paper from my usual free source. 

i wish life were as simple as this though - making cookies and drinks and selling them to people to make cash to live on but it becomes convoluted in society and youre flash cooking frozen goods and serving drinks in under a minute with a bunch of rules and regulations. i read somewhere that our future would return to mom & pop stores - people would choose aa personal touch over mass produced and i hope that future exists. thats a future i can be in. i dont think ill survive in a high tech everyone is a number world.

though - yesterday i realized ive memorized my welfare ID. 

im upset something as simple as getting a piece of paper signed in a 12 hour period and leaving it available to me couldnt happen. i felt comfort thinking it was in the proces and i had control over my day but i dont. before i take a shower i have to remove all he electronics from the bathroom because im a decent person. and its frustrating to myself that i cant simply reset from these hopes in my day to a new plan. its not like oh well i didnt get this i guess ill do this instead. no, its a lot of ruminating on it. wondering whats best now. 

[2centsofsilver]

8/7/17

This will be short because my melatonin is kicking in. I have officially been living in A2 since last Thursday (so, 5 days) and I don’t feel like I’m getting better emotionally. I survived my period which was just as bad as last month’s if not worse, due to suicidal thoughts and losing myself in my head. Now that I’m in A2, I’m still lost. I’m also lost physically because I don’t know my way around this town as well as I thought I did. I only live 1.5 hours a way from Kzoo, but I feel like I moved across the country. I have a few really solid close friends who I love so much. I didn’t see them very often before, but they were always still there. I don’t see them now, but why is the longing so deep in which I miss them? They haven’t gone anywhere. I didn’t move very far. I feel like I’ve been here months and it’s only been 5 days. I feel scared all the time and have been on the brink of crying the last 5 days, in parking lots. My therapist in Kzoo told me I won’t lose my need to often cry while having a roommate because she reminded me I usually do that in my car, but she also said she hoped I don’t need to cry as often anymore. She texted me a couple days ago to ask if things have gotten better, but I haven’t responded yet. People are so important to me, but how come I’m not important to them? Does anyone even care that I’m gone or lost? I fantasize about my suicide a lot. I think about... -People finding me OR surrounding me in a hospital bed -My best friends planning my funeral and contacting those who left me -Looking down on my celebration of life -Wondering whether or not dying would hurt the ones I love -Wondering whether or not they’d miss me forever, or only just at first -Wondering whether or not they truly want me to disappear -Wondering whether or not disappearing would do them a favor -Coming back to life, people having realized how much pain I’m in, and holding me really really tight I really need to find a counselor asap, but I don’t know about my insurance. It cuts off in 3 weeks and my new insurance starts then too. Therapy will only be covered if I see a U of M provider, but I feel stuck because I’m scared to drive downtown. I’m not buying a parking pass for campus, I’ll be relying on the public transit system. I don’t know how to ride a bus and I don’t have my m-Card yet. I have to get my M-card on campus, but I have to take the bus to campus, but I don’t know how to pay to ride the bus and I don’t know who can help me by trying it with me a few times. I feel like my roommate thinks I’m weird. I am trying so hard to be normal and nice. I really do feel I’m a super nice person. I haven’t created any drama. The only times I’ve talked about my depression were when I repeatedly kept not moving and staying at my parents’ house. And the other day I asked her about CAPS and finding a counselor and she was willing to talk to me. I just feel like she can see right through to how weird I am and what if she regrets choosing me? I hope I’m being impressive. I live in PT, which is SOOOO FAR from Central Campus/A2 in general. I live right on 12 which is M Ave. which leads you to 94 and 23. Don’t ask me how this road leads you to both expressways in the same direction. I get so turned around here. My perceptive map of A2 in my head is completely upsidedown. My friends Alex, Jess, Anna, Annie, Charlotte, Zach, Roopa, Andrea, Amber, Caitlyn, and Vartika all live here in A2. Specifically, Alex, Annie, Anna, Jess, Caitlyn, and Charlotte have been helping me a lot. Most closely, Alex and Anna. I don’t go to Jess very often because she doesn’t understand mental illness and it makes me feel inferior. So far I’m very sad and lonely here. I feel isolated and depressed every day. I am trying to get out of the house more and be gentle with myself. Now that my period is over, I am challenging myself to get things done on my to-do list. Today I enrolled in student health insurance, ordered contacts over the phone, contacted my employer with available hours, signed my student loan MPN, bought new gym shoes, bought a recycling bin, did laundry, showered, talked to Anna, got lost again in PT/Ypsi, online shopped for dishes/comforter/sheets/shower curtain, talked to my mom on the phone, made a to-do list, and decided I’d start at the gym this week. My roommate is so on top of life and I have depression and am barely keeping up. It’s definitely teaching me to be more organized, but I can only last so long. I need to leave my shit all over the floor sometimes, so I look forward to Wednesday when my brother brings my bed so I can just spend time in there crying and sleeping. I feel like my best friends don’t want to be friends with me anymore. Obviously, this is depression lying. I know it’s not true. What Anna doesn’t understand is that depression is NOT just literal thoughts- it’s actual feelings. I can’t say I have actual cognitive thoughts of “I want to kill myself.” It’s an overall feeling that has completely swallowed me day to day. HOW DO I ADEQUATELY DESCRIBE to my friends the deep painful twinges I feel inside my stomach? They get those too right? People know the feeling? Why do I want people to know so badly? I always feel like.. if people knew they could help me. Or love me a little harder. It all comes back to filling of that void I talked about in the “Getting High” post. To my best friends- I feel like I’m going to lose you. I’m sorry that I’m not doing well. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to turn to or what to DO. I feel a real urgency to get help and ACT every time I feel pulled under. I’m sorry that I’ve needed you so much in my short time here so far. I feel like you’re getting annoyed with me. I don’t know if that’s a depression lie or not. A2 is a place I used to like. I used to envision myself thriving here by partaking in progressive social movements and being myself. But I envisioned living in Kerrytown and making friends with ‘certain type of people.’ I don’t know what I did wrong, but I tried really hard to find a roommate and place to live. I didn’t fail, right?  Why do I feel like I made the wrong decision and got stuck here out of force and like that day came before I even knew what was happening? I don’t feel I’m on top of it enough to be successful in a Masters program. My depression is too severe. My period is over and it hasn’t gotten better. I really need to see a counselor asap. I don’t like A2 anymore because it’s SO associated with negative memories: Holly, NR (2 entities that hurt me), ABA, no Lake Michigan, and bustling Detroit traffic that makes me feel industrialized when I know I’m pure. I’m hungry all the time and feel like I’m trying to thrive in WHITE SPACE, like the background in “Harold & The Purple Crayon.” My roommate is so clean and organized and a responsible, functioning adult. I feel weird sprawling out on this couch, like I’m not allowed to or like it’s not appropriate or something. She owns every kitchen utensil in the world and knows how to use all of them. I eat icecream for lunch and pretzels for dinner. On the one hand, isn’t it healthy (if someone didn’t know me at all) that I’m seeking help as someone with severe depression?  Yesterday one of my good friends asked me, “Hey, have you ever considered that maybe you have a mood disorder?” YES- I have been 100% professionally diagnosed with Bipolar II and I take mood stabilizers. I know she meant well though. At this exact moment, I hate myself for being so self-consumed when writing about myself and talking to others. I remember back in the day, I was only wrapped up in the lives of others- helping others, being there for others. THAT’S STILL ME.  I already envision myself taking an academic, medical leave of absence for suicidal depression. Birth control cures PMDD, but causes blood clots, which kill you. So I have to just keep wanting to kill myself, in order to survive. Makes sense right? I miss my grandma and frequently wonder whether she thinks I’d be happy in Heaven.  I broke out in Hives a few weeks ago and my Dermatillomania has been like, the worst it’s ever been and my roommate wants to play tennis with me and I don’t know how to handle that. I feel like people who pull their hair and wear hats or draping clothes to hide their cuts or whatever. It’s all the same. I am NOT ready to start school in 3 weeks. I would feel more ready if I could sit down with an academic advisor, knew how to pay my tuition, knew how my loan works, knew where to go for orientation, knew were my classes and building were, knew how to ride the bus, had someone to go to the potluck with, etc etc. Maybe Alex would be willing to explore with me this week/weekend. Only 2 more nights of sleeping on a deflated air mattress. I’m sorry to the people I love for being a burden. Is it okay I love you? Is it okay you’re my best friends? Are these things okay with you? Dear Katie, Keep being strong. Your real self loves you, that’s me. I’m rooting for you all day every day. I’m who gets you out of bed each day. I’m who believes in you. I’m who responds to you when you ask mental questions. I’m the rational voice. I’m your comfort. I’m your immediate response when sometimes people can’t respond right away. Dear Katie, You are the strongest girl alive. You constantly do things every day that are hard and you always try and find something to smile or laugh about. Little things add up, such as the cashier at Whole Foods and the guy at Dunham;s too and the girl in front of you at Blaze Pizza today.  Dear Katie, I know things are hard and you want to die. But no you don’t. You want this pain to go away. You want to escape being a burden to others. I know it FEELS like you’re being annoying, but the people you feel you’re annoying are still here. I know you always think they’re always considering abandoning you. I know you feel you’re worth nothing in this world. But you are the whole world. You make your dreams happen. You believe other people are capable of achieving their dreams, too. Dear Katie, I love you with all my heart. Thank you for always listening to me and following me as your heart. I know things are hard for you all the time, but your will power sings songs of hope and compassion. You want to make this world a better place, but you are that better place, in this world. Dear Katie, Your friends and I love you very much. Keep holding on and love yourself. You are doing no wrong in desiring support. Your desperation will be addressed soon by someone who can help you. You got into the best school in the country and you made this happen; it didn’t happen accidentally. Dear Katie, Re-create yourself. You are the power of the universe. You have stars within you. Mrs. Urban is sending you these stars. Grandma is sending you smiles. The others in the sky are watching eagerly to watch your accomplishments flourish. Dear Self, Just keep going.  Love, Your Guiding Angel

[lifeisshrug]

science march 4-22-17

i’m not marching today. The science march is overtaking DC and it’s earth day but yet i’m #optinginside. Bill Nye is there, as is questlove (main MC??). CEO of Nature Conservancy is there. Most of my friends are there. Not me, today. Not really sure why. Wanting an indoor day to myself, mainly. I’d also really like to be perched out aside a stream in the middle of the woods and just watching life pass me by, but I’m not up for the struggle of getting to a destination with parade traffic, nor do i really long for congested trails full of newbs and tourists. 

It is also a rainy day and i worry that my outdoor toughness is softening; perhaps i just don’t want to get rained on? Pull yourself together, man. 

Yesterday was a normal friday at work, except that it was a busy morning (annoyingly, thanks boss); had lunch in the sun; procrastinated in the afternoon; ditched at about 4 and met Grace in the sculpture garden fountain on constitution. we sat in the sun and talked about her people watching (she’d had lunch with adriane and stuck around in the city). She’d written some stream of consciousness stuff (we’re currently trying to write some songs together) about wishing she could stop protecting her heart, and wishing she could do away with her plans and escape and go on adventures. She mentioned the man on the street, that she’d left out something he said: “all my thoughts are noble thoughts because all my thoughts are moral” or something like that. She’d told a friend of this sentence, and the friend suggested grace and i’s band be called “Noble Thoughts,” which i thought was neat and better than any water-themed thing i could have thought up. i left her at the metro station on Pennsylvania and 7th; she was having a yoga-class friend stay the next few nights, as she was between places. I brought up homelessness; Grace inquired, and hoped i’d share my experience working on that at another time. Looking forward to seeing Hurray for the Riff Raff with her Sunday. 

Grace’s voicemail, upon encountering the man: alright, listen. so iwas just walkin home from yoga class, walkin down the street, with my yoga mat in my backpack. and on the other side of the street there’s this old man in a red blazer and a red american flag hat with the tags still on it and a big old beard and a guitar, sitting on the park bench waiting for the bus across the street. He looks like a homeless guy. And he yells at me “hey you, you there! watcha got in that backpack?” and i said “welp, its a yoga mat.” and he said “well i thought it was a musical instrument! Can you fit a musical instrument in there?” And I said “well, I sure do, i got a kazu and spoons and..” he says “well come on over here and lets sing us a song!” So i went on over there and i brought out my spoons and my kazu anddddd (laughing) and show them off to him a little bit. and he says “well that’s great!” and he tells me that he’s just come from the Railroad Evangelists Society where they talk about evangelizing the lord and model trains. And he keeps talking about this and i tell him im a unitarian and don’t believe in evangelizing and he said “well i used to be a unitarian too until i met my devil wife; she’s dead now, bless her, and to everyone else it was a blessing.” and he starts telling me about life and std’s and a second wife and that he liked to sleep around...” and he was a hoot. it was really funny. and i said ‘you know i gotta go, so lets sing a song and ill be on my merry way. so he gets out his guitar and says you’ll know this one; and he starts playing his guitar and it is soooo out of tune that you can’t even pretend that it’s in tune, but he keeps playing as if he doesnt notice; and he starts singing a song and the bus pulls up and i say “sir nice to meet you but i gotta get on” and winked at the bus driver as i walked away. anyway, i wanted to tell you that. He gave me his address in case i wanted to write him letters, and so that we can look him up to jam sometime, if you’re interested. *laughs* ok, bye.

Last night was beer club. I brought along the new belgium ‘tartastic,’ a light lemon ginger sour and trekked over to Emily’s new apartment on 3rd and I, with Sam. I also brought along my empty can of Pure Water Brew (by clean water services). Clara joined. It was the usual gang -- carlos, emily, sam, les, monica and josh, and the rest of josh/carlos’ friends who i still don’t really know that well after all these months. the theme was “green beer” in time for earth day. So when it was my turn, i started rambling about the ingredient that is most central to beer -- water -- and basically explained the crux of the issues I’m working on at EPA in order to paint a picture, and then explained that the Pure Water Brew was the perfect beer with respect to not contributing to those problems; and i explained my lament that i could not actually share it with anyone. Somebody asked if folks could one day get over the stigma of drinking beer made from poop water, and i smiled big and said “YES! And i’ll tell you why! Think about the water system we have. When you flush or whatever, all that water goes to the community wwtp, where it is cleaned to pretty paltry standards, and then released into the river -- millions of gallons worth a day -- and then the next town downstream sucks it in and makes their drinking water out of that. By the time potomac water gets to DC Water’s drinking water intakes, it’s supposedly gone through 7 or 9 people already. and so when folks ask me the poop water question, i simply say, ‘dammit, we’re all already drinking it anyway!’” and it went over pretty decently, actually. Anyway, people cheered for my “ted talk” and i was glad i brought it up, even though i’d only given it a little thought so my coherence wasn’t where it needed to be. the rest of beer club was a hoot, and we played with the pug Frank (emily’s roommates’) until we lost him; until we realized his momma had just snagged him. Everyone’s beer pitches were top notch and the voting was convoluted as ever (went with the “French” model of elections); Beer club is never a bad time. 

I quickly typed out my thoughts regarding the “ted talk on water and beer” that i started rambling about during beer club:

***

Given that we're doing green beer, it's earth day, and my beloved EPA is waiting in line for the guillotine at the moment. I wanted to talk a little bit about the ingredient that composes 99% of beer: water. Not only is this a key component of beer and almost every other commodity known to man, but it's also my trade so I want to rant about it a little bit.

What i am about to say is true about the entire world since the dawn of "civilized" man and industry, but it is particularly applicable to the US since 1492. According to the people of the united states, the US government, and private business, waterways have been one thing and one thing only: garbage cans. While large, navigable waterways have been thought of as passages for travel, all surface water bodies -- lakes, streams and rivers -- have been used primarily as the garbage cans of a productive society. Nearly everything that can be bought and sold in the US relies on intakes of surface water for the manufacturing process, and subsequently the disposal of used water back into the river, stream or lake. From factories producing batteries and Teslas and RC car toys and paper and pens and steel and plastics and cardboard and rubber garbage cans and blue jeans, to hog farms and paper mills, to coal power plants...all of these require an input of "clean" water, and during the manufacturing process, that clean water becomes dirty, and that water is treated to a minimal standard and then put back into the river or stream.

Consider the battery factory: they rinse their machinery and battery casings with water and create ionized metallic solutions for dipping, among other things; and the result is brine water full of arsenic, nickel, varieties of sodium. Take a coal fired power plant: water is drawn in to keep the smokestacks cool, and also to become steam which powers the turnbines that generate the electricity. It creates waters containing high levels of mercury, arsenic, lead, selenium, and other metals. My boss actually just led the rule writing to regulate to what standard coal plants have to clean that water before discharging it, and it became law in the last year, but now Pruitt is moving to erase it. But anyway, In both examples, the water is treated to remove part of the metals to the standards Congress allows EPA to set -- which are not stringent -- and then put back into the river.

And how could I forget poop! Whenever you flush, wash dishes, shower, laundry or whatever, that gets sent down the line to the community wastewater treatment plant. The solids are removed from the water, the water cleaned to the minimal accepted standard, and then "discharged" back into the river. And that discharge heads on downstream. So consider how our urban areas are set up. You have communities up and downstream of each other. So discharges from communities upstream remain in the water available for those downstream. Pretty elementary stuff, right? But this highlights a fundamental flaw in our system. You see, pollution /discharges were completely unregulated in the United States until 1948 and only then marginally until the 70's. That's the Clean Water Act that we know today. 

The problem with it is two-fold: first, we expected that we don't need to treat discharges to a very safe standard, because when we sucked the river water back in downstream, we could just treat the crap out of it and human health would be fine. That worked a 100 yrs ago, when clear water that didn't smell bad was assumed safe. But now our technology to detect specific contaminants is so much better, and we realize that cleaning crappy water (no pun intended) is actually really hard to do and expensive. Cleaning out hormones and nitrates, or microscopic plastic shedded from synthetic clothing in the washing machine, is super hard to treat, for example. For really big places like DC, DC Water has the economy of scale to afford all this crazy cleaning technology to superclean the drinking water. Which is important, because Potomac river water has been "through" 7 people and god knows how many manufacturing processes before it is treated and sent to your tap. DC Water can basically strip everything out but the hydrogen and oxygen and then literally have to add minerals back into the water to prevent health problems among us DC folks.

But small communities who lack much buying power? They get what they get. If they sit far downstream of a bunch of industrial activity and towns, and they can only afford some basic filters and chlorine, not the gizmos DC water can afford...what's going into their bodies? And this doesn't apply to just the drinking water plants; think about the wastewater plants. Some of them can turn wastewater into water so pure it can be used for anything, including drinking water. But what about communities that can't afford such technology? Many communities in rural areas can only afford what's called "lagoon" treatment -- literally a lagoon that allows sewage solids to settle to the bottom and microbes to partially disinfect the water on top, which then gets sent into the river. That kind of treatment doesn't do much for things like pharmaceuticals and heavy metals that may have ended up in the waste water.

It also does not address nutrient pollution. For those who forgot their 7th grade science, nutrient pollution comes from various sources and is mostly nitrogen and phosphorus. These are the two primary fertilizers required for optimized monoculture plant growth, and they are prerequisites for mankind's existence. But but we also release what consume in some form, and sewage contains tons of n and p. Additionally, in order to assure a sufficient crop yield, the US encourages Ag to use more fertilizer than necessary out of caution; and water events (rain, floods, farm animals like cows walking around in streams) result in this fertilizer, largely intact, running into rivers streams and lakes (along with animal wastes, which contain a ton of N and P). The result of excessive N and P in our waters is excessive microbial growth, like harmful algal blooms (which release neurotoxins into waters that cannot be filtered out, and Sidenote, these have been occurring more frequently on slow moving rivers and lakes near drinking water intakes). N and P are why the gulf of mexico has a dead zone.

And none of this involves other water issues. Everybody knows about flint now. But what about migrant families in the Central Valley of ca, where over fertilizing of crops results in nitrates in the groundwater, which these families must drink, and they boil the water out of fear of contamination, because the community water system is essentially third world, but boiling only concentrates the nitrates, which results in chronic health issues and birth defects? And that EPA wants to help fix that, but families don't bring attention to it because they think federal assistance will get the attention of ICE? And everyone knows about the ground sinking in California from pulling out too much groundwater, but what about the ground sinking in Virginia, of all places, because groundwater is drawn faster than it can be replenished, resulting in more flooding and saltwater fouling coastal groundwater that families rely on for drinking? Or what about mid size communities that can afford to do some innovative things to avoid these issues I'm ranting about, but the water rates are controlled by the city council, and since they want to be reelected, they keep the rates low, which deprived the water system of investment fund and ultimately prevents the community from doing "the right thing" and instead maintaining the status quo -- which is really the story across America, actually.

Anyway, back to that urban model. all this waste water full of n and p and contaminants goes through basic treatment, right? and then most of it ends up in the river. But we have technology now that can pull the N and P out during treatment and turn it back into commercial fertilizer, which effectively reuses it without letting it run downstream, and raises money for the community when it's sold. And we can take the poopy solid waste and turn it into fuel that powers the entire water plant, plus electricity for homes nearby. A few communities can afford these innovations, but most cannot. By capturing those nutrients, it prevents us from needing to import phosphorus from the middle east and other areas (which we need to do, to maintain current farm yields-- and by the way, it's going to run out in the coming years, and yet we're literally letting it flush down the drain...); it also prevents almost all of our n and p ending up on the sea floor in the gulf of mexico, having been discharged and ending up in the Mississippi River. The energy component would reduce how much electricity is required to clean and produce drinking water, which consumes a little over 2% of all electricity produced in the US.

There are so many challenges and opportunities associated with this way of doing things, with obtaining and managing water. One of the big three. Food, water, shelter. It was a beautiful system 100 yrs ago, but now we understand what needs work...and it's gonna cost money we don't have. Meanwhile, those with the least are being affected the most, as I think is typical. It's not all that surprising that EPA spends most of its time helping folks in trump country have safe drinking water and paying for their sewage treatment, and trump is looking to eliminate those funds.

So it's really important to think about what water touches and it's nexus with our daily lives. What am I sending down the drain? How did my food and my clothes and my purchases ruin or improve the water that other people - or God forbid, other creatures -- depend upon? If my city council or utility commission is considering raising the water rates...is it for a good reason? Probably. How can I help get clean and safe water to those who don't have it? Maybe water isn't  the loudest of issues right now, but take it from me, water problems are Americas best kept secret. Most scholars call it "Americas largest looming crisis" ...and there's a reason mark twain said "whisky is for drinkin and water's for fighting about."

Which brings me to ways we can help solve these issues! Beer is a great start.

***