#like they gave opioids to my DOG when she got old but I can be in the ER with a 10 on the pain scale

[lastoneout]

You know the whole "focusing on managing your health with medications other than narcotics" mentality would be a lot easier for me to accept if I wasn't for some reason fucking immune to 90% of the non-narcotic options. Like I'm sorry the only anxiety medication that's ever done me any good is ativan, sorry my pain doesn't respond to NSAIDs and non-addictive muscle relaxers, sorry my insomnia is so bad my only choices are ambien or weed, sorry I have ADHD and literally need adderall to function.

Like I get that there's an addiction crisis but like, idk man I still think I should maybe be allowed to have relief from my health issues rather than "being strong" and suffering nobly or spending years running through a hellish gauntlet of medications that make everything worse to find one that might help all to avoid maybe possibly getting addicted to something. Especially when I have been on multiple "addictive" medications and have never once had a problem with quitting them. The ones that do give me horrid symptoms when I have to stop them, however? Yeah they're the non-addictive ones.

Seems a little backwards is all I'm saying.

[maxineswritingcenter]

Bray Road - Fox Mulder x nonbinary!reader part 4

It only took a couple months for my to get back on the old horse, everything's fine.

(Y/P/L/N) = your previous last name since the character is adopted

---------

"Good evening, agents. I'm doctor Winterfield, how can i-" The doctor stopped as he looked up at the agents and closed the door, "Assist you..." (Y/N) recognized everything about him. His gravely voice. His dusty blonde hair and his dark brown eyes. He had been so young when she last saw him, but now he looked to be around his mid-forties. Twenty fives years since they last saw his face.

Mulder interrupted the silence, flashing his badge, "Agents Fox Mulder and agent-"

"(Y/N) (Y/P/L/N). I never forget a patient." The doctor said their name before Mulder had a chance to. Their stomach clenched as the doctor took a step forward.

"Look at you, I haven't seen you since were up to my waist. How's your asthma?"

(Y/N) swallowed, "It's fine. I only use my inhaler for emergencies." They gave a weak smile to be polite but everything was telling them to run.

"That's good. Very good. If your parents, may they rest in peace, if they had let you continue your treatment here, we would could have cured you of your asthma." He said.

Mulder narrowed his eyes at the doctor, "Asthma can't be cured. It's not like a pneumonia."

"The trials (Y/N) was undergoing was for a new strain of albuterol and would repair their lungs and airways and the asthma would simply become useless genes." Winterfield explained.

"Would you be able show us the research for this strain?" Mulder asked.

"Oh no. There was a fire about ten so odd years ago. Everything was destroyed, files, research you name it."

Mulder only nodded. Fighting to keep themselves from breaking down, (Y/N) opened up the file they had been keeping at their side.

"Dr. Winterfield-"

"Oh please, call me Lyle." The doctor grinned. His teeth were impossibly white.

"Dr. Winterfield-," They repeated, "Have you treated these boys?" They showed the pictures if the boys who were in the latest attack. There seemed to be some recognition in his eyes.

"Of course. I've treated all the children in this town."

"Did they also have asthma?" Mulder asked. Confusing (Y/N) profusely.

"Oh if I can recall. I do believe the Mulligan boy had it. I don't see how that's relevant to them being attacked by a bear." The doctor said.

"The medical report never mentioned a bear." They said, scrunching their eyebrows together.

"No, but from what I've heard, there isn't anything else is could be." Dr. Winterfield mused, then turned back to (Y/N), "Even your parents."

Mulder opened his mouth to tell the doctor that (Y/N) parents were only considered dead on the technicality that even though their bodies were never found with the blood evidence found they were dead. But his partner spoke up.

"Agent Mulder, I think it's time we leave and let the doctor get back to work." They smiled politely, "Have a good day, Doctor."

"And you too." Dr. Winterfield smiled, opening the door for them.

-

The agents were driving toward the motel when Mulder spoke up.

"You okay?" He asked. (Y/N) hadn't noticed they were staring off into the distance until they heard his voice.

"No," They said honestly, "he really shook me up. I don't know why."

"I have a theory." Mulder said, stopping at a four way. The sound of the rentals blinker filled the silence.

"What's that?"

"Well, I'm no dentist, but it doesn't take a degree to tell that one of his molars was missing." His words made their blood go cold.

"You don't think-"

"I don't think, I know. But the only connection to you and the most recent case is that the Mulligan kid has asthma." He paused when his phone rang, he motioned for them to grab it. (Y/N) tried to keep their blush to minimum when pulling the phone from his jacket pocket. They answered and pressed the speaker.

"Mulder." He said.

"It's Scully, are you alone?"

"No, I have Agent (Y/L/N) with me." There was a pause on the other end of the line. Mulder looked over at (Y/N) out of the side of his vision, then back at the road. "It's alright, Scully, I trust them. Besides, they're apart of the XFile."

"That's good. It's better that they hear this then." She said.

"What is it, Agent Scully?" (Y/N) asked.

"I was able to get a look at the autopsy reports you sent and the blood work was strange."

"How so?" They asked.

"The blood types of the victims were identified but there was also another blood type found that didn't match any of the others. And this blood type is nothing like I've ever seen before. It's human but we also found traces of DEA."

"DEA? Isn’t that-" Mulder asked.

"Dog Erythrocyte Antigen. Humans have ABO blood typing while the DEA is for canines."

"Like wolves." Mulder and (Y/N) said together.

"Exactly. And there's something else, the victim in the hospital, Jason Mulligan, also has traces of DEA in his blood." As soon as Mulder heard this he made a complete u-turn, leaving the direction of the hotel to go to the hospital.

"Scully, I'm gonna have to call you back." He hung up the phone.

"Mulder, what's going on?" They asked, holding onto the dashboard from the sudden movement.

"What's going on is the sun is going down and Jason is about to have his first transformation."

- 

At the hospital, both agents exited the vehicle, but Mulder paused. 

“I gotta make a call, you go inside and check on Jason.” (Y/N) nodded, making their way inside. Mulder jogged to the payphone near the hospital entrance. He fed the machine a quarter and dialed the number. 

“This is the Lone Gunmen, who gave you this number?” A distorted robotic voice answered the call. 

“Give it a rest, it’s Mulder.” He smiled slightly. 

“Oh.” The voice said before Langley’s familiar voice spoke, “Hey Mulder, why did you call through the tip line.” 

“Keeping you on your toes and being mysterious.” He joked. 

“He’s not wrong.” Frohike chimed in, surely getting a glare from Langley, “How’s Scully doing.” 

“Scully’s fine, casanova. She’s resting. How much do you know about pharmaceuticals?”

“Not much from me. Byers?” Langley called. 

“Nothing I can’t find.” Byers spoke up, “What are we looking at: opioids, depressants? Anti-depressants?” 

“Albuterol.” Mulder answered, “Our suspect is a pediatrician who gave his patients a “new strain” that supposedly was meant to cure asthma.” He could hear typing in the background. 

“I’m not finding anything from the CDC or any published medical literature on anything about a new miracle cure for asthma.” Langley mused. 

“Checks out. What about DEA in human blood?” Mulder asked, waiting for the theories. 

“It’s impossible for human and canid blood to mix in anyway to create a living being.” Langley said. 

“What about the Michigan Dogman, how do you explain that?” Frohike cut in. 

“Oh have you tested the Dogman’s blood? Let me see your research, you little gremlin.” 

“Hey. Enough. Last thing, I need a background on a Doctor Lyle Winterfield.” Mulder looked around, seeing an the sheriff pulling into the parking lot. 

“We’ll look into it for you.” Byers said over the yelling of Langley and Frohike, “Gunmen out.” The line went dead. The sheriff seemed to make his way over to Mulder in a hurry. 

“Agent, we got a problem.” 

“What is it?” 

“That Mulligan kid, he’s goin’ on a rampage inside.” Mulder’s eyes widened, realizing he had sent (Y/N) in there alone. 

“Lead the way.” They both ran inside.

------------------

So this part is a little shorter than usual, but I wanted to save the next scene for its own post. Also sorry it's been a while. I've been sad.

Read part 5 here!

Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated.

To be on the taglist, please message me.

Bray Road Tag:

@theres-a-dog-outside-omg

@nyotamalfoy

@bi-andready-tocry

[dpjustified]

Bingo #7

(disclaimer: fanfic not headcanon) 

(#7 Themes: Ghost Nip, Someone dies, Ghost King, and Fully Dead AU with twist [Vlad instead and fully ghost not fully dead. Don’t you know that ghosts are other dimensional creatures]? )

“Yes!” Jazz cheered. She had finally defeated a ghost by herself. Well, just with her parent’s weapons, but even they fought as a team. Today she took down Kitty, who was busy stealing makeup from the store, as well as breaking perfume bottles. Once she captured her with the Jack-o-rang, she looked closer.

Kitty...didn’t look well. Her eyes were sunken, her hair didn’t look like it had been groomed in months, and her makeup looked like it had been put on like a five year old. Not to mention all the scratches on her arms and legs....

“Let me get my stash,” Kitty growled, fighting her restrains. She started foaming at the mouth.

Jazz took out a notebook. “This is clearly a case of drug addiction. I have to study further.”

She sucked Kitty up into the Thermos to bring her back to the lab. After releasing her, Kitty kept asking for some sort of stash, so Jazz untied her hands. She then desperately reached for her purse and pulled out what looked like glowing grass. She stuffed a bunch up her nose and heaved heavily, before rolling on the floor.

Jazz grabbed a sample while Kitty’s mind was in who knows what land and stuck it into her pocket.

“Jazz? You home yet?” Her little brother called from upstairs.

She went up and opened the door.

He and Tucker were working on homework, from the looks of it.

“Hi Jazz,” Tucker explained. “We can’t figure out this one math problem for trig. These triangle formulas are really throwing us for a loop. Think you can help us?”

“Think?” She tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Sure I can help, as long as I’m not doing the problem for you like last time.”

Danny dropped his pencil and stared at her, with drool coming down from his mouth. “Danny, are you asleep already?” Jazz chided, but Danny approached and sniffed around her.

“What...is that smell?” He asked, then started feeling her pockets. “I can’t even think straight.”

After thinking for a moment, she pulled out the grass. “This?”

Danny leapt for it, but Jazz pulled out the Thermos and sucked the grass inside. “Just great. Whatever it is, it affects halfas too. Are you sane now?”

“I...” He looked confused. “I just blanked out there. I’m not sure what happened.”

“Don’t worry, your big sis has it covered! Sorry to sound like our parents but...you need to come to the lab.”

Danny and Tucker followed her, and she showed them Kitty, who was currently passed out in the corner. She looked dead.

“If you don’t want to be like her Danny, we’re going to attempt to make this grass have a connection with something you really, really hate.”

“Like homework?” Tucker suggested.

“Like Brussels sprouts.”

“Eww,” Danny said, sticking out his tongue in disgust.

“And meanwhile, Tucker, I need your help to study this ghost and this grass’s drug-like effects. Maybe we can wean her off?”

Tucker wiggled his glasses. “I’ve got an A in Chemistry, so I think I’m ready to be a scientist.”

Danny cringed. As a big sister, she needed to help him with his grades. At least that would help him focus more on saving people.

...

It took a few weeks, and various combinations of baking the grass together with things Danny hated for him to stop losing his mind every time it was around. Of course, she and Tucker had to collect the stuff - the location coming from Kitty - in order to have enough for the study.

After doing combined research with Sam’s help, Jazz found that methodone, the same medicine used for opioid addicts, could be applied to this after exposure to ectoplasm.

With Kitty, they decreased her dose gradually and replaced the grass with the harmless lemongrass before her cravings decreased enough for her to resist normally.

It was time for the survey.

“So,” Jazz said to Kitty. “How did you become addicted to this...ghost nip, shall we say?” Kitty chewed on a strand of lemongrass in thought. “Johnny gave it to me. Spectra diagnosed him for his anxiety, and I’ve been having trouble sleeping, so he told me to try it. It made me feel good, even just having it by my bed at night.”

“I can’t get over the fact that ghosts sleep,” Tucker said.

Kitty continued. “But after that, I really couldn’t control the dose anymore. When I have too much, I really lose my mind. I don’t even remember what I did before I ended up here. And Johnny...I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

The group looked at each other.

Jazz nodded. “It’s time for us to help you.”

They ventured into the Ghost Zone with the Specter Speeder. It was tragic how widespread the addiction was. Shady ghosts were hawking the stuff, and countless ghosts were just floating aimlessly. A new ghost lair had popped up just to bury dead ghosts.

Dead ghosts, now that was a strange topic.

She wrote it down to research later. For now, they were on a medical mission. Danny and Kitty split up with them to recruit Walker, who was apparently struggling to get a handle on the drug trade, while Jazz and Tucker delivered medicine and trained other ghosts on medical care. They ran into Technus, who quickly developed a machine to mass manufacture the medicine.

It was time to rendezvous with Danny.

...

She wasn’t surprised that Spectra was behind the whole thing. Walker and Danny had teamed up to beat her up, and she was currently in a jail cell in the ghost’s infamous prison.

Jazz sat down with a notebook.

“Ah, I bet you want to know my motivations,” Spectra said with a smile.

“Prison suits you,” Jazz replied. Apparently Spectra’s fellow prisoners were letting her know what they thought of her. A number of her teeth were missing, and she had a bald spot.

“Simple. With misery creates power. I was top dog here, top dog. Before you and the stupid ghost boy ruined my plans, again.”

“Why did you make your own kind your enemy? You usually just pick on humans.” If she had caused an epidemic in the human world, it would have been truly disastrous.

“I happened to come across it after following that vampire ghost. He’s one of us, but he’s not. He doesn’t live here in the Ghost Zone. I know the psychology of addiction. It almost had me myself, but I am stronger than that. Not everyone gave into the ghost nip, you know. And what a pity. I wonder how Danny Phantom was able to resist. His misery was always the sweetest.”

After collecting her thoughts on paper, Jazz went out and informed Tucker and Danny.

“You think Vlad’s addicted right now?” Tucker said. “I mean, he’s already nuts, but we should still help him, right?”

“Right. Let’s check it out...Kitty?”

She flew up to them with tears in her eyes. “Johnny’s dead. I...It was too late. He’s already fallen apart.”

“When ghosts die...” Jazz wanted to continue but trailed off. She wanted to satisfy her curiosity so badly.

“Yes, we turn back into ectoplasm. We were happy together. This thing tore us apart. I...I can’t live alone!”

Jazz embraced her. “You can do it. We believe in you.”

It was hard to leave her there in such an unstable condition, so they asked Ghost Writer to look after her, then sped off towards Vlad’s portal entrance.

There, she was not expecting what she saw.

Vlad Plasmius floated in front of the TV with blank eyes.

“Vlad?” Danny said, as they slowly walked in front of him. “You haven’t been popping up lately. Have you heard of that...grass stuff?”

“Oh, that.” Vlad looked down. “I ran out a long time ago. But look at me now. I don’t seem to have a human form anymore, my boy.”

“...” Jazz couldn’t say anything, and apparently neither could Danny. They decided to just sit next to him.

Tucker wordlessly left the room, then came back a few minutes later. “Nope, no body anywhere. You can’t have just died like that. Don’t give up hope.”

Vlad sighed. “I sleep, I eat, and I wake up. It’s been a week, and now...I’m relieved, actually. No more do I have to pretend to be somebody.”

Jazz got out her notebook and jotted down notes. “Don’t worry Vlad. And I’m sure Danny will help too. Whatever happened to you, we can reverse it. Together.”

Danny wordlessly put a hand on Vlad’s shoulder.

Tucker chipped in. “Hey, even I’ll help. I’m pretty good with computers.”

“Really good,” said Danny. “He might even give you some ideas, DALV Corp. CEO.”

Vlad cracked a smile.

Addictions can tear us apart, but the aftermath can still bring us together, because we can heal together.

At least, she thought so.

[7r0773r]

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

In the bathroom with the pea-soup walls, the grandma rolls a freshly boiled egg over the boy’s face where, a few minutes ago, his mother had flung an empty ceramic teapot that exploded on the boy’s cheek.

The egg is warm as my insides, he thinks. It’s an old remedy. “The egg, it heals even the worst bruises,” says his grandma. She works on the violet lump shining, like a plum, on the boy’s face. As the egg circled, its smooth pressure on the bruise, the boy watched, under a puffed lid, his grandma’s lips crease with focus as she worked. Years later, as a young man, when all that remains of the grandma is a face etched in his mind, the boy will remember that crease between her lips while breaking open a hard-boiled egg on his desk on a winter night in New York. Short on rent, it would be eggs for dinner for the rest of the week. They would not be warm, but cold in his palm, having been boiled by the dozen earlier that morning. 

At his desk, drifting, he’ll roll the moist egg across his cheek. Without speaking, he will say Thank you. He’ll keep saying it until the egg grows warm with himself.

“Thank you, Grandma,” says the boy, squinting.

“You fine now, Little Dog.” She lifts the pearly orb, and places it gently to his lips. “Eat,” she says. “Swallow. Your bruises are inside it now. Swallow and it won’t hurt anymore.” And so he eats. He is eating still. 

***

In college a professor once insisted, during a digression from a lecture on Othello, that, to him, gay men are inherently narcissistic, and that overt narcissism might even be a sign of homosexuality in men who have not yet accepted their “tendencies.” Even as I fumed in my seat, the thought wouldn’t stop burrowing into me. Could it be that, all those years ago. I had followed Gramoz in the schoolyard simply because he was a boy, and therefore a mirror of myself?

But if so—why not? Maybe we look into mirrors not merely to seek beauty, regardless how illusive, but to make sure, despite the facts, that we are still here. That the hunted body we move in has not yet been annihilated, scraped out. To see  yourself still yourself is a refuge men who have not been denied cannot know. 

I read that beauty has historically demanded replication. We make more of anything we find aesthetically pleasing, whether it’s a vase, a painting, a chalice, a poem. We reproduce it in order to keep it, extend it through space and time. To gaze at what pleases—a fresco, a peach-red mountain range, a boy, the mole on his jaw—is, in itself, replication—the image prolonged in the eye, making more of it, making it last. Staring into the mirror, I replicate myself into a future where I might not exist. And yes, it was not pizza bagels, all those years ago, that I wanted from Gramoz, but replication. Because his offering extended me into something worthy of generosity, and therefore seen. It was that very moreness that I wanted to prolong, to return to.

***

There’s a word Trevor once told me about, one he learned from Buford, who served in the navy in Hawaii during the Korean War: kipuka. The piece of land that’s spared after a lava flow runs down the slope of a hill—an island formed from what survives the smallest apocalypse. Before the lava descended, scorching the moss along the hill, that piece of land was insignificant, just another scrap in an endless mass of green. Only by enduring does it earn its name. Lying on the mat with you, I cannot help but want us to be our own kipuka, our own aftermath, visible. But I know better.

***

You once asked me what it means to be a writer. So here goes.

Seven of my friends are dead. Four from overdoses. Five, if you count Xavier who flipped is Nissan doing ninety on a bad batch of fentanyl.

I don’t celebrate my birthday anymore.

Take the long way home with me. Take the left on Walnut, where you’ll see the Boston Market where I worked for a year when I was seventeen (after the tobadcco farm). Where the Evangelical boss—the one with nose pores so large, bisuit crumbs from his lunch would get lodged in them—never gave us any breaks. Hungry on a seven-hour shift, I’d lock myself in the broom closet and stuff my mouth with cornbread I snuck in my black, standard-issue apron.

Trevor was put on OxyContin after breaking his ankle doing dirt bike humps in the woods a year before I met him. He was fifteen.

OxyContin, first mass-produced by Purdue Pharma in 1996, is an opioid, essentially making it heroin in pill form.

I never wanted to build a “body of work,” but to preserve these, our bodies, breathing and unaccounted for, inside the work.

Take it or leave it. The body, I mean.

Takke a left on Harris Stl, whee all that’s left of the house that burned down that summer during a thunderstorm is a chain-linked dirt lot.

The truest ruins are not written down. The girl Grandma knew back in Go Cong, the one whose sandals were cut from the tires of a burned-out army jeep, who was erased by an air strike three weeks before the war ended—she’s a ruin no one can point to. A ruin without location, like a language.

AFter a month on the Oxy, Trevor’s ankle healed, but he was a full-blown addict.

In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act; to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly. Once, after my fourteenth birthday, crouched between the seats of an abandoned school bus in the woods, I filled my life with a l ine of cocaine. A white letter “I” glowed on the seat’s peeling leather. Inside me the “I” became a switchblade—and something tore. My stomach forced up but it was too late. I n minutes, I cbecame more of myself. Which is to say the monstrous part of me got so large, so familiar, I could want it. I could kiss it.

The truth is none of us are enough enough. But you know this already.

The truthy is I came here hoping for a reason to stay.

Sometimes those reasons are small: the way you pronounce spaghetti as “bahgeddy.”

It’s late in the season—which means the winter roses, in full bloom along the national bank, are suicide notes.

Write that down.

They say nothing lasts forever but they’re just scared it will last longer than they can love it.

Are you there? Are you still walking?

They say nothing lasts forever and I’m writing you in the voice of an endangered species.

The truth is I’m worried they will get us before they get us.

Tell me where it hurts. You have my word.

***

They say addiction might be linked to bipolar disorder. It’s the chemicals in our brains, they say. I got the wrong chemicals, Ma. Or rather, I don’t get enough of one or the other. They have a pill for it. They have an industry. They make millions. Did you know people get rich off of sadness? I want to meet the millionaire of American sadness. I want to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and say, “It’s been an honor to serve my country.”

***

In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhó. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Con nhó mę không? I flinch, thinking you meant, Do you remember me?

***

I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink of an eye, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you’re born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly. Like right now, how the sun is coming on, low behind the elms, and I can’t tell the difference between a sunset and a sunrise. The world, reddening, appears the same to me—and I lose track of east and west. The colors this morning have the frayed tint of something already leaving. I think of the time Trev and I sat on the toolshed roof, watching the sun sink. I wasn’t so much surprised by its effect—how, in a few crushed minutes, it changes the way things are seen, including ourselves—but that it was ever mine to see. Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.

[pinpsmardandi1974-blog]

At the end of the day I think Lucia just really wants to be a typical, average beauty guru, had one or two really insightful anti consumerism videos, so that suddenly became her thing, but she doesn have the appetite or dare I say talent/perspective to really keep it up. And panning gives her anxiety whereas getting free stuff does not. That just who she is right now and I leave it at that. Also I feel like none of the other replies focused on how BOTH of you guys can work on this proactively vs. You just having to cope with it. Relationships require work on both ends, not just you. The president said that the immigration plan "will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction. " "In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses: 174 deaths per day. Seven per hour. You pulled the asshole move and purposefully ignored her all night long even when she was trying to check up on you.Also, she's been honest. She told you she was hanging out with your brother. She told you he brought her coffee. What I will commend Bobbi Brown for is that they have kept a neutral color range so it is wearable all the time. However, for my generation, BB could be viewed as a line for women over 40. I could be totally over analyzing this, although I can think of many influencers that are reaching for BB in their tutorials like they are NARS, ABH, and Kat Von D, to name a few.. Whatever your reasons, you're unlikely to be alone. You may be amazed how many other retraining middle executives/returning to work moms/over 65 year olds there are in your classes. Certainly some of the 18 year old recent high school graduates are often surprised by how many "wrinklies" there are in their classes and sometimes staggered by how well some of us tend to do with our studies (perhaps they think that anyone in their 30s, 40s or above is too much of an old dog to learn any new tricks, and boy are we determined to prove them wrong).. Seconding Azta I visited Manila this past summer and had my hair bleached and dyed a neon colour and they did FANTASTICALLY. I went to the Eastwood branch and had Andy. I would wholeheartedly recommend him and the salon. Forget that you need perfect skin to be seen as flawless. Forget about that fake tan that you need to glow. It starts here. First, be sure that the hair removal specialist you choose follows appropriate measures for infection control. For example, if you choose electrolysis, you should know that the American Electrology Association has developed standards based 통영출장샵 on the published guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the Association for Practitioners in Infection Control and Epidemiology. If you don't see the standards for one or more of these posted in your specialist's office, then be sure to ask what guidelines the physician follows [source: American Electrology Association].. I was on adapalene for about 2 and 통영출장샵 a half months starting February of this year. It made my skin so much worse than what it was when I started out and it only cleared up a little when I got off it. And it gave me so much texture in my skin, my whole chin was covered in milia.. You can break it up into florets or cut the head into thick slices. Brush well with olive oil, getting it in all of the nooks and crannies. Err on the side of too much, rather than too little.

[mostfunnystuff247-blog]

Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Kanye West

Books & Music Did you know he got his start in the music biz as a producer — not a rapper? Jennifer Nied 2018-10-11

Getty Images | Noel Vasquez If there’s one thing you can say about rapper and fashion mogul (and Mr. Kim Kardashian) Kanye West, it’s that he’s not afraid to take risks. Here’s everything you may not know about Kanye, from the fact that he was once an awkward teen in Chicago to the fact that he was engaged once before ultimately meeting and marrying Kim.

Kanye Had An Awkward Phase As A Teen

Even the multitalented, trendsetting West had an awkward phase when he was younger. Rolling Stone reported that in high school, other kids teased him about his braces. It seems like it was worth it, though, because his smile looks great today.

Getty Images

He Attended Two Colleges

He started at American Academy of Art in Chicago and transferred to Chicago State University. West dropped out before graduating and opted to pursue a career in the music industry instead. He named his 2004 debut album “The College Dropout,” though West received an honorary doctorate degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015.

Flickr | romanboed

He Got His Start As A Producer

West got his start in music with Roc-A-Fella Records as a producer for several of the tracks on Jay Z’s album “The Blueprint.” He wanted more than producing credits, however and convinced the Roc-A-Fella team to give him a shot on the other side as a rapper.

Getty Images | Michael Buckner

He Likes Nicknames

In September, West announced on Twitter that he now prefers to be called “Ye.” “Ye” is also the name of his latest album. Some of his previous album names have also matched his other nicknames, Pablo and Yeezy — notably, 2013’s “Yeezus” and 2016’s “The Life of Pablo.”

Getty Images | Neilson Barnard

He Was Engaged Once Before Marrying Kim Kardashian

In 2006, West proposed to his then-girlfriend, designer Alexis Phifer, over a romantic dinner while on vacation in Capri, Italy. The two ultimately parted ways in 2008, just months after his mother’s death in November 2007. At the time of the breakup, a friend of his told People, “Kanye has been going through a rough time.”

Getty Images | David Livingston

Kanye Was In A Car Accident That Nearly Killed Him

In 2002, while driving home from the studio at 4 a.m., West fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into an oncoming car and broke his jaw. (The crash broke both of the other driver’s legs and his pelvis.) He had to have it wired shut to let it heal. He ended up recording his first single, “Through the Wire,” with his jaw still wired shut.

Getty Images | Randy Brooke

He Had A Close Relationship With His Mother

His parents divorced when he was 3 years old, and his mother, Donda, raised West in Chicago. When he was a rising star, she left her teaching position at the University of Chicago to work as his manager. West frequently brought her as his guest to award shows and events.

Getty Images | Fernando Leon

His Mother Died Suddenly After Surgery

In 2007, Donda died after returning home following cosmetic surgery. People covered the aftermath and the coroner’s report, writing that the Los Angeles coroner concluded she “died of heart disease while suffering ‘multiple post-operative factors’ after plastic surgery.'” The sudden and tragic loss was understandably difficult for West. He named his new creative content and design company Donda as a tribute to his mother.

Getty Images | Kevin Winter

His Tastes In Music Are Surprising

During a Rolling Stone interview from 2006, West had a conversation with Willi.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas in which he said, “I love your album. The only albums that I listened to were yours, System of a Down and Fiona Apple.”

Getty Images | Frederick M. Brown

He Loves Stuffed Animals

When a Rolling Stone reporter noted the teddy bears on a windowsill in his house, West replied, “People give me bears all the time. I love stuffed animals.” His mascot Dropout Bear appeared on some early album covers, and apparently, the bear was a spontaneous choice for the cover. “The bear just happened to be at the school where Def Jam had booked the photo shoot for the album,” music exec Plain Pat told Complex.

West Compared His Lyrics To Advice From Mahatma Gandhi

West is never short on confidence. During an interview with Rolling Stone, he shared how he felt about a line in “Everything I Am” that goes, “Everything I’m not made me everything I am.” “In my humble opinion, that’s a prophetic statement,” he said. “Gandhi would have said something like that.”

Getty Images | Carl Court

He Has Directed Films

West was a director and a writer on the short fantasy film “Cruel Summer,” which tells the story of a car thief who falls in love with a blind princess. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012. MTV compared it to his 2010 short “Runway,” saying it “plays like an extended music video.”

Getty Images | Michael Loccisano

He Relies On Others When Making Creative Choices

West bounces lyrics and new ideas off anyone who happens to be in the studio, and reportedly solicits advice from anyone and everyone. In fact, he has reached out to journalists, girlfriends and delivery drivers in addition to established industry professionals. In a Rolling Stone story, a former girlfriend noted she had to be careful about saying she didn’t like something, because he’d cut it.

Getty Images | Scott Gries

He Has Won 21 Grammys

West’s tally of mini gramophones ties him with Jay-Z. However, he has also had an incredible 68 Grammy nominations. West received his first Grammy in 2004 for Best Rap Album for “The College Dropout.”

Getty Images | Kevin Winter

He Has A Controversial View Of AIDS

West shocked the crowd at an AIDS awareness concert tour with his claim that AIDS was a “man-made disease” that had been “placed in Africa just like crack was placed in the black community to break up the Black Panthers.” During a Rolling Stone interview, he affirmed the widely discredited belief. “My parents taught me that AIDS was a man-made disease designed to get rid of the undesirable people,” he said.

Getty Images | Pascal Le Segretain

He’s Been Named One Of The Most Influential People In The World

West has made it onto Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world list twice, in 2005 and in 2015. He also earned GQ magazine’s International Man of the Year title in 2007, and GQ also recognized him as one of the 20 Best-Dressed Men in 2015.

Getty Images | Kevin Winter

He Has Blowout Birthday Parties

Thanks to his wife, Kim Kardashian West celebrated his recent 41st birthday in superstar style. The bash came complete with magic tricks and Kanye cookies. The guest list included Kardashian’s sisters and West’s musician friends. For his 30th birthday, West celebrated with friends Jay Z, Rihanna and John Legend at a Louis Vuitton store and had a teddy bear cake.

Getty Images | Dimitrios Kambouris

He Collaborates Often

West has collaborated with an incredible array of award-winning recording artists. He doesn’t just stick to R&B stars either. He has worked with Elton John, Lil Wayne, Pusha T, Alicia Keys, T-Pain, Fergie, Bon Iver, Chris Martin and Nicki Minaj among others.

Getty Images | Kevin Winter

He’s Writing A Book

West is a prolific writer when it comes to lyrics and Twitter, but a book is uncharted territory for the star. “I’m writing a philosophy book right now called ‘Break the Simulation,'” he told The Hollywood Reporter in April. “And I’ve got this philosophy … about photographs, and I’m on the fence about photographs — about human beings being obsessed with photographs — because it takes you out of the now and transports you into the past or transports you into the future.”

Getty Images | Tim Klein

He Sees A Philanthropic Future For His Yeezy Brand

“Yeezy will eventually become like a relief company,” West said of his clothing brand in an interview with Charlamagne Tha God. “If there’s a disaster we’re gonna dress. We’re gonna bring clothes and water. The same design perspective that can sell a $300 sweatshirt — we’re just going to give it. And eventually, that’s who we’ll be. You’ll look up, 5, 10 years from now, and Yeezy will be the biggest service provider of apparel.”

Getty Images | Dimitrios Kambouris

West Doesn’t Watch Much Television

West told an interviewer, “I don’t usually watch normal TV.” However, he said he likes documentaries and had enjoyed watching the 2018 Winter Olympics. He also mentioned wanting to see Wes Andersen’s “Isle of Dogs.”

Getty Images | Christopher Polk

He Marched For Clean Water

West consistently speaks his mind, no matter how controversial the cause, but this platform was surprisingly tame. In 2007, the superstar surprised about 50 Lexington, Maryland, residents when he joined them in observing World Water Day. West’s father organized the group, and they walked 3-6 miles for the U.N. initiative to raise awareness about clean drinking water.

Getty Images | Kevin Winter

He Became Addicted To Opioids After Cosmetic Surgery

“I was drugged out,” West said during an interview with��TMZ Live. Mid-interview, he stands, turns around and says to the entire TMZ office, “Hey, everyone listen to this, please.” West then explained how he became addicted to opioids — and media stories about the appearance of celebrities — after cosmetic surgery. “I didn’t want y’all to call me fat, so I got liposuction. Right? And they gave me opioids.”

Getty Images | Jamie McCarthy

He Invested In His Father’s Business

His father Ray West is a former Black Panther and was one of the first black photojournalists at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He also worked as a Christian counselor. In 2006, West helped his father open the Good Water Store and Café in Maryland. The Kanye West Foundation loaned him the money for the cafe.

Getty Images | Frank Micelotta

He Bought Out The Covers Of 9 Publications

The cover buyout in September was a publicity push for the new Yeezy Adidas shoes. The New York Post was one of the publications that sold its cover for the advertisement, which featured the words “We Love” in 11 languages, as you can see in this Instagram shot from juniorrose_0731:

He’s Worth How Much!?

Kim Kardashian’s appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in July caused a stir when Kimmel asked her about reports that Kylie Kardashian had become a billionaire. Kimmel asked Kim, “You’re not almost a billionaire, are you?” she replied, “I would say my husband is, so that makes me one, right?” A writer at Celebrity Net Worth parsed out the rumors that flew after the appearance, and ultimately, the publication valued West’s net worth at closer to $250 million.

Getty Images | Jason Merritt

His Relationship With Kim Kardashian Began With Friendship

West made his true feelings for her pretty clear in the lyrics of  “Cold” before the famous couple began dating. “And I’ll admit, I had fell in love with Kim, Around the same time she had fell in love with him.” Complex noted that the lyrics revealed an overlap with Kardashian’s relationship with NBA player Kris Humphries, whom she was married to briefly in 2011. Not long after the song’s release in 2012, their relationship turned romantic.

Getty Images | Noel Vasquez

His Tattoos Are Meaningful

West has many tattoos, but two of them are extra special. He has the birth dates of his mother, Donda, and his daughter North tattooed on his wrists.

Getty Images | Craig Barritt

He’s A Vocal Supporter Of President Trump

West donned a red Make America Great Again hat and took to the microphone to support the president following his “Saturday Night Live” appearance Sept. 29. But this was only the rapper’s most recent show of support for Donald Trump. After a meeting with West in 2017, the president told reporters the two have been “friends for a long time.”

Getty Images | Drew Angerer

‘Ye’ Was His First Album That Did Not Go Platinum

West released “Ye” in June 2018. He completed the album on his ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. All of his seven other studio-produced albums have been certified platinum or higher in the U.S.

Getty Images | Mark MetcalfeOriginally published on The Delite. Previous post 2018-19 Jeep Wranglers being recalled for problem with frame, reports say Next post This is the most recent story. Read the full article

[deniseyallen]

Portman: Growing Problem of Synthetic Opioids Underscores Need for STOP Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) returned to the Senate floor today to urge his colleagues to act quickly on his bipartisan Synthetics Trafficking & Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act, citing the growing problem of the synthetic heroins fentanyl and carfentanil in Ohio and around the country. Portman gave examples of the devastation these drugs are having in our communities, including putting police officers—and everyone else—who comes into contact with these drugs at risk. With his Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) being implemented by the administration, it is time, Portman says, for Congress to take further action and pass this much-needed legislation that will help stop dangerous synthetic drugs like fentanyl from being shipped through our borders to drug traffickers here in the United States

A transcript of the speech can be found below and you can watch the video here.

“I came to the floor last week to talk about our police officers. It was during Police Week and we talked about the bravery and heroism of our officers back home. I talked about some stories—tragic stories—of police officers who were gunned down in the line of duty, and talked about what they do for us every day. 

“Today I want to talk about an issue that is actually endangering their lives and the lives of so many in our communities but specifically law enforcement, and this happens in every single state represented in this chamber. This danger is this new epidemic of synthetic heroin, of opioids. Heroin and prescription drugs we know more about, but now you have these synthetic heroins coming in that are even more powerful. 

“So being a police officer has always been a tough job. But it’s becoming riskier today because of this. Some people have heard of it as carfentanil or fentanyl or U4. Most of this poison coming into our communities is coming in the mail system, it’s coming from overseas—primarily from China, where they have laboratories where some evil scientist is mixing up this chemical mix and sending it over here into our communities.

“Let me tell you a story that happened just last Friday in East Liverpool, Ohio. Some of you may know the name East Liverpool because it was the same city where there was a photograph that went viral on the internet that was a photo of a couple that had overdosed in the front of their car with their 3-year-old grandson in a car seat behind them. It showed the grandson and it showed the two who had overdosed passed out in the front of the car. Anyways, in this same town in Ohio, an officer by the name of Chris Green pulled over a car in a routine traffic stop. As he came up to the car, he noticed there was white powder sprinkled around the car. He took the appropriate precautions; he put on his gloves, he put on a mask, and he began to deal with the situation at hand. These people in the car apparently had spread the powder in order to try to avoid it being detected. But it was easily detectable. At the end of his arrest process, there was a small amount of powder, a small amount of powder that was left on his jacket, which he did not notice. 

“He went back to the police station and when he got there he noticed the powder on his shirt and instinctively he went like this to get the powder off of his shirt. This small amount of powder touching his hand caused him to overdose. Now, Officer Green is not a small guy. He’s about 6’3", 225 pounds. He’s a big, strong police officer who just by trying to get a few flakes of powder off of his jacket overdosed. Why? Because this fentanyl is so powerful. It is so deadly. 

“Fortunately, his fellow police officers were able to save his life with naloxone, a miracle drug that reverses the effects of an overdose. It is being used on our streets every single day to save people from dying from overdoses. In this case, it was used to keep a police officer who was doing his duty and who had simply tried to get a few flakes off his uniform from dying of an overdose.

“East Liberty Police Chief John Lane put it this way. He said that ‘if he had been alone, he’d be dead. That’s how dangerous this stuff is.’ Chief Lane later made the point that if Officer Green had gone home in that shirt and unknowingly had this powder on his shirt or jacket, he could have endangered the lives of his family. That’s a scary thought and obviously that’s true. That’s how deadly these drugs are. It only takes a few milligrams, just a few specks, to kill you. 

“This chart will show you how much it takes. Ten milligrams of carfentanil is powerful now sedate a 15,000-pound elephant. And here is the carfentanil over here. You’ll see why a fatal dose can be a very, very small amount. 30 milligrams for heroin. For fentanyl, three milligrams. And for carfentanil, even less than three milligrams. 

“For those of you at home, if you want to take out a penny. If you look at the penny, you’ll see Abraham Lincoln’s profile on one side of it. The deadly dose of fentanyl that we’re talking about here is enough to only cover up basically the face of Abraham Lincoln on a penny. That’s how little we’re talking about and how deadly this stuff is. You can see why our law enforcement officers are so concerned about this. 

“Officer Green is not the only one to experience this by the way. There was a famous case in 2015 where two officers in Atlantic County, New Jersey—Detective Dan Kallen and Detective Eric Price—overdosed on fentanyl just by breathing fentanyl in the air at a crime scene. 

“As some of you have heard, this fentanyl is so danger you they’re afraid to use dogs to try to sniff it out because just by trying to sniff these packages to see whether fentanyl is included in them, the dogs could also overdose and die. So this fentanyl is dangerous stuff. And by the way it’s taking up more and more of the resources of our police officers and other first responders. 

“Earlier this year I came to the floor and talked about Officer Ben Rhoads of Chillicothe, Ohio. Last year Officer Rhodes reversed more than 50 drug overdoses. This is one officer in one small town. Talk to the fire fighters in your community and ask them whether they go on more fire runs or more fentanyl/carfentanil overdose runs. I almost guarantee you they go on more overdose runs. And as a result, in some communities, those firefighters are not there to be able to protect us as you would typically think from the fires that still continue to be a major problem. 

“So this is a real issue, taking up more and more of their time, more and more resources and causing more and more crime. On Thursday in Middletown, Ohio, which is a town in southern Ohio, a family was getting ready to leave the house. In fact they’d already strapped their 3-month-old baby into a car seat. And it’s not clear whether they had shot up with heroin before they put the baby in the car seat or after, but they went back in the house and they overdosed in the house. So they have the baby in the car seat. They’ve overdosed in the home. They have another son who is five years old. He runs out of the house barefoot, goes to a neighbor’s house, goes to his step-grandfather’s home, which is a few blocks away, and yells at the door, ‘mom and dad are dead. Mom and dad are dead.’ The step-grandfather called the police and they rushed over to the scene. They were able to revive the boy’s dad with naloxone. They used seven doses of naloxone on the mother, but she still couldn’t wake up. And from talking to police officers about this, they tell me that’s a very good sign that this involved fentanyl. Perhaps carfentanil. Because after two, three, four, five, six, seven doses of it she still could not be revived. Fortunately, police rushed her to the hospital where they were finally able to bring her back. 

“But, again, this is what police officers are facing every day, in my home state of Ohio, in your state, in your community. After this incident, the Middletown police said on Facebook, ‘it has to stop. Please get help before it’s too late. Not only to save yourself but to save your kids. Give these kids a chance by getting help. If you or someone you love has a drug problem, please seek help right now.’ This is a cry from our police officers saying, this just can’t continue. Talk to the firefighters or the police officers who administer naloxone to the same individual time and time again after overdose and overdose. 

“These brave officers—and police officers around the country—are feeling overwhelmed. It’s the number one cause now of accidental death in the United States of America. That is, drug overdoses. It has now surpassed car accidents. It has way surpassed gun violence. In the last three years more Americans have died from drug overdoses than died in the Vietnam War. More Americans are dying of drug overdoses now than died from AIDS at the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1995. So this year, in 2017, more people will die from drug overdoses from opioids than died from AIDS at its peak in 1995, another tragedy. 

“According to an article in The New York Times, more than four times the number of people are dying every day from this epidemic than were dying at the peak of the crack cocaine epidemic. So when I say it is the worst crisis we’ve faced in this country and that it’s an epidemic, it is not overstating it. 

“The Fraternal Order of Police and the Major County Sheriffs of America are actually focused on this issue and they want better tools to be able to at least try to stop some of this poison, the fentanyl, the carfentanil from coming into our communities. I mentioned earlier the fact that this actually comes by the mail system. Unbelievable. And it doesn’t come by all mail systems. It comes by the U.S. Mail system, as opposed to the private carriers like FedEx or U.P.S. or DHL or others. One reason is because our mail system in the United States does not require the kind of advanced notice of where the package is from, what’s in it, where is it going that the private carriers require. So where do the traffickers go? They go to our mail service: the U.S. Postal Service and the postal service in the country that interacts with and connects with our postal service. 

“This is why the Fraternal Order of Police and the Major County Sheriffs of America and those in law enforcement are saying help us by passing legislation called the STOP Act. The STOP Act is to help stop traffickers from bringing these deadly poisons into our communities, the kind of stuff that caused Officer Green to overdose. Fentanyl and these other synthetic drugs are not just coming in from overseas, they’re coming in through our mail system. What we’re saying in the STOP Act is let’s close the loophole. Let’s say that the mail system here in the United States has to say the same thing that other private carriers say to the carriers, which is if you want to ship something through our system, that is fine, but you’ve got to tell us what’s in it, you’ve got to tell us where it’s from and where it’s going. Otherwise they just can’t effectively stop these packages. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack. I talked earlier about the difficulty in detecting these drugs and how poisonous this is, and how sniffing dogs can’t be used because of the potential of them overdosing and dying. It’s also very difficult for our officers to find these packages without some information.

“Expert testimony, including from the Secretary of Homeland Security, General Kelly, from Customs and Border Protection, from the folks at D.E.A. all reaches the same conclusion, which is that this policy change would make it easier for law enforcement to detect suspicious packages of fentanyl, carfentanil, other synthetic drugs and help keep this poison out of our country. 

“Support for this legislation is bipartisan and growing. We’ve now got 16 cosponsors in the Senate, eight Democrats, eight Republicans, completely bipartisan. In the House, Congressman Pat Tiberi of Ohio and Richard Neal of Massachusetts, Republican and Democrat, have introduced companion legislation. They now have 128 cosponsors. Support is building. It’s such an obvious way to help push back. 

“Is it the silver bullet? No. There is not one silver bullet. We do need to do more in terms of prevention and treatment and recovery and help our law enforcement more to ensure they have that naloxone to be able to save lives. But at least let’s stop some of this poison coming in and let’s at least increase the cost of the fentanyl because one reason you see this big increase in overdoses from fentanyl and carfentanil and traffickers using more of it is because of the cost. And at the very least by helping our law enforcement, giving them the tools that they need, we can stop some of it and increase the cost of this on the streets. 

“So I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the STOP Act. We have a hearing on this legislation on Thursday of this week in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. We have experts coming in, law enforcement officers who care a lot about their colleagues. I talked about what a danger this is to them, what a danger this is to our community. It’s time for us in the United States Senate to stand up and to take this important step—not the silver bullet but an important step--to be able to help save lives and make our communities safer.”

###

from Rob Portman http://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=13D416D3-DB30-4A25-AAA6-2AFAD2E85C96

[seismicmeowmeow-blog]

Blind Life: an adaptation of The Great Gig in the Sky by Pink Floyd

Part 1

My father and his father and the father before him all died cowards. Whether it be curled in the fetal position before a cohort of Germans with shiny rifles and ear to ear grins or in the bathroom of a brothel with a needle stuck up his sleeve, those men were cowards. They abandoned women and children and dogs and cats and even little, innocent fish. We were just waves washing against their lives, receding into the ocean to never be seen again. The sand would mold and stay, but after enough washing each castle, each unique empire, would fall tragically before the power of the waves. An entire feudal system, concocted by geniuses broken down and recycled to fish litter.

I’ve been a magnificently defiant sand castle.

I was born on a Tuesday. If you asked my mother or father or neighbor or doctor what kind of Tuesday it was they would all recall it was a spectacularly uneventful Tuesday. I was one of eight in four years. Each one the heir to a disparate throne. Except Milo and Winslet, they were twins.

Mind you, my mother was no prostitute, just a splendid fool, hoping that each truck driver and vacuum cleaner salesman after the last would be an upstanding, classy fellow, ecstatic for the opportunity to wed and settle down with a wonderful woman like my mother. Supporting the likes of eight children, a microcosm of our lovely mother earth.

You see, before me there was nothing. Tedium molecularly crafted. Besides the click of empty revolvers in my mother’s bathroom, the house was silent. My future brothers and sisters knew not to speak. Not even a word. The man my mother was laying with, my very own pa, was a wildhack. The men before him had beaten her and beaten them and stolen from them and even kidnapped Milo thinking it was his own child, only to return the following evening, defeated, mother never the wiser.

But this man, my father, was especially boring. Not the boring that one may suffer through a math class or at work, or even in the war at times, but a crippling boring, a lull of words that bounce off the ear and echo around the room until the frequencies of it all burst the listener's ear drums and prod them towards insanity. That is not to say he was loud - this man was, in fact, extraordinarily quiet - that was part of his boring charm, wasn’t it.

All of the children - seven of them at the time - gave their hundred and ten percent effort to keep clear of his incessant dreariness. Even the youngest of the bunch, Hector, only four years of age, at the time, knew to shut his yapper the minute this king of apathy walked through the unhinged door. He had been fired from his last job for bringing down office morale and was now working as an energetic UPS driver, full of stories from the day, eager to spew them out in a semiautomatic fire of doldrums.

He was gone by Friday. The three days of whining and shitting and crying that I besieged upon him was enough to send this emperor of drab back to his lock up in Bermackeron, Wyoming. I went head to head with this spineless, humdrum asshole and defeated him effortlessly. For most of my siblings it took them weeks, some even months, one in fact had a father for a year until the little schmuck got pinkeye and ma queried the father to foot the bill. He was gone by sunrise, but a year nonetheless. I was triumphant in a matter of days. My mother never hesitated to remind me of this as I aged, each time bolstering my already bloated self-esteem a little more.

I was special. For an instant there I was really special, wasn’t I.

Out of that treacherous cloud of smoke, out of the ashes, I arose. Grander and more cunning than any man before me. Out of the blindness monotony of everyday life, I came, the savior of a generation, the maker of men.

Why should I be frightened to die.

Part 2

I lost my virginity at age twelve, to no one other than my very own sister, Clarissa. It was not meant to happen that way, that wasn’t how I planned it, it just occurred, simply and unapologetically.

She was fourteen at the time and just as interested in me as I was in her. Mother had never explained to us what sex was, she was too drugged up and busy with the three other pregnancies to deal with the babies she already had. Some of those babies were as old as seventeen, but babies nevertheless. Still stuck in prepubescence, trying, unsuccessfully to tear pieces off the cocoon, hoping that opioids and amphetamines may assist in their escape.

She cried when we did it. I don’t think I did it right. Looking back on it, I am sure that I did not.

Afterwards we sat there for a minute, indecisively. Do I punch her now? Scream at her? Steal her emerald necklace and run away? Do I tell her a story about the interesting conversation I had with Jerry just before heading out to deliver dildos to middle-aged wives?

I decided to tell Milo. He bashed me in the head with a lava lamp.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you little sister fucking prick.”

He was coked up at the time. Found a little of the dust laying on mother’s nightstand.

I shook my head around, trying fruitlessly to find my eyesight in the muddled room, full of cartoons and porno mags, the battered bits of a cocoon.

I think he was jealous.

Part 3

The second time I had sex was with Oksana. This is the time I tell people about when they ask me regarding my virginity.

“It was exquisite” I tell them “We waited until we knew we loved each other.” I’ll say.

They’ll “awww” and smile and I’ll smile and that’ll be it, just another endearing virginity story in a sea of white noise. I should make a machine that plays people telling their virginity stories, maybe a writer could sit in solitude and just write and write and write with no distractions around her, a painter could decorate his masterpiece, a poet could cry on paper, all because of me with my million dollar idea. But somewhere in that homogenous tune a voice would scream out. I fucked my sister. The painter perks up, stares at the machine, examines it for cracks and bumps, veers out the window, wondering what hooligan, what deviant would utter such words.

You see, I was special.

Oksana was my everything for a minute there, wasn’t she. After all these years of corrosive juice I’ve been pouring into my skull, I still remember her. Not her face - no - that has faded, but her essence, her being, has imprinted itself in the foam of my consciousness. No matter how many acid waves come and go, her castle will not wash away.

Atop that acropolis is a desolate tree, her and I tragically below it. That tree is everything to me. The existence that is humanity. The momentary lapses of reason and divisiveness, the unwavering feeling of loneliness in a sea of bourgeois, that rests upon the words on a tongue on an autumn day in November, leaves falling about the tree. There is a hollowness in her eyes, a fatigue, a yawn. But to me, this is the pinnacle. The reason death brought me fright during the war,  the reason Clarissa cried, the reason I will be drowned out by the screams of a million souls, writhing in their graves, waiting for their time to be alive again.

Out of nowhere emerges life, it ages, it misbehaves, it screams, it lies, it laughs. It lays in bed at night when it is thirteen years old, crying because one day it will be erased. Because there will be a point in time when everything is forgotten about its little, old existence, every memory of a memory - euthanized.

Part 4

All I remember is the screams of my comrades with shrapnel up their urethras.

Who gives a fuck about war, anyways.

Part 5

I wasn’t special.

I fucked and abandoned as many pregnant women as my own father and his father and the father before him.

I was just as cowardly and tripped out as all those lousy schmucks. I used the war as an excuse for all my dickery, for all my addictions and habits and dependencies and what have you. But so did they, didn’t they. It’s a generational rhythm, I guess, send off the coked up young broots to kill some commies in the war and have them return just as adolescent as they were sent, with blood on their hands and rape and murder in their hearts, grabbing at whatever potential victims they can.

I was no different.

In the end it all evened out. I killed as many men as I made. I was the maker and destroyer of man.

I was god, wasn’t I.

Part 6

I died on a Thursday, a spectacularly uneventful Thursday if you asked my mortician, or my sons or my daughters. I was the 14th strike of the clock in a science museum, measuring each of the world’s deaths, second after second. I was that one, right there. Reduced to nothing more than a statistic.

It was a brutishly slow death.

I needed the medicine. I needed the drugs. I needed to see that time was malleable, that one instance I would be in the operating room and the next I’d be killing commies in the war.

Part 7

I have returned from the dead to claim my spirit, I believe I left it here, somewhere around this room, with all the cartoons and porno mags. It only exists in a picture frame now. A single picture. It sits on my great grand daughters bedside table. Gets boxed up in a hurry, moves from house to house, from nightstand to nightstand until one day. When a Klan member burns her house down. My only granddaughter.

All of those god forsaken children churned out like frozen yogurt on a summer day, only to perish one after the other, fruitless, little savages. My sperm could have kept children in Africa from starving, but instead it was wasted on those egregious imbeciles.

Didn’t I deserve more than one grandchild. More than one memory of a memory of a man.

The photo was of that Autumn day, under the tree, atop the hill, on that beach, beneath those acid waves of mine. That was the day I got drafted for the war. That was the day, I believe, I began dying. My death was an insignificant day for me, now that I think of it, no more special or mundane than any other. Just a day like all days, a day for the ages.

It was that spring evening with my grand daughter, with the yellow house with maroon window panes, with the klansmen. That was the day I ceased to exist. And within the monotony and peculiarity of that day was my photo, Oksana and I, Clarissa and I, our love.

I never said I was frightened of dying.

I mean, I was god, wasn’t I?

By Paul Miller-Schmidt