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promethes · 4 years

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a hasty hazy short story written to sza

Oh shit! You’re dead. What are you going to do next?

Your eyes, you think, have been stretched like taffy and lumped back together again. Not that you can feel them, of course. Of course. You look around. Up. You think. You’re not sure. For now, you know your neck cranes and that’s enough.

You worry you’ve wasted the best of you.

The world (what’s left of it) is hazy and blue. Is this your own personal corner? Is this where we go? Sequestered into a space so vast you worry you’ll never find a place to rest. A space that is somehow smaller even than the cupboard you would squeeze into during childhood games. Then, the pressure was comforting. A wall on each side, the promise of being found. Knowing that you weren’t really hiding. That everyone else was well aware of your little hideaway. The inside was made of wood though the counter placed directly overhead was tiled in green. Your cupboard.

Here, you blink through eons of matter. You can’t even flutter your lashes from the weight. You close your eyes for a moment of peace. Your lids take years to fall.

You used to be silly with your friends at the grocery. Did you know that? Do you remember? Sneaking into the cereal aisle an hour before close. When you were younger and more reckless you’d tear open the boxes looking for grand prizes. You never found one, but by that point, it had become a sport to the four of you. Once you’d tire you’d plop yourselves down on the linoleum that was practically begging for a cleaning. You’d shake your bottoms. Get good and comfortable. The butt of your jeans have traveled further than most and have the dirty tracks to show it.

No one was better at solving those little cereal box puzzles. You would dominate the word search and crush the riddles with ease. Do you think that was your peak, those nights with the flickering lights and the free almost-expired-but-not-quite-yet milk? I don’t think it was your peak. I don’t think your kind has peaks. I think you just build on what came before. What I think doesn’t really matter though.

Looking back now you wonder. Why was there a close? It was a 24-hour store. Maybe no one cared. It was such a small town. They knew everyone’s routine. There really was no reason to have employees working at 4 am when the only people conscious were the first responders and the whisper-quiet man who lived down the street.

You worry you’ve wasted the best of you. I’m not sure I even know what qualifies.

Starting at the beginning, I think, is a waste of time. What is there other than an opening and a cry and a good hard slap on the behind? Maybe if you were born quiet. If you were born to some kind of tragedy. OF some kind of tragedy. No dice. So it’s a waste of time.

Your mind still rests on the memory of your birth. I wonder if it’s because of the novelty of the whole thing; you were never able to access it before. It really was an average becoming. Belly, hospital, push, out. Nothing to it.

You replay the look on your mother’s face when she first rested her eyes on you. She must have seen something in you. It’s the only way to explain that look in her eyes. You still worry that you’ll disappoint her. You worry you’ll let her down. You worry that you’re wasting her worry. You want to succeed. For her.

Personally, I don’t see the point in all this ping-pong worrying. You’re already dead. The story has long since come to a full circle close.

I apologize, screaming here is a difficult task. If you can get in that breath of air (you can do it if you try, though you may struggle quite a bit), letting it back out is another animal to tackle. However, I see you are very determined to do so. Would you like to be provided a microphone to echo it out? If you can only do it once, I’m sure it’d be nice to have that once count. You wonder if you have enough substance left in you to make a wave in your hazy new blue home.

You have all this space pocket for yourself! Enjoy it. Drink it in. Look to your left. To your right. Here, you will find all of our various amenities… just a touch of humor there. We have no amenities. I’ve been at this a while and after the first few I get a little restless. You understand, don’t you? It’s only human nature to crack a few jokes when you’re feeling antsy. Well. I’m not quite sure about that first part. Maybe I should just say nature. No need for another identifier.

Worry worry worry. Do you have any other modes of being?

What is your best, really, when you yourself have embodied so many throughout your life? I think (I know, it doesn’t matter what I think. However, we have all the time in the world, and really it wouldn’t hurt you to hear a little from me. Would you like to hear what I think?).

I think that people are never their best. You worry that you’ve wasted the best of you. I say you do not possess your own best to waste.

You. You have been your mother’s best. Your sister’s best. Your teacher’s best. Your second grade best friend’s best, the one who would bring bright pink bubblegum tape to school to chew up and stick in her hair just below the level of her perfect haircut. You were her best. You people, you go through cherry-picking from each other and build yourselves from the bests of others.

Let go of this thought that you had the power to misplace yourself. You’ve long since gifted that control to others. You are dead. I think your best lives on in someone else.

Oh? So now it matters what I think?

Your mind never seems to empty. From you, I learn why they call reminiscing “reliving”. Does it make it easier? Or is it your own special brand of self-torture? It’s no use doing that here. There is no bargaining.

If time moved faster down here, I think a tear would be making its way down your cheek.

It is a bit of a blessing, this return of mind. You lose your life, but in a way, it comes right back to you.

You walk yourself through your first swing. Looking back, you wonder how you ever made that silly mistake. Now you know that fingers stay interlocked, wrists locks, head stays down as you twist your body back and hold your arms out. It’s all in the technique.

You know you’re reliving the past. That it can’t be changed. That doesn’t stop you from saying a little prayer every time you revisit the way you’d swing down. That split second of letting gravity take over and releasing inhibition. That is our gift to you. It’s so vivid you can almost feel a beat in your chest.

I may have been right when I said your memories were your suffering. The energy you exert avoiding her is astounding. Subconsciously, you know you would give the world and then some to go back. Your will is not strong enough to avoid that. It may be cliche but that doesn’t stop you from replaying her eyes twinkling over and over and over. You watch her crack that smile until it makes you dizzy.

“I am, myself, three selves at least.” You don’t know who wrote that but it rests in your mind in that odd way that thoughts rest in your head these days. You never were one for poetry. You don’t know who wrote that. (I do. It was Mary Oliver.)

At present, you are maybe a quarter of a self. Half at most. Where have you gone? You ask the question as if I have the answer. You worry you’ve wasted the best of you. I worry you’ll never stop.

You live in the past. Don’t you know there is no past here, no future or present? Here, you just are. Is that enough?

If you have wasted the best of you, comfort yourself knowing what you wasted it on. There’d be no use hanging on to it. It’d be of no use to you here. We have no best or worst. Was it really a waste of your best to have it be used in the one life you’re awarded? You may not be one for poetry, but I value word choice. Your use of “waste,” I’m afraid, will not do. If we are to spend Now together, that is my ground rule. I don’t have many. Careful with your words. They are all we have down here.

No, there is no poetry in the afterlife. You worry (again?) that you aren’t well-stocked. You did not take precautions. Made minimal preparation. You have only your mind and me to keep you company.

You forget Mary Oliver rests on your brow. Here. I will give you a bit of a push. Don’t tell, now.

How I linger to admire, admire, admire the things of this world that are kind, and maybe

also troubled – roses in the wind, the sea geese on the steep waves, a love to which there is no reply?

Finally, the world goes dark. You’d almost forgotten the journey your lids were taking. Don’t open your eyes back up just yet. Take a step back. Get some air now. Let yourself rest. You have time.

#the formatting is weird but idc #goooooood night #i know it's bad but i really do not have the energy to think abt it for even one more second #essays #og

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a-woman-apart · 4 years

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Separating the Boys from the Men

Yes, that title is click bait, and if you keep reading, you’ve been warned. I’ve got a lot to get off my chest, and it’s going to involve defending masculinity, femininity, and our right to BEHAVE LIKE CHILDREN FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES because in many ways, we already do.

Let’s get straight to the point. As Millennials, regardless of our age, financial status, or level of “success” (air quotes 100% intentional) we have been accused of being lazy, entitled, and way too enthusiastic about avocado toast. At the same time, we have been described as having enough power to decimate the napkin industry, the diamond industry, and the concept of traditional marriage. We have been accused of a collective “Peter Pan” syndrome, because we “refuse” to cut off papa’s apron strings and get off the proverbial mama’s teats.

Wonderful to know.

Let’s unpack the “lazy” bit. Supposedly, this is tied to the fact that we have access to higher education, we [often, not always] have parents who financially support or house us well into adulthood.

So now, my question is, Gen X (the entitled ones, ironically) and Salty Boomers, YOU DIDN’T?

What do you call that “inheritance” you received? What do you call that education your parents paid for that was less than 1/3 what we have to pay? For Boomers, how do you explain the lavish weddings, cheap [and apparently nuke proof] home appliances, and “nights out on the town” that you were able to afford by working at whatever passed for a McDonald’s back in the day? Working on a farm, at a grocery store, or in retail used to ACTUALLY provide a livable wage; for us, those are a “side hustle” and we still have to get a “big boy job” that usually requires an education that can put us over $100,000 in debt by age 30.

Hate to say it, but if you hadn’t made most of your income “during the War” or in the absolute economic boom that followed it, you wouldn’t survive 24 hours in our shoes before having an emotional collapse.

Despite the disastrous living conditions of the U.S. in the 21st Century, not much has changed in how men define their level of “manliness.”

Financial gains (stocks, bonds, portfolio, bank account)

Bro “gains” (a.k.a. “gym gains”, how “Gaston” they are, including whether they want to go for the Adonis, Apollo, or Brawny boi look, or just how far they can throw something or how “boyish” they look if strength isn’t an option and they suffer from femme-levels of body dysmorphia)

Body count (since we’re in a time of peace and not literally war, this is LITERALLY a modern term describing how many people you’ve slept with, and I have never heard an adult man, regardless of sexual orientation, who isn’t a little concerned about putting those notches in the bed post, and if not that, VERY concerned about his bedroom performance: it’s quality vs. quantity)

Kill death Ratio (I know this is a video game term now, but did you know that before video games, men in England used to regularly get on horseback, get a bunch of hounds together, and chase down tiny foxes and rabbits? FOR FUN?!?!? Did you know, that before modern sports ((including Esports)), men used to just fight to the death, regularly, even if an official war wasn’t going on? It was known as “dueling”, and in less socially developed societies, men still behave like this. So the next time you complain about “male rage” and how heartless it is to make live chickens fight, note that even though we’ve quelled male anger and hostility on some level, you will NEVER be able to take away man’s urge to destroy. Boys and men will always like knocking things over, building things from the rubble, and ruling shit. It’s what they do-- and we women can and do, too, but we have a LOT more risk-aversion and self-preservation, which is a blessing and a curse for our species-- but we just need to make sure humanity as a whole stays...chill)

So what, say ye, has changed about how WOMEN define themselves now vs. in the past. I would say that very little has changed, but the level of internalized misogyny, insecurity, and good-old fashioned denial has SKYROCKETED.

Let’s look at some terms of how the majority of women value themselves.

Financial Security (few women will admit to “wanting to be rich”, because that sounds kind of “Trump”, but plenty will talk about having minimum income requirements for their partner(s), wanting to retire at a young age so they can “travel the world”, wanting to eliminate their debts, etc. It’s different language but essentially it translates to: I want to work so hard or marry into so much wealth that I never want to worry about money after age 35. #Hustle)

Looks (it doesn’t matter if you want a Kardashian butt, you’re in the body positivity movement, or you just want to “dress like a bawse” women are just as obsessed with clothes, image, and body weight/shape/size as they ever were, it is just that now that we’ve “slain the patriarchy” we have more fashion options than ever before, because “boy clothes” are just as “in” as femme ones)

Ability to attract a partner (some women, like me, “chase”, but thanks to biology, most women, regardless of sexual orientation, seem to enjoy being pursued more than being Artemis-style hunters. This is evidenced by the fact that when the feminist owner of Bumble changed the rules of the dating website to where women had to start conversations with men rather than vice versa ((a move that had ostensibly zero effect on lesbian matching)) 72% of women that she later surveyed stated that they liked it better when men were approaching them rather than the other way around. I am sure Bumble’s female CEO was shook ((as was I)), especially because she made the change to empower women, and apparently 72% of women didn’t want the power because it meant they now had the power to face rejection, and it made them uncomfortable. Big yikes. So much for #EndPatriarchy and #ChivalryisDead ?)

Playing house (this is probably going to get me some unfollows, but I’ll take my chances. Women, regardless of sexual orientation, often seem to be REALLY into having babies or just “playing house.” There’s also men like this, too, “Family men” as they’re aptly called, men in love with fatherhood ((or just being called “daddy”, and that will never not be weird)). So many women who never want to pop out a baby describe being taken by an OVERWHELMING urge to fuck during their “fertile window” ((or is that just me?)) and seeing every baby alive as the cutest human being ever once we pass the tender age of 25. The biological clock is REAL, and I learned the hard way that being bisexual and having immense fear of pregnancy and childbirth didn’t spare me from the awful truth of my biology.

I really don’t want to keep making references to modern video games, but they seem to serve the dual purpose of being deeply satisfying and helping us to quell “problematic” urges, including that one to dominate and destroy the world. For a lot of women gamers, though, our choices ((on a broad scale, every #girlgamer is different)) deviate from men’s in some interesting ways.

#1: We still love The Sims Franchise way more than guys do

Not only do we love it, but while a lot of men (again, #notallmen) tend to build elaborate neighborhoods to extensively mod and destroy them in terrifying ways, I still see women gamers taking obscene amounts of time to design homes, raise happy little families, and cause TERRIFYING blood feuds by having Sims marry Sims from rival families ((I guess we’re more Shakespeare than we thought, eh ladies?))

#2: We make up most of mobile gaming

Most male gamers think mobile games “aren’t real” and I tend to agree, but a mobile game is invaluable for when I, a woman, have time to kill between the 3 jobs I hypothetically have and I and don’t want to whip out something like a Nintendo 2DS that is both unwieldly and attracts the eyes of every impoverished, thieving human being in a .5 mile radius. #RiskAversion. These games are often low-quality, mindless, and insanely easy, but that is WHY WE LIKE THEM. Our entire life is a job. #Hustle

#3 We also love farming sims and RPGs

While we-- and most male Millennials-- beg god to not have to birth calves, milk cows, or labor in the tomato fields under the hot sun, most of us have no objection to having our virtual avatars perform the same back-breaking tasks to the tune of cheerful chiptune music. Also, even though men definitely enjoy them, too, I have never met a woman gamer who didn’t enjoy a nice RPG; why do you think we’re such avid readers of fantasy/romance YA?

We want to be transported to a different world, and if you won’t take us there, we’re happy to go there virtually ((because we probably can’t afford travel; we’re still millennials)).

Ability to murder people who threaten our young or our partner(s) (Okay this one is a bit more complicated, but I’m just going to tell you a bit about female animals. DON’T MESS WITH THEIR BABIES IF YOU WANT TO LIVE. Human females, are, in that regard, just as savage, if not more so, than our male counterparts.

I’ve never heard of any woman ((outside of prison, maybe)) who killed another woman for “looking at her weird” or saying “your mama” too many times. I’ve heard plenty of women threaten literal murder because another woman ((or man, we’re #progressive)) came too close to her romantic/sexual partner, or another human being threatened harm on our kids or our “squad.”

I don’t know where the meme truly originated from, but “Don’t talk to me or my son ever again” is SUCH a Mom thing to say. So much misandry is wrapped up in the idea that men are predators, and that is true, but not in the excessively sexually deviant ways you think ((that’s only sometimes true)). They just like hunting things, including people, but if you give them a toy to play with ((I MEAN ACTUAL TOY OMG)) they seem alright. Let them go play with their cars, Xbox, [insert whatever] or something. They’re men, okay, they’re easily distracted/impressed/occupied.

Women, on the other hand, have seemed to be having an EXTREME amount of trouble curbing that baby-making urge, or the Excessive Nurturing Urge, that one that makes you ask your grown husband if he’s remembered to pack lunch for work or if he remembered to pack money for his playdate with his bros, because he’s gonna need money at Six Flags and you aren’t going to bring it to him because he should’ve remembered, you reminded him 30093390 times.

THAT’S NOT HIS FAULT. HE HAS MANAGED BY SOME MIRACLE TO STAY ALIVE FOR 33 YEARS. THAT’S YOU, SWEETIE. STOP BEING SUCH A MOM. GO BE A NURSE, DOCTOR, OR SOCIAL WORKER OR SOMETHING OMG.

In summary...

What separates the “men from the boys” or the “women from the girls” isn’t the era that we were born in to, our economic status, or whether we’ve been able to “conquer” our biology. That’s definitely not possible yet, chiefly because transhumanism involves a lengthy, ethics-guided process, and even if we all turn into cyborgs, the goal is to become BETTER humans, not LESS humane. Societal advancements have done more in terms of making us healthier, less destructive citizens of planet earth than raw technology ever can and ever will. Rapid technological advancement, when not combined with respect for morality, ethical standards of living for humans and all other life forms, almost always leads to human slavery, widespread abuse of animals, sex trafficking, and environmental destruction, because the “rules of supply and demand”, when not governed by strong international trade laws, dictate that consumers should be supplied with whatever they demand, because the suppliers can profit, and their right to profit should be defended at any cost.

So, in summary, I believe that “adulting” involves giving up on entitlement. What separates a truly childish human being-- regardless of their actual age-- from someone who is, in essence, “adulting” is experience, and how much those experiences serve to broaden that person’s perspective. It is an extremely childish, self-centered view, to think that you “deserve” anything for being “a good person” or, in the case of many a “woman child” or “man child” in media and in real life, just being “not so bad.”

Grown-ups are able and willing to do something that is known as “delaying gratification” which is the simple ability to delay a temporary pleasure for a long-term gain. Grown-ups are also able to perform true “cost-benefit analyses” to determine if a course of action, business deal, or even relationship is worth their time and effort. Finally, grown-ups are able and willing and able to make an informed choice and stick to it; in essence, we don’t try to “have our cake and eat it too” we understand that once we’ve eaten that cake, the cake is gone, but we also realize that if we are willing to work hard and make sacrifices, we can earn the ingredients to make ourselves another cake to eat, even if we might need a lot of help from other adults in getting those ingredients (we call this teamwork and cooperation).

Children, on the other hand (in literal and metaphorical terms), are very impatient. They get angry when things don’t go their way, and instead of taking the steps needed to improve their situation, they storm off and return home. It doesn’t matter if their home is with their parents, with their 3 roommates, or with their husband or wife, these people throw tantrums, refuse to communicate/cooperate, and stew in their displeasure until someone feels sorry for them and fixes their problem for them. They lack the ability to work through daily life problems and refuse to take any responsibility for how their actions or inaction contributed to their dilemma.

There is one difference with an actual human child or teen, though, is that they have an excuse. Their brains are still developing, and they haven’t had the chance to live through these situations yet; these are new challenges to them. Even if they do have a “bad attitude”, with help from peers and patients, principled adult mentors and teachers, these cantankerous kids can grow into well-adjusted, able adults. The high levels of neuroplasticity in their brains actually make it so that it is easier for them to accept large amounts of sensory data and to learn from processing and practicing using it.

An “adult child” is someone who, more often than not, has been coddled instead of challenged. These people have often faced no significant hardships in life. There is a reason why, even after we have recognized the immense downsides of authoritarian parenting and have demonstrated psychological harms of corporal punishment for kids, we still call “bad kids” and “irresponsible adults” spoiled.

Authoritarianism produces rigid, scared people who often struggle with critical thinking and self-esteem or end up being authoritarian parents themselves, but that last one is actually one of the less likely options. Children of authoritarian parents often develop Borderline Personality Disorder or become defiant against authority (shocker). Overly permissive or overly neglectful parenting, though, are parental styles most associated with producing narcissists, who often become authoritarian parents, because when their kids challenge them, they completely lack the patience or emotional capacity to deal with it and resort to “because I said so”, stonewalling and/or physical abuse as forms of “character-building.”

The reason why overly permissive parents spoil their kids is because kids actually do need discipline and guidance, and so these kinds of parents produce kids who are outwardly capable and confident but completely lack any of the life skills to justify it, and when they ask their parents for advice they are just met with a bunch of hippie mumbo jumbo or told to just avoid the conflict rather than resolve it. These kids grow into adults who are still sad little kids inside, because they never grew up, but now they’re sad little kids who are articulate and well-spoken and now can-- and often have no choice-- but to con their way through adult life because they’ve maxed out Charisma and they have almost no points in Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Dexterity.

The only parenting style worse than Authoritarian and Neglectful/Permissive is Mixed, in which a child grows up in a COMPLETELY unpredictable environment where the rules of the game change from day to day, and parents either give their children no attention at all, or they practically lock them up and throw away the key. Being raised like this is associated with the worse outcomes for the child throughout life.

So, why am I now talking about parenting styles? Because, for all that we love to trash Boomers and large swaths of Gen X on this page, we can’t forget where they came from, so we cannot allow them to forget WHO THEY MADE. It isn’t an accident that even though we live in the times of incredible economic hardship, WE are the generation (and Gen Z, to some extent) that got hooked on reality TV, video games, and social media in incredibly unhealthy ways. A lot of us 30+ millennials are growing out of it, and a lot of us have realized that it is an invaluable (and damn near unavoidable) way of marketing our products and talents. We’re often self-employed because that’s our only option in most cases.

The issue with Gen Z (who, while we called “Zoomers” now just all themselves “Doomers” and I think we should be a bit concerned about that) is that unlike us, they have no memory of “Before the Internet.” We remember dial up, we remember before that when you played outside untl the sun went down. They don’t have the privilege of being linked to that history.

Now, we have to be the Bigger Person. It’s our time to be Grown-Ups. Gen Z feels really fucking lost right now, and hearing us whine about our parents probably makes them pretty pissed off, when some of us older millennials are the parents, aunts/uncles, and older siblings to Gen Z kids. Even if we can’t be mentors, we have to lead by example, because we have a responsibility to these kids. A lot of them aren’t stupid, they see exactly what’s happening and they feel incredibly hopeless about it. Greta Thunberg is still 16 years old. She shouldn’t be out there doing that; I mean seriously, climate change is accelerating, but it isn’t even as bad as Al Gore said, it’s still reversible, but the fact that SHE FELT SHE HAD TO makes us shitty people. ALL OF US.

So you know, we all need to stop being hypocrites. We need to stop being entitled. We need to stop thinking this is about us. It isn’t. Not even close. We’re not important, even if our videos go viral or if we’re swimming in cash next to hot models by a huge swimming pool. America’s fucked up. I hate to sound Republican, but it’s because of our values. We suck at valuing what’s important, and if we don’t change that soon, it’s really going to suck to live in America.

It already does.

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thistleandthorn-rpg · 4 years

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Congrats A on your character, Asher Karofsky! Send us his blog within 48 hours, please and thank you!

OOC INFORMATION:

Name/Alias: A Preferred pronoun: She/Her Age: 40+ Timezone/Country: PST/US RP Experience: 5 - 7 years (?) Activity Level: approx. 3 days/ week

IC INFORMATION:

Name: Asher Karofsky Designation: Dominant Age: 24 Faceclaim: Max Theiriot Birthday: Aug. 1 Orientation: Asexual (not openly or knowingly yet) probably panromantic Kinks: connection, hand holding, talking Anti-Kinks: sex

BIO:

When he found out what his name meant, Asher Karofsky laughed. Fortunate, blessed, happy one. What a joke. Those words didn’t describe any of the Karofskys. They were a miserable lot, with miserable lives. Their parents hated the system, but in a strange way they had found a way to embrace all of its cruelty while discarding anything that made it good. They hated gays, they oppressed women, and generally despised anything that was in the slightest bit modern and joyful. Their dad drank and took out his hate on their bodies and their minds. Their mom had retreated into a dark version of the bible that left no room for simple things like love for her children. All of that was true and yet somehow, they seemed to have some magic ability to play a roll in their community that was as wonderful as it was completely untrue. To the ladies at the church and the guys down at the bowling alley, Matt and Stacey Karofsky were the salt of the Earth. They were good people, raising good God-fearing children.

Those children however were left to figure everything out for themselves. They went to funerals and yelled horrible things at bereaved parents and wives and husbands. They picketed gay pride parades and yes even synogogues. But at the same time they were intelligent boys with good eyes and good hearts. They could see all of the ways that their parents were wrong even if they were afraid to acknowledge them. So they had to cope. They had to erect walls and armor to protect their young, vulnerable hearts. Dave became a little bit of a bully, hiding his true kind and sweet self under layers of macho bravado. Silas became their protector, always standing between them and their father when he was drunk and violent while enduring bullying at school and falling deeper and deeper into a place of self-loathing. And Asher, well he just disappeared, turning quiet. Whole weeks could go by without him saying more than a word or two. Then Silas left and things got so much worse. The vile that before this had been pointed to the ‘evil’ of the outside, secular world now was pointed directly at his brother. Asher couldn’t take it. There hadn’t really been a plan. He left for work in the morning and just didn’t come back. He’d hitchhiked as far away from that house as he could get and he didn’t look back. He worked any odd job he could find living in the car he eventually saved up to buy. It was fitting as he never stayed in one place too long. Putting down roots meant having to examine yourself. It would mean Asher would have to decide what it meant that he was still a virgin and that he didn’t really have a drive to change that. It was easy enough to lean into his ultra religious upbringing that said you didn’t date, you didn’t spend time alone with a girl (boy? Well that was 1000% out of the question), and you most certainly didn’t have sex until you were married. So he was waiting to get married. Was he looking? Well, he moved around too much for that.

He might have kept on doing that until he was forced to go to institute and get himself a claim to save himself from the auction house like his parents had done, but a chance glance at a tabloid at the checkout of a Piggly Wiggly in Ashville, North Carolina changed everything.. The story was about Kirin Rhodes, a name he recognized only from the covers of other tabloids in other grocery stores in other cities and towns. There was a picture of the institute this guy was at, Lima Heights, along with a story about him claiming or something. That wasn’t what had him pulling the rag from its place in the rack and staring open mouthed. No, it was a small detail that no one else probably noticed. In the background- clear as day- was his brother Silas. And he was smiling. He looked healthy and happy. Asher hadn’t seen him in years and every emotion that he’d bottled up came surging up. After quickly paying for his food and the tabloid, he called the Institute straight away and with some unpleasant begging he got himself a hardship scholarship. After filling the tank and praying to a God he didn’t know if he believed in anymore, he was on his way. There were nothing but questions buzzing around his brain. Nagging, uncomfortable questions, but he pushed them away in favor of thinking about Silas and all the times he’d saved him in ways too big to comprehend and too small to explain. He had to be with him. That was all he knew for sure.

BIO QUESTIONS:

What are your feelings about the mark you have received?

Ambivalent. Don’t know much about it. Seems fine.

How do your feelings on the system compare to your parents’ feelings on it?

My parents hate it. I don’t hate it.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I don’t know. Too long away.

Describe what terrifies you the most.

Becoming like my parents.

#accepted

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erinelezabeth920 · 4 years

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Love in the Time Of

Shame. Is the thing I want to talk about. Love in the time of shame.

I mean I don’t really want to talk about it. I’d really rather not actually, except that I have the sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one. Not by a long shot. So here we go. Last night I wanted to go to bed by 10pm, so I could get up early and go on a run BEFORE signing into Zoom at 7:45am to lead a yoga meditation class for my friends and family, BEFORE doing some reading of self-help books and solo meditation BEFORE I start trying to do an impossible job from my living room for an unclear number of hours per day with an attention span of basically zero to negative.

When I write this it sounds absurd. I know that. But brains are weird. Especially mine. Remember the anxiety based overfunctioning/ underfunctioning I talked about last time? Overfunctioning much? Anyway, that didn’t happen. We had finished a DnD session with my brother and college roommate, (my character is a rouge-gnome named Huckleberry Shake who has short purple hair, is really good at sneaking and lock picking, and carries a crossbow. I like to imagine a sort of cross between ‘Midsummer's Night Dream’ and Assassin’s Creed’.) Anyway, it was around 9:30 ish pm. It was also Cinco de Mayo, and we had picked up tacos from the neighborhood about a 15 minute drive south with a strong hispanic/ latinx population. The past couple weeks I’ve been referencing that line in ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ where they all pile into the pick up truck to go into town and go batshit crazy. “It always feels good to get away from camp, even for an hour!” Just to drive somewhere to pick up food feels like a crazy adventure these days.

I made us magaritas when I got back; they were bright blue because we had some kind of blue liquor that I can’t remember the name of. After DnD I wanted to watch some TV. I made myself another margarita and some popcorn, which is my quarantine coping crutch. I watched this trashy but great Netflix show about teenagers in North Carolina called Outer Banks. Except the episodes kept ending on cliff hangers (OMG he KILLED HIM?), so I kept watching. I painted my toenails purple, using packing peanuts to space them out. I was kind of proud of myself actually.

It was about midnight when I went to bed. I woke up with a small headache, a result of tequila and salty popcorn and poor quality sleep. I was going to go on a walk/ run and listen to the news. I didn’t. I snoozed the alarm about ten times. It was raining out. I led my yoga class and ate some sourdough toast. And here we are. The light is filtering through the apartment windows, as I sit on the couch in my sweat pants. The crazy thing is, I just feel SO much shame. And guilt. Guilt for having a headache, shame for not waking up early to do all these things I honestly don’t even need to do. I feel shame for not writing more often, shame when I look at the dishes that are dirty. Shame when I don’t go outside to go on a walk, exercise, or when I close my work laptop early to lie on the couch and scroll through my phone. I’ve been trying the past couple weeks to figure out this phenomena that seems to be happening to me, but also to other people I talk to. I feel okay for about 3 days, and then completely collapse. I just can’t do anything, flatline, but there doesn’t really seem to be a direct cause. It’s just like dropping on the roller coaster without warning. I was telling a friend the other day that on weekends, all I do is sleep. Usually I’m a very active person who has an almost clincally hard time sitting still. I haven’t felt like this, I told him, since I worked the hardest jobs in my life- full time wilderness therapy or residential treatment for children with Autism working 12 hour days. I work MAYBE six hours a day these days but probably more like four, broken up by lying on the couch watching documentaries and scrolling on my phone. So why am I SO DAMN EXHAUSTED?

I did some research the other week into chronic stress for a newsletter article I was writing for parents of my elementary school. Chronic stress is different than acute stress, I found, because it has no concrete beginning and end. It’s not like a car crash or a loved one dying. Instead (for those of us with the intense privelage not to be on the front lines- god bless if you are) it’s a constant low hum in the background through news headlines, grocery store lines and crossing the street when another person is coming your direction on the sidewalk. It’s a disruption of normality with no conceivable ending, sending our brains into a low key 24/7 flight or fight mode, draining us with tiny doses of adrenaline and uncertainty that build up over time. It’s not in the forefront, but it’s there in our tight shoulders, exhaustion, inattention, insomnia, short fuses and total lack of motivation. Until we can’t take it any more and crash, seemingly out of nowhere. And then the whole thing starts again.

As Brene Brown says, “We’ve hit our collective weary.” In one podcast episode she interviews a grief expert. He says, we are all grieving right now. Even if we don’t name it, we’re showing the symptoms. But instead of grieving the death of an individual (for most of us), we are grieving the lifestyles we’ve lost (work settings, close contact, friendships, normalcy). And grief exhausts us. BUT, because most of us aren’t experiencing acute grief (ie a loved one dying) we feel shame on TOP of that grief, that we shouldn’t be tired or inept when others have it SO much worse. It’s a meta emotion. Shame layered on grief like a terrible lasagna. How can we be justified in experiencing grief when all we do is sit on the couch and watch Netflix and eat snacks for hours a day? We’re not even in a wartime or something concrete that gives justification and purpose. Instead it’s just a vague, deep sense of disruption of life as we know it. But it’s just as real. I was walking on the beach at the time I listened to the podcast; when he said the words, “We are grieving the loss of the world as we knew it,” the sun was setting over the water. It hit me like a ton of bricks.

A few weeks ago, Andy cut my hair. When the pieces fell to the floor of our friend’s porch and the scissors snipped away larger chunks than I woud have liked, my stomach dropped. I started panicking. I felt like the world was ending. I don’t panic when I read the news, go to the grocery store in a mask, or even read the death toll. But when my hair fell to the ground around me in the gathering twilight, I absolutely lost it. I came home and sobbed. It was the first time I’d cried since the pandemic began, and it’s like it just all came out. I was so angry at Andy, and he felt so bad. I was a shell of a person for twelve hours. I cancelled morning yoga for the first time in six weeks, lamenting everyone would have look at me close up on a screen. I wanted to stay in bed forever, (until we fixed the haircut and it actually looked pretty good). But for a second there I was broken, and it was because of a goddamn haircut. I mean for Christ sakes, people are dying out there. It made me feel so petty and stupid. There’s a global pandemic happening, and I am distraught FROM MY HAIR?!

But that’s how grief works. We can’t look at the thing head on, it’s too much. A death toll is just numbers. Our brains seek to survive, to normalize, to adapt just to get through. So instead the trauma seeps into the corners, slowly creeping into our bodies and collective exhaustion until one little thing causes the world to come crashing down. The straw that breaks the camel’s back. And then we feel overwhelming shame for being so affected by something so little. For me, my lizard brain was honestly convinced I would never be attractive or happy again.

(ALSO to be fair we watched, ‘Little Women’ a few days later. In the movie there’s the scene where Jo cuts all her hair off to give her mother money to travel to their sick father in the war. She’s then pictured crying under the stairwell. “Is it mother?” her sister asks. “No,” she says, “It’s MY HAIR!”. "See?!” I said to Andy.)

The underlying theme here is shame. We’re ashamed of our emotions because they don’t seem justified. Comparative suffering. My suffering isn’t nearly as bad as others, therefore I should not feel this way. I’m ashamed of myself for eating snacks and worried I’m going to gain a bunch of weight. Then I’m ashamed for being ashamed instead of being body positive. I’m ashamed of myself for enjoying an evening with drinks (yes plural), popcorn, painting my toes and watching teenagers who are actually in their twenties look for buried treasure. Honestly, it sounds like a great night. And it was.

I just finished re-reading “The Four Agreements”, the Toltec wisdom book. The first agreement is “Be Impeccable With Your Word.” I assumed from the first time I read it, it meant “always tell the truth”. The reality though, is it means, our words have power. Especially our words about ourselves. Just this morning I entered my enchilada and margaritas from yesterday into my ‘Weight Watchers’ app and felt terrible. I told myself I was fat, lazy and useless. Which seems absurd when I write it out, but that’s the honest to goodness narrative inside my head. Being impeccable with our word means watching what we say to ourselves, because our words create a reality. We create our own cycles of shame.

Even at this moment, typing this, I feel ashamed that this piece of writing is so scattered. My English major brain is mad at me. Get it together Erin. Find a cohesive theme and stick to it. Get emotional, but not too emotional. Tell stories, but not too many stories. But writing at it’s best is vulnerability and transparency; and honestly right now it’s hard to hold on to any one thought for longer than a few seconds. And I’m pretty sure it’s not just me. Little pieces, scattered thoughts, just trying to put the puzzle together. (Oh and don’t even get me STARTED on puzzles... Andy is MUCH better than me at them, and, saving the face of our relationship, let’s just say that is another dangerous straw perched on the camel’s back through only the fault of my own...) Anyway, I think at this point, just find anything that makes you smile. Literally anything. I personally like Brad Leone’s Bon Appetite Youtube channel “It’s Alive.” He makes me laugh so much. The episode with him and Orville Peck making elote almost broke me. Find those things, hold on to them and be kind to yourself. It’s okay to feel less than. Just remember you’re not. We’ve collectively hit weary, the point in the race where you’ve been running for so long, but the finish line is so far away. It’s okay just to go one step at a time.

Paint your toes. Eat your popcorn. Drink your margaritas. Whatever we can do just to survive. One step at a time. You’re not alone.

And that’s love in the time of.

#mental health #coronavirus #quarantine #seattle

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lovemesomesurveys · 4 years

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How many walls are in your bedroom? It’s your typical four-wall bedroom. <<< Yep. What do you think about Fall Out Boy? From Under the Cork Tree album was my jam back in the day. Definitely my fave of theirs. Do you know where Guatemala is? Yeah. Do you find musicians attractive? They can be. I don’t automatically find someone attractive if they’re a musician, but there are attractive people who happen to be musicians. Although, if a guy can play piano... Do you like hard boiled eggs? Yes. Especially deviled eggs.

Do you know anyone named Hector? Nope. Would you move to another country for the one you love? Gahhh I don’t think so. :X I couldn’t be that far from my family. Do you own an instrument? I have a keyboard. It’s been in the garage for the past several years. :X What do you usually have for lunch? A sandwich or some microwave meal thing. Ever had a pregnancy scare? Nope. What do you think about the Purple People Eater? ”It was a one eyed, one horned flyin purple people eater. What a sight to see.” Are you pale or tan? Pale. I already didn’t go out much before this whole quarantine thing, but now it’s going to be even worse. I haven’t left the house at all in almost 2 months. I don’t know when I’ll go anywhere, honestly. Summer is just around the corner and I normally would get a few beach trips in, but now that’s not going to happen, so.. What’s the weather like right now? It’s in the low 60s F. Do you like cats? Yeah. I don’t have a lot of experience with cats, though. My family and I have always been dog people. What’s the best part about Wal*Mart? I like that it has everything in one store. Do you think Akon is amazing or annoying? I didn’t think he was amazing, but I liked some of his songs. Wow, whatever happened to him. Do you like the buzz cigarettes give you? I don’t smoke cigarettes. Just the smell alone makes me lightheaded, speeds up my heart rate, and gives me a killer headache. Are you a practical joker? Nah. Do you like pop? Yeah, but I don’t really drink it anymore. What are you looking forward to? Will we ever get past all this and have some sense of normalcy? I know things will be different, but at least to the point where we can go out again. Have you ever laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe? Yeah. It’s been a longgggggg time since I’ve had a good laugh like that. I don’t even remember the last time. What’s your favorite band? I just answered this in the previous survey I did, but Linkin Park. Do you feel stupid when you spill things on yourself? It’s just annoying. Especially if it stains. I ruined my Disneyland hoodie I got when I went recently cause I spilled coffee on it. I’m SO pissed. Are you excited for summer? No. I dread summer, but this year is going to be even more miserable because I can’t even escape to the beach. D: It’s already too hot here and we’re only in April. Have you ever snuck out? Nope. When’s the last time you were kissed? It’s been like 7 years now. Would you ever eat popcorn & salsa? Not now cause I can’t eat spicy stuff anymore, but back when I could I never thought of eating those two things together. I’m sure I would have tried it, though. I always used to put hot sauce on my popcorn, so. Do you sleep with the television on? Yep. What does your favorite shirt look like? I don’t have one specific favorite, all my many graphic tees are my favorite. What’s your favorite scent? I don’t feel like listing them right now. I’ve done that many times. Skype, Msn, Aim, or Yahoo? RIP all of those except for Skype. I don’t use it, though. Is it still a big thing? Now all I hear about is Zoom. What’s your favorite time of the day? When I have my first cup of coffee. Do you hate the phrase “love ya” when coming from a boyfriend/girlfriend? If we were just being playful or whatever I wouldn’t care, but if that’s how he always said it I would have an issue. It just sounds so...lazy? It doesn’t feel as genuine or meaningful. Coming from a significant other hearing “I love you” sounds better. What do you do when someone in the room has b.o.? Try to avoid the smell somehow or get further away. I might spray some perfume on myself or use something else scented like a lotion or hand sanitizer to try and mask it a bit. What movie would you like to see right now? I want to know what’s happening with the new Candyman movie. I haven’t heard anything, but it was supposed to come out this month I thought. Obviously theaters are closed, but I wondered if they’d do a release to rent at home like they did with some other movies. What do you think of the name Chloe? It’s cute. Do you like Hollister? I had a brief phase where I was into it when I was younger. It’s way overpriced. What’s your favorite alcoholic drink? None. Do you like 80’s music? Yeah. Do you have to wear glasses or have contacts? I wear glasses. Do you play Halo or Gears of War? Nope. How do you feel about cleaning? It’s not something I enjoy, it’s just one of those things ya gotta do. Do you like the movie Grease? Yeah. Do you like singing? Yeah. Too bad I’m not any good.

What’s your favorite Jim Carrey movie? Probably The Truman Show. There’s a knock at your door at 4 in the morning; what do you do? Uh, I’d be freaking out if someone knocked on our door at 4 in the morning. Do you like peaches? “What’s really in the teaches of peaches?” Ever lost a best friend? Yeah. I’ve lost a few.

Ever heard of a town called Wadena? Nope. Have you ever been to a funeral? I’ve been to 3. What’s your favorite sport? None. Do you like your parents? Yes. I love my parents. I was blessed with the best. What do you think about Minnesota? Never given it much thought. Do/did you like high school? It had its ups and downs. It wasn’t all bad, I liked some of it. My last 2 years were better than the first two. Do you have any Asian friends? I don’t have any friends. Is it cold where you live? No, it’s getting very summer-like here already and I hate it. Do you find accents attractive? Some of them. Would you ever let your boyfriend/girlfriend do your makeup? If I had one I would do that for fun. Do you like to shop? Yeah, I like online shopping especially. I haven’t done much shopping these days, though. How long are you on the computer during a 24 hour period? I spend the most time on it at night. During the day I’m on my phone more. Is money really that important? It is. :/ Have you ever broken a bone? Yes. Who is your favorite family member? All of them. What size bed do you have? A full. What age do you want to be married? I don’t. What’s the last thing your wrote? A grocery list. What do you think of your town? It’s shitty. When’s the last time you played hide & go seek? I play with my doggo sometimes, ha.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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neshabeingchildish · 5 years

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14. College Wasteland

So, somebody was recently asking me about these kiddos’ jealousy culture and whatnots and it just so happens and we get to see some of that in this chapter! Granted, a lot of this is zodiac information that I swiped from the web and forgot to cite. Not tryna plagiarize. Got ‘em in quotations.

This is the longest chapter that I’ve written in this story, I think. I wasn’t tryna, but it was actually gonna be LONGER, and I wound up separating it. But... Chile, Idk how y’all gon’ take this one.

College Wasteland

Freshman Year.

Jasper and Charlotte were going to the same college, but on different “campuses.” Honestly, she felt like this entire community was part of the college and even though there were a few blocks between where they studied, in between were really just dorms, apartments, college houses, and businesses that college students frequented. He was more on the outskirts of town and she was towards the center.

At the beginning of the semester, Charlotte already had her things moved into the dormitory that her scholarships were paying for. She was able to get in, unpack, settle in, bless the place and decorate before Jasper even figured out where he would be able to stay. He, too, was in a dorm, but one of the ones that people often rumored about how terrible they were, etc. It was all that he could currently afford, and he’d have to get to work very quickly if he wanted to be able to survive another semester!

“The Leo man craves fun and excitement and nothing is more displeasing than being home alone or with one other person."

Jasper honestly didn’t feel above any particular type of work. He was willing to try anything, if it meant that he could buy all of his books for class and still eat regularly. He figured that his tuition and lodging were probably the most important, so that was what he paid first, then he remembered that he might need supplies, and he didn’t even fathom the cost of books. Like… for what purpose? How could ANY book be worth what these were???

“Do you need help with anything?” Charlotte had asked him, a hint of concern in her voice as she stared at her worn out lover, this being the first time she’d been able to actually see him in a couple of weeks.

“No!” He said and laughed, shaking his head. He needed help with everything. But, he’d be damned if he told Charlotte that and made her worry, or worst - feel bad for him. “I’m just tired and I’ve missed you,” he told her (which was true, even if it wasn’t the whole truth).

“I’m sorry. I’ve tried to free up some time for us, but I put our schedules in my calendar and it’s a biweekly, sometimes monthly match up possibility at best, for like, this entire semester.” They both frowned, until she changed the subject, “Have you talked to Henry?” She asked, a little more cheerfully.

“Have I talked to Henry? I’ve hardly been able to talk to you! Have you talked to him?”

“Yes. We have free Wednesday nights, after I’m done with my lab, so that’s the time that we have scheduled our phone calls. I’m thinking I’ll probably head home every other weekend, for right now. Until I’ve adjusted, more, to being away. What do you think?”

He shrugged his shoulders, “I’m working every weekend, so I can’t come along. But, tell everybody that I said ‘hey.”

“You know… You could try to call them?” She held out her hands in a shrug. Jasper seemed a little moody or something. Maybe he was homesick. Maybe he missed Henry, the Man Cave, hell, maybe he missed his mom. She didn’t know for sure, because he wasn’t telling her something.

“Yeah, I know. I just don’t really have anything to say, yet. I’m working two part time jobs, pledging to a fraternity, getting my ass handed to me by entry level college classes…” He shut up abruptly. He didn’t want to spend what little time he had with Charlotte whining. But, he must’ve needed to vent, because he couldn’t help but to mutter, “Maybe, I’ve overshot my capabilities with this.” She furrowed her eyebrows and he immediately regretted admitting that.

“I don’t think that you did. I think that you’re selling yourself short right now, though. What are you having problems with? I can help you study!”

“You just said like 10 minutes ago that you’d only be able to see me like once every two or three weeks!”

“Can you only study with people in person? I was gonna do so over the phone or video call or something. You can even send me images of your chapter pages (or lend me your book) and I can notate what you’ll most likely be expected to know.”

“That… Sounds like you putting a lot into me not failing.”

“Maybe. But, I mean… If you fail, we fail. We’re a team, still, right?” She made a pouting face and he melted against her.

“Of course. Char… I’m… Everything’s not okay...”

She nodded her head and stroked his hair with her fingertips as he rested on her tiny shoulder. “I could tell. But… You know that it’s gonna be okay, right? You don’t have to do any of this by yourself, Jasper. I’m busy, but I can figure out how to make time for you.” He squeezed her tightly and then actually fell asleep in the cafe, on her shoulder. He hadn’t really slept well since they’d been in college and he never got the chance to lay down with her anymore and well… *Snore sounds*

"During Happy times the Leo man can bring out the most of loving side of the Taurus woman and he can boost her confidence and self-esteem too. She in turn can offer him some grounded common sense for his more airy fairy grandiose plans and she supports him through thick and thin."

Yes, Jasper worked every weekend. He did overnight stocking at a home improvement store every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. Yes, he also had classes on Monday mornings, and yes, he also had pledge things taking place during this time. His other job was simpler. He cleaned up at a tattoo shop right outside of campus Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Fortunately, all of his classes were on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

SO, if he got himself some sleep late Monday night, he slept well into Tuesday. He also slept late Wednesday, into Thursday, and a few hours on Thursday night between closing the tattoo shop and Friday morning class, and a few hours Friday afternoon until his nighttime shift on Friday. Saturday mornings he slept unless he was asked to pick up a few hours at the tattoo shop. Sunday, he HAD to sleep all day, because once he got up for his night shift, he wasn’t even going to see his bed again until the following night.

Charlotte had planned to spend every other weekend in Swellview, but the weekends that she stayed around campus, she asked Jasper if she could come over. He’d be asleep, but if he really wanted to sleep well, he’d NEED her there. Plus… they really didn’t get that much time together, considering how close they lived to each other. Her first few visits, she was most concerned with the condition of his dorm. Not in the way that people rumored about - the crime in the neighborhood, or the alleged pests, and slow management. But… It was a mess.

When she got there on Friday, he’d told her that he’d be awake and waiting for her. He was asleep and she was fine with that. He needed that sleep, based upon his terrible schedule that she’d tried to talk him out of. She began to pick up his things and place them in mplaces that made the most sense to her. He didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason to this mess, but knowing Jasper, he probably did, or at least had gotten used to it and controlled the chaos mentally, somehow.

While she was cleaning, she accidentally woke up his computer and saw several open tabs of payments that he’d made, and a calendar where he was trying to figure out when to pay what. She took a seat in front of the screen and began to study the tabs and make some notes. She was there for a while, and eventually got up and finished cleaning. She returned to the computer a few more times along the way.

Jasper’s alarm sounded on his phone and he jumped up and gasped when he saw a clean, organized room and desk. Charlotte came from the bathroom, cleaned up and a little dolled up, but in night clothes. “Hey, Sleepyhead,” she said, positively glowing as she sat down next to him.

Jasper shook his head, “I’m so sorry that I fell asleep and we didn’t really get to spend any time together!”

“I expected you to fall to sleep. It’s good, Jasper. I had a chance to get some things done for you that I suppose you haven’t had the energy to do.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that too. I should’ve cleaned up before saying you could come over. My punishment is now I probably won’t know where any of my stuff is.”

“It’s in places that make perfectly good sense, but since I presumed that what makes sense to you is likely different from me, I made you a list.” She pointed to the computer. He mouthed a thank you to the skies. “I also got all up in your financial business.” He frowned. “Jasper, before we started dating, you’d ask me for help with anything in the world, from popping pimples to feeling how sweaty you are. I’m not sure why you didn’t want to come to me for help with this, but whatever your reasons, I made some decisions for you. I set up a budget for you based upon what you have to pay and what you make. I set everything to automatic withdrawals from your account on dates that made the most sense. I also signed you back up for that text therapy, because you can afford it and you need it, so if that’s too much of an issue, I’ll just wire you the total every time. If you won’t talk to me, I need to know that you’ll talk to someone. Plus, I arranged for weekly grocery deliveries. There’s a co-op place on campus that puts together nutritious grocery lists and you can add on or take away whatever they have for a certain additional fee. They deliver it to you at your convenience each week, even if your time slot changes. You just need to let them know at least 24 hours before the delivery. And, I’ve also allocated a percentage of your checks to go into savings, too. On this budget, you still wind up with an additional $200 every paycheck for whatever else.”

“WHAT?”

“Yeah, you can afford to pay your bills, eat, put some into savings and still have $200 left over… if your schedule stays the way that it is for the rest of the semester with your current pay. So… buy something nice for yourself or something. You deserve it.”

“No, you deserve it! Thank you for this. I wouldn’t have ever thought of that and I’ve just been eating on the run and buying the cheapest of everything whatsoever and…” He pulled her to him and kissed her.

“So, did I earn a little… something…?” She gave him the look and he knew it was about to be ON before his shift tonight. She deserved it.

"The Taurus woman can be very possessive in love and quite jealous, but the Leo man doesn't mind this. In fact, probably enjoys it and finds it flattering. In reality he is unlikely to stray far which is reassuring for the Taurus woman who is seeking stability and commitment."

The twelve weeks that Jasper was pledging to his father’s old fraternity was hell. Not even because of the frat, but because of his personal life. He had gotten a little depressed working as hard as he worked and after a while, wanted to at least do something fun. So, he asked the tattoo shop owner about possibly becoming an apprentice. He was told to create a portfolio and after that, his boss would decide.

Jasper worked on some sketches in his little free time (usually at the shop whenever he didn’t really have much cleaning to do), and whenever Charlotte came over on his weekends, he drew different designs on her. “Jasper, this isn’t the same thing. Drawing on skin with a pen isn’t the same as when you’re drawing into someone’s skin with a needle…”

“I know. I just need to practice what I can,” he said. Charlotte ended up with all kinds of tattoo sketch potentials on her body over the weeks.

She was in Swellview and Henry nearly passed out, “WHAT is that???” He wondered. She looked in the direction of his eyesight and saw the orisha goddess she’d requested on her side, peeking out.

She laughed and raised her shirt a little more to show him. “Have you not been paying any attention to Jasper’s twitflash? He’s been using me as a canvas to practice sketches for a portfolio to be a tattoo apprentice.”

“That’s what those were? I didn’t really understand what I was looking at.” He opened the app to go check it out and wound up going through liking every single one of them.

“The apprenticeship would be unpaid, of course, but I’m hoping that he gets it, because once he gets a license, he’d be able to possibly make a lot of money. College kids are always at that tattoo shop.”

“Yeah, these photos have a lot of comments about how people want him to do theirs whenever they get one,” Henry said.

“People, or girls?”

Henry laughed, “Aren’t girls people?” She rolled her eyes. “Uh oh, I feel like I missed something.”

“So. He’s past pledging now and living in the frat house. It’s a little cheaper than his sucky dorm that he was in, so I’m glad for that. Plus, it’s more space there for him, despite all the guys that live there. Now, all of a sudden, all these women know who he is and they just… irritate me, is all.”

“That’s all?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, then.” She could tell from Henry’s face that he knew that wasn’t the case, but he didn’t press, so she spilled it herself.

Basically, during Hell Week, Jasper and other pledges were moving their things into the frat house wearing nothing but loincloths and sandals. Their sister sorority came out to ogle them and make unnecessary comments and whatnot and post pics and videos on their socmed. Charlotte never really got into the frat boy stuff that Jasper was doing, because it was frat boy stuff and she wasn’t interested. However, as Jasper is Jasper, of course, some manner of calamity has to follow him around. This particular event it manifested itself in the form of a wardrobe malfunction while he was carrying a box. Several frat brothers expressed that it would be illegal to post any images of said malfunction, though everyone present had a good laugh about it, and at least 30 girls got a good eyeful as he had to set the box down then figure out how to get that little piece of cloth back around his junk… which Charlotte discovered from all the upcoming whispers is pretty nicely sized.

She didn’t have anything to compare it to, so she figured that the size was great to her, but for some reason, other people knowing what he was working with and the increase of a following that he got afterwards, unnerved her. He always had women sliding into his DMs now and he laughed it off, but she knew that he liked the attention and it frustrated her that he did.

She wasn’t trying to be that way, but in her mind, what Jasper had was hers and she felt like she needed to reinforce that to others on several occasions. Whenever the sister sorority pledges had Mingle Night and Jasper had to take off work on the weekend to attend, she was frustrated that he could find it in him to ask for time off for that, but not to go to Swellview with her, any of the trips that she had made. She made one comment about it, but wouldn’t dwell on it, at least not out loud, anyway.

She usually skipped parties, so the time that he would make for social events, she either had to tough out a crowd of people that she didn’t really care for, or wonder how his night was going and who was taking up his time and space throughout the course of it. She was the one who had to try to make more time for them. She asked Henry if it was possible for him to visit them, for a change in October and it became a practice for her to visit Swellview once a month and Henry to visit them once a month. (Henry rarely saw Jasper whenever he did visit, though.

“Where are we going?” He’d asked as they were heading deeper into the campus.

“The outer gym,” she said.

“The outer gym?” Henry repeated.

“Yeah. Jasper has Dodge-a-leen training, then kite disc practice. He’ll be happy to see you!” Henry made a confused face, because did she say “kite disc” practice? “Dude, you really ought to at least glance at Jasper’s social media at some point.”

“I don’t even really have the time to glance at mine! I’ve been in college, too, Dude. Studying to try to be the heir to Junk N Stuff, plus training hard and working nonstop to take up the Man Cave duties. I only study during the week, sometimes on missions, because my time is so pressed. I do most of the night patrolling by myself. If you hadn’t set a call schedule for us, I’d probably talk to you just as much as I get to talk to Jasper… HELLO!” He said upon coming to the crowded seating area and seeing a bunch of pretty ladies in the bleachers. Some of them had on practice uniforms - cheerleaders, drill team, pep squad, etc. They were practicing, or having meetings. Others just seemed to be there.

“Our spot is over here,” Charlotte said. She had a spot. It was where several of the “alternative sports” fans sat. Alternative sports was what they were calling what Charlotte thought of as “fake sports” or at the very least “sweaty games.” Like Dodge-a-leen, which should not exist, in her opinion, but did and had an entire team that would go to competitions, representing the school. Jasper met a girl that he did a tattoo for who played something called kite disc, which was like frisbee playing, but with a damned kite attached to the discs. Players had to fly the kite and throw the disc to a partner, who in turn had to do the same. She hated it. But, Jasper immediately loved it, joined the growing league and fought for a team to be formed on the campus. She still couldn’t tell if she was impressed or something else about it.

As they settled into her spot, she asked Henry, “So, if you haven’t talked to Jasper, I guess he hasn’t told you about his new best friend?” She pointed at a tall, blond girl who was getting the equipment ready for kite disc practice while the Dodge-a-leen team was practicing several yards away. The blond girl waved at Charlotte and she waved back, hoping that her stank face wasn’t on.

“Um, no. Jasper has no new best friend, but whoever that is, is hot.” Henry admitted. Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Who is she?”

“They call her Ghost. Jasper calls her Casper, because he says that she’s a “friendly ghost.” She’s an athlete here. She loves kites and discs, so whenever kite disc was created, she jumped in and she’s the reason that Jasper took on another fake sport, despite his already busy schedule. They’re together A LOT. Jasper and Casper. Everyone knows he has a girlfriend, but most people think that’s her.”

Henry laughed, then apologized. “Well, do you like her? Is she good people?”

“She’s okay, I guess. I don’t really know much about her. She always tries to be really nice. She loves all the photos that Jasper posts of me and she seems to happy to see me whenever we cross paths. But… She’s super close with my boyfriend, you know? And I know that shouldn’t bother me, because Jasper is capable of having a platonic friendship with a woman in very close proximity. We did that for YEARS, but, then again… it eventually grew into something else and now, even that is… changing.” She said the last word so sadly that it startled Henry and he looked at her, watching Jasper, sweaty and pouring water down his throat now that Dodge-a-leen practice was ending.

“Hey… You two alright?” Henry wondered. She shrugged her shoulders. He felt bad that he didn’t know more about this. These were supposed to be his two best friends, and while he was grateful that he still had regular contact with one of them (he and Jasper did talk, but only in small intervals, or very spaced out conversations, the last one being weeks ago). Jasper was rushing over to Casper. They hugged and immediately started talking and laughing. Hello hugs, huh? Henry couldn’t say that was weird, not knowing whatever changes Jasper had made and not knowing Casper, at all. But, she pointed over to where they were and Jasper only just noticed him. He felt a way about that. Jasper smiled and came rushing over to greet him.

“Henry!” He cheered. “What are you doing here?” He didn’t hug Charlotte, Henry noticed, but maybe that was because he was all sweaty. But… he was all sweaty when he hugged that other girl. Maybe she didn’t mind?

“Ummm… Visiting. You took my friend’s Swellview visits away, so I gotta come all the way here to see her and I guess you too,” he joked.

Jasper looked like there was a slight flinch in his face for a moment, then he nodded and said, “I’m glad you’re here. Where are you gonna sleep?”

“Char’s dorm,” Henry said.

Now, Jasper definitely looked a way. “There’s more room in the frat house. You’re perfectly welcome to crash there.” Charlotte and Henry both looked surprised by that suggestion. He noticed and expounded, “I know we’re all friends, but we’re also grown, Bro. I don’t really want you and my girlfriend sleeping in the same bed.” He shrugged his shoulders and kissed her on the nose. “I gotta get back. We’ll talk after.” He rushed down the bleachers and back to the field and Henry was still stunned.

“Was… was he serious?” Henry asked. “You and me have been sharing a bed since before you even felt comfortable using the word ‘friend’ to describe him and now he wants to call dibs or something?”

She sighed and shrugged her shoulders, “I mean, I guess he has a point, but it’s not like with me and you anything would ever happen.”

“Right. Even if either of us was remotely attracted to the other, neither of us would do that to him, or to our friendship! The nerve of him to suggest it, meanwhile, he’s giving that one girl sweaty hugs in front of everybody, knowing that you’re jealous of her and that people think that she’s his girlfriend!”

Charlotte scoffed, “What do you mean, I’m jealous of her?”

“Don’t try to play me, Dude. I saw it within five minutes.”

She flared her nostrils. He was right. “Well, you know… Jasper doesn’t always see the things that we see. He’s you know… innocent in a way. Well, innocent isn’t the right word. Naive.”

“He thinks because the ladies gossip about his big old thang he’s gotta come over here swinging it around?” Charlotte wanted to greet that comment with disdain, but she laughed, in spite of herself. Henry stood up, gesturing swinging around a big… package… and saying, “Don’t get in bed with my girlfriend like you’ve been doing for most of your life. Sleep thirty minutes away at the jock campus for less smart people in the institution…”

“Henry, stop!” Charlotte said, suddenly not enjoying it anymore. “This is their campus! And… that’s not even entirely true. This isn’t a movie, Guy. If you wanna stay in college or on a team, even a fake sports team, you’ve gotta make the grades. Jasper has excellent grades. He’s on the dean’s list, here.” Henry stopped and sat down, looking confused. “I help him study with the stuff he doesn’t get and the stuff that he does get, he tends to take in right away, so…”

“You help him study science and math, right? And the dude that once said batteries was gonna be the next power source is on the dean’s list?” Henry asked.

“Why do you do this to him?” Charlotte asked.

“What do I do?”

“You act like he’s stupider than what he is. He’s your best friend and you’re talking about him like he’s some brute that knocked into you at a bar.”

“I think that you’re maybe getting defensive. I was just fooling around. I love Jasp, you know that. It was honest fun. I’d pick with him the same way.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t like that. You know what he likes? Whenever people tell him he’s great and awesome and they love to just be around him and don’t fuss at him for getting sweat on them in his excitement to see them or crack jokes on stupid stuff that he’s said impulsively, because he thought he had to answer right away. He’s… already replacing you, Hen. For all we know, he’s already replacing me.” She messed with her fingertips. “He’s not as… interested as he used to be… in… you know…” Henry frowned. He was always interested in that area of their lives, but he certainly didn’t want to dive into it when they were having problems. “And I can’t help but wonder if it’s because here, I’M the lucky one. Here, he’s a budding superstar. Everyone loves him. He’s the life of the party, the heart of the team… I’m his uptight girlfriend who gets mistaken as his tutor, like all of the time, even with some of his frat brothers.” She laughed a little, then wiped her eyes, feeling silly for feeling how she felt.

“Have you talked to him about this?”

“Not in these exact words. Because, they sound pathetic, right? I’m out here at practices for stuff I don’t care about, just to get to spend more time with him. He has a ton of people to spend time with. I haven’t made one friend since I got here. I mean… I’ve already got TWO! I didn’t think I needed to add any, but he stays adding them in. Adding so many, I can’t even figure out where I fit anymore…” She felt like she was going to start crying and looked like it, so Henry sat next to her and wrapped an arm around her to pull her in, in case she needed that. Jasper noticed, from the field and missed catching a disc, which the kite was taking away, into the sky. He quickly caught himself and grabbed a grounding shot (it was just a sticky ball, heavier than the kite that if you threw it and it stuck to the disc, it weighed it down enough to bring it back. He got it, then he looked at Henry and Charlotte again, frustrated.

Intimate relationships between Leo men and Taurus women can be a flip of the coin. Either or troubled, and not for lack of effort. The innate stubbornness of both signs tends to rear its ugly head here most frequently.

If Henry was staying at Charlotte’s, so was Jasper, or if he had to ask Charlotte to stay over at the frat house to get Henry to stay, whatever, he wasn’t gonna leave them alone together, though. Charlotte had been insecure lately. Jasper, to the best of his ability, tried to reassure her that he wasn’t interested in any other women and that he wasn’t “tired of” her. That was a ridiculous thought. Had their sex life been less powerful than when they first started? Well.. Yes, but both of them were extremely busy and they really were just kind of squeezing in sexual stuff where they could fit it. Plus, he felt like she was just doing it nowadays to thwart him from cheating or looking around - stuff he wasn’t gonna do, anyway.

The best that it got for them was study sessions. Charlotte would make mock tests to help him study and they were multiple choice, which he answered by touching her in certain places. It was an amazing way to recall the information. He spent tests thinking about how it felt to touch her body and look into her eyes whenever she said an answer was correct and honestly… it was how he wound up getting all A’s now. He’d never been able to do so in the past. He’d make A’s in stuff he understood and be so far off on the stuff that he didn’t understand that his mother thought that he was either cheating in most of his classes, or “mentally retarded at math and science,” which he had to repeatedly tell her wasn’t appropriate and not actually a thing. Charlotte had convinced him to take an aptitude test their junior year, but he got nervous and felt so weird about it that the results weren’t accurate.

She got him to take another their senior year, at the end of the year and it was actually pretty helpful and put his talents into perspective. It made him more confident about finding some direction. Charlotte always added to his life and enhanced it. He didn’t know what condition he would be in without her. He seriously thought that if they weren’t together, he might be one of those people who was so filled with excitement and fervor who went into the world, got beat down and lost the light in their eyes. Instead, she magnified it. And yes, other people were noticing him, other women… but, he couldn’t understand why she would think that would mean that he would notice them.

She still also had time for Henry. He hadn’t been able to squeeze their best friend into his schedule, but figured that they both drifting away from him. Now, he felt like he was the one drifting away from them, and if he wasn’t careful, Charlotte might wind up being Henry’s light, instead. “That’s crazy!” He told himself, brushing his teeth in the locker room after his shower. “That’s crazy.” But, if there was one man that he feared MIGHT be able to get Char’s attention, it was Henry. He didn’t like feeling that way, because he wasn’t a jealous person, at all. In fact, Charlotte had accused him of not even caring if guys flirted with her (which technically, he didn’t) because he figured that it was the same for her as for him - nonfactors. It was only when she looked uncomfortable or like she might be being harrassed that he usually jumped in, ready to defend her space and her comfort. Jasper wasn’t a jealous person, no. But, he was extremely protective, especially of her. He wasn’t a jealous person, until it came to Henry and her. He wasn’t sure when it started, but whenever he saw them together, still happy to see each other. Still having fun, something possessive and territorial was stirred up in him.

He remembered things that he hadn’t really thought about in years or cared much about whenever he had thought about them - how people used to always think they were together, how they were friends almost automatically and he tried to become friends with Charlotte because he was scared she might steal his best friend. Even though she didn’t like him and never regarded him with warmth, he took a liking to her because she was Henry’s friend, therefore, they had to be friends or he might not be able to spend as much time with Henry! And then there were the dreams that they were having about each other shortly before she and Jasper became a thing. He never knew for sure if Henry didn’t actually have some feelings for her, the way that he kept trying to butt in when they were building their foundation. Now, they were on some shaky ground and Jasper just felt uncomfortable with Henry being there, with them like this.

He was overcompensating. He knew it, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Charlotte… didn’t seem as flattered as he was whenever she was acting crazy over him, but she didn’t call him out, either. She just sort of gave him disapproving looks and rubbed his shoulders a lot to smooth him over. Henry was another story. They bickered about his behavior, then they went on to bicker about the time that they weren’t spending together, and it eventually got to the point where Jasper said, “Our entire lives, I’ve had to be the one to always reach out to you, to come to you, to back you up and support you and be your friend. So, I decided that I was gonna focus on me a little bit more and you know what happened, Henry? We stopped being friends, because you can’t even be bothered to toss me a like on Twitflash and if I don’t call you first, THIS is what we have. We didn’t drift apart. I stopped reaching out to you and now you’re seeing just how much I was the one doing so.” Jasper’s fists were clenched and he added, “Charlotte’s the only person who ever makes an effort for me, and just… Don’t try to get in the way of that, okay?”

Henry was floored. Why would he ever try to…? Jasper got up, eyes red and damp, embarrassed and worried about how Charlotte would take that outburst. “I’m gonna go ahead and get out of your way and stop ruining everyone's good time. Call me when you get home safe.” He dared a kiss on her cheek, but she was looking stunned, still. She followed him outside. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say all of that…”

She shook her head and threw her hands into the air, “Jasper… I understand that you’re doing a lot of finding yourself and maybe that means that you and Hen don’t make it, but… I have to admit that I’m insulted that you for whatever reason think that I don’t have any autonomy in our friendship. Henry can’t get in the way of what goals I set for myself. Henry can’t damage something if it’s something that I’m working on, and whatever issues that you have with Henry, you two can try to talk out, but leave me out of it. I’m not taking any sides of something that I have nothing to do with, with two people that I love. It’s not fair.”

“I said I’m sorry, Char. I’m tired. I have to go home and get some sleep.”

“Okay,” she said, sounding and feeling defeated. Jasper gave her a hug. A desperate, tight, but soft thing that she sank into and just wanted to vanish with him inside of. But, then it was over and he was walking away. She felt like he probably needed her to go with him and stay with him, but Henry was inside and he was the one who had traveled the three hours to see her when Jasper most of the time didn’t travel the 30 minutes to do the same. She stayed with Henry and apologized for whatever that was. He brushed it off and insisted that he’d just do better, be a better friend. But, whenever he’d reach out to Jasper after that night, he was less available than before.

By the summer break, Jasper was definitely taking summer off of school, unlike Charlotte, who not only still had classes, but classes everyday. Henry wasn’t taking summer classes, either. Both of them had a chance to squash everything. In fact, Charlotte suggested that Jasper spend some time in Swellview, since he’d have more time. But, Jasper didn’t want to leave her when he finally had time to work on them. So, he was working and saving up for the upcoming semester, summer training for his alternative sports teams, doing community stuff with his fraternity since he was staying in the house but not in classes, and doing his apprenticeship too. His art was getting good. And people were super into getting free tats from Jasper Dunlop, aka Big Dog. Charlotte had gotten more used to sharing him with a fan base.

He began vlogging whenever he started his apprenticeship and called his channel ExJasperation, but still would use it if he ever decided to go back to podcasts. He talked about his friends, his frat brothers, his girlfriend. Charlotte didn’t make the time to watch his channel, but she’d hear things about it whenever she was on the other campus, or in the frat house. She got used to sharing him with an audience. He enjoyed being noticed. He enjoyed the limelight. She just had to shrink back a little, to make sure that she didn’t wind up in it. She didn’t care too much for that. Not in these settings, at least.

She was doing great in her academic circles, though. Not getting close to people. It was more like being in a room full of loners who loved their fields of work and could muster up the energy to talk about that for a while, then go back to their own devices. Even her calls with Henry decreased and visits became less doable, too. Sophomore year, they spoke less and saw each other occasionally. Junior year… seldom. And Jasper hadn’t really seen or talked to Henry at all, not including a few likes and comments on their social media every now and then.

Junior year marked a lot of significant changes, for all three of them.

#A Chasper Fic #chasper #henry danger #hd fanfic #Nesha HD Fics

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thesydneyfeminists · 6 years

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Mid-Autumn Festival and Women

By Vee H

Mid-Autumn Festival (Moon Festival, Lantern Festival, etc. – call it what you like, it goes by different names in different cultures) has always held a special place in my heart. Growing up, I never knew the proper name for it, I just knew it as the time when my mum would start bringing home mooncake. Mooncake in our family kitchen never symbolised the end of a harvest year to me. Rather, it was my signal that a big party would soon follow, with various aunts and uncles (not actually related to me). Not as exciting as Lunar New Year – no âng-pau (red packets) at this party. Instead, this was more like a big feast (admittedly, every sort of party with my mum’s friends was a big feast, this one just happened to have mooncake to differentiate it). This year, it fell on the Monday just passed, September 24, and true to form, I celebrated with too much mooncake for one person to consume.

For those who have no idea what Mid-Autumn Festival even is (and apologies for my shoddy recollection and story telling for those who do know), I’ll try and summarise as best I can (with a little help from my friend SK, who spoke with her grandmother to find out the Chinese folklore). Basically, the story is that a woman named Chang’E was married to this dude, Hou Yi, and he was considered a hero because he shot down nine of the ten suns (which were scorching the Earth). As a reward for his good deed, he was given an elixir so he could live forever. So anyway, one day, when Hou Yi is away, his apprentice Pengmeng breaks into their house and tries to force Chang’E to give him the elixir, and she refuses and drinks it for herself. She then becomes a Goddess and flies upwards towards the heavens, and chooses the moon as a place to live. So she’s up there with a rabbit (I’ve no idea where this rabbit came from) for company, and it’s constantly pounding the elixir of life for her (Chinese folklore) or rice cakes (in the Japanese and Korean versions of the story). Anyway, Hou Yi comes home and discovers what happened, and he’s devastated that his wife is gone. But as he looks to the sky to call out her name, he sees the moon and notices how bright and full it is, and he sees the face of Chang’E. So he then brings out her favourite cakes to pray for blessings from heaven, which is where mooncakes got their origin. Basically, at the end of all of that, it’s like Asian Thanksgiving, but with a pretty story.

Chang’E and her rabbit

The festival generally starts a few days before the actual date with all the preparation. SK’s mother told a story of when she was a young girl and her grandmother would start praying in the middle of the night when the moon wasn’t completely full yet (the festival stems from the harvest, and praying ensures good crops). She would pray to the ancestors and the Gods for a good harvest that year, then the next day, she’d make rice cakes and mooncakes. Because their family had been especially poor, the women would all go into town and buy fabric to make one good outfit for the day, and to get their hair and eyebrows done. Every woman and child from the same stretch of street would end up sitting in someone’s courtyard (usually whoever had the biggest) and roll tang yuan (rice balls cooked in water with peanut sauce, filled with red bean, or peanuts and sugar) and they’d spend the day together cooking and gossiping. That night, they’d eat mooncakes and have a feast with their families (only with family). Then after dinner, they’d take a lantern and climb the mountain to the temple and pray with incense for a good harvest.

Mooncake!

For me, personally, my memories are a little bit more “Westernized” – most likely a result of growing up in a half Malaysian, half Australian household. A few days before our big party, my mum would gather my sister, my dad and I to clean the house, while she went and did the food shopping. After that, the real work began, hand rolling dumplings (we did this three times a year: Christmas, Lunar New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival – as a result, I can make 200 dumplings in just over an hour and probably have early onset arthritis), and helping mum prepare the rest of the food. Thankfully, we outsourced the mooncake (a sweet pastry filled with lotus paste/red bean – so named for the salted egg yolk inside, which represented the moon) and it was store bought. Then, we’d decorate our house with paper lanterns (traditionally, lanterns symbolised fertility but these days they’re mostly decorative and more or less symbolise the actual festival), and set up the food offering to the ancestors and deities (in my house we more or less made a fancy fruit platter with whatever was in season, but always included pomelos). Then on the actual day of the festival, we’d have mum’s friends and family over for the big feast (the 200+ dumplings I lovingly rolled by hand).

Lanterns

So, what does any of this have to do with women, you may ask? In one regard, simply put (from SK), festivals wouldn’t really happen without the women making them happen, particularly with the cooking and preparation they do. Certainly, from my own experience, Mid-Autumn Festival was always a time of family, of time spent with my mum and hearing her tell stories of how she celebrated with her family in Malaysia. In another, the moon has long been associated with women (to do with menstrual cycles and tides, you know the drill). Moreover, the story of how Mid-Autumn Festival came to be is really the story of Chang’E, her quick thinking and refusal to give in to a thief, and her subsequent transformation into a Goddess of the moon.

Next year, the festival falls on Friday, September 13, so if you start seeing lanterns and mooncakes appearing in local Asian grocery stores, spare a thought for the women in these cultures, the women who are the lifeblood of all the different festivals like this one – who make sure their family is well fed, who pray to the ancestors and leave offerings for a good harvest. Think of poor kids like me, who were woken up at the crack of dawn to hand roll dumplings or help prepare other dishes. And when you look at the moon, think of Chang’E, and her rabbit companion – and honestly, living alone on the moon with a rabbit sounds so peaceful and heavenly. Anyone know where I can find an elixir of immortality?

Sources:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-mid-autumn-moon-festival-and-the-lady-of-the-moon_292666.html

Image sources:

1. Chang’E and the moon - http://english.gov.cn/news/2014/10/06/content_281474992818307.htm

2. The other photos were taken by the author at this year’s Mid-Autumn festival.

#women #feminism #feminist #intersectional feminist #intersectional feminism #intersectionality #festival #mid-autumn festival #mid-autumn #moon #Chang'E #Goddess #moon goddess

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type-a-nomad · 7 years

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First Blog Post: Cape Town Day 1

Sunday Feb 11 2018

Growing Pains

I landed in Cape Town at 7:30am local time (CTT= Cape Town Time/ CT= Cape Town). Because I slept from SFO to Heathrow, I got little to no sleep from Heathrow to Cape Town, resulting in my accidental all-nighter from 11:30pm CTT. Everything is sort of hazy and out of whack. It seems like everything that could have gone slightly wrong, has gone slightly wrong. Or, at least, very far from the expected result. The first of these instances was in the CT airport. There was a driver that was supposed to meet me at 8am CTT and by 8:20am I was starting to feel quite nervous, as it is easy to direct my unease about the general situation of moving continents towards a short-term, tangible problem like my transportation. By this time, I am sweating from nerves and general physical exhaustion from hauling my duffle bag around looking for the guy who is supposed to have a sign directing me to him. Finally, I call the emergency number of the program I’m going through and they tell me to go to the information desk and wait for him to meet me there. So I do. Another 20 minutes later, all is well and my driver, Kyle, is blasting Lil’ Jon while speeding down the highway past the poorest parts of CT. There are thousands of houses made out of scrap metal. I saw roofs held onto structures by the weight of fractured concrete, wooden planks and sheets of tin propped up against each other, some structures were even two stories high. Then we were zooming through Cape Town, the first thing I saw was the prison, which was almost as depressing as the slums. But once we cleared the poorer outskirts, the water was visible and it was stunning. It was like the surface was covered in gold glitter it was sparkling so much. We stopped in front of a house in a rundown neighborhood, directly facing a large, white, and mostly windowless primary school. Kyle grabs my duffle bag out of the car (bless him) and dispassionately drops me and it at the front door of a dusty, brick-red house. I ring the doorbell as Kyle drives off. Nobody answers. After a minute, I ring again. Still, nobody answers. I reach past the metal grate blocking the wooden door and knock. I am starting to panic (again) and am knocking and ringing, feeling stranded and mildly disgusted at the dead, partially-squished rat I had to walk over to get to the door. 10 minutes pass. I am still frantically knocking. Then, I hear something. A short girl answers the door. She’s maybe 24, with a sleeve of tattoos- one of which is a large elephant with a very South African looking tree next to it. I introduce myself and she says her name is Cassie and she essentially runs the hostel. She takes me upstairs and shows me my room with three bunkbeds lining the walls, and a file-cabinet-like dresser against the fourth. The floor is covered in clothes and there is a girl sleeping in her underwear surrounded by around 5 half-empty fanta bottles and two sticky glasses with flat soda in them. I say hello and she makes no noise, clearly a bit irritated her sleep has been interrupted. Cassie tells me to meet her downstairs in a few minutes when I settle in. I sit down on the bed and basically curl up in a ball of confusion, anxiety, and relief. When I have taken some deep breaths, reapply deodorant, and listed things I am grateful for and things I want to learn, I hop down the dirty stairs in the dim house and find Cassie. She gives me a brief tour of the house and shows me how I have to shower in a bucket and then dump the bucket in a larger bucket. Then, when you want to take a number 2 you have to walk to the big bucket, fill up a small bucket with water, then find a way to dump the water in the small bucket into the toilet tank so you can flush. This is way harder than it sounds and it an extremely awkward process that is almost as stressful as it is embarrassing for me because if you grab the bucket everyone knows you aren't just going number 1. Most of my stress here hinges on the idea of making myself more embarrassed than I already am by fûcking up this process in one way (technically this whole extravaganza is called a grey-water system). After the somewhat unnerving house tour, I am starting to realize how incredibly foreign all of this is. Moving to and living in Florence was traveling to another country, Cape Town is another planet. Everything feels slightly uneasy when you walk down the streets. I felt very watched and distrustful of anyone around me because I had been warned so thoroughly about the impressive theft that was pulled off, even in broad daylight. Then, the first genuinely positive interaction of my day happens. Three girls, Jonna (Sweden), Ella (Sweden), and Natália (Brazil) say that they're gong to the beach and if I don’t have any plans I should come with them to get lunch and then go to the beach. The tight little ball in my chest loosens. We all go to the grocery store and upon our return, Cassie comes up to me and tells me that tomorrow I am moving to a HomeStay. My reaction is: “WHAAAT??!?!?!?!??!?!????”. I was NOT supposed to be at a Home-Stay and was clearly told by the volunteer service that I would be based at the volunteer hostel. I was completely caught off-guard and this was the LAST mix-up I would expect to happen. I make her double-check that it’s the right person she’s talking about and she confirms that yes, in fact my program is in an area much closer to the poorer neighborhoods, because those are the kids we are serving. Thus, I need to live close to them and that means living with a family. WHAT THE FÜCK? I regain my zen and try to just be a “go with the flow” kind of person, but I feel like a rock being unwillingly dragged down a river by the force of the water. After many minutes of mindful breathing and sunscreen application, we are in the uber to the beach. The beach is gorgeous. The South African Sun was incredibly intense. Even when applying several layers of thick sunscreen and sitting entirely in the shade, my skin was very offended I had decided to move to this continent. That being said, there were white fluffy sand, colored umbrellas, beautiful and tan, beachy South Africans everywhere, so I told my skin to shut up. My particular favorite of all my people-watching specimen was a 50-something woman in a hot pink bikini who was so freckled she passed it off as a deep tan. She had a lower back tattoo that said “Brooklyn Forever” in swirly writing, some Chinese characters on her back, a ring of thorns around her bicep, and a kiss mark on her lower right hip. Her small white lap dog came over and chilled on my towel while she drank some alcoholic beverage and told her four-year-old daughter to move out of her tanning chair because “I’m an ádult” (only self-important people say adult as aaaaadult). She also told her friend to “stay on the hunt”, when a 20 year old lifeguard passed and they both obviously checked him out, even though they were both wearing wedding rings and surrounded by their own children. From eavesdropping on their conversations I learned her name was Lisa, which fits all too well. I hang out with my new friends and learn lots of cool information. For example, Natalia has breast implants her boyfriend paid for as a present to her 5 months ago and is very happy to talk about them as a point of braggadocio (as it turns out, two americans in this volunteer hostel also have breast implants”. Ella has four tattoos, one of which is very large on her forearm that says “There is no progress without struggle”. She says she almost ran to the tattoo parlor on her 18th birthday to get it— but now she thinks it’s cliche. Jonna is amazed at my ability to recite facts I learned from various podcasts I listened during my unintentional all-nighter to Cape Town. For example, your likelihood of getting cancer increases by 40% if you average less than 7 hours of sleep per night over your lifetime. Cassie and her sister Ashley end up joining us. By that time I was entirely exhausted. My face was telling me it was time to get out of the sun even though I was in the shade, with a hat and sunscreen on. And, again, I was entirely exhausted so interaction with new people was a strain I was really not feeling. Finally, we call and uber and go back to the hostel. I cannot get the idea of the host family off of my mind as I am moving there tomorrow and have exactly no information on who they are, where they live, what the conditions will be, how many people live there, etc.. I decide the best way to ease my anxiety is to get something done. So, I go to the drug store down the street, Click-It. I buy around 10 items and when I’m checking out, the cashier does something very odd. He looks at me, smiles, and says “when you leave the alarm by the door might go off, just keep walking”. I kind of smile and then process what he’s really said, then process the fact that him and his female co-worker at the other register just smiled at each other clearly in regards to what he has just said. “Why” I ask. “Because I am not going to scan all the items they want me to scan. Don’t worry about it. Just keep walking”. At this point I’m like WHAT THE FÜCK IS GOING ON PART 2. Is he saying he is giving me some of my items for free? What on earth is happening. Well, then I go to pay with my Charles Schwab card that is supposed to be perfect and seamless to use and it’s DECLINED. So I pay with Wells Fargo and the world starts turning again. Right after I pick up my bag he reminds me “dont forget: DO NOT stop walking”. And Im like “Dude I just wanted my leave-in conditioner, I don’t need Mission-Impossible” But, whatever, I’m only 95% sure I can understand the gist of what he is saying because I am still having trouble understanding South African English accents. I scurry home, through the accusatorially beeping metal detector with my newly aquired, and possibly partially stolen goods and take my brief, bucket shower. Now, I am hiding in my top bunk, trying to collect myself and hide from human interaction because honestly, I’m getting close to being at wits-end. I am too overwhelmed to edit this so #nofilter yay I completed my first blog post. Happy First Day In South Africa, Bitches.

xoxo Q

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namxjun · 7 years

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Wolf EXO w/ their kids

So this is my first post on this page and this post was heavily inspired by me reading @exowolfblog ‘s posts! I’ve been obsessed with wolf!EXO recently and I’m so excited to be writing this!

Of course this is my interpretation so my ideas can be different from yours! And gifs are not mine!

Enjoy! <3

Xiumin/Minseok:

I can least say that our precious Xiu would have two kids. He would have a little boy, and his precious little girl. The boy would come first, his princess coming along two years later.

Xiumin would melt into a puddle the first time he would get to hold his pups. The little man would be so small compared to him and when he opens his eyes, Xiumin is forever hooked. Legit, he will be staring at him for hours just in amazement on how small he is.

Then after his prince grows older and some other members start having kids, Xiu gets into the baby fever again and you two are blessed with a little princess.

He is forever protective over them, through the pregnacy and all. He made sure you were always taken care of and he was always the one who got up at three in the morning to soothe the babes back to sleep.

And who knows, maybe there will be a third Kim on the way?

Luhan:

Our deer boy would have three kids, two boys and a girl. One of the boys would come first, three years later a little girl, then another boy a year later.

Luhan is putty in their little hands paws.

He's a bit freaked out at first when the first pup comes along. He was scared that he would mess up their lives up but as they're born and he takes care of them, he really deserves the title of 'The Best Dad in the World!' on his presents on Father's Day.

I have this headcanon with Lu playing with his kids hair. When the boys would be on his chest, he would play with their hair and massage their heads. He would do it without even noticing and it would gradually put the boys the boys sleep. Then when princess would be on his chest, he would do it to her and she would also fall asleep to it. It would become the best way of getting them asleep.

And he is forever having them outside. Whether it's them hunting, playing soccer, or even dragging sticks in the dirt, Lu is always out with his bby's.

And Luhan would be very protective. Any problem at school, dad's on it. A bully, dad's on it. He goes out of his way to make sure his pups are always happy and he can listen to their endless babble talk about nothing while they color.

Kris/Yifan:

Kris would have twin girls, and boy does his tough alpha male phyisic disappear in a snap. While I was typing this up, I could just imagine his little girls being his entire world.

When they're born, he's in so much awe, he can not take his eyes off of them. Then when he holds them and they look up at him, he turns into this pouty puppy and he sheds a few tears. He'll look at them, then to you, and he thanks his lucky stars that he has his own family.

He is SO PROTECTIVE over them. Being the leader of EXO-M, Kris would be the second alpha, so he would always make sure that his girls are safe and no wolf would try to take them and try to destroy him. Lowkey though, I can imagine Kris wrapping them up in four layers of clothes when they go out in the snow so they have no chance of getting cold even though they're basically walking furnaces.

They are also forever clinged onto his legs. They both turn into a giggly mess as he walks through the living room and he will willing do a whole tour of the house just so he can hear their giggles.

And he never can say no to his little girls. They're big doe eyes and pouty lips would be their biggest weapon and they get everything they want.

Suho/Junmyeon:

I imagine Suho having two sets of twins, the first set boys, and the second set being girls, and the sets being a year a part.

The second set would actually come as a surprise. All through the pregnancy, all the ultra-sounds only showed one bby and one heart beat but delivery day comes, they leave the hospital with two beautiful little girls.

The kids would be absolutly spoiled. It wouldn't matter if they were at the store or begging for another cookie before dinner, he would crack and would slip the extra cookie and as they get older they ban together against him so they’ll get whatever they want because they know he'll say yes.

Family cuddles are also very present in the Kim household. He loves his family so much he will lay there for hours just to tell you and the pups how much he loves you.

And Suho would buy the biggest king sized matress he could just so the babies would have their own wiggle room. The kids would gradually "sleep walk" into your and Suho's room and they would just wiggle their way in between you two, whining until they were wrapped up by one of you.

Smart ass kids. He would teach them basic skills when they were young whether it was how to fold clothes or how to make a fire with sticks, he would always have something new to teach them. And they can pick up instructions very easily.

Unless Uncle Jongin is teaching them how to dance.

Lay/Yixing:

Lay would have three kids. Two boys, being one year a part, then a girl who is three years a part from baby #2.

His boys are his little minime's. They would enheirit so much off of him and they would even pick up his habits in a snap.

The boys would be so hyper omg. Lay could come home with his eyes barely open, but when he steps through the door, those two crazy pups run across the house and cling onto his legs and suddenly sleep becomes a thing of the past. They can play and wrestle for hours on end and not be tired. And some days they would cuddle up on the couch and they would be asleep with them on his chest.

Then his little girl comes along. You dare look at her the wrong way, angry dad comes out. A bit more protective with her than he is the boys, but all for good reasons. "The only boys you need are your brothers."

She's forever on him too. Whether it's a piggy back ride or he's flat up in the middle of the bathroom hugging her, they're basically inseperable. She's also 100% okay with that.

Yixing just loves his kids so much and he always reminding them on how much he loves them and he is always praising you on what amazing wife/mate you are and how lucky and appreciative he is to you have how you brought him such amazing kids.

Baekhyun:

Our precious baby would have three babies. Two girls being two years a part then a boy being a year behind.

The sass is rEAl. The Byun kids are forever sassing Baek and their cousins, even picking up some adult language from uncle Kris.

They want to touch EV.ERY.THING. Whether they're little toddlers playing with their binkies or a picture frame of you and Baek from your wedding, they always have something in their hands. And lowkey destructive devils.

They're forever rough-housing and breaking something and teaming together to steal that extra cookie.

But over-all the sweetest kids you will ever see. Always helping mom with dinner, or helping their cousins with their homework, they are always there when you need them.

Head canon: baby #3 is such a momma's boy help.

SQUISHY CHEEKS FOR DAYS. Baek is forever squishing their cheeks, from day one to the first day of high school. "Dad, you're embarassing me!" "But I can't help it! They're so SQUISHY!!"

Chen/Jongdae:

The second member of the Beagle Line would have three kids, two girls and a boy. The girls would be a year a part and the boy would be two years behind.

His first born is litterally his best friend. As soon as she's able to control her form, she is out in the woods running with Dae and they're always going to town to pick up groceries. Basically if it involves moving anywhere, they're locked hip to hip.

Bby #2 is the definition of a daddy's girl. He always has to coach her to choose an ice cream flavor for he's always there to tie her shoes when she's gets too frustrated and she gets everything she wants.

Even though babe #1 is clingy to Dae, bby #2 is basically glued to him. But when Chen's baby boy comes around, he gets so soft. It's such a headcanon.

Even though Chen connects deeply with his girls, the first time babe #3 gets sick, reality hits him. When the bby gets sick, you're at work and Dae has to take care of him and he gets his sisters sick too.

The Kim kids are known for their display of affection and constantly wanting attention, but bby #3 takes that to a whole new level. He is fairly young when he gets sick and he wants nothing but to lay on his daddy's chest because that's the safest place in the world. Dae is always at his aid 24/7 even sleeping with mom and dad and is treated like a little prince.

Sorry for talking about the son so much, it's just such a headcannon.

Chanyeol:

It makes sense for a husband to want kids, but our Yeollie can't help himself and winds up with five kids. And he wants more.

His oldest would be a boy, then following a year after that, he'd get another boy. Then another year later, twin girls! And then two years later, he get's another little boy.

Chanyeol is the most hyper in the Beagle Line out of my eyes so you bet that Channie's kids are the craziest of all the EXO kids.

Starting out strong, his two boys are the life of the party in the pack house. They're always putting on some show, running around or even playing one of dad's instruments, you just know they're there. And he loves watching them.

He's one of those dad's that has no restrictions and mom is the head of the house no matter how much Chan wants to argue about it.

Next come his twins and oh my god he can barely keep up. Them on top of their brothers, you and Channie still struggle getting sleep after the baby years are over because there are some nights to where they aren't all asleep until almost two in the morning.

The last pup is actually the tamest out of the five. Unlike his older siblings, he's reserved on the normal but when he is with his siblings, he transforms into this wild child and there is no stopping him the crazy evil maknae.

Chanyeol really loves his kids though. He takes the time out of everyday to wake up early to wake them all up in unique ways, showering all of them in affection and he gives out at least two hundred kisses a day.

He's also a huge role model for them because they admire all the things he does for them and he provides the most he can for his family.

D.O/Kyungsoo:

Just like Kris, I feel like Soo would be blessed with two girls, but they would be two years apart.

In the beginning when you and Soo had began to talk about kids, he honestly wanted one pup. He wasn't in the baby fever as much as his other members were, Chanyeol, but once he got to experience parenthood, he couldn't help but want another.

His girls are his everything, including you of course. He is forever wanting to go out and show off his beautiful family. And he loves saying, "Do, party of four."

His girls would heavily take after you with your looks and personaility, but they would have the unbelievable sass of their dad.

SASS WARS WITH THE BYUN'S.

They're also a bit more hyper, most likely due to their hyper cousins. The girls bring Soo out of his shell by a mile-stone, but SatanSoo is also very present.

Soo is very protective over his pups so not a lot slides by him. There is one day where babe #1 is getting bullied at school by a bunch of kids from their rival back and you bet your buttons that Soo is at the school bright and early ready to set the parents straight. "It's bad enough we have to deal with you mutts, but you feel the need to teach your kids the same habits? Discusting."

Like I said, don't mess with his pups.

Tao/Zitao:

Our little diva would have twins, a boy and a girl.

So spoiled tbh. The most spoiled out of the whole pack. But he does it for the soul purpose to take care of them and give them the best because they deserve the world.

But even though they're spoiled, they're hard working kids and they're always helping mom or other members. Tao teaches them from a young age that you should always work and do your best and you will recieve the best in return. He is forever attached to them, like he never wants to put them down.

And Tao is forever calling them 'my babies,' or 'my pups.'

He loves people asking about the little ones just so he can show them off. It's his favorite thing to do. But he has the biggest smile on his face when he talks about them. He is SO proud of them. Then he'll get carried away and he can talk about them for hours.

Sehun: "Hyung, that's great that they counted to five but I really need to go back to my work." Tao: "But that's not even the bEst PART."

Kai/Jongin:

This is such a head canon of mine. Kai would have four kids, souly just to have his own army of kids.

His first born would be a boy then another boy two years later. Then he'd get in the baby fever again, and a year later he's got twins(boy and girl).

Just like Tao, he loves to spoil them. He wants his kids to have everything because they're the best humans on the planet and never wants his pups to be without something. He gets banned from taking the kids to the grocery store because he spends WAY more than he needs to just because he gives into the puppy dogs faces.

He is so fascinated with everything they do. One day he watches the twins color for a straight hour just because he is so fascinated on how focused they are and how they don't color outside of the lines.

And he is forever watching them sleep.

And once the pups are born, Kai turns into a jungle gym. His princess is forever on his shoulders it's her favorite place, one of the boys is wrapped around his left foot while the other is on his right leg, and he's got the other boy dangling off of his arm(or Kai is carrying him).

And as they grow up, he's forever whining over his body being sore because they still crawl on him, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

Sehun:

And last but not least I can see our maknae having three little pups: twin boys and then a year later a litte girl.

Headcanon, ever since he started to think of having puppies, he's always wanted a girl. He wanted to have his own little princess that he could spoil to death but when his boys come along, he's wrapped around their little fingers. Cried at their birth.

He is forever holding them and he is always so interested in what they do and he wants to be right by their side every second of the day.

And anytime you're having a family movie night, he's got the most loving look on his face as he watches you and your boys focusing on the silly movie. And family movie nights are a mUST, you have to have them at least two times a week. EXO is a big pack and of course he loves being with his members and their little pups all the time, but our Sehunnie loves being with just him and his boys.

Then a little bit after it's the boys first birthday, he's like, "let's have another baby." And by golly does he get his little princess. Defiently cried when she was born.

He litterally kills any flies that come her way because he is so protective over her. He is so gentle and causious with her. He was afraid to hold her at first and you swear that he actually thought she was made of glass.

He is forever wanting to feed her or bathe her just so she can see her giggle and make some kind of mess. She is also forever on his chest sleeping and the boys are right beside her, wrapped up in his arms.

Family naps also becomes a huge thing because it's literally the best thing in the world and everyone is so warm and cuddly.

#exo #exo au #exo scenarios #exo wolf #wolf au #exo k #exo m #suho #xiumin #kris #luhan #lay #baekhyun #jongdae #chanyeol #tao #kyungsoo #kai #sehun

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hxbbit · 7 years

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Walk The Line Pt. II

(Donald Pierce/Mutant!Reader)

Part I Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Words: ~3.7k Warning: Smut, that’s it.

The moving became more frequent after that, you only ever spent two, maybe three, days in a place before moving on and needless to say it was hard.

Physically and mentally you were both exhausted, especially after that close call a few weeks before.

Jake didn't even really want to let you out of his sight, scared he would lose you, but sitting on top of each other all the time started to get under your skin.

You usually went on grocery runs together, but after the last incident, you both figured that it might be safer to go alone, as to not draw too much attention and maybe you were not as easily recognized if you weren't in a pair.

But you had told him about Pierce and what you saw in his feelings and that got Jake worried. He was worried about what he would do to you if he got you alone, so he was the one who went out to buy stuff.

And while that was fine by you in the beginning, it wasn't fine anymore. You needed a break, you needed some space, even if just for an hour and most of all, you needed to get out of the house.

Your current location was pretty good, not as run down, but still, staying inside all day and only going outside when you had to move again only to be barricaded once more made you feel sick.

So the next time you needed to buy things, you convinced Jake to let you go instead.

He let you go, but not without a lot of arguing before that and making sure you had your phone on you.

The moment you stepped out into the night felt like a blessing. The soft breeze filled your lungs with cool, fresh air and for the first time you felt free again, not being confined by four walls anymore.

You went to the closest 24/7 store. It was always safer to go out at night because less people were around, which meant less witnesses.

And the fact that you were in a small Mexican town, now meant that you were pretty much the only person in that store except for the cashier.

You slowly walked through the isles, taking your time, enjoying being on your own for once.

You heard the faint sound of the bell above the entrance but you didn't really think twice about it, you were too caught up looking into the freezer, you wanted some ice cream, you didn't have a lot of money, but you just needed that little pleasure.

“You should try the chocolate one, it's delicious”, a familiar voice suddenly said behind you and that made you drop all your things.

You would've tried to run, but you were standing in a corner, he would stop you before you could even take two steps.

So you just turned around and looked at him.

Pierce was standing there in front of you, alone, with that smile on his face while you must have looked like a deer in the headlights.

“Oh, come on now, honey, don't look so surprised to see me”

You didn't know what to say. You didn't know what was going on.

You wanted to ask him what he was doing here, but of course you knew why he was here. Your mind was spinning, you were at your wits end.

“Are you gonna come with me or do I have to drag you out of this store?”, he then asked you and you thought about putting up a fight, but you couldn't do it in here. What if the cashier got in between and got hurt or other people that were in the shop, you couldn't risk it.

You nodded and slowly started walking.

He grabbed your upper arm with his robotic hand so you couldn't run and that's how you left the grocery store.

He led you across the parking lot to a car, a big black jeep that you had seen before, he opened the door on the passenger side and motioned you to get in. And you did.

Quickly he got in on the driver's side, locked the doors and then turned on the engine.

Your hands were shaking and you were shivering, not because it was cold, but because you were scared.

You took a few seconds to check his feelings and you were surprised that you couldn't find anger or hostility or anything like that.

“Where are you taking me?”, you then said, voice quiet.

“She still speaks”, he then grinned in return.

You looked at his side profile and couldn't help but notice how perfect his features are and how unfair it is, that a man so cruel was so attractive.

“Where are you taking me?”, you then asked again, this time your voice was a little stronger.

“You'll see”, he smirked while throwing you a side glance.

Then it was quiet again.

“I know what you're thinking right now, your little friend is probably worried sick about you and believe me it breaks my damn heart but I'm just taking you up on your offer”, Pierce then spoke up again and what he said hit the nail on the head.

Because you were worried about Jake and you were worried what he will do if you won't come home that night. He will blame himself for letting you go in the first place and then he will probably do something incredibly stupid like come looking for you.

After a few more minutes (it was a relatively short drive, but it felt like hours) you arrived at a motel.

Your brows were pulled together in confusion. What were you doing here?

He opened the doors again and then you both got out.

Pierce went straight to a room, number 67 and unlocked it.

So this must be his, he must have rented while he was looking for you.

He led you into the room and turned on the light. It was simple, a little rundown, but luxurious compared to what you were used to the past few months. It only had a bed, a little dresser, a table and two chairs in it. There was also another door which presumably lead into the bathroom.

“Sit, make yourself comfortable”, he said and still you were confused.

You had no idea what was going on, why hasn't he killed you already? Why hasn't he delivered you to the others to be experimented on or whatever it was they did to mutants?

“What are you going to do now?”, you asked him, but he didn't reply, he went to the fridge and got out a bottle of beer.

You started pacing and for a moment he was just watching you with that beer in his hand, taking the occasional sip.

You couldn't take this anymore, if you were to wait a second longer you'd explode.

So you turned to Pierce and stop a few feet in front of him, first just glaring and he seemed somewhat amused. You didn't know for sure, you were too upset to dig into his emotions.

“Why the hell do you not just get it over with?”, you were now seething with rage, it just seemed like he was playing with you, prolonging your death was torture, and you knew that death was the only possible outcome.

“Just kill me”, you stepped closer to him.

“And if you're trying to find out where Jake is then you can also just kill me now because I would rather die than tell you where he is”

With each word you got closer to him until only a few inches separated you.

You were almost taunting him now, trying to get him to do what he hasn't done yet.

But he was just standing there, leaning against a dresser, beer no longer in his hand, but on the dresser behind him and a smile playing around his lips and that made you even angrier. That he didn't even show a reaction.

So you did the only thing you had left. You raised your head and went in to slap him across the face, but before your hand could connect, your wrist was caught by his robotic one and gripped tight.

The look of amusement had left his face and now he was glaring at you. His blue eyes dark, his hair stormy.

You had no idea what he was going to do now, but you refused to break eye contact, not giving in.

You didn't know what happened next, but suddenly his lips were on yours, without warning.

And it wasn't even the kiss that surprised you most, it was the way that you reacted to it, the way it made your anger somehow disappear and because somehow you found yourself kissing him back.

After you realized that you pulled back, your eyes were now wide in shock, your hand still in his.

Thoughts were rushing through your mind, how wrong this was, but how good it felt, how this was a betrayal, but how you were going to die anyway, so why should you even care and in the end, you just settled on not thinking at all. To just stop and go with it.

So without a second thought you just went in and captured his lips again. His beard was scratching and you could feel that smirk in his kiss, because he knew that you had just given in – given up – and he was claiming you.

He let go of your hand and instead grabbed your hips, pulling your body against his and then wrapped them around you, one hand moving up to tangle into your hair, cradling your neck.

His kiss felt good – too good – to be healthy for you, but you just needed more. He kissed you deep and hungrily and hard.

But then he moved, he pushed you backwards, holding you so you wouldn't stumble and fall, until you hit the wall with a loud thud.

You were now in between him and the wall, your hands were clutching onto his shirt, pulling him close and hard against you.

His hand then found their way underneath your shirt, one hot one cold on your naked skin and only now did you realize how touch-starved you were.

How good his hands felt on you, how even the cold metal left burning marks on your skin wherever they touched you.

Jake was always there for you and sometimes you cuddled or shared a bed, but this did not settle the primal urge you felt and that was being satiated right now.

Pierce then pushed your shirt up completely and pulled it over your head and in return you started working on the buttons of his black shirt, but this took too long, you needed him and you needed this now and those buttons were in the way, so you just ripped it in one swift motion, making all the buttons pop off, scattering across the floor.

He released your lips for a split second, only to whisper two words: “Damn, baby”

And those words went straight down, right between your legs, you felt yourself getting wet and by now you also felt his hard cock in his pants, pressing against your lower belly.

You let your hands wander over the naked skin of his chest, soft, hot skin over solid muscles.

Pierce then moved his lips from your mouth to your jaw and then down your neck, tracing his lips over your sensitive skin.

He moved down even further to the mounds of your breasts, his hand was on your throat and you were sure that he could feel your rapid pulse under his fingers.

It would be so easy for him to just squeeze now and kill you, but it seemed like that he didn't even have that in mind anymore.

He then went down on his knees and never in your life did you think that you would see him like that.

Kneeling in front of you, with messy blond hair, his lips pink and plush from your kisses, that smirk that by now was all too familiar, revealing his gold tooth and looking up into your face.

All while he put his hands onto the waistband of your jeans, achingly slowly opening the button and pulling down the zipper before pulling your pants down. It was too slow for your taste so you helped to struggle out of them, which again only made him grin.

He didn't immediately take off your panties afterwards. He first started kissing your stomach, his beard tickling and it sent a quick jolt straight to your core.

You started breathing heavier, you needed him to do something, craving it, but he just kept on teasing you.

Biting your lip you tried to hold back your whining, as you ran your fingers through his hair, tugging at it.

Finally, after what felt like ages, he then hooked his fingers under the waistband of your panties and dragged them down achingly slow.

By now your clit was throbbing and you just needed him inside of you.

As soon as you had stepped out of your underwear, he buried his face into your core, sucking on your clit, lapping at it and it was almost embarrassing how close you already were to coming. How hot this man made you, how riled up he got you.

You were so close, that when he pushed two fingers into you, it sent you straight over the edge, without warning.

Your legs were shaking, threatening to give in, your fingers were pulling on his hair so hard it must have been painful and moans were coming out of your mouth almost involuntarily while your orgasm washed over you.

When you had finally gotten down from your high, he got up from his knees, leaving you empty.

You were glad that you were leaning against the wall, because you greatly appreciated the support, you closed your eyes for a second while you were trying to catch your breath, but when you heard the metallic clinking of his belt you looked down.

He had taken off his shirt and now you watched him push down his pants together with his underwear, revealing his hard length to you.

Then he moved closer to you again, grabbed your thighs and hoisted you up.

You wrapped you legs around his waist and he had pushed you against the wall once more, both his hands on your upper thighs. His metallic fingers digging into your skin.

He then pushed his rock hard cock into your opening, while kissing you again, swallowing your moans.

He immediately set a fast, deep and rough rhythm, you had your hands in his hair once more and after he had hit a very sensitive spot inside of you, you more or less instinctively yanked on his hair, pulling his head back, breaking the kiss.

He let out something that sounded a lot like an animalistic growl and then took his metal hand from under your thigh and then first took one wrist and then the other into his hand and pushed them against the wall above your head.

He was now just looking at you, so close that you could feel his hot and rapid breath on your face and you were sure he could feel yours, breaths mingling.

You wanted to touch him, but you couldn't and at first you tried to struggle out of his iron grip but you soon realized that there was no way out, but then again, you didn't really mind, because it made you focus even more on how he felt inside of you.

So thick and how he filled you up completely and how wet you were for him.

And that tension inside your body started building up again. With every thrust he hit a spot that only increased that feeling.

You could feel that the pressure on your wrists and on your thighs became a little harder, that together with his more and more erratic thrusts was a telltale sign that he was close to his own orgasm as well.

It only took a little longer for you and then you felt that hot feeling low in your stomach, you could feel your walls contract around him and all the muscles in your body tighten.

Profanities fell from your lips and before you knew it, he had joined you in your bliss, filling you up, pumping into you a few more times before he then stilled his movements.

He let his head fall down to your chest, resting his forehead against your collarbone, his eyes were closed, still panting. Then he also released your hands again and you let your hands fall onto his shoulders.

Resting your head on his, his blonde hair tickling your face.

You both tried to catch your breath and no one said a word.

After a few more minutes he let you down again, slowly, carefully.

And now the uncertainty was back. What was going to happen now? Were you just a way to get himself off before he delivered you to whomever or maybe even killed you himself?

For the first time that night you took the time to check his feelings.

Of course you found bliss there, satisfaction, and still there was no sign of anger or regret or anything that would give you a hint to what he would do now, and that confused you to no end.

You both got dressed in silence, you went into the bathroom and cleaned yourself up and then, when you came back out, you decided to just ask him the same question as before.

“What are you going to do now?”

Pierce sat down on the bed for a few seconds, hunched over, his head hanging down. He then let out a sigh.

“Now I'm going to take you home”, the then looked up.

“What? Why?”, you asked, you would've expected anything, but this.

“I can turn you in, if that's what you want, it would make things hell of a lot easier for me”, he then said with a hint of sarcasm and somehow that southern accent seemed stronger now.

“No, no, no. I just – I don't understand … You've been tracking us for months and now that you've got me, you're gonna let me go?”, you asked him. You didn't know why you tried to figure out what was going on, you should just take his offer and leave and then run as fast and far as possible, but none of this made sense.

“Don't make this harder on me than it already is”, he then sighed again.

“But why?”, you tried to dig deeper.

“Believe it or not, but I've got a soft spot for you”, he then smiled, but this was not his usual, cocky smirk, this seemed almost pained. Like admitting that (and the whole situation itself) was the hardest thing he's ever done.

“So you wanna go home now?”, he wanted to know and of course the answer was yes.

Without speaking you then went to his car again and he started driving.

You were looking everywhere but at him and when your gaze fell down to your hands you saw that faint bruises were already forming on your wrists.

You knew you had to hide those from Jake or otherwise he would be asking questions.

You expected to have to give him directions to where you lived and you even thought about steering him wrong so he wouldn't know where you actually lived. Still not quite trusting him.

But when the car then came to a stop you were shocked to see that he had parked in front of your current living location.

That meant that he had known where you lived, but he hadn't told anyone.

You then looked at him and he just gave you a quick nod, nothing more, nothing less, and then you got out of the car. But before you closed the door you heard his voice again: “Wait”, he only said. He shoved his hands into his pocket and pulled out your phone. It must have fallen out of your pocket when you were taking off your pants.

You took it, whispering a quick thanks and then closing the door.

You watched as he drove away.

You were about to go in when you remembered that you still had to buy groceries, so you quickly went to the store again and then back to your house.

And when you came in the front door, Jake nearly tackled you to the ground with a hug, groceries getting smushed in between.

“Where the hell have you been?!”, he then asked, clearly upset. He gave you a quick once-over.

“I'm sorry, Jake … I just lost track of time”, you tried to explain to him quietly, you had already prepared that lie on your way home from the grocery store.

“Where were you and what were you doing?”, he wanted to know, you knew he wasn't angry he was just scared, he probably thought that you had gotten caught (and that wasn't so wrong).

“I just needed some space”, you said and that was the truth. “I know I should've called or texted, but I didn't even realize how late it was until I was on my way back”, you then expanded your lie even further.

“You scared the shit out of me”, he then grumbled and you knew that he was being serious.

You didn't talk much after, you both ate - you were ravenous - and then went to bed.

Jake was already asleep and snoring, but you were still awake, still thinking about what had happened and how this was all so confusing and messed up. But what scared you the most, was that if Pierce showed up again and wanted to repeat this whole thing, you'd say yes. In a heartbeat.

A/N: yall i got so many ideas for future chapters, im so inspired hmu if u want more

@missphanosaur18

#donald pierce #donald pierce x reader #donald pierce/reader #boyd holbrook #reader #logan #imagine #donald pierce imagine #fanfic #writing

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dknc3 · 7 years

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Well, grad party weekend is almost over and I appear to have survived. It was a close thing for awhile there, though!

Long text post under the cut summarizing the weekend’s adventures. (And giving a pretty good illustration as to WHY I’ve been a tumblr absentee of late, LOL!!)

About 30 hours prior to party time, I received a call from #2 telling me he felt like death and had been unable to rise from his bed except to stumble to the bathroom for nearly 24 hours! Why he hadn’t felt it necessary to tell me this when texting with me the night before about coming home from school for his brother’s party, who knows? Anyway, he NEVER complains about being sick even when he is and he sounded like death and answered “no” to questions about having Advil, water, or cough medicine in his dorm room or any way to get them or any capability of driving his car around the block much less home.

So, I embarked on a 3 hour round trip to fetch my sickly second son, guiltily leaving my husband with an insanely long party prep “to do” list in my absence. One of us at least had to work on preparing both the deck and yard (where we WANTED the party to be) and the big ugly unfinished basement (where we feared a lot of the party might have to be because the weather forecast was getting shittier by the moment.) I had to be the parent who took the road trip because A–I am willing to drive much faster than my law abiding husband and therefore could accomplish the rescue mission more quickly, and B–MAMA is the parent best at caring for our ill babies, regardless of age.

When I got #2 into the car, he was burning up with fever, hacking like someone with tuberculosis, and complaining that EVERYTHING hurt! I gave him Advil and water and apple juice which I brought along and told him if it wasn’t May I’d swear he had the flu. Those words proved prophetic when I took him straight to the doctor’s office once we got back into town and he tested positive for INFLUENZA A!!! Seriously? Who comes down with the freaking flu in late May?!? Apparently, MY KID. On the eve of his brother’s grad party.

So I got him a prescription for tamiflu, a bunch of decongestant and cough meds, and tucked him into his bed before launching back into full force party prep.

Mr. DKNC, quite proud of himself, had purchased two nice canopies which he set up on the deck. They would do beautifully to shade folks should the sun shine and protect well enough from potential pop-up showers without bad wind, but at least overnight, potential thunderstorms with heavy winds were predicted. I mentioned we might want to take the canopies down until closer to party time, but this suggestion was met with “It’ll be fine.”

A few hours later as I was rethinking whether or not I had enough food in the house and ready for pick-up the following morning (after receiving a gleeful call from #1 that several more of his friends had just let him know they’d be able to come after all and three text messages from family friends letting me know their entire families were coming), the severe thunderstorms showed up, and at a rather ominous sound from out on the deck, Mr. DKNC raced out back and shouted, “Dammit! I didn’t know there was going to be a fucking hurricane!”

So the two of us set to work dismantling the canopies before they were torn apart by the wind. In a torrential downpour. While he swore and complained the way he only does when he feels he should have more control over situations which are completely out of his control. Sigh.

He’d done a ridiculous amount of work all day long–the house and yard truly did look amazing, and we’d actually begged, borrowed, and stolen enough tables and chairs that we had outdoor seating for nearly fifty people at a time–over half of that at tables. The house, after 3 days of cleaning, was about as spotless as it gets, and I’d figured out a plan to set up the musicians in the basement rather than on the deck and move a bunch of chairs in there if we really had to–while praying we didn’t have to.

Son #1 came home from dinner out with his girlfriend (he had cleaned the barn earlier in the day), and I sent him right back out to pick up our only non-driver–Son #3–from his job at the hardware store. (I cannot WAIT until May 31st when that kid can get his license!)

I made Ramen noodles for flu boy and ordered pizza for everyone else and decided to call it a night.

Party day dawned grey and rainy, and Mr. DKNC (aka my personal Lord of Winterfell) got all “Winter is Coming” on me with various dire weather disaster predictions. I made him take #3 to work (yes, the kid worked evening shift the day before and opening shift on party day so he could get off early enough in the afternoon not to miss much of the party) just so #1 and I didn’t have to listen to him. #2 got out of bed, showered, dressed, said he felt a bit better, sat up and talked with me while I began setting up the buffet area in the kitchen, then began to feel crappy again–because FLU–and went dejectedly back to bed.

Mr. DKNC had come home after dropping #3 at work and picking up a few things I’d realized we’d forgotten about and put on a list for him. The rain had slowed to intermittent drizzle with only very brief spotty showers so I crossed my fingers and assigned him and #1 to put the canopies back up while I went out and picked up all the sandwiches and barbecue and fruit and vegetable trays and pasta and potato salad, etc. I’d ordered from the grocery and our local meat market. Then I headed to the bakery to pick up the great big cake.

Got home and just had time to say hi to the musicians who’d arrived and we’re setting up and then get all the food actually ready to serve and all the drinks (which Mr. DKNC had gone out and bought using my shopping list my road trip to rescue #2, calling me at least fifteen times from the store because apparently my directions weren’t always clear, LOL!) iced down and the balloons hung at the end of our road (because it’s easy to miss if you don’t know the way) when the first guests arrived, rushing onto the screened in porch with umbrellas up to protect them from the sudden downpour.

That rain lasted 30 minutes and then disappeared did not return for 6 hours. Seventy people ended up at the party and no one went inside except to get food, use the bathroom, play pool, or take a brief AC break because the temperature soared into the mid-eighties. The guests ranged in age from 2 to 84, and both the youngest and the oldest danced to the music which was fabulous. Our musician friends played for 5 hours straight, only stopping when the rain started to threaten again close to 9pm. Most of the older people and the families with small kids left around 9, but at least thirty people were here until after midnight, playing pool, sitting on the screened in porch watching the storm, snacking, drinking, laughing, and generally having a great time. The last of the guests above college age left around 1am, and Mr. DKNC and I decided it was time for bed. No idea what time the last of #1’s friends left or availed themselves of various sofas here to sleep on.

But it WAS a really good day–family from 3 hours away, friends we hadn’t seen in years–we really felt blessed by all the folks who came out to celebrate with our son. And while my husband and I both felt we never got to talk to anyone over 5 minutes most of the day as we kept trying to talk to EVERYONE (and keep food hot and drinks cold all day long), we had fun. More importantly #1 had fun. And I’ve got the video of him singing Johnny Cash with the band!!

The only person who didn’t have much fun was #2 who spent most of the day in his bedroom with Netflix and Advil. He did rally enough on two occasions to put in brief appearances to at least talk to relatives who hadn’t seen him in a long time–but he wasn’t allowed to touch anyone, I had to fix his plate as he wasn’t allowed NEAR the food, and he wrote BIOHAZARD all over his cup so no one would accidentally drink after him! And he still only spent maybe an hour total out of his room, poor guy.

This morning I woke early to take #3 to work (yes, again–this kid needs a driver’s license), Mr. DKNC went to church, but I stayed home because #1 (who as far as I know slept almost none at all) went out to breakfast at 10 with his girlfriend and two couples from her college who had come down for his party and I didn’t want to leave #2 (who didn’t have fever this morning–YAY!–but was still pretty achy) on his own.

I discovered the college kids had attempted to clean up a bit as there were several garbage bags filled and left out on the screened-in porch. Unfortunately, these must have been city kids who don’t realize why all of our outdoor garbage cans have lockable latches on them. So … Our local trash pandas had their own party on the porch some time in the wee hours. Their nasty, muddy little foot prints were all over everything, all bags were ripped open, and trash was strewn everywhere! No offense to my dear @thefairfleming, but trash pandas are evil incarnate!!

So … that was an hour of my life I won’t get back. I rewarded myself for doing that thankless job by eating cake for breakfast. Hey, the little bit of cake left was too big for the plastic storage container I had by only a couple inches!! I had to solve that problem!!

I’ve now cleaned the rest of the house. I don’t even want to know how cake crumbs and empty beer cans found their way to some of the places I found them! I’m almost afraid to check the barn as there was a veritable parade of folks going down to visit the horses yesterday.

But the only task left for today is another road trip to get #2 back to school. He isn’t well, but he is better, and he has only TWO days left. This time I’m taking Mr. DKNC with me. As long as we have to make the trip, we’ll take most of his stuff home with us so he can just leave on his own when he’s officially finished. I’ve got his drugs packed up and clean linens to put on his bed there, and that’s the best I can do for him at this point. I seriously hate taking him back still sick, but he has to finish the term.

And then, Mr. DKNC and I will come home and finally get to rest and relax. Just kidding!! We’ll sleep for a few hours and then I’ll go to work and he’ll fly off on a trip tomorrow! And as we realized as we got in bed last night, we’ll now be expected to do this crazy thing at least twice more!!! We both lay there and laughed hysterically when that thought hit us because really … no other reaction was possible!

#my crazy life #I do love all my boys though #wouldn't change any of it #well maybe Son 2's flu #We could definitely have done without that!

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pearlsephoni · 7 years

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i have homework i need to do

plso here’s a list of questions that are supposed to be sent as asks but i felt like answering them myself rip productivity and sleep leggo

200: My crush’s name is: lol people I know irl follow me they don’t need to know this 199: I was born in: Galle, Sri Lanka 198: I am really: sleep-deprived 197: My cellphone company is: AT&T 196: My eye color is: Daaaaaaaark brown 195: My shoe size is: 6 194: My ring size is: I don’t actually, but I guess one of the smallest sizes 193: My height is: 5′1 192: I am allergic to: pet dander 😢 191: My 1st car was: still don’t have my license rip 190: My 1st job was: working in a lab! 189: Last book you read: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (I’ve been working on like five other books for the last year why am i like this) 188: My bed is: a lofted long twin, gotta love dorm beds 187: My pet: don’t have one 186: My best friend: got three, love them all 185: My favorite shampoo is: SheaMoisture’s Coconut and Hibiscus Curl and Shine has been great 184: Xbox or ps3: PS3 183: Piggy banks are: wonderful 182: In my pockets: my headphones 181: On my calendar: so many projects and presentations and finals rip 180: Marriage is: what you make of it 179: Spongebob can: ...do whatever he wants? i don’t care 178: My mom: is one of the best people in the world 177: The last three songs I bought were? Dead Girl Walking, La La Latch, and the 21 Chump St soundtrack 176: Last YouTube video watched: What If? feat. Daniel Radcliffe, by Anna Akana 175: How many cousins do you have? 7 174: Do you have any siblings? nope 173: Are your parents divorced? nope 172: Are you taller than your mom? we’re the same height 171: Do you play an instrument? Piano (badly), and I used to play clarinet 170: What did you do yesterday? classes, lab work, IRO meeting, then stayed up Way Too Late finishing an assignment [ I Believe In ] 169: Love at first sight: nah, I believe in attraction at first sight tho 168: Luck: Yeah 167: Fate: Yeah 166: Yourself: Working on it 165: Aliens: Yeah 164: Heaven: um 163: Hell: uh 162: God: haven’t thought about it as much as I probably should’ve 161: Horoscopes: not usually, but they’re fun 160: Soul mates: I kinda do, but I wish I didn’t, because it’s such a stressful concept to me 159: Ghosts: not really, but I’ll still get spooked at haunted places 158: Gay Marriage: YES???? 157: War: no 156: Orbs: don’t really know anything about that 155: Magic: no, but I wish I did [ This or That ] 154: Hugs or Kisses: Hugs 153: Drunk or High: never been high 152: Phone or Online: online 151: Red heads or Black haired: black haired 150: Blondes or Brunettes: brunettes (all my crushes have been brunettes, idk how or why) 149: Hot or cold: Hot 148: Summer or winter: summer 147: Autumn or Spring: spring 146: Chocolate or vanilla: vanilla 145: Night or Day: both 144: Oranges or Apples: Oranges 143: Curly or Straight hair: Curly 142: McDonalds or Burger King: McDonalds 141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: Milk 140: Mac or PC: PC 139: Flip flops or high heals: flip flops 138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: Sweet and poor 137: Coke or Pepsi: Coke 136: Hillary or Obama: hoo boy, Obama 135: Burried or cremated: Cremated 134: Singing or Dancing: Dancing 133: Coach or Chanel: Coach 132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: lmao Taylor Hicks what a throwback tho 131: Small town or Big city: Big city 130: Wal-Mart or Target: Target 129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: Ben Stiller (unfollow me if you pick Sandler omg) 128: Manicure or Pedicure: Manicure 127: East Coast or West Coast: East Coast 126: Your Birthday or Christmas: Christmas 125: Chocolate or Flowers: Flowers 124: Disney or Six Flags: Disney 123: Yankees or Red Sox: Red Sox [ Here’s What I Think About ] 122: War: unnecessary 121: George Bush: really don’t like this weird “kind grandpa” tour he’s going on. appreciate him acknowledging his mistakes though 120: Gay Marriage: Should be accessible to anyone and everyone, and the continued persecution of gay people (and people of every non-hetero sexuality) is disgusting 119: The presidential election: Hell On Earth 118: Abortion: Should be accessible to anyone and everyone 117: MySpace: Let it die 116: Reality TV: Let it die 115: Parents: I’ve been blessed with amazing ones, but not everyone is, and everyone should be able to define their relationship to them without society trying to enforce judgement on them 114: Back stabbers: been on both ends of that 113: Ebay: where I go for kpop things rip my wallet 112: Facebook: I’m embarrassed by how much I still use it 111: Work: nice. people at Wharton can be so stuck-up though, why are theatre kids like this 110: My Neighbors: Love them! 109: Gas Prices: pls 108: Designer Clothes: I think they’re super pretty, but they’re just not something I could personally invest that kind of money into 107: College: Should be accessible to anyone and everyone 106: Sports: wow I really don’t give a fuck outside of the Olympics. wish I did. 105: My family: Love my parents, love my maternal grandmother, wish I had a better relationship with the rest. 104: The future: Wow! Fuck! Terrifying! [ Last time I ] 103: Hugged someone: Saturday night 102: Last time you ate: Eating chocolate rn lol 101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: yesterday when I saw one of my asshole high school classmates twice in one day what kind of fuckery 100: Cried in front of someone: oh wow...it might have been the day after the elections? or my first therapy session? I don’t remember which came first oops 99: Went to a movie theater: March 24th, to see the Beauty and the Beast remake lmao 98: Took a vacation: Spring break, went to NYC with one of my close friends 97: Swam in a pool: Jamaica, the first week of January 96: Changed a diaper: over the summer, while babysitting 95: Got my nails done: never gotten them done professionally! 94: Went to a wedding: uhhhhhhh I must’ve still been in pre-school I think 93: Broke a bone: never happened to me g bless 92: Got a peircing: when I was a baby lmao 91: Broke the law: I guess underage drinking counts, so this past weekend lol 90: Texted: an hour? ago? I think? [ MISC ] 89: Who makes you laugh the most: Leslie 88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: my parents, my mom’s cooking, the kids on my street 87: The last movie I saw: Split (unless the last ep of Black Mirror counts because that was a 2 hour doozy) 86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: Going to Mexico this summer 85: The thing im not looking forward to: finding out how my crush feels about me 84: People call me: smol, cute, sweet, angry 83: The most difficult thing to do is: confrontation 82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: nope 81: My zodiac sign is: Bull 80: The first person i talked to today was: my linguistics prof 79: First time you had a crush: elementary school 78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: my mom and Jaylen 77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: Lizy, last week 76: Right now I am talking to: no one 75: What are you going to do when you grow up: be a doctor? hopefully? and travel? ahhhhhhhhh 74: I have/will get a job: yee 73: Tomorrow: I have a test in Spanish and have to work on a group presentation rip 72: Today: NEED TO GET THIS DAMN PROPOSAL DONE 71: Next Summer: this coming summer? going to Mexico, still don’t know what I’m doing for the second half why does this keep happening 70: Next Weekend: Working Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time! so excited, I’ve been looking forward to this show for the past year 69: I have these pets: none :’( 68: The worst sound in the world: screams of pain 67: The person that makes me cry the most is: my mooooooooom (because I love her so much) 66: People that make you happy: my parents, my friends, I’ve been blessed with the people in my life 65: Last time I cried: probably two weeks ago, my mind wouldn’t shut up before bed 64: My friends are: the most patient people in the world 63: My computer is: doing its best, wish it had more memory 62: My School: is great! 61: My Car: nonexistent 60: I lose all respect for people who: voted for Trump 59: The movie I cried at was: the last one was Lion 58: Your hair color is: black 57: TV shows you watch: Too Many 56: Favorite web site: Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube 55: Your dream vacation: living in Paris for 1+ month 54: The worst pain I was ever in was: all of junior year of high school 53: How do you like your steak cooked: I’m pescatarian lmao 52: My room is: small, but lovely 51: My favorite celebrity is: uhhhh Viola Davis 50: Where would you like to be: Paris, NYC, Disney World 49: Do you want children: still not sure honestly 48: Ever been in love: unrequited, but yeah 47: Who’s your best friend: my mom, Jaylen, Riley, Leslie 46: More guy friends or girl friends: woah so many more girl friends 45: One thing that makes you feel great is: getting enough sleep 44: One person that you wish you could see right now: my parents, my crush, Jaylen 43: Do you have a 5 year plan: kind..of...it depends on a lot of variable tho 42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: tentative, but yeah 41: Have you pre-named your children: nah 40: Last person I got mad at: does sean spicer count 39: I would like to move to: NYC, Madrid, Paris (why am i so bougie why am i like this) 38: I wish I was a professional: actress [ My Favorites ] 37: Candy: sour patch kids, airheads xtremes, cotton candy 36: Vehicle: Volkswagon Beetle, the last generation when it was still round rip 35: President: Obama? 34: State visited: California 33: Cellphone provider: AT&T i guess 32: Athlete: Simone Biles 31: Actor: at the moment, Dev Patel 30: Actress: at the moment, Phillipa Soo and Viola Davis 29: Singer: at the moment, Bruno Mars 28: Band: at the moment, EXO and Royal Pirates 27: Clothing store: Rue 21 26: Grocery store: Meijer and Kroger 25: TV show: at the moment...shit, I don’t really know 24: Movie: at the moment, Amelie 23: Website: tumblr, facebook, youtube 22: Animal: elephants 21: Theme park: Disney World 20: Holiday: Christmas 19: Sport to watch: Figure skating 18: Sport to play: uh badminton I guess 17: Magazine: Entertainment Weekly 16: Book: The Night Circus 15: Day of the week: Friday 14: Beach: Galle 13: Concert attended: Bruno Mars’ Moonshine Jungle with Jaylen 12: Thing to cook: omelettes 11: Food: my mom’s food, spicy ramyun, macarons 10: Restaurant: Boiling Pots 9: Radio station: 98.7 in Detroit 8: Yankee candle scent: don’t really know 7: Perfume: Marc Jacobs Daisy 6: Flower: plumerias, cherry blossoms, roses, daffodils 5: Color: piiiiiiiiiink 4: Talk show host: I still miss Oprah tbh 3: Comedian: John Oliver, John Mulaney, Mike Birbiglia (I know, I need to diversify my choices) 2: Dog breed: corgis, samoyeds, labradors, goldens, poodles 1: Did you answer all these truthfully? I tried?

#personal burb

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mykatesingh-blog · 4 years

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When we moved to this mountain town a shelter in place was just beginning. I have my personal feelings about all this quarantine, but I try to keep my blog and channel a “happy place” so I’ll save that for Patreon. Whatever my feelings, the isolation worked for us because we got so much done in an unnatural amount of time. We planted something like 15 fruit trees, two blueberries, one Marion Berry, and then I put in my huge kitchen garden that is 1260 sq. ft. This required tilling and digging, planting, and mulching, hauling in truckloads of horse manure from a local farm.

Then there were the trees in the front yard and all the sawdust as a result of the men that took the Black Walnut by planking it out (sawing into boards). There were days of cutting and stacking wood, shoveling sawdust into Green bins, raking, and cleaning.

We couldn’t socialize or have people over to see the house, no playdates and not much was open in town so we took the opportunity to work, and work hard. Bali and I would hobble about in the mornings, stiff and sore from the previous day. Once warmed up and caffeinated to a good level, we would head out for another long day of labor. I made sure to cook big, delicious meals and make afternoon espresso latte’s to keep us going.

Then I crashed and was exhausted and a little blue. It only lasted a few days but my eldest son was very dramatic and said he just wanted things to “go back to how they used to be” as if I had been suffering fatigue and depression for years. I was just burnt out. But now I’m very happy the big work is all done.

But the work is never done and so we now pick up our tools and potting soil and work some more, however, this is the little stuff. The fun and creative stuff.

Bali made me a little bed in the front for our pumpkins. I used empty pots to create an herb garden. Here are the before and afters.

This is what it looked like before.

And after the rest of the Black Walnut came down.

With the last week and a half of glorious rain in May our garden is sprouting like crazy!

That was a photo from a few days ago and here is the garden today…with more rain!

And right as I type and put up these photos I look out my grey window and see hail pounding down. This is upsetting. My garden is now covered in hail. I can only hope the rain washes it away and the poor little new plants make it out of the next 24 hours. We have warm and sunny weather scheduled for the rest of the week and onward. We shall see. I think of all the organic farms out here in the mountains and they seem to make it year after year. I’m a new mountain farmer so everything surprises or disturbs me right now.

The other day was so warm and lovely. We have been introduced to a wooded trail that we can take for a walk or transit via foot to grocery stores. This is a magical place. I wish everyone had beautiful trails to walk to towns and stores.

We are now having the time to relax, take long walks in nature, and play around with the house. We are blessed beyond words and I wish this beauty and life for everyone. This is why I share it. We don’t have much money, our income is small according to today’s standards and, recently, Bali reduced his workweek down to 4 days. It is far too important that he has time to enjoy his growing boys and this wonderful place we now live. Not to mention all the chores we have on our little urbanstead.

I’ve crunched numbers and wrote out a new budget. It is already stripped down to the nubbin’s but now I’ll definitely need that old grocery envelope that I speak of and never use myself. A strict no extra spend is now in effect.

The old Toyota left me stranded in the Grocery Outlet parking lot yesterday and my crowned tooth is bothering me too often. Then there is a big HomeDepot bill from the supplies needed when we worked on our house. So, a tight budget is what is on the menu.

This means no spending outside groceries, utilities, insurance, phone, and mortgage (and donations). Lot’s of coffee and walks for free joy and exercise (not to mention productivity with a couple espressos😊☕).

Lot’s of home cookin’ and scratch cookin’. Being very healthy and mostly plant-based. I find that an almost vegan diet is very cost-efficient and we all thrive physically and emotionally. I do love some plant-based meat alternatives and plant milk and that can get costly but I also know how to make my own homemade faux baloney and gluten steaks that are pretty darn good. I’m still working on perfecting my homemade soy milk. Making your own plant-based meats and milks saves hundreds of dollars.

Off we go on a no spend, work hard, and prosper year!

Some other goals I have for us; to only shop local. To support the small shops. To only find “needs” at thrift stores. I do love my donations and I just joined 8 Million Trees, a fantastic organization doing work I truly believe in. To support good causes with a little money and signing petitions.

It’s time to wake up. Change how we live, how we eat, what we support, support what we believe is important. I believe nature and cleaning it up and repairing the damage we have done so far is beyond important for our children and grandchildren. I believe eating clean and healthy food is important. Getting out of debt, growing food, planting trees, downsizing our life…all very important to prepare for a different future.

We can thrive in changing times but we need to do the work. It can be fun and creative. Our choice.

A New Life In The Forest and a No Spend Year to Come. When we moved to this mountain town a shelter in place was just beginning. I have my personal feelings about all this quarantine, but I try to keep my blog and channel a "happy place" so I'll save that for Patreon.

#a no spend year #a simple life #farming in town #homesteading in the city or town #living on a small or fixed budget #Paying off debt #preparing for a recession #preparing for another great depression #urbansteading

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buttramnyc · 6 years

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Italy 2018 Part I

Italy, October, 2018

The crescent moon sits in Orion’s back pocket.

Stars from my bedroom window celebrate the first day in Ponti Agli Stolli, The last 24 hours have been a whirlwind of subways, TSA lines, taxis, and jets. The highlight: watching Taylor, Deborah and Mary sprint to make our plane from Paris to Florence.

After a tour of the surrounding area (first hint of the recurring theme, “Lost in Italy!”) we find the village of Ponti Agli Stolli. It’s tiny. There’s a bridge and a river, one store, one restaurant, and that’s it. (Rather like growing up in Oak Grove, TX). Mary navigates down a steep drive to the parking lot. We explore our first digs, the Mill House, guided by Cordelia, a Polish woman who married an Italian. She speaks limited English. We “kinda” get what she’s telling us about heat, gas, etc. Nesting goes into full swing. The local store is closed for the day (siesta at 2:30pm). Off to Greve for food and a delicious meal on the main piazza. We eat, find the grocery store and stock up on breakfast food.

One ritual emerges early on: the trading of Euros among four travelers (keeping our money straight). The “funny money” (i.e., Euros) is serious. The dollar is not strong. One Euro equals $1.20 (depending on the day). The exchange rate is hard to wrap my head around but slowly I get it, Euros fly from my pockets at an alarming rate!

At lunch, Taylor shares the story of when my ultra-sophisticated friend (and employer at “Musical America,” Charlotte Gilbert, read his early play and reported back, “He’s no Arthur Miller.” This, at the tender age of 26, shook his confidence. Charlotte’s long gone to heaven and Taylor has begun writing again. Underlying lesson, “Don’t let anyone’s critique stop you from writing!” Charlotte gave me a day job for several years AND taught me how to drink scotch. Was she the best influence on Taylor or me? Of course, she was! She introduced us to the Metropolitan Opera with free tickets to our first opera, Madama Butterfly.

The Mill House is chilly. Mary and I go on a reconnaissance mission to “borrow” firewood. We score. Coming down the hill, we hear Taylor and Deborah standing in front of the house, whispering. Taylor has accidentally locked us out of our house, grabbing the car key instead of the house key. Hmmmm. Breaking into the Mill House is impossible. It’s a fortress! We text Cordelia for help and await our fate. Mary and Deborah head up the hill to the restaurant. We hear sounds of joy! They meet up with the sweetest Italian angel who saves us from sleeping in our rental car, a Ford Focus. The neighbor has a key to the house. “Did he hear us bemoaning our fate, or did Cordelia (our greeter) text him?” We will never know. What we do know is that Deborah kissed his wrinkled face multiple times.

Among Taylor quotes, Van Morrison: “No gurus, no method, no teacher. Just you and me and nature in the garden.”

Mary and Deborah do a bit of gardening in the patio. Mary upsets a wasp nest under the umbrella. “Run away!” Pass around sprigs of fresh rosemary to open our sinuses. Butterflies play tag. The leaves in the breeze make a soothing sound. Taylor says the river is low.

Looking at the gorge below us, I think of WWII soldiers hearing these same sounds before taking this small village from the Fascists and Nazis. The hill towns, how costly the fighting must have been. Towns perched on hilltops. Who has to charge up the hill? Who were the Italians that Mussolini made sense to them? Who are we that Donald Trump makes sense to us?

We trade stories of children, lost loves, parents gone to heaven. Mary’s story of her father’s indoctrination in his third nursing home. Mary calms him, “We own this place, daddy.” He replies, “Well, that’s all right, Baby.” Deborah’s story of Kevin the Plumber who took part in subterfuge to make repairs for, “Jackie,” her mom.

I would try to find a way to get down to the gorge and wade in the water but there are places to go!

Volpaia.

So beautiful! High, high, sitting on an even steeper hill, it boasts a sweet church (the first of many, many Chiesas). I explore a cemetery and greet hikers (aged 4 to 40). In the piazza, the sweetest 18-month old toddler, adorable in her pink sneakers and jacket, riding in her pink stroller, loved by all: the mother, the aunt, the grandmother, the great grandmother, the uncle, the papa, all eating, drinking wine. Here’s the kicker, the little girl’s name is Gaea, the namesake of my dearly departed friend, Gaetana Sibilio (“Tana”). I learn in my travels, Gaea is a popular Italian name. I share stories of June Havoc and Gypsy Rose Lee and Tana. I wonder how in hell Gypsy and June navigated these narrow Italian roads in Gypsy’s purple Rolls Royce! (They toured Italy in the early 1950’s, much like Hemingway did on his grand tours). Better to have a Fiat or a Ford Focus. We lunched at an outdoor trattoria Bar Ucci Wine Bar. Greeted by the owner Paola Barucci, she turned us over to a handsome young waiter. (All the waiters in Italy are handsome/pretty.)

Magical village, Volpaia!

Back home (after a few wrong turns! Where, oh, where is that turn off to Ponti Agli Stolli), we snuggle in but it’s chilly. Cordelia’s instructions for heat are no help. Aha! More firewood capers. A fine pack of thieves, Mary stumbles and falls during our hasty getaway and we leave her on the street. (Back in the USA, I was told that stealing firewood is a hanging offense in Italy.) Mary has a sizable bruise on her knee but no lasting damage!

Siena madness!

Mary speeds over the Tuscany hills, we see a fox out for a morning stroll (Mary missed it by a mile). Yes! We find Siena (more wrong turns even with our new ally, the GPS, dubbed “Marsha”). Taylor directed Mary to “Stay near the city walls!” Italian cities are surrounded by stone walls, many begun by the Etruscans and added to by the Romans and on and on. Mary edges our Ford Focus through streets filled with pedestrians, bikers, cars. It’s crowded! I muse to myself, “How will we drive out of Siena?” Siena reminds me of Venice without the canals, the streets are filled with small shops (touristy) intermixed with stylish fabrics and cosmetics, designer jewelry, a music school, it’s all here. There’s a grand piano in the music school. I decide NOT to play it. An older (!) woman in a wheelchair is pushed around by her son (?). Her eyebrows have been drawn onto her forehead. A fair amount of jewelry and scarves.

Sitting by the Sienna Piazza, the Campo, I watch a young mother change her baby girl’s diaper on the street. The baby’s “tush” must be chilly in the spotty sunlight. Children tumble and play, wrestling their mother down to the stone piazza, loving the brisk weather. Boys and girls chase pigeons, surprise! The wind picks up. Hemingway was here! Michelangelo was here! June was here!

Taylor and I tour frescos The Allegory of Good and Bad Government (circa 1340) in Palazzo Pubblico. We all visit the magnificent Duomo. Breathtaking. The black plague sent everyone flocking to religion, to find some meaning to losing 3/5 of the city to the “cimitaires.” Small wonder Italian children are so cherished! (Ah, but they should be everywhere, even in immigrant caravans.) No lack of saints, martyrs, popes, cardinals in Italy: all the subjects of religious adoration. Walking through the Duomo, I reflect on today’s sexual abuse scandals. How many innocents were sacrificed across the massive altars late at night? I am periodically overwhelmed by the religious hypocrisy. So much money!!!!

Our time in Siena is too brief. Our hard-won parking spot is time sensitive and it’s getting dark! I drive us out of Siena in search of A2. (It’s a freeway but we’re headed in the wrong direction.) With the help of “Marsha,” Deborah and a friendly and handsome blue-eyed Sienese van driver, we recover, head back over the hills toward Castellino and Greve.

Somewhere in here, we tour the Vignamaggio winery where Mona Lisa stayed and Leonardo da Vinci hung out as a young man. Legend has it, it’s where the artist drew his first sketches of the demur beauty. A tour of the winery, a delicious meal, and back down the ultra-steep hill toward Greve, finally getting the turn right to Ponti Agli Stolli. We spot a second fox AND a young wild boar (Cinghiale in Italian).

The next morning, it’s wet. We rest. All quiet except for the sound of the river bed and the gentle rainfall. “May all beings with no exception be happy.” Namaste! “Blessed is he who leaves.” Olga Tokarczuk

Arezzo via the train!

To find the train station, we ask a sweet young woman who tails us, gesturing us to the correct turn off for the station! We (park in what I now believe was an illegal parking space) in Figline Valdarno and buy tickets from what must be the surliest ticket seller in Italy. Luckily, we catch the train in the right direction and, voila, we are in Arezzo’s antiques street fair. Another beautiful Chiesa, Basilico San Domenico at the tail-end of Mass. Again, lovely singing. The altar boasts the saddest crucifix ever by Cimabue. To the Arezzo Duomo, no comparison to Siena, but we catch another tail-end of Mass. Lunch in the piazza and to the Roman amphitheater. All the museums in Italy are free on Sunday? This does not hold true for Florence! The finale, the Basilica of San Francesco with the frescos marking the journey of the “true cross.” For almost all the train ride back to Figline Valdarno, I am convinced we are moving in the wrong direction! Hallelujah, I was wrong!

Freezing in the Mill Mountain house this night. I wake with a sore throat. Crap!!!! Hard to rest but in the early morning window, there is Orion holding hope for sunshine the next day. Money begins to cause me concern… why did I think the dollar was strong? It’s not! “Ah, well.”

We spend the next day exploring another hilltop town, Montefiorelle. WAY up, one-way streets getting there, missing the turn off. Lost in Italy theme underscoring! (Must be lost at least once a day.) Taylor and I catch the end of Mass at the Greve Chiesa. Beautiful voices (all girls). We discuss religion, always fascinating! After a late lunch of deadly lentil soup with leeks, we head back up the hill to Montefiorelle at night! We are four of a total of six diners who have returned to the hilltop (but we are stuffed from the soup). Taylor was the only one not affected by the soup. We return because Deborah pined to sit close to a working fireplace. My capetto was yummy but, oh, brother, did I pay for overeating!

In retrospect, it’s rather jolly about traveling with hard-of-hearing people, we have no compunctions about farting away, every step we take! Walking behind us must be amusing and horrifying.

The last morning at the Mill House! I take a walk in the morning hoping to make it down to the gorge. I take the side road. An old man (older than me!) struggles along, stopping to rest periodically. I pass Cordelia walking into town. She’s coming to check us out of the Mill House! Cordelia doesn’t recognize me so I keep walking. Abandoned apartments are totally beyond repair. You could buy this villa for a song if you had a fortune to refurbish it. Two men working on the country road look up at me… “Don’t recognize this lady!” I nod, wave, and retrace my steps. Never did make it to the gorge!

Packing and moving madness! The GPS goes haywire. I’m missing some step, soooo simple, but what? We drive in circles, slowly closing in on Montepulciano… again Taylor shouts to Mary, “Stay close to the walls.”

Montepulciano!

A “hill town” is an apt description. Our hotel, Albergo Duomo, sits atop the hill. The concierge (ten years on the job) is helpful but “coolish” when we arrive. Frazzled, uncouth Americans! Slow down! Chill! But, he helps us and we retreat to our separate rooms. I fail to notice (or chose to ignore that my room is right next to the “elevator”). A brief pause and we are back out on the street!

A great lunch leaves us a bit logy and we stroll. Taylor points out the topography. Winding streets of stone. Spectacular views of the valley. On this piazza, there are chairs and we settle in next to four stunningly beautiful Italians from Roma. These “youths” (two couples) are listening to Andrea Bocelli on their I-phone. Mary asked if they know the Ed Sheeran duet with Bocelli and it’s quickly cued up. They sing along with all the songs, tossing their heads back and serenading the manicured valley below, young, sexy, and singing from their hearts. Soon, we begin to sing along, Deborah, Mary and me. A pure spiritual moment. This quartet and three ringers from the states. We sing all the greats, Celine Dion, “My Heart Will Go On,” Pavarotti’s “Nessun Dorma,” even “Ave Maria,” applauding ourselves and each other. Bird, bells, world travelers, all singing. We share fresh “biscotti,” the sun slips behind the land, and they bid us farewell, “See you tomorrow.” Perfect experience. God bless Ed Sheeran. In the distance, rain falls on the valley. I am sitting in Etruscan ruins. They built the walls (or parts of them).

I climbed the Palazzo Comunale (i.e, City Hall) and it was tight staircase! A worried young man waits for his ancient father to climb the haphazard stairs, “He insisted on coming up here.” Oy!

Sleepless night listening to the elevator open and close, AND I had a head cold. Taylor and I ask the surly concierge for directions to the “Pharmacie.” He points it out on the map. Trying a follow up question looking for common ground, “Taylor says the last time he was here, there was a cat. What happened to the cat?” He grunts a one-word reply, “Dead.”

(Nose drops. Yay! Returned the next day for more. “Cough medicine,” really good cough medicine. Score! I sipped it for the next three days… Italy has excellent cold drugs. Deborah and Mary came down with the same cold in Cortona, I shared my meds.)

Delirium: I dream of taking Beckham to the circus. No animal acts only humans and “giant slides.” He loves slides and was happy. My old buddy Kara Sekuler worked at the circus, wearing her high heels.

I live another day. I avoid the surly concierge and asked the night gate keeper to change my room for the last two nights. It happens, thanks! Much sounder sleep. We drive to Pienza. I visit the Chiesa St. Catherine, learn about stanzas (prayer rooms).

La Foce: beautiful gardens and villa that belonged to Marchesa Iris Origo, an ultra-rich lady and Anglo-American biographer and historian of international fame. She wrote two autobiographies, Images and Shadows and War in Val d'Orcia. Created farms, revitalized a community, saved WWII refugees, and built a garden for the Gods filled with plants and lemon trees. Sizable swimming pool!

Leaving, Taylor wanted to find the cemetery where the Marchesa is buried. We drive up and down the main road. No! We drive up a cow patch. No! (Mary is a force getting us out of the cow patch! There is smoke under the Focus… hot engine singes the dry grass.) An older man concentrates on watering his herb garden on the front porch, waves us off, barely raised his head, gesturing, “It’s over there. We drive up a graveled and steep hill in the back of the estate. No! One last try. We take a road to a nearby castle with Italian workmen ending their day. It’s not the cemetery, it’s closed and we aren’t the only ones looking for directions. The requisite black Mercedes with a gorgeous couple are not looking for the cemetery, they are simply lost! Again, no cemetery. The drive back to Montepulciano via Piensa, apples and cheese on the veranda.

Dipping our feet into the mineral springs of Bagno Vignoni, (Lorenzo the Magnificent and Saint Catherine bathed there) we visit with the passers-by. British girls discuss global warming and conservation, “America is bad but not like Indonesia. Poaching is bad.” That the USA is coupled with Indonesia says a lot about their perceptions of the USA.

Taylor seeks a monastery further “South, East, West, North” … I have lost all sense of direction. But with the help of “Marsha,” we wind our way up the mountain. Success. There’s a parking lot, cars in the parking lot, and signs! Two rows of cypresses leads down the hill to Monte Oliveta Maggiore, a Benedictine Abbey set in the clay hills of Tuscany. Founded in 1313 by Bernardo Tolomei (a rich man who found religion and became Saint Benedict), the cloister has frescoes of the Life of St. Benedict painted by Luca Signorelli and il Sodoma. They are masterworks of the Italian Renaissance. (Taylor tells us the Benedictine monks were appalled (Taylor’s word) because “Sodome,” (i.e, Sodom) was enamored of young men and his rendering of male “buttocks” were way too sexy. He painted a lot of horses’ rears, too. (Taylor notes Sodome fathered 30 children.) Truly, this is a glorious Chiesa, filled with art. Thirty monks live year round. They prepare the evening meal; the U-shaped table is formidable. They eat together, worship together, read in the voluminous library, and play together. In their gift shop, I buy a cross for Guy, Taylor buys honey.

We find our way back to Montepulciano via Piensa. All roads lead through Piensa. A quick visit to Tempio San Biagio, a lovely church at the foot of Montepulciano. I climb the hill back to home, the same hill that Iris Origo climbed with WWII refugee children when they were escaping La Foce and the Germans; the townspeople applauded Marchesa Iris Origo when she entered the city walls. Today, many cats greet me and the weather is perfection. Thrilling sunset!

[At Monte Oliveta Maggiore, we begin to understand the horror of Hurricane Michael. It hits Bainbridge, Georgia, hard! There are many texts, Facebook messages and phone calls to family. Everyone is safe but all suffer real property damage. Halfway around the globe, nothing to be done by the band of travelers. Deborah, Mary and Taylor are heroic in their ability to “keep a stiff upper lip” and enjoy Italy.]

Last morning in Montepulciano, I have a breakthrough with our surly concierge. Paying my room bill, he notes my zip code, Manhattan. “Do I know Joe Allen?” Yay! “Do I know Joe Allen?” “Yes,” I lie. (In theory, I know Joe Allen. I’ve eaten in his restaurant hundreds of times and he donated to Abingdon Theatre Company when my buddy Shirley Herz made the “ask.”) Suddenly, we are on common ground and he is nigh charming. He loves Manhattan, considers Joe Allen a father figure. Thank you, theater Gods!

Our exit from Montepulciano is a clean one. Phew!

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