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helliontherapscallion · 4 years ago

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Anon who’s dog had a seizure. I wanted to be able to give a positive update, but I won’t be able to. I was woken up by a call at around 1:30am from my mom and the first thing she said was “[my dogs name] died”

I don’t know all the details, I was in a full fledge panic attack and was overcome with despair when it was either explained to me or I overheard (frankly, I don’t remember) but apparently at some point either last night or veryyyyy early this morning my mom let the dog out to use the restroom, and he collapsed again similarly to how he did two days ago. My mom rushed him to the emergency vet (a thirty minute drive) but he didn’t even make it there.

I think I was dry heaving at some point because my panic was so bad. I ended up going to the vet with my dad so I could say goodbye (he had before my mom left with the dog) and ngl, going with him did not help in the slightest. My dad has NPD and he kept making the situation about himself and I stg I was ready to throw myself out the car window in the middle of the freeway and walk the rest of the way there OOP—

I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to because of Covid, but we were allowed to all head into the vet and hold him and give proper goodbyes before they took him to be cremated (they have a partnership with some place that does all that jazz). It was rough. He’s a small dog, only 18 pounds, but just holding him felt so different. There was no resistance when I picked him up (I’m not his favorite person lol, so he’d always deadpan and shuffle away a little from me before giving in whenever i’d make grabby hands hahaha) and it was just rough.

A year and a half ago my old bird passed away in that same emergency vet, so I just felt like I was suffocating the whole time. It was basically history repeating itself and I had a ✨mental breakdown✨ while cradling the pooch. My mom almost had to drag me out 2.5 hours later because I didn’t want to leave him. I tried to be strong, he was her dog in the end and they had an unbreakable bond. I should’ve been the one comforting her, not the other way around. I totally failed lol.

Thank god I was able to go home with my mom and not my dad. I wanted to be the one to drive home so she could rest, but I didn’t have the energy to protest when I saw she was already in the drivers seat.

We’ve had him since he was a few months old. I was in first grade at the time, and despite us having a very rocky start (young me didn’t like all the attention he received bc it used to be mine) he was my lil buddy and I would have done anything for him. I was looking forward to taking my senior and graduation pictures with him soon, but it seems like that won’t be happening. I just wish I did more with him.

Sorry for rambling and being so depressing! I haven’t gotten much sleep over the past two nights so I’m really out of it.

If it’s not too much to ask for, could I have a part ii of my previous request but have it involving what I wrote above? Asdfghjkl my depressed ass needs comfort and all of my friends are in school LOL. (Thank god I was called off from school this time) Plus, I don’t wanna make my mom feel worse by adding my grief on top of her own (I hope that made sense)

Part 1

(A/N): anon, I’m so sorry to hear about your dog. From what you sent me about him, he sounded like an absolute delight to be around and a very good boy. You deserve to grieve too, even if you don’t think you should. Grieving is healthy and it’s something that shouldn’t be ignored. Everyone grieves differently, so maybe you and your mom could reminisce on the good times with him? Only if you both feel comfortable doing so of course. Please get some sleep, drink plenty of water, and eat some food if you haven’t already. My DMs are always open if you ever want to talk <3

Warnings: death of a dog and bird (mentioned), panic attacks, NPD parent mention

You were jolted awake by a loud ring from your phone laying on your nightstand. It was the ringtone you specifically set for your mom. Blinking deliriously, you answered with a raspy, “mom?”

You were only met with her choked sobs on the other end. This woke you up completely as you turned on a lamp and sat up fully in your bed, “mom what’s wrong?”

“(Dog name)...” She was unable to say your dog's name before she broke into more harsh sobbing. Worry and fear pricked your gut at the mention of your dog’s name. “What about (dog name)? What’s going on?”

“He d-died, (y/n). He isn’t suffering anymore.” You felt as if ice cold water was poured onto you as you sat staring at the wall in shock. Faintly you heard your mom telling you how it happened, but you didn’t register her words. The words that came out of your mother’s mouth were nearly incomprehensible anyways due to her distress. You didn’t know when she hung up, but the next time you looked at the phone screen your homescreen met you: a picture of you, Techno, Wilbur, and Tommy at an amusement park.

Your panic attack had escalated to you dry heaving over the toilet after puking up your dinner. You felt like you were suffocating as you remembered the techniques Techno used a few days prior. You stumbled up from a crouch and scrambled over to the sink. Your hands could barely grab the faucet and turn it on as you lost most of your sense of spatial awareness and everything you touched felt distant, like every single synapse in your body was both simultaneously working in overdrive and failing at the same time. The water was as cold as it was going to get, so you plunged your hands into the liquid and felt your body jolt at the temperature. After a while, your hands turned numb after regaining some senses back so you shakily cupped your hands under the faucet and gathered water into your hands. You splashed it at your face and felt yourself becoming more grounded as time passed.

By the time you left the bathroom, your dad gathered you into the car and started to drive you to the emergency vet. The entire time he was ranting about how you needed to pull yourself together because the dog was closer to him than to you. That definitely did not help in any way, it made you want to jump out of the car and walk the rest of the way to the vet. It would be better than having someone constantly belittling you for grieving. The ride was hell, but you persevered for (dog name). You needed to say goodbye to him.

When you left the car and walked into the building, it felt as if you were walking through the nine rings of hell with blazing infernos licking at your skin with every step. Dread and despair filled and overwhelmed you with every step.

When a nurse escorted you to the room, she offered you her condolences and left you to say goodbye. With wide eyes, you slowly walked over to your mom and saw the motionless bundle of fur in her hands. It looked like he was sleeping, but you knew better. She looked at you with so much heartbreak and sadness as tears slipped down her cheeks that you remembered that he was her dog in the end and they’ve always had an unbreakable bond. You needed to be strong for her.

Your stony facade broke the second your mom handed you (dog name). He was cold and stiff as he laid unmoving in your arms, not even trying to wiggle out of your embrace like he always did. You were never his favorite person. He felt so… different. So wrong.

Time passed around you as you held him and cried into his fur. This situation was very similar to your previous one that happened about a year and a half ago when your bird passed away and that was what finally sent you over the edge. Before you knew it, your mom was dragging you out of the building so he could get cremated. Your dad had long since gone home so he could get ready for work, so that left you to ride home with your mom. Not that you were complaining, it was certainly better than riding home with your dad. You just wished that you could drive so she could get some rest.

By time you got home, it was about the same time you would leave for school. As you were driving down your neighborhood, you saw a very familiar car pass you. It was Techno, Wilbur, and Tommy’s car. They were probably going to school. You kept your head down and stared intensely at your tightly clasped hands.

The second the car was in park in your driveway, you made a beeline for your room. For the rest of the day, you hid underneath your covers and ignored the incessant buzzing of your phone on the nightstand. You spent that time alone having a panic attack. This was your longest and most intense one yet, by the time it finally calmed down it was 10:30 at night.

You smacked your dry lips together and feel absolutely drained. The buzzing still wouldn’t let up, so you reached out with a shaky hand and opened your phone. You had at least eighty combined missed texts from Wilbur, Tommy, and Techno.

Tuesday, Innit?

Yo, the fuck’s goin on?

Why the hell did you ignore us when we passed you???

Music man take me by the hand lead me to the land

Ignore that dumbass

What’s going on? You weren’t at school today

(Y/n)?

Technology Sword

You don’t have to tell us what happened if you’re not comfortable

Just tell us if you’re okay

That was only the start of the messages in the group chat. Granted it was mostly Tommy spamming your name and Wilbur and Techno trying to get him to chill out, but some of the messages managed to calm the swirling panic inside of you slightly. Your phone buzzed as you got another text. This time, it was an individual one from Technoblade.

Technology Sword

Look out your window, grab your notebook

You raised your eyebrows slightly as you read the message. Your window was right across from Technoblade’s, so when you saw Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” music video and showed it to Techno, you both decided that this would be your primary communication before you eventually got phones. It wasted a ton of paper, but you both felt like the main characters in a story so you kept doing it. You hadn’t done this since you got your phone and he got his.

After you grabbed your spare notebook and a sharpie, you sat up in your bed and turned on your lamp. When you opened your curtains, you saw Techno smiling at you before he grabbed his notebook and wrote ‘hello’.

You uncapped your marker, wrote ‘hi’, and shakily raised it to him. You saw him frown at your shakiness, he wrote ‘you okay?’

You stared at your paper for a bit contemplating whether or not you should tell him the truth. It was no use in lying to him, he knew you better than you knew yourself. After a moment, you wrote ‘no’.

You watched as he frowned and his eyebrows crinkled together in an upwards slant. ‘Discord?’

‘Sure’

You closed your curtains once more and opened up your PC. You could already see that Techno, Wilbur, and Tommy were in a separate voice channel. When you joined, you were startled by Tommy’s loud screaming and Wilbur’s hysterical laughter.

“WILBUR YOU PRICK WHY THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT I WORKED SO HARD GETTING THAT NETHERITE!”

They were interrupted by a knock on Tommy’s door, “Tommy for the love of god it’s almost eleven at night kiddo. You can keep playing but please just keep it down.”

“SORRY DADZA!”

“Good job dumbass,” Wilbur chuckled.

“Hey (y/n), how’re you?” Techno’s somewhat pointed voice interrupted them. “(Y/N)! Please tell Wilbur that it’s not cool to borrow my armor and ‘accidentally’ fall into a lava lake.”

“It was an accident I swear!” Wilbur’s slight chuckle told you otherwise. “Wilbur,” your croaky and wobbly voice scolded him quietly, “not cool.”

The voice channel went silent as you logged into your shared minecraft server. You immediately spawned in the main lobby at spawn that you built the last time you logged in. You got to work gathering wood for walls you were going to build around the city. You saw Techno’s character run to you and help you gather wood.

“...You good, (y/n)?” Tommy’s voice took on an uncharacteristic level of gentleness and concern.

“‘M fine.”

After a while of silence, you heard keyboards start to click again. Gradually conversation started back up and everything felt lighthearted once more. Though, you only talked when you were prompted to. After gathering the correct amount of wood, you and Techno went back to your house so you could craft some slabs. However as you approached the crafting table, you passed your bed. Next to your bed was your pet dog, barking slightly and looking at you with it’s pixel eyes.

You could feel tears well up in your eyes at the sight of the pixelated dog. With a lump forming in your throat you struggled to breathe through it, your breaths coming out shuttering. You made quick work of muting yourself on Discord and started sobbing, the white dog staring at you sitting on top of your minecraft bed. This wasn’t a panic attack, you knew that. But you still felt overcome by a massive wave of grief.

After a bit, you saw Techno’s character pop in front of you and start hitting the air. In chat, you saw that he private messaged you ‘vc 2’

You clicked off the main voice chat and was immediately greeted by Techno’s gentle voice. “What’s goin on buddy?” He was only met with your sobs, “deep breaths.”

“I’m not having a panic attack.”

“Still, deep breaths are good. Follow me.” With that, you two worked on getting your breathing back to normal and your tears slowly stopped. The entire time he was giving you praise and gentle reassurances whenever you tried to apologize to him. By the time you stopped crying you felt almost completely drained.

“You okay now?” You hummed in confirmation, too tired to say anything. “Thank you Tech, I-I’m sorry-”

“Stop apologizing for feeling emotions. They’re one hundred percent valid… Do you feel comfortable telling me what happened?”

“I…” You trailed off as you couldn’t bring yourself to say the words out loud. “You don’t have to tell me, ya know.” Technoblade gently reminded you.

“I’ll PM it to you.” With that, you PMed him on minecraft explaining that your dog died this morning. “Fuck, I’m so sorry (y/n). I’m sure he isn’t suffering anymore. Did- did they ever find out what caused the seizures?”

“No, but… he had tons of health issues that I’m glad he doesn’t have to deal with anymore.”

“Do you wanna talk about the good times with him with Wil and Tommy? If you don’t want to we can just talk about them here.”

“Let’s rejoin the main voice channel.”

“Hey (y/n), how’re you doing?” Wilbur gently asked you. “I’m alright, do- do you guys know what happened?” They both said yes. Technoblade must’ve told them what was happening.

“(Y/n) come outside. We built something for you.” Tommy was uncharastically gentle.

When you moved to go outside of your minecraft house and Wilbur and Tommy led you to an empty spot in the city you four were building, you stopped in your tracks. In front of you built in various types of stone was a dog statue. In front of it stood a sign that read ‘in loving memory of (dog name)’.

“We aren’t done with it, but we can finish it in a couple of hours,” Wilbur mumbled into the microphone.

“No, it’s perfect as it is. I don’t know what to say guys…”

“You don’t have to say anything, just know that we’re here for you.” Tommy said, his minecraft character walking over to your own and hitting you.

“Oi, don’t hit them!” Techno punched him back and that started an all out brawl between the two. It quickly ended when Techno pulled out his fully enchanted netherite sword named ‘Orphan Obliterator’.

“Get fucked, nerd.” You could just tell Tommy was holding in screaming at his brother. “I’m not the nerd here, you’re the one that reads for fun.” Tommy retorted. You heard shuffling on Techno’s end and him walking away from his PC. You were about to ask what was happening before you heard Tommy silently scream in terror. “Oh fuck he’s coming!” You assumed that Tommy ran to lock his door. Not long after that you heard a knock, “I just wanna talk.”

“No! You-”

“I just wanna talk.”

“Let him talk, Tommy!”

“NO WILBUR.”

You heard Philza’s groggy muffled voice, “it is midnight on a Friday. I don’t care what happens or who fights who, just do it in your own rooms and do it quietly.”

“Sorry Dad,” you heard Techno’s retreating steps before he returned to his chair. “You’re a douche, Technoblade.”

“I just wanted to talk, Tommy.” At that, Techno started beating Tommy to death once more. Each time he would kill Tommy, he would give Tommy a small head start before he would find him again. While this was happening, Wilbur PMed you ‘wanna prank Tommy and Techno? I’m thinking we put chickens under their houses’.

You looked at his player and nodded. You and Wilbur got to work luring chickens into holes you dug around their bases and burying them so that they were close enough to hear, but deep enough for it to be mildly inconvenient finding them. After you two were done with that, you met at spawn again.

“Techno stop killing Tommy. We want to tell stories about (dog name).” You saw Techno’s character sprint to your group and Tommy’s come up from a hole in the ground. “I was just about to find him.”

“Thank you! God, I hate it when he does that.”

The rest of the night you four spent reminiscing on the funny things that (dog name) did over the years. At some points you even laughed along with them. After you told them that you wanted to take your senior pictures with him, Techno offered to edit him into your photos. You didn’t know when you passed out but when you woke up, you had a crick in your neck and your PC monitor was off. You could hear three sets of soft snoring on the other end of the call. You felt yourself drifting off to their gentle breathing and smiled slightly; with them, everything felt better.

#sbi x reader #sleepy bois x reader #sleepy bois inc x reader #technoblade x reader #wilbur soot x reader #tommyinnit x reader #mcyt x reader #dream smp x reader #sbi family au #requests #hellion's requests #tw: panic attack #tw: anxiety #tw: animal death #tw: animal injury #tw: swearing

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bagelbitch666 · 4 years ago

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Thanks for tagging me @clandestinemeetingsinthetrees - this is so exciting!

Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs (that I will never reach) you are contractually obligated to get to know better.

Name: Emilee

Gender: Female

Star sign: i had to ask my sister bc astrology is cool but it is confusing and shes better at it than me lol; capricorn sun, sagittarius moon, taurus rising

Height: 5′3

Time: 11:15 PM (EST)

Birthday: December 28

Favorite bands: oof The Doors, Pinegrove, Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys, Mazzy Star, Joyce Manor, Fleetwood Mac, brockhampton, Gorillaz, too many more lmao

Favorite solo artists: Father John Misty, Mitski, Harry Styles, billy joel, there’s more i just can’t think

Last movie: I watched Easy A with my dog last night lol

Last show: I just pulled an all nighter to binge bridgerton a night or two ago and I both hated and loved it

When did i create this blog?: about a month ago? I started a new one to get more involved in the zk community and my old blog originated from my 2011 ish one direction phase and has not been in use for a few years now

What I post: For the most part ATLA content (zutara centered) some general ranting, and fanfiction related stuff. I’m trying to keep it to that lol

Last thing i googled: ngl something about my dog bc she hasn’t been feeling good tonight, I was nervous that I might have to take her to the vet but I think I webmd diagnosed her so I’m gonna play it by ear bc I honestly think she just ate her dinner too quickly lol.

Other blogs: I have my old blog that I used from like 2011-now, and I definitely had another earlier on from like 2009-10 ish

Do i get asks?: I’ve only had a few so far here, but its been really cool to get them - I used to love answering asks on my old blog but I haven’t been active in a couple of years

Why I chose my url: I used it as my pokemon go username forever ago and couldn’t think of something to use on the fly so i went with this lmao i honestly just think its funny

Following: 129

Followers: 26

Average hours of sleep: I have terrible insomnia so it really depends on the kind of day im having i can do 0-3, 5-7, or 9-12 lmao

Instruments: I played cello since I was a kid but haven’t been able to seriously play since high school - I really want to pick it back up again, and I play some bass but I practice every couple of months when i have enough wine lol

What am i wearing: A shirt I wore to work today, and joggers bc I couldn’t handle wearing my dress pants any longer after I got home.

Dream job(s): I’d love to make a living off of my writing one day, at one point I really wanted to say fuck it and be a screenwriter, but now I keep it as more of a hobby. I’d also more realistically like to work in publishing.

Dream trip: I would love to go back to Italy - specifically the Amalfi coast because that is where my family is from. I got to spend a few days in Sorrento where my great great grandparents lived when I graduated high school. If anything I’d like to live there lol i want to explore the area a bit more - we stopped at pompeii and capri and I wish I could spend some more time there

Favorite food: ive been obsessed with grilled cheese and tomato soup recently - its been a struggle meal but a good one

Nationality: American

Favorite song: Ah this changes so much but I’d say either Aphasia or Darkess by Pinegrove. Those two have been stuck in my head since early fall and I cant get them to go away lol

Last book i read: I think it’s probably twilight tbh a month or two ago I was going to try to reread them all before I read midnight sun and have yet to finish the rest bc of school - might pick it back up on vacation next week

Top 3 fictional universes I’d like to live in: atla, percy jackson, and in general i wish I existed on the same plane as a main character in a jane austen novel

Tagging: @sukkadeservedbetter, @lordmomohismomoness @gemgirl28, @silversandwichbites

#yall are my biggest fans in my activity so thanks for interacting lol #this was so fun ive never done one of these before!#clandestinemeetingsinthetrees #thank you so much for the tag!

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ofjuliette · 5 years ago

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[ brittany snow, thirty-two, cisfemale, she/her ] ━ did y'all see [ juliette “jules” hammond ] walkin’ into [ frostford public library? ] they’ve lived in frostford for [ sixteen years, ] and you can catch ‘em around town working as a [ librarian/author ]. I reckon they’re pretty [ effervescent & charismatic ] but I hear they can also be kinda [ garrulous & uncoordinated. ] if ya see ‘em around, be sure to say hi. ━ [ teenage pregnancy? ]

hey hi hello i’m hope and i’m watching scooby doo rn. juliette’s intro is kind of long and i wasn’t sure if teenage pregnancy was technically a trigger or not so i just put it there just in case. jules’ intro is kind of long but ??? she’s my baby. there’s some wc at the bottom of the post but they’re p basic bc i’m trash™️

CHILDHOOD years --

juliette is the only daughter of marjorie and elias hammond. she was born in greenwich, connecticut and lived in a big mansion. juliette’s father is of old money and her mother is a former model turned socialite and housewife once juliette was born.

juliette was born on november 19th, 1986 which was during the first big snowstorm of the year. in fact, she was almost born in the car on the way to the hospital because of the snow.

marjorie and elias never planned to have more kids, so they were happy with juliette and spoiled her with everything she could have ever wanted.

in her childhood juliette spent a lot of time doing modeling ads for baby clothes. marjorie was very much a “pageant mom” for the first five years of her daughter’s life until elias convinced marjorie to let juliette pick her own passions.

juliette picked the arts and took piano and vocal lessons, when she got older she also learned other instruments such as the guitar, violin, and flute. but her favorite would always be piano.

she went to private school in greenwich, where she had to wear a uniform and the school was all grades.

juliette was one of the smartest in her school, and wound up skipping two grades in elementary school because she wasn’t being challenged enough.

during her early years there were many vacations that her parents would take her on and she often went into the city to visit her father at work or catch a broadway show with her mother.

her father worked long exhausting hours and her mother often filled her time with chairing certain social events and causes.

jules was often left alone after school in the care of their maid/nanny/chef winifried. winnie is the adult who gave juliette the nickname of jules first, and winnie was with her all her life until she turned thirteen and her parents decided they didn’t need a nanny anymore. winnie was also older at that point, so they hired someone new to help around the house for a couple of months until winnie retired.

juliette was always outgoing as a kid, loved talking to new people and making friends. she was the kind of kid who wanted to make sure everyone felt included. and she was popular, if not just for her parents money and connections, but also for her own charismatic and charming personality.

as a child she often entertained the idea of becoming a singer or somethin in the spotlight like her mom, but as the years went on it was harder and harder to hold onto a dream like that.

TEENAGE years --

juliette was never a rebellious type, as she was content with how her life was. sure, if she had things entirely her way she would have spent more time with her parents but otherwise juliette was a happy girl.

she was still in touch with her old nanny once winnie left the household, often writing her letters and calling the woman whenever she felt she needed someone to talk to.

in her early teen years juliette decided she wanted to go back into acting in commercials and such. this led to a couple of claire’s commercials and even a guest spot in a mary kate and ashley olsen film ( winning london, if you want to know ).

acting and singing were a big thing during her schooling. she was always involved in the drama department in some form if it wasn’t on stage it was backstage helping out.

she got to be good with a needle and thread, sewing a couple of mishaps in her high school productions to save money on sending them out.

juliette was in a couple of local competitions for singing, but never anything big. she did sing the national anthem at her high schools games though.

juliette was in a pretty serious relationship at the age of fifteen-sixteen with someone in her high school. they were two years older than her, since she had skipped a couple of grades, and she sincerely thought she was going to wind up marrying him after graduation.

except at the end of september juliette was going to her doctor for a check up when she found out she was pregnant. of course, her mother and father were shocked. and her then-boyfriend left juliette once he found out. juliette’s parents moved the teen into their apartment in the city with her father and she transferred to a different school for the rest of the year.

juliette gave birth to a baby girl on april 29th, 2002. her daughter, francesca winifred hammond was 7lbs and 4 ounces and 19 inches tall.

juliette had always known she was going to keep her daughter, but still holding her baby in her arms after she was born was a whole other experience and it really was like wow i’m a mother. she cried.

juliette wasn’t at her high school graduation, but if she had been she may have been the valedictorian. she still graduated in the top of her class.

originally, juliette had been planning on going to columbia for their english program.

but she decided instead to take a gap year and focus on being a mom.

during this time she worked at a bookstore and had begun writing her own stories.

she published her first book--a children’s “novel” just before her seventeenth birthday ( more like september of 2003 ). it’s dedicated to her daughter.

juliette soon realized that she wanted to move away from home. it was too much of a reminder of what she could have been doing and what her parents wanted for her, and what she had thought she wanted. she needed to find herself and figure out her life on her own.

so juliette quite literally picked up a map and got in the car she’d gotten for her sweet sixteen and started driving down the highway with her daughter.

of course, she’d told her parents beforehand. she’d had a whole sit down conversation about moving out and on her own. her parents were hesitant, since she was only seventeen at the time. but they eventually agreed so long as juliette stayed in touch with them. which she did.

she happened upon frostford when she got a flat tire just outside of city limits.

and frostford was everything that her hometown was not, so she wound up moving here at the age of seventeen, just before christmas time.

her parents obviously paid for the house she lives in still. it’s not like the mansion or even the city apartment she was used to when she was running around growing up but it has a porch and a yard and enough room for her and frannie, which was all jules wanted.

for the first couple of years i’d imagine it was hard for her to fit in. since she was seventeen and graduated high school prior, so most people her age were still in school. and i’m sure more of the town busybody gossips would have been talking about how she’s seventeen with a baby. so that wasn’t easy.

but even with that, juliette did her best to get to know people and figure out a place for herself among the town.

TWENTIES to NOW --

juliette had worked as a waitress for a couple of years while she was going to school. despite coming from money ( and having her parents send her money every month to help out ) juliette was always determined to both pay her parents back for the house they bought her and make her own money.

by the time frannie was in kindergarten jules was working at the diner during the day and going to college classes on her days off and taking some night classes.

juliette graduated from college with a degree in library sciences and english literature.

throughout frannie’s childhood, juliette worked on other books for kids. she wanted the types of books she had read when she was a kid but something that her own daughter would love. and frannie did love every book that juliette wrote.

for a good six or seven years ( from the time juliette was nineteen until she was twenty-five ) juliette was known mostly as one of the more prolific children’s authors under 30. she’d written well over 40 books since her first published children’s novel. many of the novels are following one single story/character, but each novel is part of a whole universe where characters from one side story do pop up in others as well.

juliette then graduated to young adult fiction, where she’s pretty much stayed since. she writes mainly mysteries and historical projects. she likes to balance her novels with a bit of different time periods. and yes, she does in fact know that joseph turner the main character of her first original novel appears as a side mentioned character in her latest work.

juliette has worked at the frostford public library since she graduated from college. she’s always loved to be around books.

like i said back then, she often loved to daydream of being someone in the limelight when she was growing up. you can still catch her singing a few tunes or hear the piano playing a melody from her house if she leaves the windows open, but otherwise she’s really given up on that part of her life.

spends a lot of time with her daughter. i imagine she’s had no contact with frannie’s father since everything that happened between them in high school.

sometimes she wonders what it would have been like to go for singing, but make no mistake that she is in fact blissfully happy with how her life turned out. she’s got her daughter, a blossoming career, and a happy home. maybe the only thing she sometimes really wishes for that’s realistic is somebody to share it with?

PERSONALITY AND MORE --

juliette is still as kind as ever. she’s very charismatic and effervescent. she doesn’t like to let anyone see her down ( even if she definitely has her moments of not being so well ).

you wouldn’t know if she’s down unless you know her well enough. but the signs are usually that she’s playing the piano a lot, she’s wearing a lot of loose fitting long sleeved things ( she likes to tug on the sleeves as a habit ), and her house smells like she’s been baking.

jules often calls frostford her home and refers to greenwich/manhattan as the place where she was raised.

juliette has a mix of a new york accent and a southern drawl from all the time she’s lived down south. it’s definitely not so pronounced. but when she’s angry ( which is rare, she’s not the type to raise her voice usually ) you can hear the northern accent come out.

she will never be found without a pen ( colored ink, usually purple ), a notebook, and a reading book. as she’s ready for any kind of situation or inspiration to strike her.

her favorite candies include milk duds and twizzlers, and she’s a sucker for a home made pie ( she can make a good apple pie and a nice lemon meringue herself ).

she absolutely loves when it rains, definitely the kind of person you’d find running out in the rain and dancing in it.

quite clumsy. she’s not a ballerina ( no matter how many lessons she had as a kid ) as her balance is always off.

she’s talkative as hell when she needs to be and can tend to ramble on if you don’t

is 100% a mom friend, is always there for her friends and anybody who she considers a friend.

loves scooby doo and nancy drew. kind of likes those simple mysteries that you could read over and over again. one of her favorite books of all time is that was then, this is now by s.e. hinton. also loves a northern light by jennifer donnely and the luxe series by anna godbersen.

POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS --

first friends in town

neighbors

“enemies” who became friends

frenemies

people who know her writing

co-workers

for some reason i cannot think of any more connections but these were p basic anyway?? so uh come and plot with me and we can figure stuff out lol.

@frostfordstart

#frostfordintro #☾ ━━━ out of char ❞#teen pregnancy tw #pregnancy tw

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requicms · 6 years ago

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Name: Lisa

Age & Timezone: 24, (aka old af) GMT+1

What kind of character(s) are you hoping to bring to Northport? Okay everybody, roll up your sleeves because we’re going on a wild rollercoaster that is my character hoarding problem. Meet my little trash children:

henry o’hara

34 years old; northport native; living in lakeview heights

he grew up on a small farm on the outskirts of northport, the oldest brother with three younger sisters

growing up he was the boy sleeping in the barn for fun during the weekends, and naming dogs, horses and kittens alike after his favorite superheroes bc he was a little nerd

after graduation he tried himself as a worker on their farm at first, because that’s what his parents (especially his dad) always wanted, but he gave up on it soon after because it just wasn’t for him. instead he decided to join the army, because that’s a little like being a superhero, right? well, that’s what he thought back in the day.

although that life was far from what he imagined as well, he was not a quitter and pulled through until a bullet just barely missed his heart and he was sent home for good two years ago.

there he bought a small house in lakeview heights that was rundown and needed some serious attention. he’s been renovating it for about a year now. aside from renovating he’s started making furniture with his hands for his family and whoever’s willing to pay at least a little bit for it

he also got himself three dogs named simba, baloo and flounder (because his sisters always made him watch all the disney movies with them).

he lives a very minimalistic lifestyle, he can lie in his winter garden watching the stars for hours (especially because he can hardly sleep thanks to nightmares). also has ptsd attacks at times, but he’s started seeing a therapist a few months ago.

often out running before the sun comes up.

very romantic at heart, but kind of rusty with his flirting skills. will do anything for those he loves.

alec hawthorne

30 years old, oldest brother of three, got two younger sisters

they were mostly raised by a single mom, their dad died of cancer when alec was thirteen.

alec came out as homosexual at age sixteen. his mother and sisters always supported that, even if his mother needed some time to get used to the idea.

he was an amazing football player and got a scholarship for college at the university of alabama.

halfway through college, he suffered from a major knee injury that kicked him out of training for a year, and therefore ruined his chances to pursue the sport and the scholarship.

alec lost all perspective, unsure what to do with his life now. for a while he drowned his sorrows in alcohol and meaningless sex. his sisters were the ones who talked sense into him, and eventually he decided to become a teacher.

he teaches sports and english at northport’s high school, where he returned once he was done with his studies. it is far from what alec envisioned his life to be, but teaching the football team in his free time gives him some sort of meaning back.

noemi milestone

28 years old, northport native, she and her younger brother grew up in whitefield quarter

their mother was a well-known model who settled down in northport after marrying their father, who is a relatively well known politician in northport.

noemi and her brother were never big fans of the lives their parents wanted for them – they liked the money and the lifestyle itself, but they never managed to be the perfect children their parents wanted them to be.

noemi often stole away to attend parties, and she was openly bisexual, much to her father’s dislike. once her brother was old enough, she took him with her. she had a rebellious phase, talking up to her father and doing everything he did not want her to do.

she never fully grew out of that, but toned down her rebellious acts once she got closer to graduation, knowing she wanted to go into music and that her parents influences might help her out.

she had a phase of fame as a musician, it lasted from her 19th to her 25th birthday. then she ended her career, out of the blue for most, but not for her – noemi just wanted to get home to her brother, who needed her.

ever since settling back down in northport, she didn’t really know what to do with her life. she mostly focuses on her social media accounts and blogging, but also gives some singing lessons at northport high for fun, and sometimes pulls out her camera to work out a few hours at the artsy lens.

she bought herself a house in whitefield quarter where she lives with her brother, but hardly talks to her parents.

sofia santiago

27 years old, born and raised in New York City as the youngest sister of three. her mother was never married, but stayed with Sofia’s father.

she is bisexual, and was very open about her sexuality from her sixteenth birthday on. her first relationship was with a girl, but aside of another short-lived relationship with a guy in college, she does not have a lot of experience in relationships, but rather flings and one-night-stands.

while Sofia was always very athletic, her true passion were the stars and she knew she wanted to go into space science for a long time.

shortly after her 18th birthday, an accident turned Sofia’s life upside down. the family was on their way to her grandmother’s birthday celebration. her oldest brother was driving the car, intoxicated – something no one else knew. they crashed together with a truck ( the fault was the truck driver’s, but neither Sofia nor her brothers found out about that until now).

Sofia’s father died in the accident, her mother was left with an aneurysm that destroyed her short-term memory. she forgets everything that happens every five minutes. Sofia herself still has visible scars on her thighs and lower abdomen, but most prominent is the pain in her left leg that survived several surgeries and rehab programs, and stopped her from ever pursuing any athletic career.

her oldest brother vanished into thin air after the accident, and Sofia tried to turn her back on what had happened as well. she went to college, and even made it into the NASA in Washington DC. she worked there for several years, but eventually moved to Northport half a year ago to be closer to her brother again who she stayed close with over the years.

here she works in a much smaller space science program, but actually enjoys that she can focus on her studies. wears NASA shirts and hoodies all the damn time

Are there any connections you’re looking for? I have some connections up on the main already for all four kids, but i’m also looking for best friends (from childhood, high school, nowadays) for all of them ( bcI love some good healthy friendships tbh) and also some exes/ex-flings bc that can always be a fun tension!

Could you see anyone else being interested in Northport? Anyone who sees this should totally check it out and consider applying wink wink

#npt: talk #wow this got so much longer than it was supposed to be #but i can't stop talking about my kids i love them too much lol

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legendarynightmaresandwich · 7 years ago

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My 17 Books of 2017

I swear to Glob, I’m gonna have to make this a monthly thing bc my dumb ass didn’t write down what I read every month so I sat for 30 mins straight thinking “what did I read this year?????” Then I kept confusing this year with 2016, relived the fact that I didn’t read a single book this Summer bc I had a stupid boyfriend instead, and that I won’t have any pictures of the books bc most of them were from the library and I’m lazy.

2017. While I was still in school I exclusively read stuff for class and not pleasure. I still enjoyed the books I read, so I included them. After graduation, like I said, I acquired a dumb boyfriend, so instead of reading I wasted my life with him for three months. (Pro-Tip: Reading is always more satisfying than boys.) Moving back home, and working at a library, I read 11 books, a graphic novel, and almost half of a graphic novel series. (I’ll explain.) It feels so good to read again!

So the total for the year is 17. Not bad at all! So, here we go.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston

Hooooo boy it was so good to read this book again. This book was first presented to me in high school, by a teacher I didn’t like, who treated everything we read like it was stupid. I guess that was her sense of humor. What I remember from high school is that everyone hated this book and especially hated the main character, Janie. The consensus was that Janie makes horrible decisions, relies on men too much, and is irresponsible. Talk about an anti-feminist reading. Reading the book again, being older and slightly wiser, I’ve realized that the book outlines the ways that society makes it almost impossible for a character like Janie (a woman of color, uneducated, and poor) to thrive. Her life is about survival, despite her missteps and trials she survives. My one problem with the book is that I wish Hurston explored Janie’s inner thoughts more. Other than that, this book is beautiful.

Quote: “There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.”

I love this quote bc instead of seeing Janie as a lost cause we should view her as untapped potential, she is so much deeper than the surface layer that I was unfortunately taught in high school.

Native Son by Richard Wright

Here’s another book that was good to revisit in a sense. I didn’t read this in high school, but my sister’s grade and the grade before me did. And everyone hated it. Reading it in college, I am so glad that I didn’t read it in high school. Generations younger than me might be ready to read this book in high school, but my generation was not. (I am so glad that it seems like younger generations are more informed about inequality, feminism, etc.) For my grade and the kids older than me I think it was impossible for white kids, in a white high school, with white teachers, to fully understand this book. It is so EASY to read this book and view Bigger as a murderer. (It is important that he doesn’t kill on accident either. He smothers a woman, chops her up, and incinerates her.) And he is a murderer, but not exclusively. He is oppressed every way he turns, by his employers, the police, the media, his friends, his family, etc. And Bigger responds to the world’s anticipations. This book is fascinating to me in that Wright wanted to create an “Anti-Uncle Tom” character. Bigger is a bad person, and a criminal. But he also represents the inevitability of an oppressive society to fail its citizens and create monsters.

Quote: “Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.”

Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner

This book was HARD. Faulkner is impossible, especially when you have other classes to focus on. I survived by reading a Cliffs Notes synopsis of each chapter before and after reading it. But this book was worth the read. It’s a brief, but deep look into the practices of the antebellum South. I really liked the format of this book being a series of short stories. (But in Faulkner fashion he never tells the reader who is speaking and what time period we’re in.)

Quote: “But you cant be alive forever, and you always wear out life long before you have exhausted the possibilities of living. And all that must be somewhere; all that could not have been invented and created just to be thrown away. And the earth is shallow; there is not a great deal of it before you come to the rock. And the earth don’t want to just keep things, hoard them; it wants to use them again.”

Counterlife by Philip Roth

This book is extremely interesting. It’s broken into five parts and each part is an alternate version of the same awkward story. Henry has a serious heart condition. BUT the medicine that is keeping him alive makes him impotent. The only other option is to undergo an extremely dangerous surgery. In one version he dies of the surgery, in one he survives and moves to Israel, then in another his brother Nathan is impotent instead of him. The whole book is framed by Nathan who is an author. It shows how fiction can be unreliable, how authors twist the truth. We never know the “true” story. This is a structurally brilliant book, even though I’m not a huge fan of the characters. Their problems are worthy of eye-rolls.

Quote: “And as he spoke, I was thinking, 'the kind of stories that people turn life into, the kind of lives people turn stories into.”

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

I read this book bc I read Fangirl and really enjoyed it. This book was just as cute and fun to read if you can get over the creepiness of the plot. Lincoln’s job is to read company emails to make sure everyone is following email policy. Emails get flagged for swearing, other code words, and anything that doesn’t seem like work to the computer system. Two women that work at the company chit-chat through email all day, not following the email rules. Lincoln reads their emails and falls in love with one of them. Like Sleepless in Seattle, the two don’t meet until the end. Again, if you can get over the lack of privacy in the plot, this book is enjoyable. I love Lincoln as a character. He’s a big, tall, lumber-jack type man who is really sweet. I also enjoyed how the book portrays working the night-shift. It’s a world I don’t think most people really know about. Lincoln is lonely and in a rut and these two hilarious women are the only bright spot in his life.

This book is cute, and it was a good break from reading heavy stuff for class.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

I have always wanted to read this book. The cover is beautiful. (That shouldn’t matter...but it does.) It seems like the general consensus of this book is that it is life changing. This book will inspire you! This book will make you take the initiative to follow your dream! Snake oil. Maybe I’m cynical, but I HATED this book. It’s preachy, it’s chock full of cliches, and worst of all I cannot get over how sexist this book is. The boy character is allowed to have a dream and pursue it. But the girl’s dream is to STAY BEHIND AND WAIT FOR HIM TO COME HOME????? That’s her dream!?!? That sucks!!!!!!! That’s unacceptable to me. Every nice thought or potential mantra to be gleaned from this book is completely overshadowed by the mistreatment of the female characters. LAME.

It by Stephen King

I read this book bc I wanted something really long to read at jury duty. This book is so long, but I honestly loved every second of it. I was borderline obsessed for two weeks of my life. I completely fell in love with the characters, my precious babies. I was always weirdly fascinated by the mini-series when I was little. I really liked getting to know the kids and then the adults. I was surprised that the book is not split half in half, but the adult scenes are mixed in with the childhood memories. I really enjoyed this book that my first reaction to seeing the new It movie was to be MAD at what they changed. That hasn’t happened in a while. (Harry Potter anyone?) I thought the tumblr love for Pennywise was funny to a certain extent, he’s pretty hilarious in the movie. But in the book...real life nightmares were had. Nothing in particular gave me a nightmare, just the overall vibe and tone of the book stressed me out and kept me awake. This book really transported me. When I was reading it, for better or for worse, I was in the town of Derry.

Quote: “Maybe there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends - maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.”

Fair Play by Tove Jansson

I love this book. Tove Jansson is the creator of Moomin and I only recently found out that she wrote a few books too. Fair Play was the only one my library had so I checked it out. And it was amazing. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

The more I learn about Tove, the more obviously autobiographical her books seem. This book is a series of short stories about two women who live together and learn to work around and with each other in every way. Mari is sensitive where Jonna is gruff. They are both stubborn about different things and have a beautiful symbiotic relationship. In some reviews I’ve read of this book people go out of their way to make sure it’s known that Mari and Jonna’s “sisterhood” is strictly “platonic.” I roll my eyes, bc CLEARLY they are not. They are life partners and have a deep love for each other that goes beyond just being roommates. Plus, it’s pretty obvious that Mari, a writer, is Tove Jansson, and Jonna, an artist, is her life partner and graphic designer Tuulikki Pietila.

But back to the book. It is an absolutely beautiful series of short stories. I wouldn’t even call them stories. They are more like little snippets of daily life. They are full of subtle emotion and are written in such a straight forward but artistic way. Simple prose carries deep meaning in this book.

Quote: “It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent—lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It's as simple as that.”

The Artist of Disappearance by Anita Desai

I originally read this book for a class (Landscape Architecture of India) and to be honest I skimmed through it and wrote a bullshit book report. When I saw it in the library I wanted to try it again. This book is just three short stories I can’t believe I didn’t find time to read it before. I didn’t really like the third story, about man living in the mountains, but the first two are great. The first is about a man trying to figure out how to insure a dusty mansion full of treasures. The second is about a woman translating a work of fiction, on the brink of madness as she becomes more of a creator than strictly a translator. These two are among the best short stories I’ve read. The writing is so beautiful.

Quote: “Everything in the house turned damp; the blue fur of mildew crept furtively over any object left standing for the briefest length of time: shoes, bags, boxes, it consumed them all. The sheets on the bed were clammy when he got between them at night, and the darkness rang with the strident cacophony of the big tree crickets that had been waiting for this, their season.”

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

I’ve been meaning to read some Agatha Christie for some time now. I read And Then There Were None in high school and absolutely hated it. I was interested in this one bc I know Christie went on many archaeological digs. So I thought this book would contain interesting historical elements about archaeology in the Middle East and ancient Mesopotamian culture. Not at all. Lapis lazuli is mentioned once, cylinder seals are briefly mentioned, everything else mentioned are just “tablet fragments” and “vases.” I was disappointed. I was also really disappointed by how BORING this book is. The mystery is slightly compelling, but nothing exciting really happens. This is a Poirot mystery, another reason I picked it, but he doesn’t show up until halfway through the book! The book is narrated by a nurse. She’s tough and straightforward. I really liked her at first, but throughout the book she is straight up racist. The Middle East is a “primitive” land to her. The natives speak in a “funny, sing-song” language. She is suspicious of the native men around the dig being thieves. She’s even prejudiced against Poirot, showing much disdain toward his accent.

At least Poirot is nice. And he solves the stupid mystery. How does a woman drink a WHOLE GLASS of acid without noticing??? This book was dumb. I don’t think I’ll read Christie again. In this instance my high school self was right.

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

I was really excited to read this book, Neil Gaiman has yet to disappoint me. I love the way this book was written. I especially loved how in the introduction Gaiman outlines all the female Norse gods whose stories have unfortunately not survived. (Makes me want to write some Norse mythology fanfiction. Nerd alert.) I love these characters, the stories are so interesting. A very good read.

Quote: “The Norse myths are the myths of a chilly place, with long, long winter nights and endless summer days, myths of a people who did not entirely trust or even like their gods, although they respected and feared them.”

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Jumped on the bandwagon with this one. This was a really popular book at the library so I checked it out. It’s cute. (Bridget Jones is better.) The book promised to make me cry, but I didn’t. I really liked the main character, Lou. She’s funny and just trying to figure out her life which I related to. A quick read, VERY predictable.

After You by Jojo Moyes

I liked the Louisa character from Me Before You, so I thought I would read the sequel. It was disappointing. Everything fun and admirable about Lou is lost. The story-line where Will’s conveniently long-lost teenage daughter shows up is stupid. The love interest is boring. Really, a terrible sequel. I’m sure there’s better fan fiction out there.

The Whispering Muse by Sjon

This book is plain weird and not my favorite. Luckily, it’s short. I like the mythological/folkloric aspects of the story. My main issue is that the main character is so unlikable. He’s pompous, annoying, and rude. Not endearing in any way. The ending is very strange.

Autumn by Karl Ove Knaussgard

I LOVED this one. The author is writing letters to his unborn daughter. They’re not really letters though, more like small essays on completely random topics: frogs, sunset, plastic bags, embarrassment. The author has a fascinating way of thinking, and the connection to his daughter made the book sweeter. This will be the first of three, I think a book will be published for each trimester? Not sure. But I can’t wait to read the rest.

The Fables Series by Bill Cunningham

Fables starts out great. Fairy Tale characters in NYC, trying to survive. The premise was intriguing and the first few volumes are awesome. It was everything I wanted Once Upon A Time to be. Where OUAT is over-dramatic and embarrassing, Fables is gritty and clever. It started falling apart for me about halfway through the series.I wound up only liking a few characters that the series kept straying away from. Sitting and reading a whole, long-winded story about Little Boy Blue, when Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf are so much more interesting, got tedious. To be honest, I just skimmed through the later issues.

Origin by Dan Brown

Dan Brown’s worst book, in my opinion. I’ll have to read some of his others again to make sure this theory pans out, but the writing in this one is so condescending. It was really annoying. It’s as if Dan Brown thinks his audience is stupid. Instead of saying “Beethoven was playing on the radio” he’ll write “18th century composer, known for works such as this and that, emitted from the iHome music player that was invented in 2005.” Every little detail has some shitty explanation. He explains what Uber is, what William Blake’s most famous poem is, "Nicolaus Copernicus … the father of the heliocentric model — the belief that the planets revolve around the sun — which ignited a scientific revolution in the 1500s"; "Friedrich Nietzsche, the renowned 19th-century German philosopher and atheist"; and "Winston Churchill himself, the celebrated British statesman who, in addition to being a military hero, historian, orator, and Nobel Prize-winning author, was an artist of remarkable talent." WE KNOW. Or you could google it!

Honestly, the writing made this book hard to read and not be insulted by. I did like the story. It’s interesting, very contrived but it’s Dan Brown. Contrived is his middle name. This book read like a shit mystery with sentences from wikipedia copied and pasted in.

Quote: "'Robert,' Ambra whispered, 'just remember the wise words of Disney's Princess Elsa.' Langdon turned. 'I'm sorry?' Ambra smiled softly. 'Let it go.'" (The "it" in question is Langdon's cellphone.)

I can’t believe I had to read that with my own eyes.

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

My last read of 2017. I was intrigued by the movie trailer and the cover of the book is beautiful. This book will stick with me for a while. One review describes it perfectly.

“It’s been a long time since a book filled me with this kind of palpable, wondrous, disquiet, a feeling that started on the first page and that I’m not sure I’ve yet shaken.” -Matt Bell

This book is beautifully disturbing. And the ending is perfect! It’s a trilogy, but I don’t know if I even want to read the other two yet. I think I have to let this one marinate for a while.

A stunning read, a great way to end the year.

Quote: “I am walking forever on the path from the border to base camp. It is taking a long time, and I know it will take even longer to get back. There is no one with me. I am all by myself. The trees are not trees the birds are not birds and I am not me but just something that has been walking for a very long time…”

And there you have it! My year in books. Here’s to next year!

#2017 #happy new year #tove jansson #native son #their eyes were watching god #annihilation #dan brown #origin #books

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ganymedeandcallisto · 8 years ago

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someone asked me for the 100 questions but tumblr is fuckin up so here u go my friend

1. What’s your middle name, and do you like it? a: lea (pronounced lee), it was my grandmas middle name and yes I do love it  2. are you artistic? a: fuck yeah I am I sing and play instruments and do art  3. Have you had your first kiss? a: yes  4. What is your life goal? a: to be happy TBH  5. Do you have any expieriences with a famous person? a: my dad went to grade school with this guy who won an Oscar! also Bernie sanders came to my high school for a rally which was so so cool  6. Do you play any sports? a: what is a sport  7. What’s your worst fear? a: that everyone I love is pretending to like me TBH  8. Who’s your biggest inspiration? a: Kim from Matt and Kim ngl, also the people in Costa Rica who created the giant dog sanctuary  9. Do you have any cool talents? a: I play 6 instruments and also I have a really good memory  10. are you a morning person? a: YES I love getting up early especially when I don’t have to do anything  11. How do you feel about pet names? a: hate (dyldoge)  12. Do you like to read? a: YEAH I DO it’s so fun to me  13. Name a list of shows that have changed your life. a: the office, game of thrones, the walking dead (mostly cause glenn and maggie)  14. Do you care about your follower count? a: nope unless it’s 420 or 666  15. What’s the best dream you’ve had? a: probably one where I was either flying or hugging someone  16. Have you ever kissed someone of your same gender? a: I have not  17. Do you have any pets? a: YEAH I HAVE TWO BEAUTIFUL BABIES (dogs)  18. Are you religious? a: I am not  19. Are you a people person? a: ahahahahaha noooooooooooooooo  20. Are you considered popular? a: I’m not sure?? TBH  21. What is one of your bad habits? a: saying yes when I want to say no, also procrastinating  22. What’s something that makes you feel vulnerable? a: showing music I love to people  23. What would you name your children? a: *dogs I love all dog names  24. Who’s your celebrity crush? a: Marcos is the biggest celebrity of my heart  25. What’s your best subject? a: English/history that uncovers how awful white america is/has been  26. Dogs or cats? a: both!!!!!!!! but TBH dogs more  27. most used social media besides tumblr? a: I’m not sure but I’m gonna say chat snaps  28. best friends name a: Marcos and varla ofc <3 <3 <3  29. who does your main family consist of a: my sister and my mom and dad and my two beautiful dog children  30. Chocolate or sugar a: chocolate  31. have you ever been on a date? a: yes! not formally like “would you like to go on a date with me?” tho  32. Do you like rollercosters? a: I did……but Marcos and I went to the fair last summer and concluded that we are too old for this and our joints are too stiff  33. Can you swim? a: yes and I love swimming so much  34. What would you do in the event of an apocolypse? a: grab everyone I love and live in a Costco  35. Have you struggled with any kind of mental disorder? a: yes ednos, depression, and trichotillomania  36. Are your parents together? a: yes they are  37. What’s your favourite colour? a: green forever and ever  38. What country are you from/do you live in? a: USA :^)  39. Favourite singer? a: I’m gonna say my favorite artist is Matt and Kim but there are so many other favorites ahahah  40. Do you see yourself being famous some day? a: no TBH unless it’s for cooking  41. Do you like dresses? a: yeah I fuckin love dresses but they are uncomfy sometimes  42. Favourite song right now? a: poplar street by glass animals or vampire money by mcr honorable mention: planetary [go!] by mcr, well it’s true that we love one another by the white stripes, northeast by Matt and Kim, man on the moon by zella day, the way we move by langhorne slim and the law, when you’re young by Edward sharpe and the magnetic zeroes  43. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? a: no I actually really like talking about sex! I think it’s healthy to  44. How old were you when you first got your period? a: like 11 I think lmao  45. Have you ever shot a gun? a: nope and I don’t really wanna  46. Have you ever done yoga? a: yes  47. Are you a horror girl? a: hell yeah give me some of that 😩💯😭👌🏽✔️✔️👅💦💦😳👀😍 babadook  48. Are you good at giving advice? a: sometimes like I know exactly what I wanna say but I talk around it bc I’m bad at explaining things  49. Tell us a story about your childhood. a: one time when I was 4 my cousin was bothering me and putting a pillow over my face so I bit him so hard it bled and now he’s a trump supporter but I can’t bite him bc I’m an Adult  50. How are you doing today? a: I’m good!! I had a really great breakfast with my RA Rebecca and my roommate Sydney!  51. Were you a cute kid? a: there was no kid cuter than me up until like 1st grade when I got glasses  52. Can you dance? a: when no one is watching TBH  53. Is there anything you do that you can’t remember ever not doing? a: eating with chopsticks and also wanting to be in love  54. Have you ever dyed your hair? a: nooooo but I wanna  55. What colour are your eyes? a: brown  56. What’s your favourite animal? a: horses and dogs!!  57. Have you ever made a huge fool of yourself? a: yes I definitely have :^))))  58. Do you have a good relationship with your parents? a: I think so!! they support my decision to change my major and I’m so so happy  59. Do you have good friends? a: like 3 maybe who I never get to see :////  60. Are you close with anyone of the lgbtq+ group? a: ya bich it me (also yes!! many of my friends are)  61. What’s your favourite class? a: this quarter, Asian American studies  62. List all the tv shows you are watching. the walking dead, westworld, full frontal with Samantha Bee, daily show, game of thrones, I think that’s it?  63. Are you organized? a: honey………no  64. What was the last movie you saw? Opinion? in theaters I saw rogue one and I loved it so much THERE WERE POC LEADS  67. Which tv character do you relate to most? a: I don’t know actually but probably Pam from the office TBH  68. What are some things that stand between you and complete happiness? a: distance :/ and financial instability :/  69. If you received enough money to never need to work again, what would you spend your time doing? a: taking care of dogs  70. What would you change about your life if you knew you would never die? a: id change the not dying part…….it’s gotta happen sometime just not now  71. What would you do differently if you knew that no one was judging you? a: I’d dance all the time in public  72. If you could start over, what would you do differently? a: stand up for myself  73. Would you break the law to save a loved one? a: is this even a question of course I would  74. When was the last time you travelled somewhere new? a: in August when me and Marcos went to SLO  75. When you think of your home, what immediately comes to mind? a: the living room and my dogs greeting me and getting in n out for dinner  76. What have you done to pursue your dreams lately? How about today? a: I found out I can change my major really quickly  77. What did you want to be when you were a kid? a: a paleontologist I loved dinosaurs  78. If you dropped everything to pursue your dreams, what would you be risking? a: not too much actually I dream of being financially stable with my love Marcos and being surrounded by dogs and having my family live not super close but not too far away  79.When did you not speak up, when you know you really should have? a: in class bc participation is part of the grade  80. Describe the next five years of your life, and your plans, in a single sentence a: I’m going to finish college with a steady job, hopefully travel a lot, and spend all the time I can working towards The Dream™  81. What would happen if you never wasted another minute of your life, what would that look like? a: me: graduates college and gets a masters degree within a year  82. If you could live forever, how would you spend eternity? a: looking for a way to make Marcos also live forever and then taking care of all dogs  83. How would you spend a billion dollars? a: I’d buy a big house that has a lot of land for my dogs to run around in and pay for a bunch of kids’ tuition and buy my parents a bunch of vacations and create spaces for dogs everywhere and donate to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren……that’s kind of a big question  84. If you could time travel, would you go to the past or the future? a: the past so that I can see all the history white people cover up  85. What motivates you to succeed? a: The Dream ™ of being financially stable in a nice apartment with a few dogs and the love of my life Marcos  86. What dream that you’ve had has resonated with you the most? a: I had a nightmare that trump became president  87. Would you rather live in the city or the woods? Why? a: woods bc city smell like pee and is smoggy  88. Do you believe in life after death a: kinda but I hope it’s a life where I don’t really have to Do anything  89. What teacher inspired you the most? How did they? a: my great uncle because he was a professor of English and he loved my great aunt so much and had a house in the middle of nowhere surrounded by forest and deer and it had a greenhouse and a place for bats to roost  90. What’s your fondest childhood memory? a: making pillow forts with my sister and then destroying them by jumping on top of them  91. If you could have dinner with any one person, living or dead, who would they be and why? a: I wanna have dinner with Donald trump, specifically so I can stab him in his orange face with my fork  92. What would you have to see to cry tears of joy? a: not too many things TBH I cry very hard at practically everything  93. What is the hardest lesson you had to learn in life? a: you shouldn’t have to change something about yourself in order to deserve love (unless ur a neo nazi or a mass murderer or something like that obviously)  94. What do you think happens after we die? a: party in the afterlife  95. What would you do if you would be invisible? a: probably steal money from trump but make it look like mike pence or richard spencer did it  96. What’s something you can’t do no matter how hard you try? a: whistle ahahaha  97. Would you want to choose the sex and appearance of your offspring? a: all dogs are beautiful  98. How did your first crush develop? a: my first crush was on Luke Skywalker and it developed by me watching a new hope  99. Is there a feeling you are trying to ignore? What is it? a: it’s the feeling of That Fuck Shit and i ignore it on the daily  100. Do you live or do you just exist? a: time is meaningless and none of us Actually exist

#dt #long post #long posts

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thesnhuup · 5 years ago

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Pop Picks – October 31

October 31, 2019

What I’m listening to:

It drove his critics crazy that Obama was the coolest president we ever had and his summer 2019 playlist on Spotify simply confirms that reality. It has been on repeat for me. From Drake to Lizzo (God I love her) to Steely Dan to Raphael Saadiq to Sinatra (who I skip every time – I’m not buying the nostalgia), his carefully curated list reflects not only his infinite coolness, but the breadth of his interests and generosity of taste. I love the music, but I love even more the image of Michelle and him rocking out somewhere far from Washington’s madness, as much as I miss them both.

What I’m reading:

I struggled with Christy Lefteri’s The Beekeeper of Aleppo for the first 50 pages, worried that she’d drag out every tired trope of Mid-Eastern society, but I fell for her main characters and their journey as refugees from Syria to England. Parts of this book were hard to read and very dark, because that is the plight of so many refugees and she doesn’t shy away from those realities and the enormous toll they take on displaced people. It’s a hard read, but there is light too – in resilience, in love, in friendships, the small tender gestures of people tossed together in a heartless world. Lefteri volunteered in Greek refugee programs, spent a lot of interviewing people, and the book feels true, and importantly, heartfelt.

What I’m watching:

Soap opera meets Shakespeare, deliciously malevolent and operatic, Succession has been our favorite series this season. Loosely based on the Murdochs and their media empire (don’t believe the denials), this was our must watch television on Sunday nights, filling the void left by Game of Thrones. The acting is over-the-top good, the frequent comedy dark, the writing brilliant, and the music superb. We found ourselves quoting lines after every episode. Like the hilarious; “You don’t hear much about syphilis these days. Very much the Myspace of STDs.” Watch it so we can talk about that season 2 finale.

Archive

August 30, 2019

What I’m listening to:

I usually go to music here, but the New York Times new 1619 podcast is just terrific, as is the whole project, which observes the sale of the first enslaved human beings on our shores 400 years ago. The first episode, “The Fight for a True Democracy” is a remarkable overview (in a mere 44 minutes) of the centrality of racism and slavery in the American story over those 400 years. It should be mandatory listening in every high school in the country. I’m eager for the next episodes. Side note: I am addicted to The Daily podcast, which gives more color and detail to the NY Times stories I read in print (yes, print), and reminds me of how smart and thoughtful are those journalists who give us real news. We need them now more than ever.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead has done it again. The Nickel Boys, his new novel, is a worthy successor to his masterpiece The Underground Railroad, and because it is closer to our time, based on the real-life horrors of a Florida reform school, and written a time of resurgent White Supremacy, it hits even harder and with more urgency than its predecessor. Maybe because we can read Underground Railroad with a sense of “that was history,” but one can’t read Nickel Boys without the lurking feeling that such horrors persist today and the monsters that perpetrate such horrors walk among us. They often hold press conferences.

What I’m watching:

Queer Eye, the Netflix remake of the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy some ten years later, is wondrously entertaining, but it also feels adroitly aligned with our dysfunctional times. Episode three has a conversation with Karamo Brown, one of the fab five, and a Georgia small town cop (and Trump supporter) that feels unscripted and unexpected and reminds us of how little actual conversation seems to be taking place in our divided country. Oh, for more car rides such as the one they take in that moment, when a chasm is bridged, if only for a few minutes. Set in the South, it is often a refreshing and affirming response to what it means to be male at a time of toxic masculinity and the overdue catharsis and pain of the #MeToo movement. Did I mention? It’s really fun.

July 1, 2019

What I’m listening to:

The National remains my favorite band and probably 50% of my listening time is a National album or playlist. Their new album I Am Easy To Find feels like a turning point record for the band, going from the moody, outsider introspection and doubt of lead singer Matt Berninger to something that feels more adult, sophisticated, and wiser. I might have titled it Women Help The Band Grow Up. Matt is no longer the center of The National’s universe and he frequently cedes the mic to the many women who accompany and often lead on the long, their longest, album. They include Gail Ann Dorsey (who sang with Bowie for a long time), who is amazing, and a number of the songs were written by Carin Besser, Berninger’s wife. I especially love the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the arrangements, and the sheer complexity and coherence of the work. It still amazes me when I meet someone who does not know The National. My heart breaks for them just a little.

What I’m reading:

Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad through the lens of a captive Trojan queen, Briseis. As a reviewer in The Atlantic writes, it answers the question “What does war mean to women?” We know the answer and it has always been true, whether it is the casual and assumed rape of captive women in this ancient war story or the use of rape in modern day Congo, Syria, or any other conflict zone. Yet literature almost never gives voice to the women – almost always minor characters at best — and their unspeakable suffering. Barker does it here for Briseis, for Hector’s wife Andromache, and for the other women who understand that the death of their men is tragedy, but what they then endure is worse. Think of it ancient literature having its own #MeToo moment. The NY Times’ Geraldine Brooks did not much like the novel. I did. Very much.

What I’m watching:

The BBC-HBO limited series Years and Years is breathtaking, scary, and absolutely familiar. It’s as if Black Mirrorand Children of Men had a baby and it precisely captures the zeitgeist, the current sense that the world is spinning out of control and things are coming at us too fast. It is a near future (Trump has been re-elected and Brexit has occurred finally)…not dystopia exactly, but damn close. The closing scene of last week’s first episode (there are 6 episodes and it’s on every Monday) shows nuclear war breaking out between China and the U.S. Yikes! The scope of this show is wide and there is a big, baggy feel to it – but I love the ambition even if I’m not looking forward to the nightmares.

May 19, 2019

What I’m listening to:

I usually go to music here, but I was really moved by this podcast of a Davis Brooks talk at the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/david-brooks-quest-moral-life. While I have long found myself distant from his political stance, he has come through a dark night of the soul and emerged with a wonderful clarity about calling, community, and not happiness (that most superficial of goals), but fulfillment and meaning, found in community and human kinship of many kinds. I immediately sent it to my kids.

What I’m reading:

Susan Orlean’s wonderful The Library Book, a love song to libraries told through the story of the LA Central Library. It brought back cherished memories of my many hours in beloved libraries — as a kid in the Waltham Public Library, a high schooler in the Farber Library at Brandeis (Lil Farber years later became a mentor of mine), and the cathedral-like Bapst Library at BC when I was a graduate student. Yes, I was a nerd. This is a love song to books certainly, but a reminder that libraries are so, so much more. It is a reminder that libraries are less about a place or being a repository of information and, like America at its best, an idea and ideal. By the way, oh to write like her.

What I’m watching:

What else? Game of Thrones, like any sensible human being. This last season is disappointing in many ways and the drop off in the writing post George R.R. Martin is as clear as was the drop off in the post-Sorkin West Wing. I would be willing to bet that if Martin has been writing the last season, Sansa and Tyrion would have committed suicide in the crypt. That said, we fans are deeply invested and even the flaws are giving us so much to discuss and debate. In that sense, the real gift of this last season is the enjoyment between episodes, like the old pre-streaming days when we all arrived at work after the latest episode of the Sopranos to discuss what we had all seen the night before. I will say this, the last two episodes — full of battle and gore – have been visually stunning. Whether the torches of the Dothraki being extinguished in the distance or Arya riding through rubble and flame on a white horse, rarely has the series ascended to such visual grandeur.

March 28, 2019

What I’m listening to:

There is a lovely piece played in a scene from A Place Called Home that I tracked down. It’s Erik Satie’s 3 Gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1, played by the wonderful pianist Klára Körmendi. Satie composed this piece in 1888 and it was considered avant-garde and anti-Romantic. It’s minimalism and bit of dissonance sound fresh and contemporary to my ears and while not a huge Classical music fan, I’ve fallen in love with the Körmendi playlist on Spotify. When you need an alternative to hours of Cardi B.

What I’m reading:

Just finished Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel Washington Black. Starting on a slave plantation in Barbados, it is a picaresque novel that has elements of Jules Verne, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. Yes, it strains credulity and there are moments of “huh?”, but I loved it (disclosure: I was in the minority among my fellow book club members) and the first third is a searing depiction of slavery. It’s audacious, sprawling (from Barbados to the Arctic to London to Africa), and the writing, especially about nature, luminous.

What I’m watching:

A soap opera. Yes, I’d like to pretend it’s something else, but we are 31 episodes into the Australian drama A Place Called Home and we are so, so addicted. Like “It’s AM, but can’t we watch just one more episode?” addicted. Despite all the secrets, cliff hangers, intrigue, and “did that just happen?” moments, the core ingredients of any good soap opera, APCH has superb acting, real heft in terms of subject matter (including homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual assault, and class), touches of our beloved Downton Abbey, and great cars. Beware. If you start, you won’t stop.

February 11, 2019

What I’m listening to:

Raphael Saadiq has been around for quite a while, as a musician, writer, and producer. He’s new to me and I love his old school R&B sound. Like Leon Bridges, he brings a contemporary freshness to the genre, sounding like a young Stevie Wonder (listen to “You’re The One That I Like”). Rock and Roll may be largely dead, but R&B persists – maybe because the former was derivative of the latter and never as good (and I say that as a Rock and Roll fan). I’m embarrassed to only have discovered Saadiq so late in his career, but it’s a delight to have done so.

What I’m reading:

Just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Home, part of her trilogy that includes the Pulitzer Prize winning first novel, Gilead, and the book after Home, Lila. Robinson is often described as a Christian writer, but not in a conventional sense. In this case, she gives us a modern version of the prodigal son and tells the story of what comes after he is welcomed back home. It’s not pretty. Robinson is a self-described Calvinist, thus character begets fate in Robinson’s world view and redemption is at best a question. There is something of Faulkner in her work (I am much taken with his famous “The past is never past” quote after a week in the deep South), her style is masterful, and like Faulkner, she builds with these three novels a whole universe in the small town of Gilead. Start with Gilead to better enjoy Home.

What I’m watching:

Sex Education was the most fun series we’ve seen in ages and we binged watched it on Netflix. A British homage to John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, it feels like a mash up of American and British high schools. Focusing on the relationship of Maeve, the smart bad girl, and Otis, the virginal and awkward son of a sex therapist (played with brilliance by Gillian Anderson), it is laugh aloud funny and also evolves into more substance and depth (the abortion episode is genius). The sex scenes are somehow raunchy and charming and inoffensive at the same time and while ostensibly about teenagers (it feels like it is explaining contemporary teens to adults in many ways), the adults are compelling in their good and bad ways. It has been renewed for a second season, which is a gift.

January 3, 2019

What I’m listening to:

My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.

What I’m reading:

Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.

What I’m watching:

Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also rereadbooks I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star. The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

October 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching. And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia. It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan. Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news.

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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