#in her what. maybe not even 40s
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I do think that the single most chilling thoughtless/accidental piece of timing in all of DS9 has got to be that Ziyal was conceived like, firmly within the same year as Kira Meru's (incredibly untimely and implausible) death
#ds9 tag#like I'm pretty sure the writing intends you to go oh a Bajoran died of illness during the Occupation that's unremarkable#no no. *Dukat's mistress* did that after 7 years of associated decent-standard-of-living#in her what. maybe not even 40s? that's horrifying#Kira was about 3 when Meru was kidnapped and Meru died 7 years later#Kira is canonically 10 years Ziyal's senior#like I presume maybe someone did do napkin math just to make sure Meru wasn't wildly overlapping with Tora Naprem#but I do not get the impression that anyone thought through the actual implications there#(because fridging women is a free move lol)
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someone said they might be trying to establish a basis to claim that Spock and Chapel were actually in a secret relationship all throughout TOS and that’s actually the most monumentally terrible idea i’ve ever heard
i hate you (whoever you are) for bringing that up in my tags and i also hate myself for never considering that possibility and now i can’t stop thinking about how terrible of an idea that would be if that’s where they’re actually planning on going with this
(even though i don’t think it would actually make any sense for that to be what they’re going for since they would still, presumably, have to break up for long enough for Christine to get engaged to Roger Korby but hey SNW has never let canon get in the way of their bad ideas before)
#star trek#star trek tos#tos#star trek snw#snw#that’s even worse than when i saw someone suggesting that it would be ‘on again off again’ throughout tos#and then he’s gonna go back to her after the movies#yeah or maybe she has her own life#maybe she isn’t still obsessed with him what 30-40 years later#like why does anyone think that seems like a fun and romantic idea#why would that possibly be the storyline you want to happen#even if i shipped them that would just seem sad to me#that they don’t mention her or talk about her hardly at all but he’s gonna go back to her?#seems like bullshit to me#like they really think mr vulcan propriety was cheating on his fiancée all throughout tos
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if u make a one piece college au and u don’t make all of the strawhats students then u r a fucking coward
#like i can maybe give u robin bc she is the smartest and canonically has a degree#so making her a professor does actually make sense#but for franky brook and jinbe?#that’s just a cop out bc u think they’re ’too old for college’ or smth#esp if it’s a community college bc i know u get so many diff types of ppl there#hell i go to a fancy expensive school and i still see diff ppl#not as many but still my brain fuckin exploded#when as a freshman i assumed everyone was my age in my major#only to immediately meet a 28 yr old who had been in the military before this#or the guy around my dads age (40s-50s) in my astronomy class#and lbr i don’t think any of the strawhats are affording fancy colleges#but give me robin who has like 20+ degrees already and no one is sure what she actually does for a living#but just keeps taking more and more classes bc she likes learning#give me franky who had a rough childhood in and out of juvie after an accident with his foster father#he fell in with a rough crowd but is now trying to get his life back together#taking classes whenever he can find time in between working as a mechanic#give me brook as a retired musician who never got to go to college when he was young#bc he was busking to afford his bills and once he got discovered and became famous he didn’t have the time#but he’s retired now so he’s taking some classes at the local college bc he has the time and money now#even tho he’s like 80#give me jinbe who went into the military right after high school#but became disillusioned with the military after the death of his commander and decided to leave#and now he’s trying to get a degree and readjust to civilian life#college is so much more of a flexible setting than high school so have fun with it!!!#posts from the ocean#one piece#college au#tag rant#one piece au
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i'm so glad i won't be working with my pi after this month. i think i've reached my limit. i just can't deal with her anymore
#she said 'oh idk if i can make it to your thesis'#SHE IS ON MY THESIS COMMITTEE. SHE'S KNOWN ABOUT THIS FOR A YEARRRRRR#she said she might be on vacation w her bf... instead of going to my fucking thesis defense.#there was a special vote just so she could be on my committee. wdym you have to go on vacation#ALSO i've been asking her to check my calculations for a thing for MONTHS#and she still hasn't. but she made me present on it in front of a bunch of people.#i'd like to note that this calculation is like. the point of my thesis. and she hasn't even bothered to look at it#she forced the interns to work 50 hours last week. they're only being paid for 40.#she hasn't read any part of my thesis... others have but they don't know the details like she does#i told her to read my fucking thesis and she said she had and that it 'looked good'#what does that mean. WHAT does that mean. how do you have no comments. on my thesis. that determines whether i graduate#and then she said i'm ''irresponsible'' bc i went to a concert???#like it didn't affect anything. i showed up to work on time. i completed everything i meant to.#but i guess going to one concert is like. unacceptable.#i'm sooooo sorry i decided to go have fun for one night instead of agonizing about my thesis (that again. she hasn't read)#she asked if i want to give a talk at the new place she got hired at but she now works for fus#which is a incredibly conservative homophobic private catholic university. i've never heard anything positive about it#like they're legally allowed to discriminate against lgbt people... does she know what i fucking look like????#she's so so conservative but she only interacts with other conservative catholics#and doesn't understand how fucking vile her views are. and she wonders why people don't like her#like maybe she should shut the fuck up about how she thinks abortion is a sin at work!!#she once said 'the only time i feel uncomfortable in my skin is when i talk about being a conservative catholic at work'#AND THEN SHE SAID 'it really makes me understand how hijabis feel'#IN FRONT OF MY HIJABI COLLEAGUE. HELLO???? like she is not persecuted for being a conservative catholic#i literally started laughing when she said that. i think i said 'please get real'. and she's still mad#anyway. my colleague decided to no longer work with my pi. idk if it was bc of that comment#she mentioned that once i leave there won't be anyone who understands the data on the project anymore#like yeah. maybe you should've looked at the data. like at all#and not had an unpaid master's student do literally all the work for you
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@d-buggers-org HEY SO LIKE WHAT IF I HIT YOUR LOVECORE DESIGNS WITH THE RPG BLAST HUH?!
#seinthe art#seinthe gallery#alpha tomerpg#gamesoft tomerpg#zetto tomerpg#cupid alpha#princess gamesoft#locket zetto#this is kind of a draft of softys design?? i wanna make her even more princessy without infringing too much on her design#or maybe ill just make an entire overhaul to better honor the prompt#no favoritism here!! definitely not please ignore my profile picture#ok fine maybe ill confess to. liking zetto a little. just a little bit#i may not be good at art but i am a GOD at combining designs (lying)#anyway have them#i made them in like 40 mins during a random burst of energy#and i am SO proud of them#also. screw physics it is MY silly projections#talking about the chains on zetts outfit. i do what i want#actually i have no idea
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this Tylenol ain’t shit w
#talkingcore#emotions. man.#there’s so much music that I just haven’t listened to in a bit and it’s making me feel things it’s not even like sad things I’m like damn#how long has it been since I’ve listened to beautiful stranger by Madonna as featured in Austin powers international man of mystery#but also something in my brain feels like it needs to cry like I don’t feel like I physically can but something needs to be released#so do I go pet sounds? smile? falsettos? I feel like I need to be in a sleeping bag and Contemplate#fun fact! Kendra Morris has an absolutely stunning cover of don’t talk (put your head on my shoulders)#I’m pretty neutral on beach boys covers tbh I’m never crazy about them since like they really never measure up#how many mid covers of god only knows can I take? not many. but like she & him have their little Brian Wilson tribute I like that.#the covers are a lot better when they don’t try to perfectly replicate whatever the fuck Brian Wilson was doing they aren’t him#brain wants to go melancholy mode but I’ve no clue over what. girl just tell me what I’m supposed to be sad over I’ll commit to the bit#need to keep listening to new stuff but also need old stuff Maybe that’s it maybe I just need old stuff again? like routine?? shit idk#also like at 5 am I woke up and remembered how in choir people kept comparing me to the director they had the year before me#and the thing is she had the same name as someone else in choir that was student teaching my first semester so I kept thinking they were#referring to her Id be in my choir fit my silly suit my proud butch uniform and they’d be like oh this is so ‘insert name’!#and it kept throwing me off because the student teacher was like. not like me at all so I was like fuck#what kind of girl core energies am I accidentally emitting this is Bad. so anyway 5 am I’m like fuck it I need to research this person#I search. find her. she’s butch. I’m blessed. they weren’t lying like man we do such a good job at being generic! yay!#butch And in choir! love to see it! keep thinking how I am destined to be like in my 40s doing mundane tasks#I’m gonna be soooooo good at watering plants and putting salt on the sidewalk before it snows and cleaning drains#need to be a dad mom so fucking bad you don’t get it I need to drive carpool and take off work for dentist trips and watch hgtv#AHHHH i think that got rid of some of the sad lfg💥💥💥💥this must be super long god damn sorry
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god why dont i feel like a human
#not in a furry way either#just feels#i dunno?#robotic? ish?#maybe i am fake human no. 40 😨#kidding. im not that hot#ALSO KIDDING#ish#god i feel so drained and i dont even know why#why is it when someone feels good i feel awful?#oh god what if i am like carl#i dunno? i mean- it is kinda hot when someone breaks their phone#(im not saying if im joking or not suffer with not knowing)#on another note. my mother called her dead husband a “musical whore” so theres that#i spent two hours on a fucking sketch and i wanna die#also. god knows how long ago. but i got these things to put in cigs#(well they just kinda came with herbal cigs so-)#and honestly i wanna try them#but no ones awake and im worried my father will get up if i go outside#so im not gonna. just gonna suffer ig#like yknow. always#j’s a bloody mess
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I think playing a new story rich rpg could fix me
#no im not getting bg3 i cant afford it (£50 are u kidding me!!) and dnd language confuses me so 😭#watching my flatmate get into it is so cute tho like the grip it has on her.......#I just want to be immersed in a sff world and feel something for once 😭#im tempted to replay eastward even tho its SOOOO slow and imo too linear but i still rly loved the art..#but i kind of want smth with more dialogue choices. and smth fresh..#idk what i want actually. im gonna go to sleep ill think abt it more tomorrow#.diaries#i kinda want pikmin 4 but i cant justify buying that either (£40!!!!! insane) and i prefer playing games on pc not switch tbh..#ahhhhh#maybe ill go thru my itch library i have tons of stuff in there from charity bundles ive barely looked at
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you never realize how tech illiterate most people are until you're the only tech literate person around. it is hell
#personal#i love going to my boss for help and her immediate thought is that i just have to clear my cache#bc its what IT says to do for every problem#like thanks! already tried that along with every other starter solution and im fairly certain i know exactly whats wrong#and im telling you exactly what i need from you in the mean time which we both know is doable bc its literally just an EMAIL#so like. maybe help a bitch out and actually do your job instead of just assuming i don't even have basic troubleshooting skills??#like girl i know youre 40 but like. that is not old enough to be an excuse. try actually looking into the issue. much more effective
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I saw a post the other day that kinda pushed back on the way all coming of age movies are about sexuality and all high school stories basically center around who wants to fuck who and how that's like. Not really all coming of age and high school stories should offer since you know. Youth isn't about who you have a crush on and probably coming of age stories in particular should be far more diverse in subject matter than they are.
Honestly as someone who, when I was 'coming of age' age, hated coming of age stories and still do for the exact reason listed above (see the weird scene in It where we all sexualize a 13 year old girl because boys have crushes and surely there's no other way to portray this than feeling a child up with a camera to demonstrate boys have ~feelings~ Bev gets no equivalent scene because she's the object of affection rather than the subject feeling desire) I also wish there was diversity in those stories. And coming of age stories about adults- we don't stop going through huge life moments that change everything forever, but back to kids. When I was a kid I could have desperately used a coming of age story where the character has a sick and dying parent who does die by the end of the story and what happens after that. Granted I did just fine without it, but even without being asexual it's always irked me that coming of age stories don't seem to appreciate that kids have way larger problems and way better stories to tell then first crushes and first kisses for shit sake give kids who went through what I did as a kid some kind of story about what happens when your parent gets cancer and how complicated that is and stop assuming the biggest thing that happens around puberty is discovering sexuality that, if you were queer, you probably already noticed what you felt wasn't in a coming of age story anyway.
#winters ramblings#id actually LOVE to see a coming of age story about an immigrant child moving to a new country#and have the coming of age center around THAT instead of these bizarre vaguely adult explorations of sexuality#that honestly ive never related to anyway like maybe the allos get it but even THEY deserve more diversity in stories#SURELY even your local allos have a dad dying of cancer they desperately need to know what to do with#like deadass a therapist told me at 26 i was robbed as a child because of what i went through and i STILL cry when i think of that#but no coming of age is all sex shit because children according to adults dont have real issues#which tells me adukts writing the stories are MASSIVELY privileged or stunted by execs or straight up assune kids wont watch#a REAL coming of age story. also i want a coming of age story about a 40 year old who is going through a career change#and the struggles that come with late career change. the benefits of a late career change. all the complicated family goo around all this#just give me decent stories that arent too focused on fycking RELATIONSHIPS for once. have them there sure i dont care#but for FUCK sakes can we stop pretending a 13 year olds biggest concern us who they have a crush on??#my dad was DEAD and i knew only one other person who lost her mom way younger than me at 8#we did not understand each other and how could we when our situations were so different. BOTH of us were so highly alienated#because NO ONE not even each other could relate to a lot if the people around us. the only thing we DID have in common#was the sick feeling we got when someone would bitch about their parents having fair expectations or not giving them literally everything#we both had an 'at least you HAVE parents to hokd you to reasonable standards and all you do is SQUANDER it' even if our feelings werent#faur to our peers anymore than their feelings were fair to us. wheres the coming of age story about THAT#tell me a story about a 16 year old whos mom has been dead HALF her life already like my friend. i was lucky enough not to deal with that#until i was 24. she deserved better out if high school and coming of age stories too. believe it or not kids have REAL lives and problems#and im SO tired of no one writing anything but some sad kids books about it even if the books are SOMETHING to start with#like for shit sakes must NICEthat the worst thing YOU went through was realizing you had a sexuality but my queer ass#ALWAYS knew i was different and highschool highlighted that a BUNCH so unless we're exploring aroace teens that doesnt appeal either#great yet ANOTHER story about straight teenagers because THEYRE the ones who need guidance on how to express themselves#like they dont see strsight people storoes and sexuality EVERYWHERE plus the ACTUAL opportunity to date in high school#that most queer kids dont get or dont get in the same way. why is THAT the only story being told when its the most saturated and BORING#and also ignores that kids have REAL issues and NO angency. explore THAT. do ANYTHING but yet another fucking coming of age story#about straight kids having crushes on each other and thats IT like come on SERIOUSLY
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one of Melliwyk's artificer infusions is a homunculus servant that looks like a little bug dragon, and on the one hand, unlike my headcanons for Find Familiar, it's harder to imagine that a bespoke magical construct would have personality traits that weren't explicitly intentionally put in there by its creator-- but on the other hand a couple of the times I've drawn him he looks A Bit Nervous and I keep feeling like maybe this tiny robot lizard has anxiety
#she wouldn't GIVE him ANXIETY what would be the point of THAT#like-- Baxter has had his own personality since his creation anyway AND has been her partner for like 40 years#he has old cat who clearly thinks you are a bit ridiculous (affectionate) vibes#and of course boggle is a gazer he's just a chaotic little menace filled with mischief and unpleasant impressions and teeth#so my heart says drex is BABEY. he is just BABEY!! he was just born!! and he wants to help and do a good job!!#he also has 10 int and hands so like that's a whole little guy you know? he's helping organize Mel's notes and taking dictation#I dunno maybe I can justify it as like... she finally finished working on him and activated him while in the middle of her current--#struggle with getting Overwhelmed and not even recognizing it-- so maybe those sublimated feelings transferred through into her work#creating a little guy who wants to be so so so helpful but is a little nervous about how tiny he is in the face of our big problems#hmm. need to workshop that 🤔#about me#my OCs#melliwyk
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i’m being sooooo strong and sooooo brave and not snapping on anyone today 🙏🏻
#PEACE AND LOVE!!!!!! PEACE AND LOVE#like ok work was annoying and long. what else is new#everything felt like it was going wrong and everyone was driving me crazy but it ended okay ig#then i came home and my mom is acting neurotic and insane and like vacuuming at 9:30 pm. like can we do this idk.#not right now 😭#also im just annoyed like i don’t want to turn into a villain for asking for money BUT MY FRIEND OWES ME MONEY#like every time we do anything she has like 6 dollars in her account which. ok whatever times is hard#but she always insistsssss she’s paying me back and like 40% of the time she does!!!#so i guess i can’t say she NEVER does#but girl. the other 60%#and i don’t want to be that annoying person who’s upset over 30 dollars like it’s not about the 30 dollars#it’s that she SAYS she’s going to but she rarely does 😭 AND THEN BUYS HERSELF NEW SHIT like girl ik you didn’t need an ipad 😭#well. maybe i’m a bitch!!!!#idk im just in a bad mood LOL ok rant over#i don’t even feel better but rant over <3
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thinking about the time i was criticizing a male fantasy author for not including many female characters (and all but one were incredibly generic) and people were really like "be nice to the author, he's said he doesn't know many women in real life :/" like. yeah i can tell
#mine#delete later#cause im not trying to start shit#it was on tiktok so like all of that tracks lmao. i dont know if that's even true but if so. INSANE.#idk what made me think of this#but my dude if youre in your 40s thats not an excuse#tbh i feel like the book in question would have been completely forgettable and id just kind of roll my eyes and move on#if not for the fact that people whose taste i trust!!!!! recommended it!!!!#like what the fuck. the betrayal#like im still driving myself crazy thinking about it years later and trying to figure out what i'm missing#honestly could not say if the rest of the book was good bc imo the way the narration treated the female characters was too distracting#'this one is Mom. that's her whole personality.'#'this one is the hot older woman but she likes me anyway bc im the specialest smartest boy in school.#it's weird cause there's barely any women at this school anyway. she even tried to seduce me but im too in love with Main Love Interest'#'this one is the Main Love Interest and she's so pretty and sexy everyone wants to be with her. she has a tragic secret past#she wont tell me why but we cant be together and she also spends most of the book seducing other men. But I Know She Doesnt Mean It#i will learn her secret and wear her down so we can be together because we vibed pretty well a few years ago'#and then there's the cRaZy OnE#and that's it. those are the only female characters#apparently the last one has gotten her own book. maybe that's what people praise this guy for? but i am not willing to give it a chance lol#p****** r******* meet me in the pit
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We're really at the point where we're criticizing women for...*checks notes*...not getting HAND LIFTS, huh?
#I'm angry that hand lifts are even a thing#Listen I know Kim Kardashian is a controversial figure#But the amount of misogyny people hurl at her is ridiculous#'Eww why do her hands look so old?'#Idk maybe it's because she's in her 40s and that's literally what happens?#Stop expecting women to permanently look 18#Ffs men's hands will start showing signs of age and people just fetishize it as 'daddy hands' 🙄#Mishka's Ramblings#Misogyny CW#Rant
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Oh god. I played 9.7 hours of P:WotR today... that's fucking wild. I am clearly so very normal about this game.
#morrigan.text#delete later#morrigan plays#p:wotr#pwotr#pathfinder wrath of the righteous#I fucked up Ember's personal quest and Arueshalae left bc demon mythic path but other than her everyone's still here.#and I picked up Trevor so I still have 12 people + meatloaf the dire boar.#I swear this party is more busted than my party from my first playthrough. Maybe I'm just imagining things but it feels like it.#I mean Olna is certainly 500x more busted than Reda what with the 40 strength. And meatloaf is much better than Reda's horse.#(whose name I don't even remember)#but even with my companions it feels like they're much more powerful this time. Maybe I just got better at the game???#I've certainly gotten better about using buffs and such.#anyways. I cannot recommend this game enough.#I'm less than halfway through chapter 5 and I'm already at level 18 and mythic rank 9 which is fucking wild.#You level up so fast tho. I have literally leveled up at least once every single irl day I've played. Often twice.#so I'll be telling my friends about my character builds and then a few hours later things have changed again.#leveling up characters is always one of my favorite parts of games like this. And pathfinder has SO many options which makes it better.#so I'm going to be sad once I hit the max level. :'(#I have so many companion quests to do but I have to get my crusade armies to clear some paths first.#so I've been doing a lot of day-skipping in crusade mode to get armies where they need to go and recruit more soldiers.#luckily there aren't super strict time limits just certain events that trigger.#anyways.#I need to go to bed but I also need to do some quick studying for my mammology exam that's first thing in the morning.#urgh. I don't wanna. But I really should at the very least review the order names and stuff.
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she was dead silent on the drive home, but that was okay. sometimes, after band practice, she was just out of words. it was a short drive to her house. the only part where it actually felt weird was after i pulled up her parent’s driveway.
after that, the silence stretched so far it smeared and left a weird residue. she kept looking at the car door like she wanted to leave, so i looked at the door too, then she looked at me, and i looked at her, and my first thought was that she was going to tell me that the door was stuck. i was used to that car always doing some damn thing. it was the car me and all my siblings had learned to drive in, and it was really beat to hell. there were dents all over the body, which we’d unsuccessfully tried fixing up with spackle. it had looked nice for maybe a week, but then the sun wrecked it - the spackle cracked up like the mud on the bottom of a dry riverbed and turned a sort of off yellow-white that made the car looked like it had been molded out of chicken shit. it also had a bullet hole it through the cabin that whistled like a toothless old man whenever the car went above 40, so loud it could drown out the radio, and a cabin that smelled so strongly of bugspray that even the arizona summer we drove everywhere we could with the windows down.
(if you have kids one day, you will maybe, possibly, begin to understand how much i loved that car.)
anyway, i was thinking about what else could possibly be wrong with the chickenshitmobile, and she just kept looking at me, and then i wondered if there was something on my face, and she just kept looking at me, and then the penny dropped and i realized she was trying to work up the nerve to break up with me.
now, i’d seen her work up the nerve to do things like this before – it could take quite a while. and knowing it was about to happen made the waiting immediately unbearable.
so i said hey.
and she looked at me, very startled, and said hey back real small. like she’d been caught. and in a way, i suppose she had.
and i said it’s okay. you can just say it. i’ll be okay.
i’m always okay.
and she said: i’m really sorry.
i loved her, you know? it was highschool, but teenagers are capable of love. the way people love changes over time just as much as the way they stand, or the way they talk, but things don’t stop existing just because they're different. opposite really – a thing only stops changing when it's fully gone.
and i said, nothing to be sorry for, and i meant it. she looked a little relived, and i was happy to give her that peace. then she left. i watched her make it through the front door, because that was just habit at that point, and then i sat there a while afterwards, checking how i felt. and the answer was not good, but good enough to make it home. good enough to limp on.
so i put my car in reverse, took my last look goodbye, and immediately backed into her neighbor’s car.
crunch.
air bags didn't go off, which was good. i left a decent dent in the bumper of the other car. genuinely couldn’t tell if i did anything to my car – anything wrong with it just kind of blended together into the general ecosystem of hand mottled, sun cracked, chickenshit spackle.
i checked my glove box, and my car insurance info was, of course, out of date. my phone was dead too. as a teenager, my phone was less my lifeline to my friends, and more my tether to my parents, so i wasn’t particularly conscious of keeping it charged. both my fault.
i sat there a few minutes, trying to think of the best way to handle things, and there was only one answer i could think of, and i hated that answer, so i spent a few more minutes trying and failing to think of a better one, and then a few more coming to peace with what had to be done.
then i went back to knock on my now ex’s front door.
her dad opened, which i was very relieved over, even if he seemed less than thrilled. he looked me over, and in a firm, but slightly apologetic way said: she does not want to see you right now.
(i think he assumed i was going to try and talk her out of the break up?)
and i said not here for her. i just backed into your neighbor’s car, and i need to call my dad, but my phone’s dead. could i borrow yours?
and he looked at me, then back at his neighbors car, which sure enough was dented, then he looked at the chickenshitmobile, and if there was something wrong with it, it just kind of blended into the general Wrongness of the car, then back to me, and i could see him imagining the last ten minutes from my pov: getting broken up with, backing into a car, having to walk up to your exes door and borrow a phone, calling my dad to tell him that i just reversed into someone.
and his expression shifted from stern and apologetic to truly sad, which felt more kind that i deserved. things only got here because i kept fucking up - forgot to look behind me, forgot to replace the insurance forms, forgot to charge my phone. it was my mess, but his sympathy meant the world to me. i probably would’ve cried if he said sorry, or patted me on the back or called me sport, but instead he said
stay out here – i’ll bring you a phone.
and then he left.
i found a nice spot on the lawn in the shade under a sycamore, then settled into his grass.i was trying not to freak out, and was doing an okay job. he came out a minute or so later, not just with a phone, but a juicebox and a jar of green olives, which really threw a wrench in the whole try not to cry thing. soon as i saw those, a few tears squoze out. i was still hoping i could pass them off as Manly Tears but then he told me that he’d gotten the olives a few weeks before and had been meaning to hand them off to me, and that this was his last chance for that. then i made a sound like a horse drowning in a bog, and he patted my back pretty rough, four solid thumps, like he wasn't sure if i was crying or choking on an olive, and was trying to cover both bases at once.
then he went back inside, and i made a few more bog horse noises while finishing off the rest of the entire jar of green olives, and then i called my dad.
he was about ten minutes away that day, and luckily was home. he drove over, and we went to the neighbor’s house, and from there things actually went quite nice. the neighbor was a retired man who actually said he could fix the dent himself, no need for insurance. he said he appreciated that i didn't just drive off, and i said i was really sorry about his car, and he said he was really sorry about my car, and then he gestured to the chickenshitmobile and i laughed because it really was a disaster on wheels.
then we left.
i thought we were going to head straight home, but instead we went to a gas station, and we both got several slim jims that we folded into thick enough coils that we could put them on a hotdog bun because the growing up mormon equivalent of having a sad brewski with your dad is just choosing to make bad decisions sober. then he took me to the canals and we watched the sun turn all orange and pink, and he looked over at me and said:
brains are good at remembering bad days. so you gotta make sure that a bad day has a good part in in, so you can remember that too. remember that when you have a kid. try to do a good job on days like that - they're going to be a big part of how they remember you.
and then he gave me a big hug and said he was never going to eat another slim jim again.
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the year after that i went to college, which kicked my butt in new and exciting ways. and on a lot of those bad days, after a test that went sour, or a faux paus that was particularly embarrassing, or some other hardship of my new adult life, i’d stop by the gas station and pick up leathery, half jerkied hotdog before heading to the canals to watch the sun set. i’d take a bite and imagine my dad next to me, grimacing through the slim-jim wad, asking what good thing i was going use that time to remember.
and in my head, i’d say you, dad.
i’m going to remember you.
#babylon-lore#dad lore#stories#breakups#gas station hotdogs#i really like green olives okay#i dont have a sense of smell so if food isnt like WHAM in the flavor department it just doesnt do a lot for me#in my sophomore year i ate so many homemade pickles that i actually got a wee bit of scurvy#major autism L
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