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erosjock · 4 years ago

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27 Ways to Get Over a Breakup, Like, Right Now

Going through a breakup is low-key the best time to rebrand yourself. You can be whoever you want to be, do whatever you want to do, and try anything you want to try without having to consider anyone but yourself.

But considering breakups = losing someone who was consistently in your life, it can be easy to dwell on the past instead of looking at what your future self can bring to the table. Completely understandable.

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So to help you cope with all things breakup (since, hi, your future best self is waiting), we’ve sourced a bunch of tangible, practical ways you can actually get over someone according to experts who want to help. Because yes, sometimes buying yourself flowers at the grocery store is a lil start.

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How You Get Over a Breakup, by Zodiac Sign

1. Shower daily. I know this seems small, but trust, it makes all the difference. “Prioritizing your hygiene and taking pride in how you look can often make you feel better inside,” says licensed clinical psychologist Kristie Norwood. So get yourself a morning and nighttime routine that requires a rinse in the shower. After all, shower thoughts are the best kind of thoughts, and it might be super therapeutic. Small wins are the best wins.

2. Create a vision board. Yup, it’s time to paint a badass picture of what your future is about to look like. (Time to get on that manifesting kick). “After breakups, it’s important to figure out what your life will look like without the relationship as it was,” says Norwood. So pick up some magazines—yes, full permission to grab some Cosmos— and cut out images that you put into art your life goals and desires.

3. Treat yourself to a new sex toy. Luckily for you, vibrators come completely drama-free (and in some cases, are better than the real deal). “Cleanse yourself of any negative energy through an orgasm,” says sex educator Yael Rosenstock Gonzalez. An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away (...that’s the saying, right?).

4. Go to therapy It’s time to make an appointment for therapy, suggests licensed clinical social worker Amalia Miralrío. Especially considering an unbiased perspective could offer you insight that you weren’t able to process yourself. Get started with some free options here.

Benefits of the No Contact Rule Post-Breakup

5. Buy yourself a big bouquet of pink roses. Put them in a vase, water them, and wait for them to wilt. When it’s time to throw them out, check in with your feelings. Guess what? By the time those roses die, you’ll already feel better. Then, keep buying yourself roses, recommends Veronica Yip, a San Diego resident who swears by this hack.

6. Visit a rage room. It’s…a legit thing. “Get out all your anger and smash objects to your heart’s content,” recommends Lauren Cook, who holds a master’s in marriage and family therapy.

7. Go on that vacation you’ve been dying to—even if it’s by yourself. “Getting away to an exotic location or somewhere peaceful is a potent source of distraction,” says therapist Rev. Sheri Heller. What’s better than lounging beachside with a good book, frozen drank, and the ocean waves? Talk about self-care.

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8. Rearrange your home. Get rid of all those bad memories. “A new look creates space for new memories. Out with the old, inviting the new,” recommends Krysta Monet creator and founder of The Feminine Truth.

9. Purge your relationship junk drawer. Yes, this includes that ticket stub you’ve kept from your first date. “You don’t need the reminders of a relationship that is no longer,” says Robyn Koenig, professional dating coach and CEO at Rare Find.

How Long It Actually Takes to Get Over a Breakup

10. Write hate mail to your ex. But don’t actually send it (and tell your sister not to either, à la Lara Jean). “The caveat is not to mail the letter but to do a ceremonial burning to get rid of the toxic energy,” recommends Samantha Gregory, author of No More Crumbs: How to Stop Dating for Crumbs and Get the Cake You Finally Deserve.

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11. Say yes to everything. “This is especially useful if you’ve been in a long-term relationship where you’ve compromised and negotiated what you ate, where you went, what you watched, and who you socialized with,” says Trish McDermott, CEO of Meetopolis Dating. “Who are you and what makes just *you* happy? Now is the time to find out.”

12. Eat alone. Whether you take yourself out to your favorite Thai place or make a home-cooked dinner, sit at the table and eat in silence. “Becoming comfortable with newly found silence is part of the recovery process,” says Megan Cannon, owner of Back to Balance Counseling.

13. Sign up for a boxing class—or any other type of fighting class. “Sometimes you need to find an outlet to divert the negative energies you get after a breakup,” says Celia Schweyer, dating and relationship expert at DatingScout. Trust, punching the eff out of something will *def* help with this added stress.

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14. Block them from your Instagram/Snapchat. If the temptation to see if they’ve been paying attention to your Stories is too much, just block them. This way, when you do start to get out there and share your day-to-day activities again, you’ll know there’s zero part of you that’s performatively “acting over it” in the hopes your ex will see it.

15. Don’t shit-talk your ex too much. Sure, it feels good to trash-talk your ex with your besties, and hearing that you were better than them from the start feels like a drug, but don’t rely on it. Hearing your friends bring down someone who made you feel shitty feels like it should be justified in the grand karmic scheme of things, but your health and happiness need not be contingent on someone else’s pain and suffering.

16. Don’t immediately suggest to “stay friends”—and if they do, tell them you need to think about it. This is an impulse because you don’t want to seem like you care too much about the breakup. Because you’re so chill. You’re so chill that your heart isn’t beating. Aaand, you’re dead. But truthfully, during this stilted, awkward breaking-up period, it’s hard to tell whether you’ll be able to be friends. Generally, one person wants to be friends and the other wants to be more. Gotta work that shit out before it can be a healthy friendship…if it ever can be. You’re not admitting defeat by not staying friends with them.

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pamphletstoinspire · 5 years ago

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MICHAELMAS EMBERTIDE

Ember days: Ember days (corruption from Lat. Quatuor Tempora, four times) are the days at the beginning of the seasons ordered by the Church as days of fast and abstinence. They were definitely arranged and prescribed for the entire Church by Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) for the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after 13 December (S. Lucia), after Ash Wednesday, after Whitsunday, and after 14 September (Exaltation of the Cross).

Four times a year, the Church sets aside three days to focus on God through His marvelous creation. These quarterly periods take place around the beginnings of the four natural seasons that “like some virgins dancing in a circle, succeed one another with the happiest harmony,” as St. John Chrysostom wrote.

These four times are each kept on a successive Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday and are known as “Ember Days,” or Quatuor Tempora, in Latin. The first of these four times comes in Winter, after the the Feast of St. Lucy; the second comes in Spring, the week after Ash Wednesday; the third comes in Summer, after Pentecost Sunday; and the last comes in Autumn, after Holy Cross Day. Their dates can be remembered by this old mnemonic:

Sant Crux, Lucia, Cineres, Charismata Dia Ut sit in angaria quarta sequens feria.

Which means:

Holy Cross, Lucy, Ash Wednesday, Pentecost, are when the quarter holidays follow.

For non-Latinists, it might be easier to just remember “Lucy, Ashes, Dove, and Cross.”

These times are spent fasting and partially abstaining (voluntary since the new Code of Canon Law) in penance and with the intentions of thanking God for the gifts He gives us in nature and beseeching Him for the discipline to use them in moderation. The fasts, known as “Jejunia quatuor temporum,” or “the fast of the four seasons,” are rooted in Old Testament practices of fasting four times a year:

Zacharias 8:19:

Thus saith the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Juda, joy, and gladness, and great solemnities: only love ye truth and peace.

Our Israelite ancestors once fasted weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Christians changed the fast days to Wednesdays (the day on which Christ was betrayed) and Fridays (the day on which He was crucified). The weekly two day fasts were later amended in the Roman Church to keeping only Fridays as penitential days, but during Embertides, the older, two-day fasts are restored. Saturdays (the day He was entombed) were added to these Ember times of fasting and are seen as a sort of culmination of the Ember Days: for example, on Ember Wednesdays, there is one lesson given during the Mass; on Fridays, there are none; and on Saturdays, there are four or five. Interestingly, the story of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago's escape from King Nabuchodonosor's fiery furnace with the help of an angel is commemorated on each Saturday of Embertides except that of Whit Embertide, and part of their beautiful hymn of praise follows (Daniel 3:52-56. See readings at the bottom of the page for this gorgeous hymn in its entirety).

MICHAELMAS EMBERTIDE

Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 14 September, are known as “Michaelmas Embertide,” and they come near the beginning of Autumn (September, October, November). The Lessons focus on the Old Covenant's Day of Atonement and the fast of the seventh month, but start off with this prophecy from Amos 9:13-15:

Behold the days come, when the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed, and the mountains shall dop sweetness, and every hill shall be tilled. And I will bring back the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall build the abandoned cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine of them; and shall make gardens and eat the fruits of them; and I will plant them upon their land: and I will no more pluck them out of their land which I have given them; saith the Lord thy God.

Like all Embertides but Whit Embertide, the Lessons end with the story of the three boys in the fiery furnace, as told by Daniel.

The Gospel readings recount how Jesus exorcised demons from a possessed boy and tells the disciples about fasting to cast out unclean spirits (Matthew 9:16-28), forgave Mary Magdalen (Luke 7:36-50), and healed the woman on the sabbath after telling the parable of the fig tree (Luke 13:6-17).

The air grows cooler, the earth stiffens, the trees tire of holding their leaves. And during this waning we remember our dead — on November 1st, the victorious dead (All Saints’, or All Hallows Day), and on November 2nd, the dead being purified (All Souls’ Day). These Days of the Dead begin with the eve of All Hallows, or “Hallowe’en,” an unofficial evening of remembering the frightening fate of the damned and how we can avoid it. There can’t be a more appropriate time for such a night than Autumn, when foggy mists are likely, and bonfires helpful.

FASTING

In the United States of America all the days of Lent; the Fridays of Advent (generally); the Ember Days; the vigils of Christmas and Pentecost, as well as those (14 Aug.) of the Assumption; (31 Oct.) of All Saints, are now fasting days. In Great Britain, Ireland, Australia and Canada, the days just indicated, together with the Wednesdays of Advent and (28 June) the vigil of Saints Peter and Paul, are fasting days.

Fasting means we can have only one full, meatless meal on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday according to the USCCB. Some food can be taken at the other regular meal times, but combined they should be less than a full meal. Liquids are allowed at any time, but no solid food should be consumed between meals. Those that are excused from fast and abstinence outside the age limits include the physically or mentally ill including individuals suffering from chronic illnesses such as diabetes. Also excluded are pregnant or nursing women. In all cases, common sense should prevail, and ill persons should not further jeopardize their health by fasting.

When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. Meat may be included in one meal, except as noted above.

Hence, the sick, the infirm, convalescents, delicate women, persons sixty years old and over, families whose members cannot have the necessaries for a full meal at the same time, or who have nothing but bread, vegetables or such like viands, those to whom fasting brings loss of sleep or severe headaches, wives whose fasting incurs their husband's indignation, children whose fasting arouses parent's wrath; in a word, all those who can not comply with the obligation of fasting without undergoing more than ordinary hardship are excused on account of their inability to fulfill the obligation.

Priests charged with the care of souls may dispense individuals for good reason. Superiors of religious communities may dispense individual members of their respective communities provided sufficient reasons exist. Confessors are not qualified to grant these dispensations unless they have been explicitly delegated thereunto. They may, however, decide whether sufficient reason exists to lift the obligation.

No student of ecclesiatical discipline can fail to perceive that the obligation of fasting is rarely observed in its integrity nowadays. Conscious of the conditions of our age, the Church is ever shaping the requirements of this obligation to meet the best interests of her children. At the same time no measure of leniency in this respect can eliminate the natural and divine positive law imposing mortification and penance on man on account of sin and its consequences. (Council of Trent, Sess. VI. can. xx)

From: https://www.pamphletstoinspire.com/

#embertide

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tabloidtoc · 6 years ago

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Star, April 15

Cover: Paris Jackson tells all

Page 1: Jennifer Lopez’s heartbreak -- Alex Rodriguez cheated with Zoe Gregory, aka Robbin Banx

Page 2: Contents, Duchess Kate Middleton

Page 4: Justin Bieber taking a break from making music to deal with his mental health issues

Page 5: Brad Pitt tried to bond with Ad Astra costar Tommy Lee Jones but got the cold shoulder, Melissa McCarthy makes sure that her daughters with Ben Falcone have a normal upbringing without excess, Emilia Clarke is Game of Thrones costar Kit Harington’s sober coach

Page 6: Courteney Cox’s private pain about the many IVF attempts and lost pregnancies she endured before she and ex-husband David Arquette had daughter Coco, inside Mariah Carey’s tantalizing tell-all, Spot the Stars -- Cuba Gooding Jr.,J. Cole, Matthew Morrison, Pharrell, Isla Fisher and Jay-Z and Tina Knowles and Angela Bassett and Sacha Baron Cohen, Tamron Hall and Carla Hall

Page 7: Fame with A.J. Benza -- Amy Schumer is twisting the truth about her husband being on the autism spectrum to make her jokes work, Kanye West scamming celebs at his Sunday services, Kate Beckinsale deleted her Instagram account because of all of the mean Ariana Grande trolls who blame Kate for Ariana’s split from Pete Davidson

Page 8: Star Shots -- Christie Brinkley and Ashley Graham, Jaimie Alexander on the set of Blindspot after tearing her ACL and MCL, Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig with their baby daughter and Rachel’s son Henry

Page 9: Nicole Kidman and Noah Jupe on the set of The Undoing, Keri Russell

Page 10: Hilary Duff and Matthew Koma and daughter Banks, Maya Rudolph at Disneyland, Elle Fanning soaking up the sun in Miami with a mystery man

Page 12: Kids’ Choice Awards -- JoJo Siwa, Chris Pratt gets slimed, Jason Sudeikis

Page 13: Joey King, Candace Cameron Bure and Jodie Sweetin, Jennifer Hudson, Will Smith

Page 14: Nick and Kevin and Joe Jonas channeled Miami Vice while filming a music video, Lucy Hale shot scenes with costar Zane Holtz on the set of Katy Keene

Page 15: Jessie James Decker, Nicole Scherzinger

Page 18: Fergie, Prince Charles

Page 19: Rita Ora, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kiefer Sutherland films a video for his new song Something You Love

Page 20: Normal or Not? Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, Molly Sims

Page 21: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Natalie Portman and daughter Amalia, Denise Richards

Page 22: Fashion -- Best of the Week -- Lupita Nyong’o

Page 24: Hot Sheet

Page 26: Jenna Dewan and Steve Kazee ready to marry

Page 28: Rosie O’Donnell upset Elisabeth Hasselbeck when she confessed she had a crush on her, Alanis Morissette’s surprise pregnancy at age 44, Love Bites -- Christina Anstead is expecting her first child with husband Ant Anstead, Nikki Bella and Artem Chigvintsev are dating, Rob Kardashian and ex Blac Chyna have a wonderful relationship, Daphne Oz is expecting a girl, Sophie Turner admitted she’s experimented with women

Page 30: Cover Story -- Paris Jackson -- my side of the story

Page 34: Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman will cash in on being busted in the college admissions scandal with a television special

Page 36: Wendy Williams’ dark past

Page 38: What celeb’s go-to selfies say about them -- Ariana Grande, Kylie Jenner, Darren Criss

Page 39: Lea Michele, Nick Jonas, Demi Lovato, Zac Efron

Page 40: Burning Questions -- For the first time in WWE history the main event at WrestleMania 35 will be a women’s match, Mel B admits to a tryst with Geri Halliwell

Page 41: Cardi B admitted to robbing men, Phaedra Parks’ ex husband Apollo Nida is getting out of jail a year early, Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg reenact Titanic’s iconic flying scene to promote the upcoming season of Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Party Challenge

Page 42: Wicked Whispers -- Kathie Lee Gifford is in a pit of despair, home sellers caught Scott Disick slamming the family’s cherished framed photographs and art work while touring their multimillion-dollar Calabasas mansion, Vanessa Lachey, Mandy Moore, Lady Gaga sang Madonna songs at a karaoke marathon at a pal’s exclusive Hollywood Hills bash

Page 43: Sharon Osbourne orders industrial-cleaning pros to her mansion at least 3 times a week because her husband Ozzy Osbourne leaves the place a heavy-duty disaster, Blind Item

Page 44: Double Takes -- Karlie Kloss vs. Romee Strijd

Page 45: Melissa Saint-Amand vs. Rumer Willis

Page 46: Style -- rain wear -- Yara Shahidi

Page 48: Karlie Kloss

Page 52: Entertainment -- Double Shot at Love with DJ Pauly D and Vinny

Page 53: 2019′s Sharon Tate and Manson movies, Q&A with Erika Girardi of RHOBH

Page 62: Parting Shot -- Mandy Moore’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony with Sterling K. Brown and Justin Hartley

#tabloid #paris jackson #michael jackson #princess kate #duchess kate #kate middleton #emilia clarke #daenerys targaryen #kit harington #jon snow #game of thrones

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axlselfinsert · 6 years ago

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Biohazards Lore

This is a summary of the first arc of my S/i lore. I hope you all enjoy.

Reynolds Arc

Warning: Violence, Child abuse, Suicide, Political corruption, Nazism

Robert Reynolds, Head of Spring Hill Medical, as well as the top contender of all health insurances, wants to be prepared for the next generation when he dies. So he decides to have his child carry on his goals and family name. His first child, Phil, Didn’t meet his standards and tries again. His next, Wendy, was pushed aside as he tried one more time. His last child, Jason, Was perfect. He looked exactly like him. Throughout the years, His children were given strict rules and given harsh punishments if they disobeyed. Dogma sank into their minds to think Robert was the greatest father they could ever ask for despite being abused.

Phil was given a role to enforce the family if they so broke any rules. Having a lot of respect for his father, he obeyed the order. He was often told many times that he will never amount to much as his younger brother, Jason. Jealousy and rage overtook him, causing him to abuse and bully Jason. Wendy was heavily neglected.

Robert didn’t care much for her. Self-hatred embarked her because she came to terms that her father will never love her. The only thing she can do to please her father was nurture Jason and make sure he followed her father's wishes.

Jason was given strict terms and ambitions that he had to follow. Robert wanted Jason to take over the business of Spring Hill and carry on the goals of Daniel Bachmann. He was forced to study medicine, economics, and business. Something that Jason could never understand. In fact, the more he learned about The business practices of Spring Hill, the more he hated it. He sometimes wishes there was a way it could be destroyed. But he could never tell his father, or there will be hell to pay. He used to read superhero comic books and wants to be just like them. Saving people from oppression, not for fame or money, but because it’s the right thing to do. Robert confiscated his comics and tells him to start focusing on the real world.

Sasha lived in Russia with her grandfather. She is in a religion that could predict apocalypses called the Beckoning. Many of the members say the world will end millions of years from now. But Sasha gets a vision that the world will end in couple years, she calls the timer the reckoning clock. People didn’t believe her and tell she is too young to have the ability fully developed. She then prepares for the reckoning. She prays and gets a vision. “THERE ARE FOUR BRINGERS OF THE END OF THE WORLD. THE FALSE PROPHET, THE WARBRINGER, THE DECEIVER AND THE ANGEL OF DEATH”

Jason is now 13. Robert feels like Wendy’s care and compassion is making Jason weak. He decides to plan an assassination for her. Wendy hears about this and ends up hanging herself in her room. Jason later finds her hanging corpse and is absolutely distraught by it. At that moment, he realizes that she didn’t commit suicide. His father forced her to kill herself. He’s a murderer and he needs to be stopped. Robert is a monster, he can never find the good in him again.

Robert sends Jason on a field to cheer him up. He sends him to Guido Sharp’s Air Force base in Palm Springs. He also sends his wife to be the tour guide since Sharp had business with Bachmann. During the tour, Jason finds an atomic bomb, filled with “Maroon Elixir”. Jason knows about his father’s friend’s plan for world power. He thinks back at the comics he used to read. At that moment, he knew what to do. He had to sacrifice himself to decline Bachmann’s chance for domination. Jason goes to bomb to detonate it. Everyone in the vicinity tries to stop him, but it’s too late. The bomb explodes, killing everyone and destroying the entire base.

Sasha (also 13) suddenly gets a vision. The reckoning clock changed from one week to five years. She prays to find the meaning of the change. “DESTINY HAS BEEN DESTROYED AND A NEW ONE TOOK ITS PLACE. THIS DISTURBANCE IS THE FAULT BY A MAN WHO IS A DESCENDANT OF THE ANGEL OF DEATH.” Given a clue, Sasha decides that this man is the answer to change the clock to infinity. Sasha travels to California to search for this descendant.

The next day, Jason wakes up. He finds out he’s the only one alive. Maroon vapors were flowing from his hands. He then learns he can manipulate poison, form into poison. The poison is lethal when he accidentally shot a ball of poison at a scout’s face. The scout vomited maroon liquid and died instantly. Axl escapes the ruined base, fleeing from the scouts.

Jason takes a breather at a nearby underpass. He takes a moment to think about his future. He finalizes his goals by dropping “Jason Reynolds” to “Axl Crash” and strive to stop Bachmann and Robert’s plans. He spends half a year living on the streets and training with his newfound powers. He hides his face to avoid being noticed by Reynold’s men.

Robert and Guido receive information about the explosion and the deaths of Hollie and Jason. They also receive news of scouts finding a hooded figure attacking his men and fleeing the scene. They both decide to place a hit on this man, believing he is the cause of the explosion.

A protest on the streets of Orange turned into a riot. Sharp’s men broke out and started attacked anyone that catches their eye, believing they are part of the riot. This included Sasha who ran into an alley. He is saved by a man wielding a revolver. They flee and hid in an abandoned apartment building. The man introduces himself, calling him Miles King. Miles gets a phone call despite his phone plan being canceled. The caller calls himself “4NR-KEY” and tells them to go to the rooftops, the FMC (Freedom Military Corps) is heading to their position. They comply and head to the rooftops and are picked up by a helicopter.

The pilot says his name is Zack Anarchy and he needs Miles’ help to take down the Freedom Military Corps. Miles agrees to join but says he is focused on Gregory Clowe for spreading causing the death of his parents. Sasha hears this and names them THE BRINGER OF WAR, AND THE DECEIVER and asks to join. They form a team right before the helicopter get struck with a missile.

All three survive the crash but are surrounded by the FMC. The commander of the fleet meets them and commands his men to shoot them. But before they pull the trigger, Axl appears and kills all of them, including the commander. The 3 have never seen powers like Axl’s before, Zack asks Axl to join his ranks and his war against Sharp. Axl agrees, but only because he has affiliations with Reynolds.

Zack takes them to a mall called “Prodigy Mall”. A mall that has been abandoned for years, and where Zack has been residing. The four talk about their lives and why they are against these people they mentioned.

Sharp has been known to have a domestic military to keep strict order on the citizens. Zachary was an escaped prisoner. He was locked up because he tried to expose Sharp’s future goals by breaking into their base and hacking their servers. He got the information but was eventually captured. How they treated their prisoners was torturous and humiliating. They even killed prisoners in front of them to show order. He compared it to prison camps of the Holocaust, which makes sense when Zachary told them Sharp used to be a Nazi-apologist.

Miles shares how Clowe is in charge of all media news outlets and has been sharing false news and yellow journalism. Miles’ Father used to work for Clowe. His father refused to publish an article demeaning foreign Americans and instead published a work exposing Clowes practices. He was instantly fired and the news outlets demonized him and his family. The hate of the people grew and he was eventually run out of town and hunted down my guerrilla assassins. His family was taken away, but he escaped. He assumed they were dead. The last words he heard from his father was “I don’t want you to worry about me anymore. I want you to worry about Gregory Clowe.” That is why he wants revenge on Clowe.

Axl then tells his side of the story.

Sasha mentions that all the people mention are 3 of the 4 men that would bring upon the reckoning. She also explains the Reckoning Clock. She asks her new friends to help. They all agree and form an organization called “The Biohazards”. Everyone voted Miles to be the leader. Sasha was given the title “Sage” because of her power to predict the reckoning clock. She also became the team interior designer for the mall. Zack became the techie of the group. With the ability to hack and tinker. Axl became the mercenary due to the fact he has supernatural powers.

They decided to renovate the mall since Sasha has experience in architect. They completely transformed a department store to make it a training gym. Refurbished the food court so it was a clean place to eat. Every member had their own stand-alone store to live in and do whatever they want with it, even installing a bathroom in each one. Since only 4 stores were taken the rest of the stand alone became vacant.

Throughout the years, they began training and doing vigilante jobs like stopping break-ins, drug dealers and petty thievery. Through the training, Axl learns more about the power he obtains, He can change from Maroon to brown vapors, which makes a non-lethal poison with his hands. It causes the victim to become weak or numb, depending on their built stature. He even found out he can grind on rails, run on walls and bounce on objects. Axl used this inhuman flowmotion to escape or go to a place quickly.

The Biohazards usually stole from criminals to pay for supplies and food. Since Prodigy mall was abandoned, they don’t need to pay for the building or taxes. (I don’t know shit about real estate so bear with me) Zack built a generator to bring electricity to the mall.

After a year, The crew believed they were ready to set their sight on the “real criminals”. They began attacking the corruption of the 4 men. Blocking their shipments, hacking into their personal databases and expose their corruptions, Crashing dinner parties, sabotaging their sales, and “Took care” of higher ups that preyed on the weak.

This act of rebellion was definitely noticed by the four men. They named the Biohazards as domestic terrorists, Sharps men were told to shoot on sight if Axl approached, Clowe’s news outlets labeled them as dangerous to the public. They even promised exceedingly high cash rewards for any information that leads to the arrest for Biohazard members. They wanted them dead or alive. But the more Bachmann tried to contain the situation, the more the biohazards pushed back.

Zack set up a pirate radio station to spread news of the Biohazards good doings and exposing the corruption of the government. As well as share his personal taste of music. The radio station was called R4dio-4ctive with Zack Attack as the host. Listeners tuned in mostly to support the group, Obtain news about the Biohazards or the Government, or simply to listen to some good music. Despite being called R4dio-4ctive, Zack never played the song “Radioactive” saying that “You'll catch him playing country before playing the Imagine Dragons.”

People became fearful of The Biohazard’s action. But, some were inspired. There were even more protests against Bachmann’s men. Riots, muckrakers, and people who turned themselves in to derail their investigation to capture the Biohazards.

There were miscellaneous groups who wanted to put an end to the Biohazards. Most of them Hate groups, which the Biohazards took care of on the side. The U.N. even has its sights on Axl. Naming him “The most dangerous man in the world”. Axl became the poster boy of the Biohazards.

-Time Skip-

(Axl and the crew are 17 at this point) It’s 2012, The election is coming up and Bachmann is running. The reckoning clock ends election day. The Biohazards needed to do something before he gets elected. Axl sneaks into a news office building owned by Clowe. He is then attacked by a humanoid mech. Weaponry Axl never saw before. Axl manages to destroy the machine despite his poison powers having no effect on the mech. The user was an FMC soldier, saying that “this was just a prototype” before Axl kills him. While scrounging the office Axl finds a letter saying “we have a prototype of a machine that can transport people to different worlds.” Axl takes the Address (an underground base) and begins to attack the date (a couple days) the letter noted.

#Biohazards #S/i lore #Self insert #please read the warnings

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skateofministry · 3 years ago

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Man receives prison time for skateboarder’s death

Greg Knowling

Nick Hedrick | [email protected]

A Crawfordsville guy will serve 3 years in jail for the death of a skateboarder in 2019.

Gregory A. Knowling, 52, pleaded guilty in Montgomery Superior Court I to a felony charge of triggering death when running an automobile with a Schedule I or II illegal drug and was sentenced Friday.

Investigators identified Knowling had THC in his system when he struck 18-year-old Christopher Wood as the teenager was skateboarding near Covington Hill in the predawn hours of Sept. 24, 2019. THC is the high-inducing substance in cannabis.

Wood, who was from Cayuga, suffered brain injury and other injuries and passed away 2 days later on at a medical facility in Indianapolis.

As part of the sentence, Judge Heather Barajas purchased Knowling to serve 4 years of probation and 3 years on electronic house detention.

He was likewise needed to serve 240 hours of social work and go through compound usage treatment and psychological health therapy. His driving opportunities were suspended for a minimum of 2 years.

“If for your use of marijuana, we may not be here,” Barajas stated.

Two other felony charges of triggering death when running an automobile while inebriated and careless murder were dismissed as part of a plea offer.

Knowling tearfully provided a quick declaration prior to the sentence was bied far stating he was “beyond sad” for Wood’s household which the occurrence is “on my mind almost every minute of every day.”

He was founded guilty 3 previous times in drug-related cases and condemned of running while intoxicated in 2010.

After the hearing, Wood’s mom Stephanie Wood stated Barajas’s sentence “wasn’t enough, but our family has justice.”

In psychological testament, Stephanie Wood and her hubby John explained their kid as an active Boy Scout who took pleasure in fishing and other outside activities. He had strategies to make a high school equivalency diploma and sign up with the Navy.

His sibling Brooklyn, who was a senior in high school when her bro was eliminated, affirmed about being informed of the crash by a policeman who pulled her out of class. She was conquered with feeling explaining being at her bro’s bedside at the healthcare facility.

“Mr. Knowling, do you know how it feels to lose your best friend because if you do, it sucks,” she stated.

The crash took place as Wood and 2 good friends were strolling on the best side of the shoulder on Waynetown Road in the darkness. Wood had actually chosen to ride his skateboard down the hill when he was struck by Knowling’s work van.

Wood was brought by the lorry for some range. Police discovered him along with the roadway near the bottom of the hill.

After initially declaring that he had actually not been driving under the impact, Knowling later on confessed to vaping cannabis about 36 to 2 days prior to the occurrence.

He declared he did not see anybody along the roadway and believed he might have struck a fallen indication or post, defense lawyer James Voyles stated. Wood was using dark clothes.

Earlier in the early morning, a Crawfordsville law enforcement officer patrolling another part of town had actually informed Wood and his good friends to move off the roadway. Another vehicle driver informed authorities she had actually almost struck the group near where Market Street flexes onto Waynetown Road.

The prosecution and defense disagreed over how quick Knowling was driving at the time of the crash based upon computations in the crash restoration. Investigators identified Knowling was going almost 60 miles per hour, about 20 miles per hour over the published speed limitation.

A crash reconstructionist called by the defense declared that the location was not lit all right for Knowling to prevent striking Wood. But Sgt. Jake Watson, a crash reconstructionist for the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, stated the lighting was appropriate for a sober alert chauffeur to discover pedestrians along the roadway.

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1962dude420-blog · 4 years ago

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Today we remember the passing of Frank Sinatra who Died: May 14, 1998 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California

Francis Albert Sinatra (/sɪˈnɑːtrə/; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide.

Born to Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra was greatly influenced by the intimate easy listening vocal style of Bing Crosby and began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the "bobby soxers". He released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. But by the early 1950s, his professional career had stalled and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known residency performers as part of the Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity, with his performance subsequently earning him an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra subsequently released several critically lauded albums, some of which are retrospectively noted as being among the first "concept albums", including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin' Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958), No One Cares (1959), and Nice 'n' Easy (1960).

Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums. In 1965, he recorded the retrospective album September of My Years and starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music. After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966, the following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was followed by 1968's Francis A. & Edward K. with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971, but came out of retirement two years later. He recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace, and released "New York, New York" in 1980. Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until shortly before his death in 1998.

Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town (1949), Guys and Dolls (1955), High Society (1956), and Pal Joey (1957), winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he frequently played detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome (1967). Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1971. On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Sinatra was also heavily involved with politics from the mid-1940s, and actively campaigned for presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Sinatra was investigated by the FBI for his alleged relationship with the Mafia.

While Sinatra never learned how to read music, he worked very hard from a young age to improve his abilities in all aspects of music. A perfectionist, renowned for his dress sense and performing presence, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname "Ol' Blue Eyes". Sinatra led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He later married Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976. Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He was collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people. After Sinatra's death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him "the greatest singer of the 20th century", and he continues to be seen as an iconic figure.

Sinatra died with his wife at his side at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on May 14, 1998, aged 82, after a heart attack. Sinatra was in ill health during the last few years of his life, and was frequently hospitalized for heart and breathing problems, high blood pressure, pneumonia and bladder cancer. He also suffered from dementia-like symptoms due to his usage of antidepressants. He had made no public appearances following a heart attack in February 1997. Sinatra's wife encouraged him to "fight" while attempts were made to stabilize him, and reported that his final words were, "I'm losing."

Sinatra's daughter, Tina, later wrote that she and her siblings (Frank Jr. and Nancy) had not been notified of their father's final hospitalization, and it was her belief that "the omission was deliberate. Barbara would be the grieving widow alone at her husband's side." The night after Sinatra's death, the lights on the Empire State Building in New York City were turned blue, the lights at the Las Vegas Strip were dimmed in his honor, and the casinos stopped spinning for one minute.

Sinatra's funeral was held at the Roman Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, California, on May 20, 1998, with 400 mourners in attendance and thousands of fans outside. Gregory Peck, Tony Bennett, and Sinatra's son, Frank Jr., addressed the mourners, who included many notable people from film and entertainment. Sinatra was buried in a blue business suit with mementos from family members—cherry-flavored Life Savers, Tootsie Rolls, a bottle of Jack Daniel's, a pack of Camel cigarettes, a Zippo lighter, stuffed toys, a dog biscuit, and a roll of dimes that he always carried—next to his parents in section B-8 of Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.

#may 14 #1998 #r.i.p.#frank sinatra #ol' blue eyes #chairman of the board

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doctorhouseaustralia · 8 months ago

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#medical centre in gregory hills #gregory hills medical centre #my family health gregory hills #gregory hills doctor #my medical home gregory hills

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codingbit-001 · 8 days ago

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Protect Your Team from Skin Cancer with Comprehensive Screenings

In Australia, outdoor workers face a significantly higher risk of developing skin cancer due to prolonged exposure to the sun. At Gregory Hills Medical Centre, we’re committed to helping businesses prioritize the health and safety of their employees through detailed skin checks and assessments.

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Let’s work together to beat the sun’s harmful effects!

#SkinScreening #SunSafety #EmployeeHealth #GregoryHillsMedicalCentre #HealthyWorkplace

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myfamilyhealthmc-blog · 4 years ago

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Gregory Hills Medical Practice

Experienced GPs providing professional and specialised Healthcare at My Family Health Medical Centre. Call Us on 02 7200 7100 for Gregory Hills Medical Centre. https://www.myfamilyhealthmc.com.au/most-female-doctors-in-a-gregory-hills-medical-centre/

#Gregory Hills Medical Practice

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savvyherb · 5 years ago

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A Young Man Nearly Lost His Life to Vaping

Gregory Rodriguez thought he had the flu when he went to the emergency room on Sept. 18, feeling feverish, nauseated and short of breath.

He woke up four days later in a different hospital, with a tube down his throat connecting him to a ventilator, and two more tubes in his neck and groin, running his blood through a device that pumped in oxygen and took out carbon dioxide. The machines were doing the job of his lungs, which had stopped working.

“I was basically on the verge of death,” he said.

Mr. Rodriguez, 22, a college student, is one of the nearly 1,300 people in the United States who have become seriously ill because of vaping. Like him, about 70 percent are young men. And also like him, many vaped THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

Vaping is odorless and easy to hide, and Mr. Rodriguez slipped into doing it constantly, inhaling enormous amounts of THC and craving more. He decided to talk about it in the hope that his story might be a warning to other people under the false impression that vaping is safe.

“I want people to stay as far away as they can from vapes, especially THC vapes,” he said.

Lung illnesses linked to vaping were first recognized during the summer. The exact cause is still unknown. Toxic chemicals released from vaping fluids, or from the battery-powered vaping devices themselves, are among the suspects.

So far, 29 deaths have been reported. The youngest to die was a 17-year-old boy from the Bronx.

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Gregory Rodriguez has been home since Sept. 30. “When I climb stairs, it feels like climbing a mountain,” he said. “When I run a couple of steps, it feels like I ran a marathon.”CreditHilary Swift for The New York Times

The lung damage looks like a chemical burn, the kind of injury caused by industrial accidents or the mustard gas used as a weapon in World War I, according to researchers at the Mayo Clinic.

So far, no vaping product is in the clear.

Mr. Rodriguez said he started smoking marijuana toward the end of high school. He has struggled with anxiety and depression, and marijuana, he said, “gave me some relief.”

But the smell gave him away, and his parents would not allow it in the two-bedroom apartment he shares with them and his older brother in Jamaica, Queens.

After about two years, friends suggested that he try vaping THC. He ordered a few vaping devices from Amazon, and found local THC dealers.

“When you’re in college, you always know somebody who knows a guy,” he said.

He would text a dealer and they would meet, usually in the dealer’s car. A cartridge holding a gram of THC oil cost $40, which Mr. Rodriguez would pay in cash, money he had earned from a part-time maintenance job at Kennedy Airport.

Vaping THC was “like a miracle,” he said. The high came on faster and felt more intense than when he smoked marijuana. Best of all, he said, “It was discreet.” There was no odor, so he could vape in his room, at school, on the street, just about anywhere, and no one would know. The device was small enough to hide in his hand. He also thought vapor would be safer for his lungs than marijuana smoke, even though it sometimes made him cough violently.

Vaping made it easy to take in more and more THC. When he smoked marijuana, a joint or blunt or pipe lasted only so long. But with a THC cartridge, he could vape for hours, with no need to roll a new joint or reload a pipe.

Eventually, Mr. Rodriguez was vaping much of the time. “I was never without it,” he said. His favorites included flavors like Fruity Pebbles and Sour Patch Kids. The few times he ran out, he could think about nothing but getting more, and sometimes, one of his legs would start shaking. A cartridge that would last most people four or five days, he would finish in a day or two.

“It was a habit, an addiction,” he said.

It is possible to become addicted to marijuana or dependent on it, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

A computer-science student, he explored the dark web to find THC vendors with lower prices than he paid on the street, and turned money from his bank account into Bitcoin, to make purchases that would be encrypted and untraceable. On the electronic order forms, he requested the best and strongest THC available.

Boxes of cartridges, 25 for $400, started arriving in the mail early last summer. The return address was a house on a residential street in Ventura, Calif.

The products had a variety of labels, including Dank Vapes, the same name reported by many other people who got sick. It is not actually a brand, but a label that sellers can put on any product. Some of the other cartridges may have been counterfeit versions of brands that are legal in some states. No one knows what is in the knockoff products or who makes them, health officials say.

In August, distraught over the death of a dog his family had for 13 years, Mr. Rodriguez began vaping even more heavily.

In September, he started feeling ill, with headaches and severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. He waited several days, hoping to recover, but did not. He felt too sick to vape.

On Monday, Sept. 16, he went to the emergency room at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Hospital, part of Northwell Health. Doctors said he probably had a stomach virus and sent him home.

Two days later, he felt worse, and had become alarmingly short of breath. His father, on the way to work, dropped him off at the emergency room at about 5 a.m. Embarrassed about vaping, and worried that it was illegal, Mr. Rodriguez did not tell anyone.

“I was hesitant to believe the vapes could be the cause of this,” he said.

The oxygen level in his blood was way below normal. He was given oxygen. Doctors suspected a lung infection, though they were puzzled because he was young and healthy and had not traveled overseas recently.

His mother, who works nights, arrived at the hospital a few hours later. She insisted that he tell the doctors about his vaping.

His condition deteriorated. By afternoon, he was on a ventilator. He still did not improve. By the next morning, his blood oxygen had sunk to levels low enough to cause organ failure, or even stop his heart.

“A 22-year-old gentleman, and he was, essentially, dying in front of me,” said Dr. Syed H. Iqbal, a specialist in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Hospital.

It fell to Dr. Iqbal to tell Mr. Rodriguez’s family how dangerously ill he was.

“It was terrible,” Mr. Rodriguez’s mother, Martha, said. “I will never forget the doctor’s face. I prayed, ‘Please, God, don’t let him go.’” She told the doctors to do anything needed to save her son.

Dr. Iqbal recommended a desperate measure called ECMO, a machine that would pump oxygen directly into Mr. Rodriguez’s blood and take carbon dioxide out — breathing for him while, if he was lucky, his lungs recovered. The hospital in Forest Hills did not have it, but the main campus of Long Island Jewish Medical Center did, and sent out an emergency team with the machine in an ambulance. As soon as Mr. Rodriguez was connected to it, his blood oxygen shot up to normal levels, Dr. Iqbal said.

Mr. Rodriguez was transferred to the main campus of Long Island Jewish Medical Center and was on the machine for four and a half days.

“Gregory was in danger of dying,” said Dr. Mangala Narasimhan, a lung specialist there and Northwell Health’s regional director of critical care.

“I think he was our 19th case,” she said. “It’s hitting us pretty hard, and that’s just the ones who are severe enough for us to know about.”

Mr. Rodriguez had extensive damage to the air sacs in his lungs, and widespread inflammation.

Dr. Narasimhan’s team treated him with steroids to quell the inflammation, and other medicines to open his airways. They also performed procedures to wash the secretions out of his lungs.

“The stuff coming out of his lungs looked like flan or custard, it was so thick,” Dr. Narasimhan said. “It was a lot of inflammatory cells. We had to do multiple rounds of washing his lungs out every day. After a few days, his lungs started to heal, and started working again.”

She said doctors do not understand why Mr. Rodriguez, like many other patients, had vomiting and diarrhea before the lung symptoms set in, but she said it may be a systemic response to a toxic substance or irritant that moves into the bloodstream after vaping and spreads around the body.

Mr. Rodriguez spent 12 days in the hospital. He has health insurance, and the family has not seen a bill yet, but they imagine the cost of his care will be astronomical.

He returned home on Sept. 30.

“When I climb stairs, it feels like climbing a mountain,” he said. “When I run a couple of steps, it feels like I ran a marathon. The doctor said that what will help is I’m still young and I can get back into shape. Every day I get physically much better. It becomes easier to walk. I practice my breathing exercises.”

He went back to classes at Queensborough Community College a week and a half after leaving the hospital.

But psychologically, he is having a tough time, feeling anxious and depressed, and unable to sleep. His mother has taken a leave from her job to stay with him while he recovers, and his distress worries her.

“I feel like I am, in a way, going through withdrawal,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “I am going to therapy for substance abuse, and getting the help I need.”

He thinks marijuana products should be legal and regulated, so that people can be sure they are safe.

While he was unconscious and attached to the machines, his mother took a cellphone photo of him, so that she could show it to him later.

“The doctors and my parents told me the severity of my case,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “As you can imagine, I was a little bit shaken up. I had no idea what I was putting into my lungs.”

The post A Young Man Nearly Lost His Life to Vaping appeared first on Savvy Herb Mobile Cannabis Platform.

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#cannabis #marijuana #thc #cbd

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 7 years ago

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Part 21

There was a lot of death in 2001-2002. My uncle Rocky died of an overdose, Doris, my grandma's best friend died of old age, my half sister Roxanne's father died, and then after all of that, my estranged grandpa Roy died. He was my mother's father and he had been a cruel man. My mom spoke to him maybe once every fifteen years. She had nothing to say about him. I had only been around him once. Someone mistakenly invited him to my parent's wedding back in '91 and him and his friend got so drunk that they went into the closet and peed on my baby shoes. He had been physically and mentally abusive to my grandma and my uncles and aunts.

For the last three months that he was alive, my mom tried to take care of him – as she is a nurse who does home health. He was in the final stages of cancer, and I met him once before he died. He wanted to meet his grandchildren whom he hadn't really seen before he died. It remember the ride up to Kellogg, feeling very strange about meeting this man for the first time, who had a lot to do with my own mother's mental problems. He had been a miner for most of his life. After my grandma divorced him in the late 60's, he had married a few more times, and now he lived alone in a really nice cottage type house in the woods about fifteen miles from a very small little community – barely even a town really – called Kingston. He had never really beat my mom per say too much, but he had a general hatred for women and beat her mom a lot. I think this abuse honestly prevented my mom from growing. My mom in many respects has the maturity of a nine year old child at times. The trauma of her life prevented her from going past that.

It was late summer and I would be starting 8th grade in a week. We drove all the way up to north Idaho in the late summer. It was cooler up there and quite lovely. We listened to CCR all the way up. We drove onto this obscure road, that lead onto another obscure road that went congruent with this small river, and then we turned onto this long drive way that dipped down in the middle and had a field in front of it of long grass. It was really cute house. It had this big front porch with a gazebo. We timidly got out. My mom opened the door and we all entered. He was very sick. The house smelled of death. I had never really smelled that before then. There is a smell the body takes on when it is shutting down, and even if you've never smelled that, it's like your animal mind instinctively understands exactly what it is.

He stood up. He was shaky, and thin and tall. His face was sunken in. He struggled over to us. He had remorseful eyes that were filled with pain. Regardless if some might say that he deserved the lonely and painful death he was getting, I fucking hate cancer. He was in misery. He gave us all hugs. It was definitely one of the strangest hugs I have ever had. He was sunken in and the smell was as I have said, unmistakable. Later, eight of his surviving twelve brothers and sisters came to the house. They all had names that started with a G'. My grandpa Roy was the only one who didn't. I don't remember all their names, but some of them were Genever and Gwenevere (twins), Grady, Gladys, Gregory, Gretchen. My grandpa Roy had a huge family. They all lived in Utah, with the exception of Grady who had sided with my grandma Marie when she divorced Roy and stayed a family friend who lived in Smelterville a few miles away. My great grandma and grandfather had been a poor mountain-folk family from Tennessee. Their first names had been Queen Elizabeth and George Washington which was strange, but I hear was fairly common with Appalachian people. George Washington had killed himself during the depression by stepping into a moving vehicle after he could not provide enough food for his thirteen children and wife (my grandfather had been the youngest) and they were all living in a cave – as the story goes.

Three weeks later he died. He was buried in the same cemetery that my uncle Rocky had been buried. The funeral was very similar to the one my uncle had been in, but I think that they actually sent me back to Roy's place after the funeral to watch my siblings who were all five and six and would have no fun at a function for elderly like that. And because Roxanne had inherited that enormous sum of money from her own father's death, everyone decided to move into his house that year and eventually buy it. Despite all the partying, I loved that house. Roy had been pretty heavily invested in boozing, and he had actually built a bar room off the house. There was also this giant storage room filled with years' worth of preservable foods. He had a Jacuzzi for a bathtub, which was amazing. The walls were stained with years of tobacco, which I kind of liked for some reason. Behind the house was a giant hill, and I guess sometimes people saw a wolf pack out there. There was this strange area too that you would not have expected to be there out by the river. You would be driving, and about ten miles before you got to Roy's place, out of the blue there was this biker bar, with people pitching tents all over in the front of it. It was definitely a strange place, and one of my family members would come and pick us up every weekend. It was a great escape from my life in Kendrick, and even from my friends to a certain degree.

Also, right before school started, my dad broke up with Jodi for a few weeks. He came to me and apologized for taking things out on me. He really embellished on it, and made promises that he would do better. We went on a small trip in the woods, just us family. I believed him this one last time. And then two weeks later he went back with Jodi, and then turned against me, and I don't think I ever took anything he said one hundred percent at face value ever again. He's always done that. If he sides with one person, it's never just that. When he sides with someone it is intrinsic with him turning against another. It's the way his mind works I suppose.

I started trying to do stuff with my hair. I pulled some of it back. And of course I immediately began failing my classes. I listened to all the lectures, and I even understood my homework, but I never would do it. Our school gave out several hours of homework each day. It was doable if you spent several hours doing homework, and the unspoken rule in the school was that if you were popular enough you cheated your way through. Each morning, a few of the super smart kids who understood their lessons well would get paid a small fee to sit out in the hallway and give the answers to all the popular kids. So maybe about four or five kids were doing all their homework. The rest were doing small bits and then copying someone else. Samantha was one of these kids. If you were not popular or well liked you were not a part of this group. The teachers knew about this. It was all in the open. The principal did too. It was low key explained to us that cheating and fitting in were a part of life, so if you weren't popular enough to get the rights to be in these cheating circles, than you were failing in some other unspoken element of life that would mean you made a bad phony adult and deserved the bad grade for not conforming with the group mindset.

I didn't really believe in cheating. It's not that I am of great moral integrity by any means – I have done worse, but if something doesn't satisfy my personal sense of achievement, aesthetic, or personal growth I don't try very hard even if it is for my own good. I have to mean most of the things I do and feel that it makes sense emotionally and has to connect to my own sense of authenticity, and as an adult, I struggle against myself constantly to this day, to the point of internal dysfunction just to talk myself into doing mindless repetitive tasks that mean nothing to me. It's probably one of my greatest character flaws because it makes doing stuff that I need to do that much more difficult. But I never even tried to cheat. I just didn't do the work, and if I had wanted to pass I would have just done my own work to at least get the satisfaction of personal achievement. But since my classes meant nothing to me, it would not have been authentic of me to pretend or base my academics on a lie.

Kyle seemed different in 8th grade. He did his hair differently than he had a year ago. His voice began cracking. He seemed to be starved for attention from other popular kids. It was definitely going to be more of a challenge to get his attention, but the trend on following me around saying my name backwards Eener, putting kick me signs on my back, and buzzing which makes me flinch ( I have kind of this ASMR thing and some sounds cause a really uncomfortable jolt down my back) was also becoming very popular. Very quickly I found myself in a situation where not a day would go by where I didn't find something absurd in my locker that someone would put there. The football players would surround me and wouldn't let me go to class.. People were discovering that I am genuinely very easy to scare or surprise. The teasing wasn't really as harsh or cruel as many people do experience. For one, nobody ever called me fat or ugly. Cody Cooper would make rude comments about my acne, but he was generally alone in that. I am sure people said stuff when I wasn't around.

But to my face, I was getting this other kind of teasing that was like flirting but not. It is hard to explain. It was definitely not respectful or dignified. And I suppose I intentionally brought it on myself once it started to happen. Like, nobody was going to date me, that was obvious – I wasn't the kind of girl they wanted to get connected with socially, sleep with (at least I don't think) or be seen with, but it got to this point where boys in my class and in the class above me would spend a lot of their time focused on me and getting me to react, to shriek, jump, get upset, or walk into some kind of prank, and there was this slightly sexually charged aggression to it. There were many times where there would be ten guys who would surround me in the hallway and push me around a little bit, push me against the locker, and say strange things to me to see how I would react.

They stared at my chest a lot, but what they liked from me for the most part was their own power. It was kind of gross and a predecessor to rape culture though most of them probably would never do something like that directly, it had this volatile element to it – but as long as Kyle was a part of it – though he was always more on the playful side and less on the aggressive, I didn't flat out snap at anyone or tell them no and I subtly let it happen. I simply reacted the way they all wanted me to. I felt like some kind of plaything and there was an element of sexuality to it because this would not have happened had I not been a girl.

On one hand, I was the one in power and I liked being the center of attention even though it demeaned me. I was curious to see how far I could drive people to focus on me. I was getting more attention than any one girl in the class in some ways, but on the other hand, the boys were the ones who were in power and their girlfriends were given a sort of false respect because they were the prizes. The boys were defining me and reducing me somehow to a toy and felt physically comfortable in touching or controlling me on some level. Nobody ever frightened me, or really got too aggressive but looking back I think had there been the right sort of person in these groups it might have been a different story. And I guess this was my first introduction to these kinds of unspoken power things. They would surround me in the hallways, staring at my chest, they would be intentionally ready to spook me around every corner. I was frequently discussed. I grew to expect it. Girls would glare at me jealously, but also feel lucky they weren't me. I am that other kind of girl. And to them I was not a real person. It was a bit of a unique title for me, since the other girls who lacked in popularity were given mostly insults and direct attacks. What was in store for me was stranger. It was like they were putting me in this situation where they passed me around and all the guys had to have some part of getting me to react. It felt like I was being used or passed around the way they might pass around an easy girl in school whom everyone knew too well but nobody took seriously. And yet, it was a different kind of need they got from the situation – sexual, but not quite. I don't know if I can possibly explain it and I think that is where I will give up trying and leave it at that.

My mom had gotten this Chesapeake Bay retriever pup that we named Chester. And Roxanne had gotten this Pitbull named Tasha who had learned all these neat tricks. Someone had taught her to do everything in slow motion. If you said SLOW to her, she would eat in slow motion, walk in slow motion. It was the funniest thing. Tasha was a really cool dog, and the only problem she had was that she tried to kill cats. Since I had lost Pixie, my dad grew weirdly paranoid that my mom was going to 'win' me to live with her because of these dogs. He was afraid that somehow Roxanne's money would buy me away and then he would no longer have me as a babysitter. So he went out and got me a puppy at a shelter, to compete with the other dogs I guess. They told us that it was a German Shepherd and boxer mix, but everyone who saw this animal believed that she looked like a coyote. She acted like a coyote. I am actually 80% certain they lied about the German Shepherd in her. She almost looked full bred coyote aside from a slightly copper tone to her fur, and something about the way her legs were shaped. I named her Pepsi because of her color.

Of course, I was young and wanted a puppy, but my father buying me Pepsi was one of the worst kinds of dogs he could have started me off with. I wish he had gotten me a smaller more manageable pet. He expected that I would clean up after her and take care of her and train her. I had no experience in doing this. And I really did try. I felt very proud of her, and I took her with me on the weekends up to my mother's. But it was hard. For one thing, she was not as friendly even as a young pup. She behaved much more like a wild dog than she did a domesticated one. She liked being pet somewhat. But I could not control her. She was also obsessed with running away. And I could never catch her. She was loose in Kendrick so many times. I remember her running down the street once, with a semi on her heels and with a wild doggy grin on her face. It got to where the neighbors would complain when they saw her out.

She was difficult to potty train because I was in school for much of the time. There wasn't enough time or room to be had for her. She didn't care about approval like other dogs. And trying to leash train her became impossible. She would fight me with every bit of strength she had as soon as we began heading down the street, and often times she would break the leash or her collar and then she would bolt. She was full of energy, and was an incredibly sly dog. Very destructive. I loved her to death, but there was nothing I could do with her. I remember getting frustrated and crying trying to control her. I guess nobody fully realized that she was part coyote. And from what I have read, coyotes are very difficult pets, not even legal in many states. I think had I been a better animal trainer – like a trained professional, she could have been trained to be somewhat acceptable. But she needed to run. And she was the kind of dog that needed to have her respect earned in some mysterious way and I was far from someone who would be capable of that. You could see that on her face.

My friends and I by this time were very obsessed with boys, and in some ways perfectly typical of 8th grade girls to a degree that is somewhat painful. I had started this weird comic that was basically all centered around a future fifteen years from now, where Kyle and I were married and had children. My thinking was so naive and small at that time that I drew us living in this triangle house, and the comic mostly revolved around corny jokes you could make about us, and the way our children lived there lives. It was hilarious, and bad.

I tried to go to every football game even though to this day I know nothing about football or how it is played. When people ask me what my favorite football team is, I always just say The Penguins – and they always scoff and tell me that that is a Pittsburgh ice hockey team. There was something liberating about football games in the small town. It was the one social event where everyone seemed to be mixed for one. You were not as confined to your position in the school while you were there. Almost everyone seemed to show up. And there was some really strong social situations that were cemented while the games were going on. There was something in the air that was both liberating and apprehensive, like something was about to happen. I initially went because Kyle was on the football team, but truth be told, after awhile, even Kyle looked like just another strange body with enormous shoulders and tiny legs running around with the ball, and randomly stopping and reforming in ways that I don't understand because of my ignorance of the sport as a whole. We would go almost every night, even when it got cold. There was this contrast at night that always made me feel giddy and a stranger to myself and seemed to reflect an inner psychological divide between the conscious and organized and the wild Dionysian elements to my subconscious. Beyond the school, the world was enveloped in darkness of the woods, and you could hear the noises of coyotes and the creek running. Being outside for all of this put us all out in the elements. It would get very cold during the end of the season, and I could see my own breath. It was very tribal. Even though I was not partial to our school's team, I still felt that tribal quality.

I had kind of become the baby of my social circle and this used to upset me rather badly. For one, everyone I knew was fascinated with having sex with someone – or multiple people. They would have sex dreams, would think about their crushes without their shirts on and I imagine talk about it more when I wasn't around. And I just didn't want to have sex. I wanted to get to know someone in a very meaningful way and then see what happened. I wanted this terribly. The level in which I felt this desire to be loved didn't come from the same place as most of the girls I knew. It wasn't that I was closed off to those ideas altogether. It just wasn't happening. And to some degree, I might have been a little naive about certain elements of sexual desire. But my friends either thought I was lying to them because of embarrassment, or they thought I was still like a third or forth grader. Samantha, without even trying to sound mean told me people who didn't want to have sex were not capable of being in real love. During one sleepover, I got so upset that I pretended to be sick so I could go home.

That Halloween was the last year I ever properly participated in dressing up in a costume or trick or treat. It remember it being a lot of fun. We made terrible jokes that we all thought were very funny at the time – it seems we thought we were all terribly hilarious and our lame gags were simply the best. I generally never cussed, and my friends were giving me a hard time for this, so that Halloween I intentionally said Fuck. Everyone was shocked at me, but it seemed to go over well, and I was accepted as someone to be taken more seriously henceforth in the social fold. We were all witches – though Katie might have been something else, like a werewolf of some kind. When it was late and we had gone through the whole town, we went home and emptied our candy out on the floor of Sarah's house on the top of the hill. We all laughed and traded our candy. I was always partial to tootsy rolls.

Katie put up for me around this time in a very meaningful way, that I still remember fondly. Sarah-Mae had cut back on saying short negative things towards me over the last few years, but occasionally it still happened. She still said small things in conversation to keep me in check I think. Asking her today about why she said some of the things she did, and she really doesn't remember, other than she felt insecure sometimes. So I am left to assume this was an alpha female move to keep me from feeling too confident in myself or something. One night, Katie, Sarah and I were all sitting around Sarah's kitchen listening to the radio, talking about boys, eating ice cream, and drawing anime. I said something goofy – nothing insulting to anyone at all but a little silly, and Sarah for whatever reason retreated into her former self. She looked at me coldly and said 'Renee, Shut Up.' She said this in front of Katie. And the look on Katie's face was instantly ferocious with no apologies. She got right in Sarah's face. She told Sarah off immediately in a way I had never seen anyone do before. I think it started off with 'WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY TO RENEE?!?'

Sarah seemed shocked. She looked down at the table, her entire face was red and I don't remember her ever having anything to say in return. The room was pretty awkward. I just looked down too. I inherited this weird smile when I get nervous from my mom so if my memory is correct, I was probably smiling nervously. I had never had a friend who stood up for me before, and I think about that component to Katie and I really do appreciate that element to her personality and this one single instance gave me this strong sense that I was an equal after all who deserved to be treated with respect. I think we all eventually calmed down. Sarah never told me to shut up ever again. In fact, aside from maybe a few other times, I can't think of a time where she ever seemed to intentionally say anything mean to me.

There was this one situation where I think Katie and the rest of us really overreacted and I wish I could have had the wisdom to handle differently. This girl in our class who wasn't very bright named Megan seemed very confused about herself sexually. I am not sure what was going on in her life that made her do this, but it started in the girl's locker room before gym. Samantha was getting dressed, and Megan came up and grabbed her boob. Samantha told her to stop, and she wouldn't. She then started trying to grab Sarah, and she tried to grab my nipple when we were on the bleachers over the course of week. She had this mindless look on her face as she did this. We all told her to stop. We yelled at her to get away from us. We called her a lesbian. She seemed nervous but would do it again. I really really regret throwing that word out at her like it was some shameful way of being and if I were in that situation today I know I would have handled it a lot better. I had every right to feel violated, but I dealt with it shamefully. I might have gone over and talked to her and explained why what she was doing was inappropriate if it happened today. Obviously she was incredibly confused. I never really liked her as a person, but I called her a lesbian like she was gross, was really gross on my own part. We told the duty teacher, but it seemed to make the gym and duty teachers embarrassed, so nobody wanted to tell her no.

There was this popular girl named Erica who confronted us. She was kind of known for taking unpopular girls under her wing that made her feel more powerful. She had taken to befriending Megan for this reason. She never had any interest in befriending me since I was not really all that entranced by her and had enough dignity to understand what she was doing. Anyway, she came up to us and started saying that we should just take it and stop being mean to Megan. I basically told her 'no way' and Erica walked away pissed since she wasn't accustomed to being told no by girls of lower status than herself.

Katie eventually got tired of hearing about it, so she found Megan in the hallway between classes, grabbed her by her front collar, picked her up off the floor and slammed her against the lockers and told her that if she ever fucking touched one of us ever again she was going to fuck her up.' Megan cried and Katie let go of her, and that seemed to end it. That was above and beyond anything Erica would have felt safe getting involved in. Nobody wanted Katie to fuck them up. She meant it. I don't think there was any situation where Megan bothered me in any way after that. But honestly, even though it all got corrected, I still feel the ugly sounds of me calling Megan a lesbian coming out of my face. And I really wonder if we dealt with any of that the way it should have

Meanwhile, I was more obsessed with Kyle than ever. In a way, this is when the whole thing started veering more towards unhealthy. I was giving more and more up of my self worth just to be accepted. And days when he gave me attention were the only days worth living for. On a day when I was ignored, I would go crazy, like a junkie who needed a fix. I would stop being able to breath throughout the course of the day, hoping for a smile, some eye contact, a joke thrown my way, something. I would feel this lump in my throat growing until I was holding back tears. I would stumble home, and I would feel this self loathing hatred for everything about myself. I might scream and pull out my hair. I felt ugly. I would take my rage out on my little brother and sister, who might have been mildly disobedient but really didn't deserve it. They grew to live in fear of these extreme explosive mood swings I would have. I think they were beginning to really resent me, and I really don't blame them. Whenever anyone did anything slightly wrong, I never gave constructive criticism, If they made a mistake I used aggression and shame to put them down. It's something as I have said previously, that I wish I could go back in time and take back.

What really got to me was that Kyle and this popular sportsy girl named Kayla were really into each other. They sat together, walked together, flirted and chased each other around. Even their names sounded good together. And who the fuck was I? Someone Kyle would tease when nobody was around. I was good enough to be around when nobody was looking, but not good enough to be taken seriously or dated. I can look back, and I really do understand why I was probably not the lead lady in the situation. I was insecure, and selling your soul for attention is not endearing. It was only that I was kept as some kind of secret friend to Kyle, even when he finally did get popular. He still looked for me when he was alone with warmth, and still flirted with me. I was the other girl on the side that made him feel good about himself that he could act freely around. Surely by this time he must have been aware I liked him. It was incredibly obvious. So what he was doing was wrong. He liked that I was infatuated with him because it made him feel good about himself, so stringing me along was worth it for his own needs.

And even though I don't even think what I was feeling was what I would consider real love it was consuming my entire existence with obsession and making me suicidally depressed and sort of ruining my life. And it was the closest to love I had ever felt, before him I had never really wanted anything before. So this was everything to me. If I failed at winning his love, it was the equivalent of death. There was no other option I could imagine. And in the very back of my mind, there was this strange and frightening realization that felt like a tug dragging me into blackness that I had no words for that seemed to be emerging behind what I took for granted. Like another me that was wanting to take over, but more like this realization that behind what I really thought was my life that I lived unquestioningly was this deep sense of nothingness that nothing I thought I knew could contend with and something I would have to face alone. This strange abyss that seemed to be sucking me in always right outside the corners of my perception. I was fighting that change by clinging to the hopes that Kyle would eventually fall in love with me. If he fell in love with me, I could fight ever being fully immersed into being whoever it was that I was starting to become. I could live in a safe and loving environment, I could have children, live in a small town and grow old and content with the limited existence I had and an empty sense of certainty.

If you want to read my life story from the beginning, below are the previous parts i have written so far.

Also, here is a picture of about 25% of the town i lived in. Quite a boring place.

PART 20 - http://tinyurl.com/y8jskymt

PART 19 - http://tinyurl.com/rfhbms8

PART 18 - http://tinyurl.com/ycrznrwk

PART 17 - http://tinyurl.com/y77unlng

PART 16 - http://tinyurl.com/yadpsv8c

PART 15 - http://tinyurl.com/yb3lt6k5

PART 14 - http://tinyurl.com/yb4cfedq

PART 13 - http://tinyurl.com/yalanq9s

PART 12 - http://tinyurl.com/yc79mw94

PART 11 - http://tinyurl.com/yc9qhj84

PART 10 - http://tinyurl.com/yb734w24

PART 9 - http://tinyurl.com/yc2t6vfw

PART 8 - http://tinyurl.com/ybl37utq

PART 7 - http://tinyurl.com/ybvo283g

PART 6 - http://tinyurl.com/kbc9dwu

PART 5 - http://tinyurl.com/msnz4am

PART 4 - http://tinyurl.com/k9x8esg

PART 3 - http://tinyurl.com/mwp9atx

PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2

PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8

#text

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balkinbuddies · 6 years ago

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The American Library Association (ALA) today announced the top books, video and audio books for children and young adults – including the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Newbery and Printz awards – at its Midwinter Meeting in Seattle, Washington.

A list of all the 2019 award winners follows:

John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature:

“Merci Suárez Changes Gears,” written by Meg Medina, is the 2019 Newbery Medal winner. The book is published by Candlewick.

Two Newbery Honor Books also were named:

“The Night Diary,” written by Veera Hiranandani and published by Dial/Penguin Random House.

“The Book of Boy,” written by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, illustrated by Ian Schoenherr and published by Greenwillow/HarperCollins.

Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children:

“Hello Lighthouse,” illustrated and written by Sophie Blackall is the 2019 Caldecott Medal winner. The book was published by Little, Brown/Hachette.

Four Caldecott Honor Books also were named:

“Alma and How She Got Her Name,” illustrated and written by Juana Martinez-Neal, published by Candlewick;

“A Big Mooncake for Little Star,” illustrated and written by Grace Lin and published by Little, Brown/Hachette;

“The Rough Patch,” illustrated and written by Brian Lies and published by Greenwillow/HarperCollins

“Thank You, Omu!” illustrated and written by Oge Mora and published by Little, Brown/Hachette.

Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award recognizing an African-American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults:

“A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919,” written by Claire Hartfield, is the King Author Book winner. The book is published by Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Three King Author Honor Books were selected:

“Finding Langston,” written by Lesa Cline-Ransome and published by Holiday House;

“The Parker Inheritance,” written by Varian Johnson and published by Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic;

“The Season of Styx Malone,” written by Kekla Magoon and published by Wendy Lamb/ Random House/Penguin Random House.

Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Book Award:

“The Stuff of Stars,” illustrated by Ekua Holmes, is the King Illustrator Book winner. The book is written by Marion Dane Bauer and published by Candlewick.

Three King Illustrator Honor Book were selected:

“Hidden Figures,” illustrated by Laura Freeman, written by Margot Lee Shetterly and published by HarperCollins;

“Let the Children March,” illustrated by Frank Morrison, written by Monica Clark-Robinson and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt;

“Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop,” illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, written by Alice Faye Duncan and published by Calkins Creek/ Highlights.

Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award:

“Monday’s Not Coming,” written by Tiffany D. Jackson, is the Steptoe author award winner. The book is published by Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award:

“Thank You, Omu!,” illustrated and written by Oge Mora and published by Little, Brown.

Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement:

Dr. Pauletta Brown Bracy is the winner of the Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. The award pays tribute to the quality and magnitude of beloved children’s author Virginia Hamilton.

Dr. Bracy is Professor of Library Science and Director of the Office of University Accreditation at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). She successfully merged scholarship and service with publications such as “Libraries, Literacy and African American Youth” (co-edited with Sandra Hughes Hassell and Casey H. Rawson), her work with the Coretta Scott King Book Awards and with workshops and conferences dedicated to promoting African American books for children and teens. She recently served as co-organizer for Celebrating Our Voices: Black Children’s Literature Symposium and Book Festival held at NCCU.

Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults:

“The Poet X,” written by Elizabeth Acevedo, is the 2019 Printz Award winner. The book is published by HarperTeen/HarperCollins.

Three Printz Honor Books also were named:

“Damsel,” written by Elana K. Arnold and published by Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins

“A Heart in a Body in the World,” written by Deb Caletti and published by Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster

“I, Claudia,” written by Mary McCoy and published by Carolrhoda/Lerner.

Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience:

“Rescue & Jessica A Life-Changing Friendship,” written by Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes, illustrated by Scott Magoon and published by Candlewick (ages 0 to 10).

One honor book for young children was selected:

“The Remember Balloons,” written by Jessie Oliveros, illustrated by Dana Wulfekotte and published by Simon & Schuster.

“The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle,” written by Leslie Connor and published by Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins, is the winner for middle grades (ages 11-13).

One honor book for middle grades was selected:

“The Collectors,” written by Jacqueline West and published by Greenwillow/HarperCollins.

“Anger Is a Gift,” written by Mark Oshiro and published by Tor Tom Doherty Associates, is the winner for teens (ages 13-18).

One honor book for teens was selected:

“(Don’t) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start the Conversation about Mental Health,” edited by Kelly Jensen and published by Algonquin/Workman.

Alex Awards for the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences:

“The Black God’s Drums,” by P. Djèlí Clark, published by Tor.com/Tom Doherty Associates/ Macmillan.

“The Book of Essie,” by Meghan MacLean Weir, published by Knopf/ Random House/ Penguin Random House.

“Circe,” by Madeline Miller, published by Little, Brown/Hachette.

“Educated: A Memoir,” by Tara Westover, published by Random House/Penguin Random House

“The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After,” by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil, published by Crown/Penguin Random House.

“Green,” by Sam Graham-Felsen, published by Random House/ Penguin Random House.

“Home After Dark,” by David Small, illustrated by the author, published by Liveright/ of W.W. Norton.

“How Long ’Til Black Future Month?” By N. K. Jemisin, published by Orbit/ Hachette.

“Lawn Boy,” by Jonathan Evison, published by Algonquin/Walker.

“Spinning Silver,” by Naomi Novik, published by Del Rey/Penguin Random House.

Children’s Literature Legacy Award honors an author or illustrator whose books, published in the U.S., have made, over a period of years, a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children through books that demonstrate integrity and respect for all children’s lives and experiences.

The 2019 winner is Walter Dean Myers, whose award-winning works include “Somewhere in the Darkness,” published by Scholastic (a 1993 Newbery Honor Book), and “Monster,” published by HarperCollins ( a 2000 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book). In addition, Myers received the first Coretta Scott King - Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2010.

Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults:

The 2019 winner is M.T. Anderson. His books include: “Feed;” “The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party;” and “The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves,” all published by Candlewick Press.

2020 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award recognizing an author, critic, librarian, historian or teacher of children's literature, who then presents a lecture at a winning host site.

Neil Gaiman will deliver the 2020 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture. Born in England, Gaiman is a U.S resident. His work has been honored with many awards internationally, including the Newbery Medal. He is credited with being one of the creators of modern comics, as well as an author whose work crosses genres and reaches audiences of all ages. Gaiman is a prolific creator of works of prose, poetry, film, journalism, comics, song lyrics, and drama and a vocal defender of the freedom to read.

Mildred L. Batchelder Award for an outstanding children’s book originally published in a language other than English in a country other than the U.S, and subsequently translated into English for publication in the U.S.:

“The Fox on the Swing” is the 2019 Batchelder Award winner. Originally published in Lithuanian as “Laime Yra Lape,” the book was written by Evelina Daciūtė, illustrated by Aušra Kiudulaitė, translated by The Translation Bureau and published by Thames & Hudson.

Four Honor Books also were selected:

“Run for Your Life,” published by Yonder/Restless Books, written by Silvana Gandolfi and translated from the Italian by Lynne Sharon Schwartz;

“My Beijing: Four Stories of Everyday Wonder,” published by Graphic Universe/Lerner, written and illustrated by Nie Jun, originally published in Mandarin and translated from the French by Edward Gauvin;

“Edison: The Mystery of the Missing Mouse Treasure,” published by NorthSouth, written and illustrated by Torben Kuhlmann and translated from the German by David Henry Wilson;

“Jerome By Heart,” published by Enchanted Lion Books, written by Thomas Scotto, illustrated by Olivier Tallec and translated from the French by Claudia Zoe Bedrick and Karin Snelson.

Odyssey Award for best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults, available in English in the United States:

“Sadie,” produced by Macmillan Audio, is the 2019 Odyssey Award winner. The book is written by Courtney Summers, narrated by Rebecca Soler, Fred Berman, Dan Bittner, Gabra Zackman, and more and published by Wednesday Books/St. Martin’s Press.

Four books Odyssey Honor Audiobooks also were selected:

“Du Iz Tak” produced by Weston Woods Studio/Scholastic, written by Carson Ellis and narrated by Eli and Sebastian D’Amico, Burton, Galen and Laura Fott, Sarah Hart, Bella Higginbotham, Evelyn Hipp and Brian Hull;

“Esquivel! Spaace-Age Sound Artist,” produced by Live Oak Media, written by Susan Wood and narrated by Brian Amador;

“The Parker Inheritance,” produced by Scholastic Audiobooks, written by Varian Johnson and narrated by Cherise Booth;

“The Poet X,” produced by HarperAudio/HarperCollins and written and narrated by Elizabeth Acevedo.

Pura Belpré Awards honoring a Latinx writer and illustrator whose children's books best portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience:

“Dreamers,” illustrated and written by Yuyi Morales, is the Belpré Illustrator Award winner. The book was published by Neal Porter/Holiday House.

Two Belpré Illustrator Honor Books were named:

“Islandborn,” illustrated by Leo Espinosa, written by Junot Díaz and published by Dial/Penguin Young Readers Group/Penguin Random House

“When Angels Sing: The Story of Rock Legend Carlos Santana,” illustrated by Jose Ramirez, written by Michael Mahin and published by Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

"The Poet X,” written by Elizabeth Acevedo, is the Pura Belpré Author Award winner. The book is published by HarperTeen/HarperCollins.

One Belpré Author Honor Book was named:

"They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems," written by David Bowles and published by Cinco Puntos Press.

Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished informational book for children:

“The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science,” written by Joyce Sidman, is the Sibert Award winner. The book is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Five Sibert Honor Books were named:

“Camp Panda: Helping Cubs Return to the Wild,” written by Catherine Thimmesh and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt;

“Spooked! How a Radio Broadcast and The War of the Worlds Sparked the 1938 Invasion of America,” written by Gail Jarrow and published by Calkins Creek/ Highlights;

“The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees,” written and illustrated by Don Brown and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt;

“We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga,” written by Traci Sorell, illustrated by Frané Lessac and published by Charlesbridge;

“When Angels Sing: The Story of Rock Legend Carlos Santana,” written Michael Mahin, illustrated by Jose Ramirez and published by Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

The Inaugural Excellence in Early Learning Digital Media Award is being given in 2019 to a digital media producer that has created distinguished digital media for an early learning audience.

The 2019 in Early Learning Digital Media Award winner is Play and Learn Science, produced by PBS Kids.

The committee selected two honor recipients:

Coral Reef, produced by Tinybop Inc.

Lexi’s World, produced by Pop Pop Pop LLC.

Stonewall Book Award - Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award is given annually to English-language children’s and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience.

The 2019 recipients are respectively:

“Julián Is a Mermaid,” written by Jessica Love and published by Candlewick

“Hurricane Child,” written by Kheryn Callender and published by Scholastic

Two Honor Books were selected:

“Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World,” written by Ashley Herring Blake and published by Little, Brown/Hachette

“Picture Us in the Light,” written by Kelly Loy Gilbert and published by Hyperion/ Disney.

Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the most distinguished beginning reader book is:

“Fox the Tiger,” written and illustrated by Corey R. Tabor and published by Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

Four Geisel Honor Books were named:

“The Adventures of Otto: See Pip Flap,” written and illustrated by David Milgrim and published by Simon Spotlight/Simon & Schuster;

“Fox + Chick: The Party and Other Stories,” written and illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier and published by Chronicle;

“King & Kayla and the Case of the Lost Tooth,” written by Dori Hillestad Butler, illustrated by Nancy Meyers and published by Peachtree;

“Tiger vs. Nightmare,” written and illustrated by Emily Tetri and published by First Second/Roaring Brook/Holtzbrinck.

William C. Morris Award for a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens is:

“Darius the Great Is Not Okay,” written by Adib Khorram, published by Dial/Penguin Random House.

Four William C. Morris Award Honor Books were named: “Blood Water Paint,” written by Joy McCullough and published by Dutton/Penguin

“Check, Please!: #Hockey,” written and illustrated by Ngozi Ukazu and published by First Second/Macmillan

“Children of Blood and Bone,” written by Tomi Adeyemi and published by Henry Holt/ Macmillan;

“What the Night Sings,” written and illustrated by Vesper Stamper and published by Knopf/Penguin Random House.

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults:

“The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees,” written and illustrated by Don Brown, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is the 2019 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults.

Four books were finalists for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults:

“The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor,” written by Sonia Sotomayor and published by Delacorte/ Penguin Random House;

“Boots on the Ground: America’s War in Vietnam,” written by Elizabeth Partridge and published by Viking/Penguin Random House;

“The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler,” written and illustrated by John Hendrix and published by Amulet Books/Abrams;

"Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction," written and illustrated by Jarrett J. Krosoczka and published by Graphix/Scholastic.

Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. The award promotes Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage and is awarded based on literary and artistic merit. The award offers three youth categories including Picture Book, Children’s Literature and Young Adult Literature. The award is administered by the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), an affiliate of the American Library Association. Here are this year’s winners:

The Picture Book winner is “Drawn Together,” written by Minh Lê, illustrated by Dan Santat and published by Hyperion/Disney;

The Children’s Literature winner is “Front Desk,” written by Kelly Yang and published by Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic;

The Young Adult Literature is “Darius the Great is Not Okay,” written by Adib Khorram and published by Dial/Penguin Random House.

The Sydney Taylor Book Award is presented annually to outstanding books for children and teens that authentically portray the Jewish experience. Presented by the Association of Jewish Libraries since 1968, the award encourages the publication and widespread use of quality Judaic literature. Here are this year’s winners:

The Younger Readers winner is “All-of-a-Kind-Family Hanukkah,” by Emily Jenkins, illustrated by Paul Zelinsky, published by Schwartz & Wade/Random House

The Older Readers winner is “Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster,” by Jonathan Auxier, published by Amulet/Abrams;

The Teen Readers winner is “What the Night Sings,” by Vesper Stamper, illustrated by the author, published by Knopf/Random House.

Please join us in congratulating all the award winners!

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ultralifehackerguru-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on http://www.lifehacker.guru/why-new-parents-need-to-take-a-break-from-the-news-and-what-they-should-do-instead-2/

Why New Parents Need to Take a Break From the News (and What They Should Do Instead)

In the months after my kids were born, the news cycle would send me into tailspins of anxiety and fear. The Penn State sex-abuse scandal and the Newtown shootings paralyzed me for days—I wept while changing diapers, wept in the bathtub, wept while pushing the stroller down the street. What might have been (merely!) horrifying pre-kids was now incapacitating. For my own mental health, I had to stop reading the news and looking at social media.

Take a Media Fast

Judging from the conversations in my moms’ groups, these feelings aren’t at all unusual. New parents are especially vulnerable to anxiety, says Laura Venuto, a New York City therapist specializing in postpartum mental-health issues. “Sleep deprivation and hormones exacerbate mood and anxiety symptoms. With new parenthood comes a heightened awareness that you’re suddenly not only responsible for yourself, but also a small child in what sometimes seems like a dangerous world.”

Dr. Venuto suggests a total news-media fast or at least a major reduction, corralling your news into 10 or 15 minutes (“In the morning! Not before bed!” she says), and then doing something pleasurable, like playing with your baby or calling a friend. For those worried that being out of touch means slacking off in their political activism, she gently suggests cutting yourself some slack: “If you’re a new parent, you’re not going to be making changes on a global scale. You’re in survival mode. You can put in a call to your representative, and that can be enough.”

Practice ‘Containment’

Lissa Hunsicker Kenney, a social worker in Brooklyn who counsels trauma survivors, also recommends “containment”—the first line of treatment for anxiety—as a first step. “Turning off your iPhone is containment—because it’s so easy for it to become uncontained. It just scrolls and scrolls, and it’s endless.”

So what are we supposed to do, instead? (Besides take care of our kids, I mean.) I asked Lifehacker readers, and my own new-mom friends, what media they turn to for good escapist distraction. I didn’t vet all the answers (though I did nix anything that had “horror” in its IMDB description—what about “non-disturbing” did these people not understand?) so do your own research before leaping into something totally unknown. They’re a good mix of classics, favorite sitcoms and adventure shows, a few kids’ shows and books, comics, and pretty much the entire oeuvre of the BBC.

Ideally, this list will remind of you of beloved books, TV shows, and movies that you’ve enjoyed in the past and will be soothing entertainment now, while you’re still in the sensitive new-parent stage. I read all of Jane Austen at night instead of mindless smartphone scrolling; others swear by sitcoms: “When my son was born we very quickly figured out we had to stop watching Breaking Bad and Walking Dead and just ended up re-watching Parks and Rec on a continuous loop for like three years,” one commenter wrote. Check out the original comments here, and please add your favorite comforting (no child-in-peril, no dead parents, no rapes or murders) media below.

TV & Movies

30 Rock

All Creatures Great and Small

Alias (a spy thriller spanning five seasons, so there are murders and occasional child-in-peril plotlines, but it’s a pretty campy show, so I didn’t find it especially distressing)

The Andy Griffith Show

Flip This House (or any fixer-upper/DIY type shows)

Any stupid Adam Sandler movie

Archer

Arrested Development

Black Adder

Black Books

Bob’s Burgers

Boondocks

Borgen

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (skipping “The Body” and maybe the second half of season five)

Catastrophe

Community

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Critical Role on Geek and Sundry

Doctor Thorne (almost comically predictable, appropriate for anyone with only half a functioning brain, but any costume drama will do in a pinch. Check out this terrific resource for period dramas, but I strongly urge you to skip Call the Midwife if you have a newborn.)

Drunk History

Ed, Edd ‘n Eddy

Elimidate

Everybody Loves Raymond

Farscape

Father Ted

Friends

Futurama

Get Smart

Ghostbusters

Gilmore Girls

Gravity Falls

The Great British Bake-off (or any cooking show)

Grey’s Anatomy (I can’t believe this is still on the air; I have like 10 years to catch up on. Warning: it’s a hospital show, so people do die. Deeennnnnnny!)

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Laaaaaaaaaw

Hogan’s Heroes

How I Met Your Mother

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Jeeves and Wooster

Kids’ shows and movies, like Adventure Time, Reading Rainbow (the awesome 80’s-90’s version), A Dragon’s Tale, Out of the Box, Teen Titans GO, Rocko’s Modern Life, Hey Arnold!, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Babe, the Narnia movies, Nanny McPhee

Kiki’s Delivery Service (“Miyazaki in general is a great way to escape into a different realm. The colors, the music, the gorgeous inventive artwork and the great characters in all his films makes him a master illusionist and conductor into a whole new world..” “…but not Grave of the Fireflies,” says another commenter.)

Broad City (“It’s hilarious and my life feels like a complete financial success by comparison.”)

King of the Hill

Last Man on Earth

Lucha Underground

M*A*S*H

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Midsomer Murders (“While there are murders, everyone is so provincial and charming, it’s like coming home where you know everyone except for that darned stranger that got themselves killed.”)

The Mindy Project

Mr. Bean

MST3K

Any terrible reality TV (“I watch The People’s Court or Judge Judy, which I DVR in case I need them.”)

News Radio

Northern Exposure

Office Space

Only Fools and Horses

Over the Garden Wall

Parks and Rec

Party Down

Real Genius

Real Housewives (“Oddly enough, RHOC comforts me in that I always feel smart, competent, healthy, and sane afterward.”)

The Simpsons

SlowTV “Right after the election, my wife and I started watching a lot of SlowTV on Netflix. Things like Norwegian knitting competitions.”

Smallville

South Park

Space: 1999

Star Trek

Steven Universe

Supernatural

Taxi

The Blues Brothers

The Eagle Huntress (“a thoroughly enjoyable documentary”)

The first three Muppet movies

The IT Crowd

The Office

The Simpsons

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

The West Wing

The X Files

Top Gear

Trainwreck

Veep

Veronica Mars, season 1

The Vicar of Dibley

Waiting for Guffman

What’s Up, Doc?

Books

A Suitable Boy

The Age of Innocence, or really anything by Edith Wharton

Alexander Hamilton

All Creatures Great and Small

Anne of Green Gables (really anything by L.M Montgomery)

Born Standing Up

Bossypants

Bridget Jones’s Diary (good escapist movie too)

Calvin and Hobbes

Circle of Friends, or really anything by Maeve Binchy

The Code of the Woosters, or anything by P.G. Wodehouse

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Grand Sophy or anything by Georgette Heyer

the Harry Potter series

I Capture The Castle

I’m Your Biggest Fan

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Jane Eyre

The Last Days of Night

Love in a Cold Climate

Maisie Dobbs

Ms. Marvel (comic)

My Family and Other Animals

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

The Other Boleyn Girl, or anything by Philippa Gregory

Pride and Prejudice, Emma, or really anything by Jane Austen

The Pursuit of Love

A Room With a View

Restoration, or anything by Rose Tremain

Sir John Mortimer’s Rumpole books

Sherlock Holmes

Today Will Be Different

Tom Jones

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (comic)

Washington Square

West With the Night

Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

Yes Please