#me and her are kindred spirits in many ways…. if we’d been in school together we would definitely have been friends

[livvyofthelake]

to be fair to cassie writing dru and jamie’s problematic age gap. every girl i knew in high school that was like dru blackthorn at some point had a 19 year old boyfriend. like in fairness she’s just being real and true to life i fear

[alchemabotana]

Hindsight is 2020

Walk with us through our medicine wheel:

The Eastern Direction:

No one could have been less surprised by the announcement of the Corona virus pandemic than my medicine hoop. 

In 2018 a local paper, Yes! Weekly interviewed me on my predictions for 2019, in which I detailed many of the struggles we’d see that year as a sneak-peak on what to expect for 2020: Whaples said 2019 is the preparation and intention-setting year, “for the real show;” she said [2019] is the “dress rehearsal for 2020.”“It is an important year to set up positive energy for what you want to come in the future,” she said.

We saw this come to fruition in the work we do with Kindred Spirits, my shamanic healing store and art gallery located in Winston Salem, NC. 

In early 2020, we celebrated my most dedicated Shamanic apprentice, RJ Walker as the Winston Salem Ambassadors awarded him the Everyday Hero Award - an exceptional and much-needed recognition of BIPOC work in the spiritual community.

Having dealt with the emotional and financial hits taken by the closing of the major highway through downtown Winston Salem, we were more than excited to celebrate the re-opening of our roadways and a new lease on business and life. I worked with a local news station to bring awareness to our continued existence in the downtown community, and our work to support and bring together that community. I hope any readers will take the time to watch the linked newsclips in order to gain a deeper understanding of the situation.

Not long after this, one of our hoop members came onto our fb livefeed to announce the pandemic and warn others to be aware of the upcoming energy. You can watch this on facebook!

As soon as the national news hit, our store promptly closed its doors prior to the statewide shutdown. We continued to provide shamanic services and wares through our online portal, and distance work.

The Southern Direction:

RJ and I answered a spiritual call close to our hearts in early June with spiritual warfare and ceremonial ritual work on behalf of national and local protesters in the Black Lives Matter movement. I created a ritual crucifix for our hoop member Camille to carry in the protests. One such protest was held on the very street where our store resides, bringing awareness to the issues of racism on our street. A local business owner who had posted racist material was ousted from our block. We celebrated in solidarity with song, drumming, and our ceremonially summoning. We walked, carried the painting of St. Maya Angelou, and wore our traditional regalia with pride:

Antonina Whaples is a shamanic artist and co-owner of Kindred Spirits, a store and healing arts center on Trade Street. She has been marching in the protests while beating a Siberian goat-skin and birch wood drum.

She made a crucifix for her student Camille Adair to carry in the marches. Instead of the traditional Christ figure, the cross bears an image of a black madonna with a sacred heart.

“I said to her, ‘You are like a daughter to me, and I have no other way to express how I feel,’” Whaples said. “It is a layered piece. It is very personal and emotional to me. I felt like Camille would be protected by it.”

Her friend, Elyse Bottomly, carried another one of Whaples’ art works in the marches, “Her Majesty St. Maya Angelou,” which Whaples had made for Rosa Johnson, Angelou’s niece.

Whaples is doing what artists do: responding to the moment and finding ways to express feelings for which there are no words.

We were able to re-open in early July, seeing a completely new client and customer base supporting the work like never before. Just before re-opening, I was able to completely finish drawing the Minor arcana for the Piczanka Tarot, now available for first edition pre-order on the website.  We celebrated this victory by partnering up with an amazing team of entrepreneurs in Winston Salem: PinkTalk Podcast. We truly enjoyed being the guests for Episode 14, hosted by Bobbi Bugatti and produced by Mizz Faith. You can access it on youtube, facebook, instagram, and iHeart Radio! 

The Western Direction:

As a traumatic brain injury survivor still in the depths of my healing journey, I have been a high-risk individual for the entirety of the COVID pandemic. Going further inwards, I focused my sorrow, grief, and understanding on the transformative power of art throughout this year. Creating and displaying hundred of pieces of sacred shamanic artwork at my store, Kindred Spirits, became my purpose and grounding act of revolution daily. In a time of destruction there is nothing more revolutionary than to create.

From late September through August I focused my attention solely on my work for Winston Salem Fashion Week’s 6th show, presented at the Southeast Center for Contemporary Art. Although I had participated last year for the 5th anniversary as a model & guest designer with Melissa Coleman from Hanesbrands; this year I designed jewelry and headpieces for Melissa while also designing my own line of jewelry and clothing for Kindred Spirits.

 This year we presented the fashion week virtually, filming the showcase at SECCA in late August, and launching the showcase in October. Filming was exciting and different, with our models being able to walk through the open and empty gallery during the shutdown. It was a a beautiful presentation. I worked double-time, modeling for Melissa’s bridal line, and coordinating and preparing my own models at the same time. In fact, I walked with one of my own models for Melissa just prior to my own line’s presentation that day. Talk about being in two places at one time! 

My line was sponsored by Goodwill Industries as part of the sustainable fashion initiative of WSFW. I enjoyed painting shoes, purses, and hats - as well as upcycling clothing that represented the designs and colors of our culture lineage systems.

We were happily surprised when Yes! Weekly did a feature-story about WSFW, with our 2019 designs on the front cover, and beautiful large format photographs of additional designs in the inside story. I was especially proud of the front cover, as the make-up design feather, head-pieces, and jewelry thoroughly represented the medicine work we intentionally worked last year. The pre-runway experience was true ceremony. 

But that’s not all 2020 had to offer us! 

RJ and I also worked on finishing many of our long-term projects already far into the completion phase. We announced many of these upcoming releases with Yes! Weekly when it was announced that I had been voted the “Best Visual Artist in the Triad” by the paper’s readers:

“As an artist, to be named something like that in your hometown feels more special than some of these international awards that I have gotten,” she said. “Especially since people voted for it, it has made me feel more affirmed.”

In addition to being a visual artist, Whaples is the owner of Kindred Spirits on Trade Street, a Shaman, a published author, and a fashion designer. Last year, she gave half of her business to her shamanic apprentice, so that she could focus on creating art to sell at Kindred. The new book she just published is called Stone People: An Introduction to Stone Medicine, which she said is a descriptive book about “all the healing stones organized by the chakra system, and how to use them to heal yourself.” Whaples also finished drawing her own 78-card tarot deck she calls the Piczanka Tarot Deck, which is set to be released this month.

“[Piczanka] was the name of the holocaust camp that my grandmother was interned in,” she said. “So this deck is like a reflection and a message from those of us who have already conquered and lived through tragedy to others who are experiencing displacement in order to help them through their journey spiritually.”

Stone People: An Introduction to Stone Medicine has been a big hit at the store, with only 12 copies currently available of the first edition. 

The Piczanka Tarot first edition major/minor arcana has just become available for pre-order this month, and can be purchased on our website. 

The North Direction:

As we close the year, we celebrated the Winter Solstice and great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius (my natal sun & moon!). Along with this celebration of the dawn of a new age, we at Kindred Spirits were congratulated by the Innovation Quarter, Chronicle, and Triad Minority and Women’s Business Expo, the Urban League, and more as we were named the “Business of the Month” 

I became an official artist with Saatchi Gallery, an international fine arts organization with an online gallery. You can now purchase the originals or prints of many pieces of shamanic fine artwork created exclusively for Kindred Spirits through their gallery online. 

RJ and I are still hard at work completing the final touches of a project over 6 years in the making: the launch of the online Introduction to Herbal Medicine program through Piedmont Herb School. Although we had hoped to launch before the new year hit, it looks like the first thing we’ll be doing in 2021 is making sure that this very important information can be accessed ASAP.

We hope our local and extended hoops continue to be blessed by the important recognition of the medicine work we’ve been deeply involved with this year, and in the years leading up to this massive event. I truly believe that the more recognition and normalcy granted to shamans and medicine people practicing in the open, generational and cultural healing will move further and deeper in our shared experience of community and personal well-being, regardless of your place on a chess board of life. 

We’ll be in ceremony, of course, celebrating the new year and the beginning of our 27th year in business in Winston Salem, NC in the heart of the downtown arts district.

[just-an-average-dad]

The workplace rebound (M19F18)

Since around April of this year my sex life has been pretty stale. Lockdown has kind of thrown a wrench into the mix. Not just the restrictions but also my general worry about going out and being around people at the moment. I haven’t really gone to many social gatherings for some months now, so I’ve mostly been meeting new people through my job, and this story is about one of them.

Her name will be Julia in this story. Julia started working with us barely a month after I started at the job, and she was the first person to be hired after me, so I thought there was something of a kindred spirit between us, if nothing else. I think it was just easier to make conversation with her compared to the older employees because of it, so we became pretty familiar in the first couple months. She was funny and witty, and a fan of just obscene and inappropriate jokes like I was. We were close in age and recognized each other vaguely, as we lived in the same town. Our high schools were basically right next to each other, too, so we’d share stories about school experiences and made connections through people we mutually knew.

I’m 19, about to be 20 on my second year post graduation and Julia is 18 and fresh out of high school. 4 or 5 weeks prior to this story she just kind of started getting chattier. I welcomed it, she was cool and easy to talk to, but didn’t think much of it. Through conversation she mentioned in passing that she and her boyfriend had recently broken up. I had known she was in a relationship since we followed each other on Instagram but I didn;t know this until she told me. It’s worth mentioning at this point that it was because of that I never intended to make any advances on her, however I definitely wished I could, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Either way, we just gradually continued becoming better friends. I never got the sense that our conversations were flirty, just casual talk at work. I didn’t see her outside of our shifts together. So Wednesday of last week, before this story begins, we’re talking again, and she mentions she started watching this Netflix series I really like. One of my favorite shows. I’m like “no way, I love that show!’ and that turns into a 20 minute conversation. Eventually, she says: “hey we should hang out this weekend and I can watch a couple episodes with you!” and in my head I’m thinking “hell yeah, a hot girl who’s funny and likes Bojack Horseman”, so I say sure. We didn’t see each other again until that Saturday.

I woke up that Saturday morning excited, if nothing else, just to have plans with another human being again. Not thinking anything of it I threw on some lazy, wrinkled flannel and jeans before I left. My go-to casual attire. On the 40-or-so minute walk to her house we texted and she said “let’s just go and spend the day out”. I like days out as much as the next man, I said I was down. When I got to her house, I had my first double-take of the day. Her house was huge. At least for the suburban town we lived in. Her parents must be rich or something, I was impressed. I texted her to say I was there and rang the doorbell. I heard a muffled voice say “coming!” so I stepped back. I watched her open the door and step out, and that’s when the second double-take hit.

And at this point, I think it would be worth trying to describe what Julia looks like.

The way I see it, there are basically 3 kinds of bodies. First, there are uniform bodies, where the person’s proportions are all pretty even, and it the kind of body that most people have. Then some people are lucky enough to have some of their parts “accentuated”. Like a guy who has a particularly big chest or a girl whose ass is big for her size. That’s the second type. But there’s a third type. You might call them “min-maxers”. These peoples’ features are all either increased or decreased in all the good ways, to the point they basically become what many people would call a “perfect human figure”. Julia definitely fits this category.

Julia is unbelievably hot. She’s maybe only 1 or 2 inches shorter than my 5”10 and her body is tight and very lightly tanned. While I haven’t been so bold as to ask, she’s easily a D cup. Her tits are almost perfectly round and they hardly hang. Her ass is equally impressive. She has one of the biggest, most perfectly shaped asses I’ve ever seen on a girl of her size. In-between her two halves is an absurdly skinny waist, that curves effortlessly into her bust and hips. Her legs are long and smooth, and her arms are slim and toned from her regular gym visits. She has a cute, thin freckled face with round, rosy cheeks. Her smoky brown eyes are big, but her eyelids hang down, giving her a thin, seductive gaze, and her hair is chest length, straight and dyed blonde halfway up, fading back into her natural light brown. At work, our uniform is a black crew-neck tee and jeans, which don’t do much for a person’s figure, but on her even they looked sexy. But of course, she wasn’t wearing her work uniform today.

I wasn’t the only one who decided to wear casual clothes today, though hers were casual in a different way. She had on a grey fleece rib-knit sports bra and blue track shorts. The good kind of track shorts. Each article of clothing was seemingly selected specifically to show off her body, and her hair was tied up in two buns. The vibe between us was largely the same as always but different in a way. She was a little more touchy today, but I chocked that up to her being more comfortable out of work. We took off for a couple hours and stopped at a local coffee shop for a drink and a bite to eat before heading back to her place. Her parents were gone for the day. Julia showed me around her house before we decided to go and start watching like we’d planned. She led me down to the basement. Where the rest of the house was grandiose and quite fancy the basement was more relaxed, with the main room being full of shelves filled with movies and game consoles. It was atmospherically lit and there was a big tv mounted on the far wall with sectional in front of it. I plonked myself on the couch and made myself at home before she turned on the tv.

I was lying longways along one end of the sectional and she was closer to the other end with her feet up on the cushions. We talked as we watched the show, laughed at the jokes, what have you, but something else was definitely happening. I noticed she kept fidgeting and readjusting herself on the couch every few minutes, and that every time she nudged ever so slightly closer to me. At this point I’m fully awake and aware, and I’m saying to myself “alright, I’m not making this move, but if she does, I’m going with it”. Eventually she’s close enough that we’re sneaking awkward glances at each other, but I’m still keeping my eye on the show. She’s almost right next to me and starts moving her hand slowly over to me. Eventually the purple and magenta leds get to both of us, and she’s close enough that I turn to face her. She’s looking up at me with her eyes, her head tilted down slightly. At this point she makes it obvious she’s moving her hand over the zipper on my jeans. I look down at her hand then back to her. We both have a coy smile. I asked her under my breath: “you want to?” She pulled a full tooth smile and nodded. “Alright beautiful” I responded. Her hand is grasping my cock over my jeans. She leaned towards me and we started making out. Slowly at first. Her lips were small but soft, and she had a strawberry lip balm on.

Our make out session quickly turned from playful to passionate, with me still lying outstretched on the sectional and her kneeling in front of me, pushing me into the cushions as we kissed. We readjusted ourselves until she was on her back on the sectional and I was over her. I had unzipped my jeans and she was stroking my cock as we continued to make out. With her other hand she grabbed to back of my head, holding me close, but she quickly moved it towards her stomach, down her shorts and began playing with herself, her soft sighs periodically interrupting our locked lips. I eventually pulled away and moved my hands to the hips of her shorts and removed them. She was wearing a red and black lace thong underneath. She put her legs up, making it easier for me to pull off her shorts. I wanted to get inside of her so badly, but I didn’t have a condom. Our foreplay continued. After a few minutes she sat up and grabbed my hand. “Come with me”, and she led me upstairs to her room. It had been entirely too long. She closed her blinds and turned the mood lighting on. I got to removing the rest of my clothes as she said “I’ll be one second” and left the room for a moment. I took a second to take in what was about to happen. When she came back she was holding a condom in one hand, and her bra and panties in the other.

I stood almost in awe of her nude figure. Fully exposed, her tits almost defied gravity. She threw her garments at me, hitting me clean in the face and we both laughed. She walked towards me, pressing her tits together with her arms as she asked in a sexy, breathy voice: “do you like them baby?” I’d never heard that voice before. I couldn’t even get my words out, which made her laugh more. She came up close to me and placed the condom in my hand, kissing me again. I sat down on the bed and put it on as she walked over and hopped on the bed and got on her hands and knees presenting her ass to me. I knelt down behind her and started fucking her in doggy. Her pussy was warm and soft, and she was tight enough that I had to push with some effort, but not so that she was uncomfortable. Her moans were like music to my ears. I simultaneously pulled her against me at the same time. I could feel she was already starting to drip. As I went faster and faster her moans grew more and more emphatic.

I was getting close, myself. She repositioned herself and moved her legs so that she was tilted partway onto her side, and she could turn her waist around and face me. As she descended she dragged me down as well, so that I was almost sitting on the bed with my knees spread apart and supporting myself on my heels to keep me up and able to keep thrusting. This position felt much more sensual. She was looking at me with an expression of pleasure and submission, her eyebrows tilted, eyes half glazed over and mouth hanging open. We were staring each other dead in the eyes, and seeing this look on her face drove me even closer. We didn’t break eye contact as we continued fucking, until she broke her gaze and looked down to my abdomen thrusting back and forth, and said “fuck it. Take it off.”

I stuttered for a moment, not stopping, before I replied sheepishly “what?” She exasperatedly breathed out the words “your condom. Take it off. I want you to take it off.” “But I’m really close now” I said. “I don’t care. Just pull out. I wanna feel it” she replied, and reached a hand over towards my cock. With her fingers she pinched the lip of my condom and I slowly pulled back allowing her to peel it off. She threw it to the side, grabbed my cock and pulled me back. “I’m gonna cum, like soon” I said. She simply stared back at me, her gaze piercing through me and said “well make it count then”. I hesitated for a moment and slipped my cock inside of her. This was 10x better than with protection. The thrill alone was driving me crazy. With what little breath she could muster she moaned “ohh fuck that feels so good!” I groaned, unable to keep it contained. Before long we were both moaning and groaning loudly as I continued pounding in and out of her, we still didn’t break eye contact.

Then I felt it coming. I wanted so badly not to pull out, but as long got closer and closer I announced to her “oh fuck I’m gonna cum…” she looked at me with a wide eyed, playful expression as if to say “you better not.” I pulled out at the last minute and spilt cum all over her big ass and lower back, groaning as I came. A smile spread across Julia’s face as she looked at me. After I emptied myself onto her I fell back onto the bed and she repositioned herself onto her stomach. She took a finger and ran it through my cum on her back, licking it up. “Yummy” she said. I laughed. “I’ll get you a towel”.

I left her place soon after. In the months since then we haven’t met up again, but needless to say since then my workdays with Julia have been just a bit more fun since then.

submitted by /u/_jac_ket_ [link] [comments] from Sex Stories https://ift.tt/3peJv4D

[orlandodell]

“...I feel I owe you all a story,” Orland said aloud to the room at large. He was still sitting in bed. Rosalina has been kindly placed within arm’s reach, and he took the opportunity to take her into his arms and run his bandaged fingers over her strings. It hurt, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him. “I fear that I have been a rather poor bard as of late... I don’t believe I’ve told you any. Not really.”

He took a minute to fiddle with the lute’s tuning pegs, allowing a smile to cross his face as he glanced up at his friends. He couldn’t believe they’d all waited for him. He didn’t imagine all four would stand vigil outside his prison the way that they did... He looked at Vassa, the first to greet him with an affectionate embrace when he’d emerged, who’d tended to his self-inflicted wounds and cleaned him up. At Naut, who’d refused to let him exert himself, who understood his plight, who’d carried him back to the inn. At Livvy, who’d kept him company, offered her sympathies, fretted over him, gave him her trust. And at Vyth, who’d made the grim promise to break down the door and rescue him had he taken longer... These acts made him feel... well...

“My adventures have been plentiful and exciting, but my favorite story is about my first true quest. Undertaken alone and of my own accord. But the story begins nearly two decades ago... Long before Vassa here was even a twinkle in his mama’s eye~”

He grinned at Vassa especially, then strummed a chord.

“This is the story of how I fell in love~”

“The village of Celosia was quite beautiful, you know. Always springtime, it seemed! Full of fresh, vibrant beauties! The flowers, the trees, the birds and bees and butterflies... and also, of course, the girls~”

“Now you will not be surprised, I think, to know that I held many a lovely lady in my arms in those days! The charms of Orland O’Dell are not easy to resist! And so they were not in those days... I’d courted nearly every girl in the village at least once— had enjoyed their warm embrace, the sweet scent of honey and cream upon their breath, the taste of strawberries upon their lips... A sweet serenade was offered to each, and I had a merry time for many a year!”

“...But there was one girl my music and poetics never seemed to reach. The good mayor’s youngest daughter, stoic and proud and unwavering in her indifference— My dearest Cornflower. She was gone most of the year, off studying at her fancy school in Briarmore. But when she returned, I always greeted her warmly. But my invitations to moonlit strolls, to secret liasons lit by the golden sunset, to dances at the harvest festival... all went unheeded!”

“It was... vexing. But not for long, as I had many other ladies to occupy my time with. I was never lonely, you see. Or so I thought.”

“The good mayor... saw fit to, er... revoke my status as a welcome member of Celosian society around my eighteenth year. And so I lived quite happily in the woods in the outskirts of the village for quite some time! My disguises and illusions helped me walk amongst the people whenever I desired, anyway! And so I continued as I always had.”

“But I now had... a friend. My darling Cornflower felt... pity, I think. For my exile was— well... It’s not important. A story for another day, I think. As it was, I had at least managed to garner her interest! And so she visited in secret, carrying baskets of goods so that I might not have to steal (although it didn’t stop me!). And she would sit with me a while. To our amazement, we found much common ground between us.”

“My romantic poetry had never won her over, but she did enjoy the bardic tales I would weave, having gleaned many from the storybooks I’d managed to scrounge up. As it turned out, Cornflower knew many of them already! Even filled in the gaps in a few of my songs. We spoke of heroes from long ago, of the dragons we hoped to face someday, of the places we wished to see. We spoke of the flowers we both so loved, of the frustrations we felt, of the mysteries of our missing mothers...”

“I also regaled her with tales of my continuing romantic conquests. She seemed unmoved by them. If I wanted a reaction out of her... I was not getting it. I did come to realize that I felt... different with Cornflower than I’d ever felt in the arms of any of the women I was constantly praising in song. Although we’d never kissed, never held each other, never even touched— I felt closer to her than any. Though physically, we may have never brushed each other, our souls, I felt, were very much entwined. Our spirits dancing in time to the tune of our most kindred hearts!”

“How could I let such a beautiful and all-encompassing feeling go unsung?!”

“And so, I waited until the moment was right. The sky was red as the rose, the clouds hanging low and glittering with gold lace along their fringes. The trees were in bloom and the air was sweet and heavy with heather-scent. The breeze carried my Cornflower’s hair along, caressing her dark tresses, dancing and teasing on the wind. Her eyes, dark as a starless night and ever piercing, focused and intense. Utterly enticing. I could not stop myself. Taking Rosalina into my arms, I broke out into my most passionate and ardent heart-song!”

“‘How I do love you!’ I cried! ‘How wonderful is life, that the universe would bring such a creation as you unto me! I love you more with every breath, with every wild beat of my heart, proud and strong! Your smile dims the dawn and brightens the darkest night. Your voice like the echo of time, ringing out and whispering meaning to creation! Would that I could die tomorrow in your arms than live a thousand years without having ever known you! My love, my spring rose, the gift of the universe!”

“And my Cornflower, she looked at me, utterly stunned. Lost for words. Rosalina’s last dying note echoed on the wind, leaving nothing but a ringing silence between us. And I waited.”

“‘Orland,’ she said, and my heart leapt! For there is no more beautiful sound in all the world than somebody you love calling your name! ‘Orland,’ she repeated, and I held on, hardly daring to breathe, awaiting the magic words that would unite us at last.”

“‘You fool,’ she said. ‘How dare you say such things to me?! You have never seen me smile, not once! You weave words like a spell, but they’ll not entrap me! For I know better! You cannot be in love with me. For you have already pledged your heart to another. Yes, you are in love with love! There is no room in your fool heart for anything but that!’”

“...And she stormed off. I did not see her for weeks, and I feared that I had... broken something. In love with love! What a notion! And yet, I knew her words rang with truth. I truly had never seen her smile. I was naught but bluster and wild imagination. But now I had a problem that poetry could not fix! You cannot imagine how it vexed me, tortured me, completely undid me.”

“For how could I convince her of my sincerity when I had already said the same sorts of things to the dozens upon dozens of girls I had already loved and left?”

“I thought, ‘I’ll do something grand! Cornflower loves a hero... I shall prove myself one!’ For Cornflower had a precious keepsake of hers stolen, kept hidden from her by some mighty enemies. I could get it back for her! Only then could she accept my love!”

“And so I set out to Briarmore, with naught but Rosalina at my side. My illusions and disguises were my greatest asset! I stole in, lied my way through the ranks of this most heinous group, located my lady’s most precious brooch... and as I snatched it, I was caught.”

“I had not yet learned to fight. And these seasoned bandits were not inclined to go easy on someone like me. I felt the sting of many blades, but I can only imagine it was my love for Cornflower, my burning desire to escape and see her again and return her beloved mother’s brooch that I found myself wriggling free! My face and arms bore the record of my brave deed, and I smirked to think of Cornflower’s stunned expression upon seeing them. How noble! How dashing! I ran home— or rather, I ran to my former home.”

“I climbed the ivy along the side of the Town Hall, climbed to the window of the topmost bedroom! The one I knew my Cornflower would be sleeping soundly in... And as I looked inside, I saw her, fast asleep. And on her face— ha! The loveliest smile I had ever seen... Alas... She only smiles when dreaming. At that moment, I knew the last thing I wished to do was make that smile disappear.”

“...I stole in as silently as I could. I placed the brooch on her bedside table. And I left. Returning to my makeshift home in the woods, I treated my wounds as best as I could, applying makeup to cover them. And I went back to life as before.”

“You can imagine my amazement when I heard a familiar voice coming from over the hills. ‘Orland!’ Cornflower cried, and I saw her running excitedly down to meet me, brooch in hand. She was burning to discuss the mystery of its return with somebody, and her excitement must have, fortunately, outweighed her anger with me.”

“Can you imagine how difficult it was? To remain silent? To nod along and smile and swallow up all that pride. How torturous! To hide that I was the one to bring her such joy. But somehow... I knew. Perhaps it was a whisper for the universe, telling me that this was something I should keep secret. Cornflower’s joy, it turned out, was its own reward. And my heart felt warm... for I knew it was enough.”

“...But the universe rewards true love. My Cornflower, as I may have mentioned, is outstandingly intelligent. Perceptive and intuitive and smart as a whip. It did not take her long to notice the makeup on my arms. On my face. For her to see past my fake theories on how her brooch came to find its way back to her. For her to put together, in her mind’s eye, the truth of the matter. I consider myself a wonderful actor... but I could never put anything past her.”

“...She kissed me then, as no other woman had ever kissed me! I swear I felt the very earth come to a standstill! Every color of the rainbow burst before my eyes and the wind howled in triumph! For who would’ve known that she had loved me all along?! Simply afraid to give in to the feelings... because I was so fickle and flighty.”

“But I loved her more than my pride... as I do now.”

Orland set Rosalina down in his lap, the soft melody dying out as her strings continued to vibrate, a remnant of his final chord.

“As much as an advocate as I am for the power of words, even I am forced to concede that sometimes actions speak much louder.”

He glanced the party over, his eyes landing on each of his friends in turn. He ran a hand through his curls and offered them a bright smile.

“I shall not forget!”

[traviswsoul]

Day 30 Pasco to Winddust Park 42 miles

This morning Dilan made crepes, we had a delicious breakfast.  His kids Ivy, 10, and Axel, 4, are beautiful toe head babies full of positive energy, poster children for good parenting.  They definitaly score one in the get married and have a family column for me.  Dilan's and his wife Jen's shop is called Greenies because they started it out as a shop for all the things a "green" minded consumer might have trouble finding.  Over the years those products have become more widely available, a good thing in general but it also innevitable reduced the demand for those things in their shop.  Now they are a fully operating bike shop as well as a renter of kanoes, SUPs, and bike.  Richland is one of the Tri-Cities of eastern Washington along with Kiliwak and Pasco.  Three rivers run through the cities and the city has done an excellent job creating public outdoor spaces and multi use paths along the water. I'm really impressed with this town and even more so with the beautiful life Jen and Dilan have created, they are both super fit and good looking by the way.  He's 40 and I would have guessed he was my age, she is beautiful and also clearly healthy and active enough to look younger than her years. That night after Dilan left the shop he went with three other guys for a quick 20 mile sprint around the city along the rivers like they do each tuesday night.  I joined him afterward for Taco Tuesday $1 Taco Special at the food truck down the road.  Chasing a beautiful sunset we rode through town and out through farms and into Pasco where they live, I felt right at home and enjoyed talking about Harry Potter with Ivy, she's also a super fan and had the hard back illustrated text book size versions of the books! They were incredible!  I love when I can talk with kids about Harry Potter and not have to downplay my own personal childlike excitment about the phenominon. I didn't even have to set up my tent because they had a trampoline!  After visiting a while with the grown ups I called it a night climbing in to my sleeping bag and resisting the urge to have a good jump and bounce session before bed.  I absolutely love sleeping on trampolines! Especially when you wake up because you get to just roll around and are immediately doing wake up stretches and starting a morning off right.  There nothing like doing Downward Facing Dog in the middle of a trampoline, if you haven't, I insist you try it! Dilan made crepes, it was the best breakfast I've had my whole trip! One I filled with goat cheese, pistachio and peaches, another with almond butter, banana and nutella, and the last with cottage cheese and blueberries.  I got a late start and rode through a couple hours of over a hundred degrees but I'd do it all over again for that good night sleep, amazing breakfast, better company and just being in such a warm home.  Remember Greenies bike shop in the tri cities if you're ever in east Washington, I know I'll be back, I want to kayak that river! The riding was moderately difficult today, boring and extremely hot. I have started another of Dan Carlin's Hard Core History Pod Casts called the Blueprint for Armageddon.  It's about the things that led to world was 1 starting with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the thrown of austro hungary, which im probably remembering in correctly but I know he was killed Serbians who could have had no idea of ultimate ramifications of their actions.  And the guy that killed him did so after the mission to do so had already failed until later in that day the vehicle carrying the prince happened to stop on the street, by coincidence, right in front of the assassin who pulled out his gun and shot both he and his wife.   Dan described it as if Kennedy was not killed when fired upon in his car in Dallas but instead stayed in the car driving around for a while and stopped in front of a cafe that the shooter from the grassy knoll was walking out of, armed and succeeded at his freak second chance.  The chances of this happening and it's role in world history couldn't be written any better if it was made up.  I'm loving learning about this old history in way Hard Core History podcast does, it's hours and hours long.  I think this series I've just started is 6 episodes each over two hours, perfect for a trip like this because it's hard to consume it all if you have real life interrupting your lessons all the time.   As I cam around one turn I saw another bike packer stopped in the shade packing something up, I asked if he was ok and then wished him well and rode on.  Then I realized he was coming my direction when he came up behind me and we exchanged encouragements, then when he was pulled over again on a hill I passed him commenting on how hot it was and he confirmed that I had enough water and reminded me to stay hydrated!  Eventually after a while of this I saw his bike was outside the only building we had seen for 25 miles, it was the top of a hill we'd just climbed so I also pulled over to check on power for something I think.  After a minute or two a women stuck her head outside the little school house and asked me if I needed more water as well?  I decided to take the obvious lead and went inside, she guided me down stairs and on past the kids cubbies with finger paint hung all above I met Oliver Heyndrickx in the little boys room filling up his water. He was from Belgium and admitted he had just graduated and was out traveling to run away from responsibilities mounting at home so he was trying to cycle to as many national forests as he could in the next few months.  We made our way up to the landing by the entrance where I felt a cold stream of air conditioning blowing against my legs.  From one of the lower steps of the next flight of stairs was amazingly cold air blowing from a vent, it felt life giving. I immediately stuck my head down to it and got comfortable, so did he, we were both so hot, it must have been 105 outside and I know I was thirty miles in, he was more.  So we sat and chatted, immediate friends, kindred spirits feel, it was we laughed about how neither of us were really sure how to do what we had set out to do.  I walked him through how to change a tire, which he has never done in his life.  He was confident, adventures, bearded, and excited, I wish we could have traveled more together.  Nine miles past the school house though I turned right onto Burt Canyon Road and finally was rewarded for all the climbing we'd been doing with a few miles of down hill.  I was headed down to the Snake River, normally when you get to bomb down you get to cool off but today, even over thirty miles per hour, the air was so hot it didn't feel nice at all.  It felt like when you open the over and get wave of heat hitting you, I couldn't believe it.  Once the river came into sight however and jumping in became a very real possibility I was stoked!  I  hit the river and turned left watching the giant river boat filling facility come closer and closer.  It appeared that semis go through, unload their loads, and then it is piped up into a silo that has a ramp and filling down tube hanging out over the river, where I suppose boats fill up and transport down the river.  This type of operation seems perfect out here, today I rode through the biggest farm plots I have ever seen, some fields rolled on so far they became hills and disappeared behind their horizons.  I passed a tiny linger hanger and run way and watched airplanes take over and return over and over making passes dusting the fields with chemicals, one little yellow plain I saw flying over me and returning to reload three times while I was on that stretch.  Wheat fields are actually rather beautiful, the wind blows them in all directions and motion and shades of gold is constantly changing direction.  I also believe I saw, carrots, onions, and potatoes, root vegitables that I'm not so good at identifying.  I am certain that I passed a garlic field, it smelled amazing, a few million heads of garlic filling the air with that aroma that we know so well from it filling our kitchens at the onset something delicious being made, it was unmistakable.  It was cool to see the river still being used to transport those harvests, I saw a few massive vessels moving up river while I've been here now but have not gotten to witness a filling, I can see that giants solo and ramp from where I'm camping.  I'm right on the river across is a train track and then a cliff that jets up, the move has been getting brighter and higher from the back of that cliff all night.  When I left this morning I had I had parts all over and out of place so when I arrived here, after immediately walking straight down the boat dock into the river with all my clothes on, shoes included, I laid out my yoga mat and unpacked everything.  I then repacked it all back into exactly the right places, taking inventory, organizing and consolidating. There was a break for another swim some time during my OCD exercise as well and once I was finished I did yoga on the newly cleared mat.  Today my on board power system failed for the first time.  earlier in the day one of the wires had broken off the metal piece that connects it to the hub. I managed to stop in front of an auto shop and soon a interested guy asked if I needed help, we struck up a conversation and he realized he had a replacement for the part I needed so we got it fixed.  However, soon after both the wire had broken of the metal piece we replaced and the other wire was severed.  I was baffled but managed to take my time, borrow some duck tape and pliers and get it rigged up better than before.  Now the sun has gone down and I need to eat a lot more still before bed. xoxoxo3:46

[laularlau8]

‘Success couldn’t fix our insecurity’: Gillian Anderson and best friend Jennifer Nadel on why they’ve written a ‘manual for life’

Who do you turn to when you’re struggling to cope? After counselling each other when the going got tough, Gillian Anderson and her close friend Jennifer Nadel have written a tried-and-tested ‘manual for life’ on the issues that affect us all

Ten years ago, Gillian Anderson met Jennifer Nadel, a neighbour in West London’s Notting Hill, and, sensing a kindred spirit, made that classic mummy mistake of thinking how lovely it would be if their children could be friends. They arranged to meet at a local café, where Gillian’s 12-year-old daughter Piper and Jennifer’s 13-year-old son Jack sat in stony silence. ‘They just didn’t get along,’ laughs Gillian. ‘We took a stroll through Hyde Park and they shuffled along, saying absolutely nothing. It was hideous.’‘But we ended up being friends, which was the blessing,’ says Jennifer. Gillian nods in agreement as she sips coffee.

The star of The X-Files and The Fall has turned up to the YOU photo shoot in tight-fitting black jeans and dizzying stilettos, looking immaculate even though she is about to go into hair and make-up. For the first few minutes she’s glued to her phone, sending anxious texts. The premiere of her new film, Viceroy’s House (a drama set during the partition of India, which opens on Friday), has changed, ‘so I’m trying to work out how to get my kids home from swimming’. Jennifer arrives late to many hugs and greetings in a big, curly wool jacket, colourful necklace and chunky rings.

From their first conversation – one that has never really finished – Gillian and Jennifer realised they had a huge amount in common. Not just a shared sense of humour, but also of having dealt with pretty much everything life could throw at them: a fractured childhood, broken relationships, being a single parent, serious illness in the family, money worries, depression, anxiety and a creeping sense of insecurity that seemed impossible to shake off.

They became each another’s go-to adviser when things got tough.Now they have distilled their thoughts and experiences into a manual for life. We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere might sound grandiose, but it is a practical guide to getting to know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, and learning to cope in a world that sometimes seems overwhelming, even if you are beautiful and successful. ‘This book doesn’t come from lofty heights,’ as they say in the introduction. ‘It comes from two friends who have stumbled along together, trying, failing, crying, laughing, learning and trying again.’ 

It seems incredible that two such able and successful women could feel so unsure of themselves, but no one is immune to stress and anxiety. Gillian, 48, says she suffered daily panic attacks when she first became famous as FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in The X-Files. Jennifer, 54, suffered a breakdown – ‘a glorious, full-blown burnout’ – when she was home affairs editor at ITN. From the outside, both had enviable lives but ‘no amount of external success could fix the way we felt inside…it made us feel guilty that even with the gifts and luck we’d been given we couldn’t make life work’.

Their recipe for finding peace of mind includes reflection, meditation and self-examination – looking at where your problems come from and how to fix them, without resorting to alcohol, drugs, work, food or abusive relationships, as they have done at times: ‘You name it, we tried it,’ they write.

Between them, they have clocked up many hours of therapy and distilled the best of what they have learnt into nine ‘principles’: honesty, acceptance, kindness, courage, trust, peace, humility, love and joy. Their aim is to get women working through the principles not just as individuals, but in groups that will use their new-found strength to campaign against injustice and create a more compassionate world.

‘It’s about women coming together to share troubles and joys without feeling we are in competition,’ says Gillian. ‘There are so many fundamental things we have in common. Who isn’t horrified by rising suicide rates among teenagers, the degree of self-harm and the impact social media is having on women of all ages?’

Gillian’s daughter Piper, now 22, is ‘quite grounded’, she says, but that’s partly due to luck. ‘There are times when I’ve gone waxing on about something or other and times when I’ve just let her be. She’s very self-aware, reflective and honest, so the good stuff must have had some impact, although I’m sure there’s plenty of negative stuff that’s been passed down as well.’

By contrast, both her and Jennifer’s early years were blighted by depression and anxiety. Jennifer first had therapy aged 15: ‘I beat you, I was 14!’ chips in Gillian.  Jennifer grew up in an eccentric, alcoholic household in the English countryside with a very young mother and a reclusive, academic father. The house was divided into a children’s half and an adults’ half, and visits between the two were regulated.

Gillian’s upbringing was more conventional, but perhaps moving around unsettled her: she was born in Chicago, but her parents soon moved to Puerto Rico, then London – where they stayed until she was 11 – before settling in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Aged 13, she ceased to be an only child when her brother Aaron was born (he had neurofibromatosis, a congenital condition that causes tumours to grow on the nervous system), followed by a sister, Zoe.

Gillian says there was ‘a lot of stuff to deal with’ in her childhood. She went off the rails, became a punk, dyed her hair, experimented with drugs and was voted ‘girl most likely to be arrested’ by her classmates – and actually was arrested and charged with trespass on the night of her graduation for trying to break into her school. ‘There was a point where it was highly recommended that I see a therapist because I was struggling in school. I guess that was the beginning of self-reflection and looking at behaviour patterns and historical stuff.’

Gillian’s father, who ran a film production company, tried to persuade her away from acting, or to at least learn word processing (her mother was a computer programmer), so she could earn money in the down times. ‘Good advice, but I didn’t listen,’ she says. 

Instead Gillian moved to New York and worked as a waitress between theatre roles until she was cast in The X-Files, aged 24. She thought it would run for 13 episodes. Instead, it dominated the next ten years of her life. She met her first husband, Piper’s father Clyde Klotz, on set (he was assistant art director).

Having therapy as a teenager helped Gillian cope with fame, but she still felt overwhelmed at times. ‘There were occasions during that series when I wasn’t sure whether I could go on. I started having panic attacks on a daily basis while we were shooting, around the time Piper was born. It was a mixture of not having dealt with childhood problems, the work being intensive, living in the spotlight and the expectation on me, as well as not knowing how to get balance or properly take care of myself. The panic attacks forced me to start practising meditation, just to eke out a tiny bit of space for myself, and that made it possible to continue.’ Gillian and Clyde divorced after three years (she later said she had been too young and has encouraged her daughter to travel and ‘make the most of her life’ before getting seriously involved with a man), and she was briefly married to Julian Ozanne, a filmmaker. She then fell in love with Mark Griffiths, a businessman, with whom she has two sons, Oscar, ten, and Felix, eight.

Despite achieving fame on both sides of the Atlantic, she remained insecure: ‘For years I was very self-centred and focused on my body, my weight, and it caused so much sadness. That really moves me now, just how much of my younger life I missed out on because I was so focused on my thighs or my outfit; it was such a waste of time.’

Obsessing about appearance is part of the career she chose, Gillian concedes, ‘but it’s becoming the world we all operate in because of social media. Facebook and Instagram have made all women focus on how they look and how they’re represented.’Jennifer agrees: ‘If we get a knock in life we rationalise it by telling ourselves we’re not good enough or pretty enough, and that’s a form of self-harm. You wouldn’t talk to your child or someone you love like that and yet that’s how we talk to ourselves, almost automatically.’

Jennifer, who is on her second marriage and has three sons (Jack, 23, Theo, 21, and Arlo, seven), channelled her teenage woes into academic success: she trained as a barrister, then swapped to journalism, spending five years as a senior correspondent at ITN.

Television was almost as demanding as acting in terms of appearance and long hours. ‘I felt obliged to don the uniform – power suit and heels – that my editor and the industry expected. I felt trapped. One morning I woke up and realised I couldn’t go on. I called the news desk and said I was very sorry but I couldn’t come in – not that day and, as it turned out, not ever.’ Jennifer was diagnosed with severe depression which dogged her for the next ten years. ‘I never thought I would work again.’

Motherhood brought its own pressures, especially for Gillian, who finds the noise and chaos of young boys unbearable at times. Maybe other mothers have ‘tougher nerve endings’, she says. She does the ‘right thing’ and gets down to play Lego but ‘my kids can sense it’s not easy for me. I struggled when Piper was little as well. I remember getting restless and feeling this pressure that I should be doing something else, but when I was doing something else feeling this pressure that I should be with my child. It’s that constant tug of war…and I don’t think I’m alone with that. I try to be tolerant and patient. How I am in the house depends on my time of the month: I’m either embracing of the noise or it’s nails on a chalk board. But they know that it’s just Mum. There’s an acceptance and a lovingness.’

There are 12 years between Piper and Oscar, so Gillian’s daughter was an only child for almost as long as she was. ‘I don’t think anything is accidental in life. It wasn’t on purpose but it’s ironic,’ she says.Is there some advantage to having a spell as an only child? ‘I’m not so sure. It was really important to me that Oscar had [another] sibling because Piper felt like an only child, Oscar’s dad was an only child and I didn’t want to repeat that with Oscar. So his relationship with his brother is something new to me. I’ve never observed similar-age sibling relationships before and it’s really fascinating and beautiful. 'Independence-wise being an only child is good, but there are traits that I have seen in other only children: being quite selfish, not really wanting to share. It’s taken a long time for me to push the boundaries of those and be less controlling, less protective of my world and my space.

Relationships with men have been no easier. Jennifer had a ‘horrible’ divorce from her first husband, which was ‘incredibly messy and painful and took many years to recover from, although looking back I can see how it led to transformation. I had to learn to love in the face of anger.’Gillian saw a pattern with her partners: ‘I’d meet someone, instantly fall in love and spend every waking hour with them, but stopped doing the things I enjoyed doing, stopped taking care of myself. I adopted their interests, friends, music, tastes…before long I’d start to resent them, even though it was me who actively let myself go.’

After six years together, she and Mark split up (they didn’t marry) and she has used some of the experience of her dealings with her ex in her book. ‘A spiritual adviser encouraged me to start thinking of [him] as my “beloved”, that regardless of our separateness we will be raising two children together for the rest of our lives and that makes him one of the most important people in my life, whether I like it or not. As you can imagine, this is not easy, but the times I am able to communicate with him from a place of love and appreciation rather than resentment, or as he says “againstness”, the more my perception shifts.

Gillian and Jennifer’s book, We, asks its readers to work through a series of exercises designed to shift their own perceptions. The first is gratitude. Though it seems simple – too simple almost – taking a look at your life and writing a list of things to be grateful for can be transforming however low, angry or despondent you feel, they say. The next is gentleness, the simple act of being kind to yourself. You’re not perfect: don’t dwell on little slip-ups, and banish the self-criticism.

Meditate. This is a tough one: Jennifer says when she first had a go, it ‘felt like I was being put in a torture chamber’. She and Gillian suggest making a quiet space for yourself, with fresh flowers or a candle nearby, but once meditating becomes a habit it gets easier. ‘I had to be facing in the right direction, there could be no distractions, the candle and incense lit, my legs crossed,’ says Gillian. ‘Then at one point I was away working and had none of my usual crutches. Now I can do it anywhere – in a crowd, on a bus, at work.’

All this is preparation for working through the nine principles, which are designed to guide you to a place of ‘acceptance’, where you can switch the spotlight from yourself to the problems of the wider world. They include a guide to choosing a cause close to your heart that you could support or campaign around.Jennifer stood as a candidate for the Green Party in the last general election and is a trustee of Inquest, a charity that supports families of people who have died in custody. At ITN she covered miscarriages of justice and visited prisons: ‘It gave me a harrowing insight into the powerlessness of being incarcerated wrongly and not being able to get anyone to believe you.’

Gillian styles herself on Twitter as ‘Mum, actress, activist’ and has campaigned for women’s and children’s rights (including her own: she made it public last year that she had been offered half as much money as her male co-star for an X-Files revival, a situation that was eventually remedied). She recently spoke at Davos about trafficking and modern slavery: ‘the thing that breaks my heart’.If it all sounds too earnest, remember that one of the principles in We is joy. ‘There have been times when the knocks have felt so hard and all-consuming that I’ve struggled to smile or to laugh, but it’s possible to break through that,’ says Gillian. ‘I try not to chew over or hold on to arguments, make space to lighten things – though, I have to admit, life situations come regularly where I think, “What! This can’t play out like this, are you kidding me?” I forget that I can’t control everything.’So reaching that place of acceptance, even for them, is a work in progress? ‘Absolutely,’ says Jennifer.‘Ongoing,’ says Gillian. ‘Every day.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-4245374/Interview-Gillian-Anderson-friend-Jennifer-Nadel.html#ixzz4ZkIKobPHFollow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[strangermyselfie-blog]

Log #2 (haha)

It's because the last few weeks have been such a whirlwind that the urge to write has me once again sitting down to let the genius out. I’m going to do a couple teacherly things right now: I'm going to reflect, and i’m going to grade myself. Let's skip straight to the grade cause that's what we all do when we get the report back anyway. I can be a harsh grader when I think my student can do better so for the last four weeks I give myself a C+. This is a fairly generous grade in some regards. For instance, how I've treated my coworkers as we all find ourselves stuck with each other in a brand new, glossy prep school with no students. Well we have a handful. It's been a slow start for Capstone, Shanghai. Somewhere between a few months and a year from now enrollment will be up and it'll be a completely different set of problems. But for now, being required to keep about 45 office hours per week in an antiseptic fluorescent-lit “learning lab” feels like strange torture. Soft torture. There is no purpose to these long hours. Sid and Daryl, the other teachers, feel the same way. Sid, however, is technically in charge and has orders from the top to ensure everyone adhere to the hours. An act of solidarity with the front desk people who also have to wait around for Godot. My prediction is that we will all live. But when you have this kind of time on your hands in an institutional environment your mind starts to wander. American philosopher William James posited about the relationship of habit juxtaposed against our miraculous ability to engage in thought. American visionary Buckminster Fuller devoted a great deal of his life creating environments that nurtured the development of the best habits. So where am I going with this? Here’s the math: too many effing hours imprisoned in this suffocating, sterile environment to successfully engage in my miraculous ability of thought to transpose such hours into an opportunity. Yes, I did spend an entire day scribbling on my wall-size white board as I wandered down intellectual avenues, trying to outsmart this bizarre situation and stave off the slow but palpable draining of my soul.

A Ray Bradbury short story got me thinking about other atomic and pre-atomic age thinkers, like Fuller, whereas an old teaching text got me researching talented lecturers which lead me to James. I have not yet cracked the problem. My co-workers and I, who are not exactly kindred spirits, still drown adjacently together, trying to do our time, though only I seem concerned about the dimming of our souls. The whole situation reminds me of the parable of the people seated around a lavish feast, all starving because they have three-foot long spoons for arms and haven't learned how to feed each other. Hopefully I'll have some sort of epiphany or renewal of spirit and imagination over this week long national holiday. I'll return to the antiseptic emptiness of the office inspired to incite a revolution or create some sort of alternate reality in which we all realize the ludicrousness of the situation and get over our fear obligation to our absent management structure. I feel like cans of spray paint and badminton rackets will be involved but the vision is still blurry. On a side note, the company was going to spring for Mandarin lessons for Sid, Daryl and I (as they have not supplied adequate resources for functioning in Shanghai without the language [more on that another time]), but those went away when Debbie in Hong Kong insist they happen at the school but outside of office hours, meaning we'd have to come in even earlier to do nothing. There's something a little bit off with Debbie. Part administrator, financial officer, and masochist, she seems bent on extending her misery of blinding devotion to her job to the culture of the entire organization. For the last couple months she's had more on her plate than any one person can handle, situating a dozen new teachers from all over the world between 3 campuses, and rather than ask for help she just put her nose the the grindstone and shaved off her entire face. Now that the dust has settled she can turn her attention to making sure everyone else is miserable. Stay tuned for more Debbie. Next on the docket though: how to learn the biggest city on the planet while searching for an apartment on a budget! Do you feel lucky, punk? Do you? Well you'd better cause that's the only way you won't wind up in a quagmire of regret, even if it does have large windows and a big shower.

Log #2 (so funny!) flushed

[forzacabiria-blog]

To Macy, Always With Your Attitude

You were asleep. I was a fourteen year old teenage boy like most others. Plenty of energy, not much sense. The other dogs jumped and wagged and yearned for our attention. They were great. You were not. You slept in your corner, disinterested at all of the commotion, and possibly annoyed at your human visitors. You were always annoyed. I was busy with your brothers and sisters, trying to figure out which one I preferred. Dad, for reasons I still haven’t fully understood, spotted you in the corner, asleep. Maybe he saw a kindred spirit.

“How about that one?”

I turned to meet his gaze, and saw you. You were gorgeous, but I didn’t care. You were boring, and again, I was a teenage boy who lacked any sense.

“It’s sleeping.” 

“So?”

We asked a handler if we could hold you. I held you first. You were so small, but I still wasn’t convinced. You weren’t impressing me, and I certainly wasn’t impressing you. You looked up at me from my arms, giving me a simple stare that just seemed to say, “Why?” Always with your attitude. 

Dad had already decided. He kept advocating for you. I didn’t put up too much of a fight. You weren’t my first choice (or my second), but you were a dog, and you were all I had ever wanted since I was a little child. 

So much of childhood is spent learning about how often things don’t live up to your presumptions. Toys you want, video games you play, places you go. You’re constantly being reminded that the reality never matches the hype. I was so excited bringing you home. Even in your indifference, you came into my life with a world of expectations you were required to meet.

Before we left the shelter, we asked about your name. “We call her Goldie” said one of the handlers. That wasn’t going to work.

I still remember the list, or at least most of it. Mom asked me to write down all of the possible names on a small piece of paper, and we’d pick out the best one. I was a kid heavily influenced by hip hop and R&B music. The list reflected that.

“Alicia, Destiny, Macy, Brandy, Aaliyah, Mya.” Mom almost certainly hadn’t heard of any of the musicians as she read the list aloud to herself. She had no real dog in the fight.

I can’t remember what my first choice was, or even my second. I just know for sure the name mom stated wasn’t one of them.

“I like Macy.”

I would later grow to love its simplicity, but at the time the name felt too vanilla. I wanted a cool name, indicative of my favorite female musicians at the time. I still don’t remember why I even placed Macy on the list. But once again, my parents knew better. The name would grow to suit you perfectly. Its lack of mystery and complexity mirrored your personality. It was simple and predictable, as were you.

You loved to eat. Your appetite was as big as your attitude, and it often got you into trouble. The berries you ate from the bushes outside that gave you some sort of reaction causing your snout to swell up, or the countless dead squirrels, frogs, and birds you found and carried around your mouth as some sort of conquest.

I grew older and became a typical high school kid. Concerned with sports, friends, girls, drinking, and weekends away from home. My social life became more active, but you were a constant. No matter how hectic it got, I always found time to spend and play with you. Puberty and high school were not going to get in the way of our time together. Even today, that is one of the things I am most proud of. I was never too busy for you. 

I loved to annoy you, and I was very good at it. My miniature Hulk Hogan pillow was your mortal enemy, and every time I pulled him from the closet, you would growl at him with a hatred he probably didn’t deserve (you got the better of that rivalry, as his cotton strewn guts made extremely clear). Blowing at your nose from under the cracks of closed doors was another favorite. You would jump back alarmed, then stick your nose right back down, barking at the mysterious wind from under the crack. You had been buried under so many blankets that you developed an expert strategy, not bothering to find your way out, but rather searching for the hand-like form holding the sheets and biting through the cloth. It always hurt, but I always laughed.

To your credit, you knew how to annoy me too. You were an expert manipulator. You barked to be let outside, indicating to me that you had to use the bathroom, but knowing full well you had no intention of doing so. Once outside, you would play the role as if you had an audience watching. You’d walk around, sniff a few things, lick some indiscriminate smudge off the ground, and after enough time had passed for you to have pretended to have urinated, you’d ask to be let back in. Once inside, you would stare at me with expectant eyes. You had gone outside to use the bathroom, and now you wanted your treat, as per our agreement.

I got so used to sleeping on the floor that I came to expect it. My friends would mock me for the lack of discipline we gave you. You would sleep on queen sized beds with such regularity, that every time I tried to lay next to you, you reacted as if it was an act of audacity. I took pride in your level of comfort. I wanted you to feel as if the world was your own, everyone and everything in it meant for your own convenience and leisure. And you did. Always with your attitude. 

I knew our mom and dad were separating perhaps years before they were aware of it. I had noticed their behavior towards each other was different, more distant. I got used to it. I built a tolerance so strong that I was emotionally prepared for their inevitable split.

I forgot to prepare for your departure. It never crossed my mind in their last few years together what would happen with you. It should have been obvious in hindsight. As much as I loved you, you always loved mom more than anyone. She was your favorite. I would never have dared to keep you from her. And so when she left for Brazil, so did you. 

It broke me. I was so certain that I had emotionally shielded myself from their separation, but I couldn’t handle you being gone. I would come home and hear nothing. No collar dangling. No little clacks of your overgrown toenails on the wood panels (you never let us cut your nails). No barking. No panting. The house was empty.

I still remember the day you and mom left. You packed up your things and got in the minivan. You were fine. You looked at me from the car window with your mouth open and your tongue out, having no idea we were saying goodbye for a while. All you knew was that you were going on a trip with mom, so you were happy. I walked back to the house and closed the door and collapsed to the floor. I cried a lot. It was the toughest moment of my life. You had met all of my expectations. Owning a dog was everything I had always hoped it would be, but owning you was somehow even better.

I was bitter at mom for a long time afterwards. It wasn’t right or fair of me, but pain never makes us think clearly of things. All I could think was that she took you away from me. It would be years before our relationship was fully healed again, but I would finally understand and even appreciate her for having taken you. She was the only person capable of making you happy, and that is all I wanted.

I remember mom calling me to tell me you had cancer. She was crying, but I was calm and only mildly concerned. I’m not religious, and I have no faith in anything supernatural, but somehow I was certain you’d be okay. I had only my faith in you. I knew you were strong and stubborn. Always so stubborn. The surgery was going to go fine, and the tumor was going to be removed. It wasn’t your time yet. I didn’t have to believe in anything other than your own resilience to be certain of this.

When I went to stay with you in Brazil a few years later, you were as strong as ever. A little older, a little slower, a little whiter, but still strong. Your appetite was unchanged. Every noise in the kitchen called your attention. Every rustling of a bag perked your ears. And you still had your attitude. Always with your attitude. We had been apart for years, but it seemed like we’d only been apart a few days. I got back into the rhythm of annoying you, and you got back into the habit of letting me know it. Every exasperated sigh or displeased stare you gave me as I hugged you and disrupted your sleep made me happy. It made me remember all of our years together, and reminded me of the fact that even though we had been separated for some time, we had our own very unique relationship that no time apart could change. 

The last time I left for Brazil I was better emotionally prepared to say goodbye to you, but it still hurt. I knew it would be the last time I ever saw you. You were very healthy, but you still had gotten older, and I knew time wasn’t on our side. 

The following years, the cancer would return, but you’d stay strong. A few problems would flare up here and there, and mom would sometimes call crying with worry, but I’d stay calm. I knew you were strong. I didn’t know much, but I knew that. I had underestimated you before when I had mischaracterized you as the most boring dog of the litter, sleeping in the corner with little interest for anybody else. I would never underestimate you again.

When the call finally came, the one that I was able to avoid for so many years before, I couldn’t stay calm any longer. She told me you were in really bad shape. You weren’t eating. She mentioned how she was ready to euthanize you if it persisted. I fell apart on the phone. I tried to hide my emotions as I spoke with her, but I managed to last only about half a minute before my voice cracked, and she heard my despair. I always tried to stay calm in front of her, but I couldn’t any longer. You were going to be leaving me for good this time.

And so you did. After fifteen years. Fifteen long, amazing years. You were such a warrior. A stubborn, gluttonous, prissy, spoiled little warrior. And I enjoyed every moment with you. You exceeded every expectation I had come to have as a little boy about what it would be like to have a dog. You slept all the time. You ate way too much. You were constantly annoyed with my energy. You were in no way the friend or companion I envisioned and dreamed of having when I was younger. You were so much better. And always with your attitude.

I miss you already. I love you always. 

Thank you for tolerating me.