#my banana allergy continues to attack me personally

[dredshirtroberts]

guess who lacks potassiuuuummmmmmmmmmm

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #101

“be the wildest of the pack, screaming amen and attack“

you run into the ex that hurt you the worst; what do you say to them? i wouldn't say anything. i'd at least hope i wouldn't, but i have a pretty big feeling i'd smile and do a really bitchy wave at him. but i'd hope i'd just smile and pass by him. do you think everything happens for a reason? i guess. do you watch stand-up comedy? i don't actively seek it out usually, but yeah. do you attend church regularly? no. personally believe you can be a perfectly good christian without going to church. what is your preferred video game console (if any)? playstation 2 had the best games. if you got a call from a friend in jail, would you bail them out? nope. one, i don't have that kind of money, and two, if you're rightfully in jail, i'm not helping your ass. do you need things thoroughly explained to you for you to understand them? yes, particularly academic stuff. have you ever felt pressured to do something you weren’t ready for?  yeah have you ever worn jeans that were red, purple, blue or pink? i used to have maroon skinny jeans. loved those things. do you have a criminal record? no. have you ever been asked out by someone you didn’t want to be with? yes. have you ever had to spend the night at a hospital? too many nights. have you ever dated someone with longer hair than yours? no. have you ever worn flip flops in the snow?  dude, it doesn't matter what the weather is, i always wear flip flops if i have to have something on my feet lol have you ever broken a heart?  i don't know, but i doubt it. ever been though a really tough breakup? it was more than "tough" have you ever struggled with substance abuse? no. how about self-harm? yeah. how long have you been listening to your favorite genre of music? since the 6th grade. what is a common misconception that people have about the country you live in?  everyone knows america's stereotypes, so i'mma talk about nc. more than anything, everyone's a redneck, according to the rest of the country. that and we're all conservative as actual fuck. do you always shut your computer down when you’re finished with it? no. do you dread filling out the about you box on most websites?  no. starting it can be kinda hard tho. did you ever have those glow in the dark stars on your ceiling? i think so... would you ever get a matching tattoo with a s/o? i actually plan on doing so once/if i get married. i want to get a simple, kinda crooked heart with the words "you're awful; i love you" written inside of it in a childish font. it's a reference to the song "love me dead" by ludo. do you have a lock number or pattern for your phone? no. just don't feel that i need to. just another thing i have to remember. what was the hardest language you’ve ever tried to learn? latin. fuck that shit. do you have any food intolerances or allergies? bananas give me heartburn that makes me want to actually die. do you have any pets? how long have you had them? teddy, 9-10 years, cali, four years, bentley, year-ish, venus, not even a month. do you prefer female or male vocalists?  don't care, but i know i listen to more males. were you ever into that gel bracelet craze?  no. what do you do when you have ‘me time’?  watch mark or more rarely listen to music, rp have you ever met someone online that you wanted to meet in real life?  just to name a few: sara, connie, mini, megan (at least, once i did), emma, shaylee... give me an example of a sick death metal band. cradle of filth, brother. have you ever worn your boyfriend's clothes?  ex's, yes. has the school ever taken away your cell phone? no. i didn't use my phone in class. is there a name that you hear and cringe? rachel. do you and your dad get along? yeah. amazingly. he had no reason to forgive me for that letter i wrote him. have you ever made your own layout for myspace? lol myspace. but no. i don't know how to do 99% of css stuff. would you rather be called cute or hot? cute. i don't like being called hot. do you use youtube more for music videos or for funny videos? funny videos. what’s your favorite thing about summer? literally the one and only thing i like about summer is swimming. would you rather own a pet polar bear or pet penguin? if it was entirely docile and you put aside the fact that they need to live in the cold, a polar bear. but considering i don't live in a cold habitat and they're not docile, realistically, a penguin. do you prefer ice cream on a cone, in a bowl, or in a cup? cone, although it's difficult for me because of my lip ring. it gets in the way lol. are you someone’s best friend? i think i'm colleen's, if you're not including her husband. do you have a secret life? kinda. would you live with someone without marrying them? yeah. do you prefer bar or liquid soap? liquid. is your favorite animal endangered? no. how many schools have you been to in your lifetime? five do you carry pain relievers with you at all times? no, but maybe i should. i get headaches a lot. have you ever done something outrageously dumb?  more than once. last person who gave you a ‘good morning’ text? no clue. maybe tyler, but i'm not sure. what is the weirdest or cutest aesthetic you enjoy? weirdest, gore. cutest, pastel goth. strawberry shortcake or strawberry cheesecake?  neither. did you ever own anything from lisa frank as a kid? SO MUCH SHIT what are your most used emoticons?  c:, ;v;, ;-;, etc. have you ever used a bath bomb?  no. who is your favorite water pokemon? vaporeon which fictional character can you not stand? hmmm. oh my god, maybe ashley from re4. she's fucking annoying. what common advice do you think never works?  for those depressed: "just do this and that, it makes you happier!" people don't fucking realize how hard it is to do simple things, and usually doing them only stresses the individual out. what seems obvious to you that doesn't seem to be for other people? in most cases, spelling. what's a joke that you like? i actually don't like things that are general, accepted jokes. they're almost always cheesy. i like more witty things that aren't intended, if that makes sense? what single thing makes someone instantly undateable to you? does drugs. how short is too short for shorts/skirts? if your ass is showing do your parents trust you? should they trust you?   yes to both. what’s your favorite led zeppelin song? "kashmir." dat beat tho. if you knew you couldn’t get caught, would you rob a bank? no way. wouldn't be able to live with myself. have you ever dated someone in the military? no. i personally wouldn't be able to. like can you say stress. ever been prescribed narcotics? yes, xanax. maybe another or so. what is an irrational fear that you have? whale sharks. there's no possible way for them to swallow a person due to their esophagi being so small, but my mind doesn't care lol best part about winter: snow<3 did you attend your high school prom?  i went when i was a sophomore because my boyfriend of the time was a senior, then i went for my senior year. would you give your bf/gf a second chance if they cheated? absolutely not. what foreign language do you wish you spoke?  german. would you rather get money or presents for your birthday?  money. buy my own shit. do you have any exes you can’t stand anymore?  i'll talk about each one that's ever had the title "boyfriend." aaron and i are fine; it was a total puppy love deal so we never had a real relationship. he was cool, but we don't really talk anymore. we're facebook friends, though. juan, yes, i can't fucking stand him because he's a goddamn pig that keeps getting into trouble. jason, i wouldn't say i can't stand him. i loved him once and will always have residual feelings for him. tyler, i wouldn't say i hate him, but i definitely want nothing to do with him. how old do you think you’ll be when you move out on your own?  that's a question i don't like to think about much. i firmly believe i'd never properly survive on my own. so probably not until i move in with a significant other or i mature a lot more to where i can handle myself living alone. what’s something people always assume about you that isn’t true? that i'm a cold person because i don't say much. people tend to think i hate humanity in general and want nothing to do with anyone. on a scale of 1-10, how much do elevators scare you?  a seven, maybe. i'm really scared of them getting stuck. do you like slim jims? they are my true loves have you ever received a hickey from the last person you kissed? that is a fucking disgusting thought that literally makes me cringe. no. do you still talk to the person you had your first kiss with? no. if you had to live off one type of fruit, which would you pick?  strawberries. kiwi is a close second. how often do you drink monster? never. tastes like poison. when is the last time you did something illegal?  a few days ago when i downloaded some songs. do you give a good back massage? well considering giving jason one always ended up becoming more than a massage... what has been the scariest experience you’ve been through? overdosing on otc things and just waiting to see how badly it would fuck me up. thankfully, it literally did nothing other than almost make me puke briefly. you can bet your ass my sinuses were clear as fuck tho lmao what’s your greatest insecurity?  weight would you strongly prefer to go out with someone of your own skin color/racial background?  nope. i don't care. say you’ve started seeing someone you really like. as far as you’re concerned, how long will it take before you have sex? there's a lot of variables here. one, i think i'm going to continue being abstinent, but i'm not entirely sure anymore. two, it depends on the person. exactly how rapidly are we becoming close to the other? is jealousy healthy in a relationship? i think it is at a very mild degree. being a bit "territorial" with your partner is a good sign, to me. it's defending someone you love and showing you don't appreciate someone else showing them romantic affection, even if you trust your partner. should evolution and creationism be taught side-by-side in school?  i personally believe both of those branches should be electives. neither should be in the mandated curriculum. have you ever cosplayed? no, but honestly, i'd love to. is it wrong to sleep in a bed/cuddle with a friend (of the sex you’re attracted to) when you’re in an exclusive relationship with someone else? cuddling, yes, but sleeping together with a person not of your preferred gender doesn't seem wrong to me. how do you feel about government-subsidized food programs (free lunch, food stamps, etc.)? they're beneficial for people who need it. do you believe that heterosexual pornography is degrading to women? why just women and heterosexual? pornography is degrading to everyone involved. do you support the exploration of outer space? if yes, would you consider taking a trip into space, or even to another planet? i think it is important, but we shouldn't spend as much money as we do on it; we need to be more concerned about the planet we live on. and i personally wouldn't. is it okay for men to wear makeup? what’s your opinion of male crossdressers?  sure. wear whatcha want. would you let your children under 13 watch movies with full nudity?  HELL NO will you teach your children to believe in santa? i don't want kids, but hypothetically, i would. i really don't like the idea of lying, but i absolutely adore my memories of my own raising believing in santa. christmas was so magical. what is your opinion concerning strip clubs?  honestly? cesspits. is there any aspect of your sexuality that you would be too embarrassed to ever share with a match? i wouldn't say "embarrassed," but i know i wouldn't like to share the fact i find penises remarkably hideous. i find both genitalia to be extremely unattractive. what’s your passion?  meerkats, youtubers, silent hill, world of warcraft bc fuckin' nerd, heavy metal music have you ever been harassed and/or bullied?  no, thank christ. pick one: crash bandicoot or spyro? SPYRO! i like crash too, though. do your parents drink? dad doesn't anymore, mom almost never does. could you forgive a boyfriend or friend who physically hurt you? fuuuuck to the no son are you a funny person? lol no how do you feel about bob marley? his voice is fucking awful when you were younger did you have a neopets account? i sure did. do you have any gay family members? yes, an uncle. do you look intimidating? besides having a serious resting bitch face, i don't know. your last ex calls wanting to hangout, what do you say? nah son. could you go the rest of your life without drinking alcohol? yeah. what’s one fruit you love in drinks? strawberries have you ever tried wine? no, don't particularly want to. i know it's really bitter. have you ever just laid outside and looked at the stars? i used to do that while catfishing with dad. it was on a cement decline for boats to get into the water, and it was pretty comfortable to just lay on your back and look up at the stars while waiting. some of my favorite memories. could you date someone shorter than you? yes?? why would height have anything to do with it?? have a crazy side? not really, no. ever been kissed by a legal adult when you were a minor (or vise-versa)? yes. i like to forget it ever happened. ever been kissed by someone you didn’t want to kiss? see above. ever been walked in on while you were making out with someone? lol almost. thank god for fast reflexes. ever stopped kissing someone because they had bad breath? ha ha yep. i don't do morning breath. ever thought of someone else while you were kissing someone? no. did the one person who hurt you the most in your life apologize? yes, but i sincerely believe he didn't mean it. what's the last thing you and your ex talked about? jason, a lot. i was trying to gain closure, and i think i did. pretty sure the last thing he really said was stop saying "i'll try" and start saying "i will" or something like that. tyler, essentially to stop fucking texting me. have you ever thought about getting your lip pierced? it's been pierced before and it is again now. are you on medication for anything? bipolarity, anxiety if i need it, birth control, and an allergy med. what was the worst mistake of your life? letting jason become the entire universe to me. could you ever be friends with somebody who was homophobic? i am friends with a homophobe. i don't necessarily "respect" her opinion, but i tolerate it. i firmly believe everyone has the right to their own. does virginity matter to you?  i personally believe you should save it for someone you really, sincerely, absolutely love and plan to stay with, but i don't demean people who don't wait. regardless though, i firmly believe that you should at least feel that you love the person. how would you describe your sense of humor?  extremely dry. ever written fanfiction for anything? believe it or not, no. i don't even read it. would you rather get a tattoo or piercing? a tat do you listen to a band a lot of people don’t seem to know about?  ugh, otep is agonizingly underrated. how do you feel about children swearing? i'm against it. i believe a certain level of maturity is required to really know when it's appropriate to swear or not. what's a unique thing about your fashion sense? probably the fact i can look like a geek one second then a goth the next lol how do you feel about your weight?  i loathe it, but i feel better about it ever since finding out my weight gain wasn't my fault; it was a mood stabilizer i was on for a year or more called abilify. it's unbelievable how much that shit fucked me over, and it did absolutely nothing in terms of my mental health. my current psychiatrist pointed out how it absolutely destroys your metabolism, and he was honestly stunned when i told him no one else that i'd been seeing pointed that shit out, especially my primary doctor, who had some training in psychiatric meds; and the disgusting thing is, she occasionally acted angry towards me about it and really did make it seem like i didn't care about my health and wasn't trying. ugh. i am still remarkably bitter that i'd been put on a medicine that has a side effect of weight gain anyway considering i've explicitly told every psychiatrist i've ever seen DO FUCKING NOT put me on something that causes weight gain, because i've been through it before and worked my ass off to lose all the weight i'd gained from paxil years before. but thankfully, since being taken off abilify and loads other medications, i've been losing weight rapidly since my body can no longer sustain what i'd gained. it helps that my appetite has returned to normal; well, maybe even less than normal, but i'm not complaining. like it's brazenly obvious it was medication considering it's not like i started exercising or something, and i haven't gone on some diet. i legitimately pray that i can return to what i used to weigh. do you like to comment on other people's surveys?  only on close friend's. do you have any racist friends? yes, and it's the same story with the homophobe: i don't like your opinion, but i'm not going to generalize you as a whole terrible person just because of one belief. i'll never agree with you, but still. do you wear glasses? what style do you like better?  yeah. mine are kinda like big, geeky ones. do you prefer lemons or limes? lemons. would you consider your voice high, low, or in the middle? definitely low for a woman. any songs that make you laugh out loud when you hear them?  "i just had sex" by the lonely island ft. akon will, at the bare minimum, always make me smile. it's so silly. was your first kiss perfect? i wouldn't have had it any other way. how do you handle breakups? welp. if jason's and mine was any indication, i sob for over a year straight, get PTSD from it, want to die daily, and y'know, shit like that. i couldn't be more thankful that i'm over that shit. if you had to get a tattoo, where would you get it? there's a few that i'm debating on being my next. there's a big, very detailed one i want on my right, upper arm, but i'm sure it won't be my next because it's going to be fucking expensive. one that has a good chance of being my next is a cool design i found that is geometric and has a badass-looking ram in the center, then in an arch over it, i want the lyrics "maybe i'm a misfit, maybe i'm different; it will never be an average existence" from "rise, rebel, resist" by otep. i think it looks really cool with the design because the graphic kinda radiates a sort of dominant, resilient aura. i'm not sure where i'd get it, though. another that has a good possibility being next is a design that has a few tiny koi fish going around the wrist in a slight angle. it's really cute; i'd get it on the top of my left wrist. i also like this triangular design that has a watercolor, fire-like texture sprayed over it; in a pretty chiseled font, I want "Gefährlich ist wer Schmerzen kennt" ("whoever knows pain is dangerous") written over it, from "feuer frei" by rammstein. i'd get it on top of my right hand. this one has a high chance of being my next one considering the budget will probably be kinda small. lastly, another with a good shot is getting the anxiety ribbon with the lyrics "you can't kill what you did not create" (from "just when you thought we couldn't get any more emo, we go and pull a stunt like this" by motionless in white; yes, seriously) beside it. i'm thinking of getting it on my right forearm, on the side. WOW that was long pardon me and my tattoo ideas. do you wear your seat belt in the car? always. what's your biggest turn off? if you believe illnesses are only real if they're physical, i will immediately fucking hate you. like i know i say a lot i respect other's opinions, but that is one i will never, ever, tolerate. have you ever set a marshmallow on fire? yes. i'm awful at roasting marshmallows. thinking back to your relationships, who ended it? counting everyone who's had the "boyfriend" title, plus a "friend" who i briefly acted like more with: me, me, me, him, me. do you know anyone who's been arrested? i think i don't... have you ever tried to reconnect with someone from your past, but were unable to find them/get in touch with them? multiple online friends. do you believe that the more that you give, the more you will get?  in general, but not always. what is something you've recently discovered that you're absolutely in love with? how did you come across it? this is by no means recent, but the last thing i discovered that i fell in love with was rhett and link, whom i started to watch daily over a year ago. i was first exposed to them by my ex, but back then, i never watched them with him. big mistake lol. i actually don't recall how i re-discovered them... what was the first social network website you joined?  myspace. what is the worst natural disaster you've experienced firsthand? hurricane floyd. do you like to receive feedback on things you've made or done? i mean, sure. it's nice to see what others think. do you own any webkinz? ... i have ~40 in a bag in our attic. do you swoon over british accents?  O BOI do you prefer wolves or foxes? foxes. do you prefer opossums or raccoons?  opossums are cuter. did you ever have tea parties when you were little? only if nicole wanted to. she had this disney princess tea set that she loved to play with. choose one character: pooh, tigger, piglet, eeyore? eeyore was adorable. tigger's cool too, tho. choose one character: mickey, minnie, donald, daisy, goofy, pluto?  goofy do you listen to kpop, jpop, or cpop? no. have an acquaintance who's obsessed, though. which baby animal is your favorite? meerkats. like, have you seen pups?? chocolate or strawberry milk?  strawberry milk is fucking repulsive, so chocolate. does your job allow piercings or tattoos? currently unemployed, but i wouldn't work anywhere that didn't allow either. do you like rollercoasters? never been on one, probably never will. i'm too scared of throwing up. how old is your oldest and youngest friend? oldest, 30 or 31. youngest, 17. did you tease freshmen in high school? no, why would i?? i was one at some point. what is your favorite... bird? mammal? reptile? fish?  barn owl; meerkat; cobra; koi, maybe. what's your favorite bubblegum flavor?  i really like that watermelon one from i think hubba bubba? tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? i got a moose from the huge cabela's hunting store in ohio when i was young, and i named it brownie. i have him still sitting on my dresser<3 what are your favorite memes of the year so far? this is such a millennial question lol. are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?  hateclub. idk, i just find them remarkably annoying. have you ever been a featured member on any website? yes. a sh fan site. do you prefer hot chocolate with or without marshmallows? without, but i can do both. who’s the last person you had a sleepover with? chelsea. who do you talk to about personal problems? sara, more than anyone <3 what would you do if you got pregnant? be fucking terrified, angry, but keep the baby, but give it up for adoption. when was your first kiss? 2012 ideal weather conditions? like 55 degrees, cloudy. the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done? if it's the *most* embarrassing thing i've ever done, why would i want to talk about it? can you name 5 people that you used to be close to, but aren’t anymore? explain why. 1.) megan - she lied to me about essentially everything. 2.) mini - she just... stopped talking to me and now only does on her time. 3.) jason - he just about ruined my entire life so i no longer want any association with him. 4.) brianna - she found a new group of friends in middle school. 5.) jenna - we also just kinda stopped talking. it was hard to keep up considering we never went to the same school. she did call me the last time i was in the hospital though, which i thought was incredibly sweet. have you ever been told that you were good in bed? not explicitly, but i think the actions spoke for themselves. do you think you would make a good mother? no. i don't like being around others a lot and also don't fancy being responsible for another person. then there's the fact that there's a chance that after investing all that time into someone, (s)he could just grow up hating me. do you hate slang words like ‘tits’ and ‘shag’? depends on the word. do you ever watch wildlife shows? they're my favorite shows. would you pose naked in front of a million people for a million? no, actually. i am way too self-conscious and the embarrassment wouldn't be worth it. do you download music illegally? yes. been a habit i've had too long to break. favorite snapchat filter? i don't use snapchat, but of those that i know, i like the flower crown one. ... or is that instagram? idk. what's the worst thing you have ever done? acting in a way i shouldn't have with "just a friend." how many times have you been to the hospital? too many times. i don't know anymore. maybe six. top 10 favorite songs? in no order, here are some that i really enjoy atm: 1.) "false flags" by massive attack; 2.) "do i wanna know?" by arctic monkeys; 3.) "third day of a seven day binge" by marilyn manson; 4.) "pumped up kicks" by foster the people; 5.) "trap door" by ozzy osbourne; 6.) "face down" by red jumpsuit apparatus; 7.) "milk and cookies" by melanie martinez; 8.) "deep six" by marilyn manson; 9.) "daddy issues" by the neighbourhood; 10.) "why'd you only call me when you're high?" by arctic monkeys. i'm sure they're more that i like more than some, but i can't think of all right now. what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc) dry in most places, oily on my face. what is your crush’s first and last initial? DM are you going to change your last name when you get married? yes. what is your favorite condiment to go with french fries?  ketchup do you like to eat stir fry?  ew. what color is your mp3 player?  my ipod's hot pink. have you ever laid in a hammock? yeah. we used to have one. have you ever lost a pet in a tragic way? how did you cope?  our goldendoodle got spleen cancer and declined in health in literally like a week. he had to be put down, and i was there for it. it was hard to get over. what can’t you go a day without doing?  eat, drink, use the bathroom, watch mark & do other shit online, watch gmm if it's a weekday. have you ever led someone on? why did you do so? don’t you think that it’s mean to do that? rather just not talk about it. i was a stupid kid. do you like gore? ... it's my aesthetic lol. but i have my limits about it. do you own any choker/collar necklaces? i have multiple. my favorite doesn't fit anymore and the other probably doesn't either. did you have a “scene” phase? no, i had an emo phase lol do you find it easy to trust others? nope if your s/o smoked pot/did drugs would you care?  i wouldn't date him if so. do you like hickeys? i don't not like them if they're private. what time do you go to bed? any time from like 10:30 to 3:00 or so. do you hate the person you fell hardest for? no, but i don't like him. do you curse around your parents?  totally open with dad, usually don't say "fuck" around mom. are you monogamous or do you prefer open-ended relationships?  monogamous ever made out with a friend? no. how would you rate your sex drive? normal, i'd say. if you had to have a color for a name, what color would it be?  uhhh. of those off the top of my head, maybe blue. if you had kids, would you worry about what they did online? of course i would. the internet has some things kids should never see. i doubt i'd go through their history though, if i'm being honest. i'd hold issue with that if my mom did it, so i'm sure my own kids would. have you gone mental?  oh you have no idea. would you take your kids to visit a black santa clause? why or why not?  yes?? what the fuck is this question?? do you remember the first conversation you had with the person you have feelings for? i don't remember, i just know he first called me "lip ring girl" because he didn't know my name lol do you know your best friend’s middle name?  colleen, and i think sara's is jane, but i'm actually not sure if that's just part of her first name. have you had sex with a black person? no, but i'm not opposed to it. have you ever had a serious conversation with your dad?  yes. he took me out to lunch one day and we talked about my recovering from jason. do gay, lesbians, bisexuals or transgender people bother you? nope. can you tolerate children for a long period of time? NO. just another reason i shouldn't be a mom. have you ever became attracted to someone you weren’t at first because their personality made you find them physically attractive?  yeah, jason. were you more fond of swings, monkey bars, or seesaws as a child?  boi i charged for the swings every time. what is the worst way to break up with someone? through text/any kind of messenger, omg. what must you have in order to sleep well at night? a fan on. what will you name your future son or daughter? i don't want kids, but if i did, the girl would 100% be alessandra and the boy would probably be luther. have you ever thrown a party for a pet? no, but i always give teddy a peanut butter sandwich "cake" for his birthday. what do you consider the greatest threat to mankind? greed. what is your favorite thing to do with your girls? just chill. if your one true love hit you would you still love him? fuck that shit. would you want to meet the man of your dreams if he dies in a year? no. like can you say traumatic. how did you meet your best friend(s)? colleen, girl scouts. sara, youtube. who introduced you to the band you love? all others besides ozzy, metallica, and korn, myself. what song reminds you of your first love? "easy to love you" by theory of a deadman. i couldn't listen to it after the breakup until very recently. what do you think of teenagers getting married? probably a bad choice. it works sometimes, sure, but you still have a lot of growing up to do. what movie that johnny depp plays in do you really like? "alice in wonderland" can you introduce yourself to a new person easily? NOOOOOO which disney princess had to go through the most pain? good question! maybe rapunzel? like can you imagine being locked in a tower for that long?? do you believe you can only be in love once? absolutely not. do you believe in premarital sex? i have mixed feelings. i'm more accepting of it than i used to be, tho. “once a cheater always a cheater.” true or false? no. just because you cheated once doesn't doom you to cheat again. do you believe its possible to fall out of love? yes, i lived through that experience. do you know your blood type? yes, a- are you catholic? i was raised roman catholic, but i'm not anymore. what kind of job did your mom have when you were growing up?  she was an assistant teacher for the special needs kids. have you ever stayed up all night on the phone?  this one time with jason. do you think that fishing and hunting are wrong and why or why not?  hunting is wrong if you don't eat the meat, imo. i have no problems with fishing because it doesn't kill the animal. what do you put on your french fries?  ketchup, sometimes. do you like mustard? yup. what’s the funniest nickname you have?  i don't really have a funny nickname. would you ever keep your favorite animal as a pet?  no. meerkats are very destructive pets. it's not legal in the u.s., anyway. what is something you eat but everybody else thinks it’s gross?  i've heard a lot of people don't like peanut butter. which celebrities would you have a threesome with? i wouldn't have a threesome with anybody. i don't support them. favorite character from "finding nemo"? it's always been dory. through time, i've also developed a respect for gill. do you change your type of music regularly? my music "type" hasn't changed since i was in the 6th grade. ever met somebody who seem like they hated life? i know a lot of people like that. do you look forward to the spring? absolutely not. welcome to the life of one allergic to pollen. which area of the sciences do you enjoy the most? genetics do you care about your weight? of course i do, everyone should. if you could spend the day doing absolutely anything with anyone anywhere, what would it be like? go to the zoo with my mom. is there anyone who lives in the same house as you that you can’t stand? nicole's dog. i tolerate him, but i do not like him. are all of your friends virgins?  to ask an adult if all their friends are virgins, realistically, has an obvious answer. not saying all adults aren't virgins, but you get me. it's more rare. but who are virgins and who isn't is none of my business. who's the last person who gave you a "good morning" text?  girt messaged me good morning via facebook, if that counts? i don't text a lot of people, so no one really tells me good morning. do you have something you’re supposed to tell someone, but you haven’t yet? no. do you like going to museums? yeah! what is a cliche thing that happens a lot in anime? the most unique-looking character is always the protagonist. if you believe in a god or higher being, do you think that they are vengeful and will punish you for your wrongdoings? vengeful, no. will one be punished, probably. what is your favorite scene from your favorite film?  it's super cool when alice fights the jabberwocky. do you have a hard time being around people whose opinions on alcohol and drugs differ from yours? nope. so long you don't do drugs or drink excessively around me, i don't care. what is something you thought could/would never happen to you that has happened to you? i attempted suicide. how often do you get on facebook? sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes none at all. do you think girls deserve more respect just cause they are girls? no, that's ridiculous. is there anything specifically that you’ve been worrying about a lot recently?  job stuff. where do you spend a majority of your time when you’re at home? i am literally always in my room. which deadly sin are you most guilty of?  sloth. who makes you feel the most unappreciated?  my grandmother. if heaven and hell are real, which one are you going to?  i ask myself that. there are a number of things in the old testament that i 110% disagree with, but then there's the fact that according to the bible, jesus' resurrection is kinda what nullified the "old" sins. hence why, for example, christians can eat pork or whatever. the old and new testaments are what separate christians from jews. but i'm quite sure the more "common sense" sins weren't suddenly made fine, but hell, how do we really know what's a "common sense" sin to a god and which ones aren't? idk. have you ever seen your dad cry? i've seen him tear up only once in my life. have you ever had a pet rat?  tezzeret, rhoka, rhett, link. i want another pair. could you go a year without sex? i've gone 21 years without it, so. do you like pudding? chocolate pudding, yes. what’s your favorite kind of doughnut? i like original cake, glazed, and chocolate frosted. do you ever trip over your pets? occasionally, teddy especially. teddy always lies on the side of my bed when i'm there, and he will not move when i get up for something until he's sure i'm not coming back to the room, so i have to step over him. do you think polygamy is wrong or acceptable? i don't support it. what is one natural disaster you are afraid of? TORNADOES do your wrists ever hurt from typing too much? that's some amateur shit, brother. haven't had that issue for years. is there any song that makes you think of your dad? "sweet child o' mine" by guns n' roses. if i ever get married, i really want that to be the father/daughter dance, although i don't see how to really dance to it... have you ever taken a picture of you kissing someone? once. what is the last thing you did on powerpoint? a final project for my art class my senior year. if you were upset, who’s the first girl you would go to? sara, most likely. are you afraid of falling in love? yes, because i'm afraid of being hurt. could you forgive your best friend for sleeping with your bf/gf? definitely not. if you’ve ever had and quit a job, did you actually call in and quit or put in your two weeks notice or did you just stop showing up? my first boss and i talked in the back room and he was so understandable. he was super chill and a great guy. second job, i texted my boss. do you tend to baby or take care of the people you date, or do you tend to date alpha types that take care of you? both. depends on situations in regards to how i act. how would you feel if the person you were interested in refused to perform oral sex on you? fuck, i'd be happy. i don't like oral. honestly, does it bother you when your friends make questionable choices? or are you usually unaffected by how others live their lives? of course i care, because i care for them. i don't want them to make mistakes that they'll regret. have your parents ever expressed interest in you taking up a certain profession or hobby? they don’t have to have had pressured you into it, but maybe just as a suggestion? yes, my mom reminds me i should be a vet a lot. hypothetically speaking, if you ever give birth to a son, would you have him circumcised? yes, for health purposes. do you ever get frustrated because you have great ideas for a talent you don’t have? for example, you have a good idea for a song but you don’t play an instrument so you can’t share it, or you have a great idea for a video but don’t know how to use video software, etc. yep, with drawing. i can picture things so vividly, but when it comes to drawing them... nnnope. who was the last person you talked to on skype/video chat? we've never actually video chatted, but sam and i used to use skype for voice chat every day when we played wow together. does your significant other/crush know about your tumblr? does he/she look at it? no, but i wouldn't be embarrassed if he did. but he'd probably judge me for it being a fandom trashcan lmao have you ever had shower sex?  no, and i never want to. sounds uncomfortable and dangerous as fuck. did you masturbate today? i don't masturbate. do you believe in karma as in “what goes around comes around?” no. not everyone who has done wrong ever gets what should be coming to them. how many brothers does your father have?  none. does your best friend have any tattoos?  sara, no, colleen, yes. are you a skittles person, or an m&m person?  skittles have you ever had a seizure?  no what was your gpa in high school? over a 4.0 are you better at telling stories or writing them?  writing them. name a band that you can’t decide whether you like them or not.  i pretty much know whether i like a band or not. nothing's coming to mind. what’s one word that annoys you when people use it out of context?  "retarded." don't fucking abuse it around me. what fast food restaurant(s) can you absolutely not stand?  arby's. ew. does it annoy you when people say “omg” or “idk” in a normal conversation?  it's a weird pet peeve i have, yes. do you have any best friends that you only know online? most of the best friends i've ever had are online. are you afraid of needles?  no. like don't get me wrong, the needles used for shots make me uneasy because they're so long, but i think that's kinda natural. do you have any plans set out for your future? if so, what are they? obtain a steady job, hopefully as a photographer, probably get married before moving to the mountains of nc because fuck the coastal plain. have you ever had a concussion? if so, what from?  yes. i passed out and landed on my chin. do gay people make you uncomfortable? no, unless i'm being flirted with. have you ever heard of the cranberries?  i've heard of their song "zombie," which i enjoy. who has the ability to hurt you the most emotionally?  my mom. do you have the same political views as your parents? we're all mostly conservative, but we have some varying views. be honest, do you miss your ex? not anymore, no. if he couldn't handle me at my worst, then i don't need him. if you have siblings, who do you think will be married first, you or them?  i'll go through them. ashley is married, misty's in a serious relationship so maybe she will be next, i don't think bobby or katie are dating anyone, nicole's got a boyfriend but so do i, so between us two, idk. do you like pastel colored hair?  omf aesthetic are there any cracks or scuffs on your phone?  no. how old were you when you got your first car?  i haven't had my own car. do you feed your leftovers to your dogs?   teddy will get something occasionally because he doesn't fucking beg like cali and bentley. what tricks does your pet do?   teddy can sit, say hello (shake), lie down, and say please (beg).  cali can sit.  bentley can't do jack shit. who is your favorite character on your favorite television show?   fma: edward elrich; that '70s show: probably hyde. who is your pet most attached to in your family?   teddy, me.  cali, mom.  bentley, also mom because nicole gives him zero fucking attention.  i'm the only one who gives venus attention because yeah, snake. out of all the colors of the rainbow, which one is your favorite?   assuming shades and tints are not included, purple or red. would you ever be interested in going on a proper african safari?  OMG YAAAAAAAAS if you had to be a teacher, what subject would you be able to teach best?  english have your parents met the person you’re currently interested in?   mom knows him well, dad's seen him a good number of times before the divorce. are your eyes the same color as your siblings’ eyes?  only bobby and i have blue eyes. do you prefer glazed or powdered donuts?   glazed. when you first meet somebody, do you stick out your hand for them to shake?   i usually don't initiate it, no. do you know someone who has asthma?   yes, my mother and grandmother what is the most controversial thing you've done?   uhhh... download music, maybe?? how many people have you kissed in your life?   three, but i like to pretend one never happened. what’s your favorite restaurant?   olive garden. do you act on impulse or do you think things through?   it varies depending on the situation. do you think the usa bullies other countries?   sometimes, honestly, yes. have you ever taken a shower with someone else?   with my little sister as a kid. can you taste the difference between pepsi and coke?   immediately. what was your first pet? do you still have this pet?   a beautiful collie named trigger; she was my dad's dog.  but no, she died when i was very little, so i barely remember her.  don't remember how she died.  i was told she swallowed her tongue, but i know you can't technically do that, so. what is your favorite thing to learn about?   meerkats. who’s one person who changed how you viewed something?   a number of people. what annoys you most in a person?   um.  maybe closed-mindedness?  intolerance? whose bed did you sleep in last that wasn’t yours?   colleen's. in a relationship, do you think about the future, or now?   both.  you need to consider both if you want a healthy relationship. are you a patient person?   NO.  i am the most impatient fucking person. are you pale or tan or kind of an in-betweener?   the irish is strong in this one. is life pointless?   i fail to believe we'd be here if it was. would you ever spy on a boyfriend/girlfriend if you were suspicious?   no, what the fuck.  be an adult and be upfront about it. when was the last time you were bitten by an animal? what kind of animal was it?   some weeks ago by our dog bentley, but it was just a playful nip.  he needs to learn to stop doing it, though. what was the last band or artist you discovered?   boyfriend's kinda got me into powerwolf.  heard of them a looong time ago, but never actually listened to them. do you have a favorite song by the cure?   "she sells sanctuary" are there things you’ve never told for fear that others would judge you?   yes. can sex ever be casual?  i do believe it's possible to have it casually, but i don't support it. what celebrity are you dreading the future death of?  there are many.  there are some who i think when they die, i will probably die with them. do you neglect your friends when you have a significant other?   no. do you own a gun?  no.  i know i by law can't because of my suicidal and depressed history, but i'm unsure if those i live with can for the same reason. if you had to delete one year of your life, which year would it be?   20fucking16 what is your favorite christmas song?   if you wanna count "the nightmare before christmas" songs bc who the fuck knows if that movie's more about halloween or christmas, i love fall out boy's cover of "what's this?"  if i can't include the movie's soundtrack, i like "the most wonderful time of the year." what is something that has really impacted your life?   more than anything, my breakup. what did you and your ex fight about most?  me and jason, uhhh... i don't really know?  we argued sometimes, yes, but i can't really think of a main topic...  as for tyler and me, we only fought once and that was the end of it. do you have a foot phobia?  it's not a phobia, but omg i still hate feet are you embarrassed by any of the songs in your itunes?   lol yes.  my collection of melanie martinez songs is so random. do you like raisins?  omg no have you ever gone on vacation with your boyfriend/girlfriend?   not with my current one, nor with any exes. have you met the last person you kissed's parents?  no.  known each other seven years and i have literally never seen his parents lmao have you ever been to a sports game?  yeah.  dad and i have been to like three hockey games. do people ever misspell your name?   yes.  people want to spell it as "brittney" all the time. have you ever had roommates?   yes.  when jason and i lived together, our friends, who were also a couple, lived with us. have you ever made a sex tape?   no, and i never would. do/did you skip class?   never one class exclusively.  i would fake sick to stay home occasionally lol have you ever felt yourself fainting?   twice.  one occasion where i did, and another not that long after where i know without a doubt i would've if i hadn't gotten down on my knees. have you ever been friends with someone with bipolar disorder?   yes. who’s the last boy to make you cry?   jason last girl?   my mom has anyone ever threatened you?   yes. would you ever own a rat?   i've had four and would like two more, but this time from a breeder.  i just don't like getting pets from pet stores... they honestly give no shits about them. has your mouth ever been washed out with soap?   no, but i'd be threatened with it as a kid. would you genuinely be okay with having a woman as president?   yes??  what the fuck is this question?? what’s the worst feeling in the world?   heartbreak, in various forms. what’s something you wish you could take back?   things i don't want to talk about. what happens to you when you get nervous?   i sweat, my heartrate goes up, i fidget a lot, i knead my hands, and i stutter badly. have you ever snuck out? how many times?   no. who’s the first person you kissed, and would you like a do-over?   jason, and no. who scares you?   jason, because i know what he was capable of. what’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do in your life?   learn to let jason go. do you prefer cupcakes or muffins?   muffins do you and your dad get along?   yes.  i wrote him a letter after the divorce though that he never should've forgiven me for, but he did.  he is a wonderful person that i am so so thankful for. <3 who was your high school crush?   first was kyle, then girt, then jason. do your nails grow out round or square?   round have you ever been on crutches?  no. did your mom sing to you when you were young?   i don't think so. does your boyfriend have a job?   way to assume everyone has a boyfriend.  but whatever.  yes. do your siblings dye their hair?   no. did you have a role model growing up?   yes, steve irwin. what's the greatest lost you've endured?   jason. is there a situation or person you haven't been able to get over, forgive or what-have-you?   i'm over him, but i haven't exactly "forgiven" jason. did you give anyone their first kiss?  no. what animal did you last pet or hold?  pet, dog, hold, snake. were you born perfectly healthy or with some (or a lot) of health issues?   i was perfectly healthy. did you ever catch any bugs or insects with your friends as a kid?  me and my neighbor hunter would catch SO MANY bugs. have you ever been disrespectful to one or both of your parents?   yes to both. do you believe in sex before marriage? is it against your religion?   eh, mixed feelings.  i think abstinence is for me tho.  as for if it's against my religion, i actually don't know if it's mentioned in the new testament, so idk. when you sign your name do you use your middle name?   no. do you have a shower curtain or door?   curtain has anyone ever mistaken you for being gay/lesbian/bi?   i've been mistaken as gay before. does the thought of being pregnant gross you out?   let's be real here, pregnancy is disgusting. did you ever have to share a room with one of your siblings?   my younger sister and i did when we were little. do you remember those "the land before time" movies and if so, who was your favorite character?   i loved those movies.  pretty sure my favorite was littlefoot. what band, musical artist or song do you feel you’ll never get sick of?   more than anyone, ozzy and metallica.  my first metal loves. do you think you’ll be a good mother/father?   no, and thus i don't want kids. is it hard leaving people behind?   if you actually gave a shit about the person, it always is. do you watch "the walking dead"?   no, i don't watch tv. have you ever had to get a tooth pulled? if so, what for?   no, but i may have to get this wisdom tooth on my bottom left jaw out.  it causes me to bite my cheek a lot. if you’ve ever babysat, do you like it?   i did once and i never will again. have either of your parents gone to jail?   no. do you know a hoarder?   i know two. what’s a reasonable amount of time before two people get engaged?   i mean... it depends.  people get close at different rates.  but i'd probably be doubtful if it was any less than like two years. what’s something you’ve done that not many people can say they have?   uhhhh... hm.  i don't really know.  i mean not many people can say they've been to a mental hospital at least five fucking times, but that's nothing to be proud of. what tv shows did you grow up watching?   just to name a few: "pokemon," "bear in the big blue house," "rugrats," "spongebob squarepants," "the amanda show," "rolie polie olie," "the crocodile hunter," etc...  lots of stuff on nick, disney, and animal planet. what were your favorite toys to play with as a child?   these plastic dinosaurs that i had. do you enjoy the arctic monkeys?  they have three songs i really love, one being one of my all-time faves.  i've heard a few others that are all right. what type of criminal would you be?   i wouldn't be a criminal to begin with.  but if you're asking like, what am i most likely to do to make me one?  idk. do you get attached easily?   once you start showing me i can trust you, yes.  but i don't mean this in a romantic sense; i learned my damn lesson.  i'm doubtful and very cautious when getting attached romantically, but as far as friendships go, once i think you're all right?  yeah, i get attached. what were you like when you were a kid?   i was hyper, weird, and really talkative.  only thing i've maintained is the weirdness lol would you go against your moral code for money?   no.  i have a really devout moral compass. what is your happiest childhood memory?   really, i have a lot.  the memory of me waking up early to play any of the original "spyro" games is strong with me.  i also used to love swimming on the first day of spring with nicole; we'd always pester dad to put the pool up as soon as spring was here.  we wouldn't even wait for the water to warm up lol.  then i have a distinct memory of dad teaching me to ride a bike, and i loved that.  playing baseball with dad was fun, too.  all things considered, i had a good childhood. have you ever had an imaginary friend?   no. if you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?   that's a hard question, but i'd probably take away greed.  it is the fuel behind a LOT of things. is there someone you don’t ever want to be out of your life?   many people, but more than anyone, my mom.  i have no fucking clue where i'd be without her. do you think you can love someone without trusting them?   not sincerely, no. what is a career you dream of pursuing but realistically you shouldn’t?   meerkat biologist.  i wouldn't survive in the heat. do you like 80s music?   quite a bit, mostly '80s metal. what kind of food is your favorite? (Ex. mexican, chinese, thai, etc.)   american how would you feel if you were drafted for the military?   NNNNNNOPE who is your favorite harry potter character?   i don't know much about hp. what is your favorite queen song?   "bohemian rhapsody" is the only correct answer what topics are you really shy about and don’t like discussing?   i don't talk about my hobbies period. who did you last pinky promise with?   probably colleen. do you drink bottled water?   if i absolutely have to drink water, i'll get it from a bottle or preferably a water filter that's been in the fridge.  i can't drink tap water. do you donate blood?   i did once in high school, but i don't think i will again.  it was a very stressful experience for me because i was afraid of fainting. have you ever swam in a river?   yeah.  welcome to the south. in what month do you start christmas shopping?  i don't have my own money, so i can't christmas shop to begin with. have you ever posted a question on yahoo questions?   no. do you still have clothes from your high school dances?   i have both my prom dresses have you ever felt manipulated?   yes. what is your stance on getting revenge?   childish. do you have a ceiling fan located in your bedroom?  no, but mom wants to install one.  my room is extremely hot, and the one desk fan i have in here is far from enough. disney’s "frozen": yay or nay?   nay.  so disappointing.  the pacing was awful and the story was so predictable. what does your best friend think of the person you love/like?   sara doesn't know him, colleen loves him. ever thought you knew someone, but it was all a big lie?   meet my former best friend. any music videos make you cry?   "hurt" by johnny cash really gets me, as well as "one" by metallica, but i wouldn't say i cry. do you delete people from facebook if their views are vastly different than yours?   no.  however, if they start pushing their views on me or straight-up bash mine, then yes. do you like to climb trees?   i wouldn't know, as i've never climbed one.  like 99% of trees here in nc are pine trees, so no branches are low enough to climb. have you ever played the "tomb raider" games?   omg so we had two.  i remember buying the first one, but my brother had the second one, i'm pretty sure.  might have been the first.  i got too frustrated with the first one, which i played as a teenager, but when i was very young, my sister and i loved the second one.  only our brother was good at it, but ashley and i would love to play and always lure the old butler into the freezer lmao. beatles or rolling stones?   i legitimately only like one song by the beatles.  i enjoy the rolling stones. what is your favorite accent?   british or scottish what was your first favorite band?   green day do you feel uncomfortable sharing drinks with other people?   yes. do you call any of your friends by their last name?   i call my boyfriend by a portion of his last name have you ever cried in school?   yes, but only in the bathroom comes to the top of my head. do you remember the first computer game you ever played?   not the absolute first, but i remember "putt-putt," "freddie the fish," "oregon trail," then there was this one i LOVED where i think some friends were preparing for a friend's birthday?  i think it was a lion?  i have very strong memories of a game that it think is called "amazon trail 3;" i played that game obsessively. were you baptized?  yes.

[emetoandotherthings]

Damian’s Coeliac Saga ~Pt 6

A/N: Sorry this has taken me a bit of time, I promised @its-a-goddamn-heartbreak​ that I’d include a scene with Emilia, and perhaps Jude is being a little more grown up and showing the budding sweetheart that we know, rather than the twelve year old snotbag he’s been so far! So anyway... I hope you enjoy! 😁

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 |

Fatigue – with excessive tiredness, lack of concentration, dips in mood. Damian was sitting at his desk and had torn a sheet of paper out from his A4 refill pad and set it next to the homework he was trying to complete, but was unable to focus as his mind kept wandering back to the worries that had been plaguing him. He’d decided that if he wrote down how he’d been feeling then it might be out of his mind for long enough to finish his homework, then he could look it up online later. Upset stomach – including bloating, cramps, nausea, vomiting, and weight loss (?). He was writing down everything in a bullet point list; he could practically see the worried look that had been plastered on Cain’s face on Friday and Saturday, then the residual concern since they’d been back at school. He was only glad that Cain had been in different classes from him when the pain had flared up while he was in Chemistry. He’d tried to hold it in as long as he could, gritting his teeth and pressing a hand to his bloated abdomen, until his teacher Dr. Stephen put his hand onto Damian’s shoulder and asked if he was feeling okay. As soon as Damian shook his head, he’d been told to pack up his books and go home. He’d felt awful, both physically and mentally; he was beginning to think that something might actually be really wrong…    Mouth ulcers. Cold extremities. He couldn’t think of anything else that could be at all relevant, so he pushed that scrap of paper to the side, and went back to copying a neater version of a plot timeline for his English personal study. The pain in his abdomen as he clutched a hot water bottle onto it, and sipped at a glass of water he’d refilled every time he drank it. As he slid his ruler back into his stationery drawer and pinned the plan for the essay he was yet to write up onto his noticeboard above his desk, his eyes fell again on the scrap of paper that he’d written his “symptoms” down on to.  He was well aware that googling his symptoms was not advisable, especially as a budding medic, but at this moment it was the only way that he could get any kind of reassurance without causing any more worry to anyone else. Flicking his laptop back to life, he soon found himself on a well known symptom checking website, feeding in everything that he’d written down and watching as the ‘conditions associated with selected symptoms’ refined themselves. When he’d fed in the nine symptoms he could find on the system there was a list of twenty possibilities; he picked up his pen again and began to go through them one by one, dismissing those that he knew were ridiculous. Gastroenteritis couldn’t go on for three weeks and surely wouldn’t be so intermittent; the same went for food poisoning. Despite his mum’s concern, Damian was pretty sure he wasn’t having panic attacks – if anything he was more stressed out after the periods of cramp and nausea than he was before; and he crossed out depression with that as well. He was fairly sure he wasn’t suffering from a drug allergy unless someone was poisoning him, and the plausibility of iron poisoning almost ludicrous. So he was left with a list that he wrote down so he could research each one individually. Irritable Bowel Syndrome; Giardiasis; Intestinal ischaemia / obstruction; Ulcerative Colitis; Anaemia; Hyperthyriodism; Intestinal ileus; Chronic Kidney disease; cystic fibrosis; inflammatory bowel disease; Thalassemia. Damian’s heart was pounding as he stared down at the list. He knew most of the words in the list and was perturbed to realise that a lot of them were either serious or chronic. The one that leapt out at him straight away was ‘anaemia’ – he knew his mum had been on iron tablets at some point… Could that be it? Perhaps there was some kind of genetic trait to it? Cautiously Damian circled that option on the list and began to research the other, more alarming, possibilities on the list.

“Dami – “ Jude trailed off as he entered the doorway of his brother’s bedroom. He couldn’t honestly say that he was surprised to find Damian with his head down on his arms at his desk, asleep. Jude shook his head, chuckling slightly as he padded along behind his brother, intending to give him a fright and wake him up. He’d raised his hands in preparation, but as he reached the back of Damian’s chair he saw the list poking out from under his brother’s arm and stopped dead, his eyes scanning down a plethora of symptoms and illness. Jude’s heart seemed to freeze inside his chest as he stared at his brother – he was so pale, and the cheek that Jude could see was hollow from the cheekbone down. His arms had dropped back to his side as the will to frighten Damian had vanished; clearly Damian was worried, worried enough to be researching it. Jude felt bad – he’d been teasing and berating his brother for being a wuss, he’d actually been feeling ill… Gently he put his hands onto Damian’s shoulders and gave them a light squeeze. “Damian… It’s time for dinner.” “Hmmmm?” Damian raised his head from his arms, blinking blearily and Jude took a hasty step back so Damian couldn’t see that he’d been able to see the list on the desk. “It’s dinner time,” Jude repeated as Damian rubbed his hand across his face. “Oh okay,” he stretched his arms above his head, “I’ll be down in a moment.” Jude left Damian’s room without saying anything else, but as he descended the stairs he was still thinking about the list of symptoms that Damian had written.

Damian shuffled his steak pie around his plate, mashing down his potatoes further so it looked like he had eaten something; his stomach was still feeling tender after the cramps of this afternoon. This wasn’t fooling his mum though, as after a couple of minutes she pointed towards his plate. “Mushing it down like that isn’t going to convince me you’ve eaten any,” she spoke lowly, although her eyebrow was raised at him. Damian sighed and placed his fork down next to his plate. “I’m not really hungry…” He mumbled, not meeting his mum’s eyes. “My stomach is still kinda upset…” “Right, well I’d like you to eat something,” his mum insisted, “so if this is too rich, then you’ll have to tell me what you feel up to having.” “I’ll try and have some,” Damian conceded, picking his fork back up again and scooped up some potato.  “What if,” Emilia had piped up from her place across from Damian at the table; her grey eyes were extra wide in her pale face. “You ate a wolf spider when you were sleeping, and it’s slid down to your tummy and then had babies, and they’re growing and squiggling and when they’re full grown they’ll all burst out of your skin and scuttle away!” Damian stared agog at his younger sister, who had just taken another bite of her dinner and didn’t seem at all aware at the absurdity of what she’d just said. “Emilia!” their mum also looked a little shocked. “What?” She asked. “Or maybe you’ve got a giant parasite that you got from drinking water on camp, and it’s slowly eating away at your insides bit by bit and-” “Emilia, eat your dinner,” their mum reprimanded firmly. “But it could-” she began to protest. “Now!” 

Damian was staring down at his plate again, aware that his stomach was squirming around inside him and all he could now envisage was some sort of bug living in his abdomen. The appeal of the steak pie on his plate was even less now and his throat felt tight. “Can I leave the table?” Damian asked, placing both of his hands on the table top and closing his eyes. “Please?” He heard his mum sigh from beside him. “Okay,” she permitted reluctantly. Damian stood in the kitchen, still able to hear his mum’s voice as she seemed to be reprimanding Emilia; it struck Damian as slightly odd at how quiet Jude had been during his sister’s pronouncement. Normally he would have chipped in with some kind of sarcastic comment, but he hadn’t said anything. He waited, leaning against one of the counters, and tried to push out the strange sensation of wrestling that was going on inside him. Eventually his mum came through, carrying a stack of plates with her and she laid down next to the sink, opening the dishwasher door. 

“Mum?” Damian began, there wasn’t any better time than now. “Yes Damian?” She answered, scraping the residual food from the plates into the bin. “I want to go to the doctors,” he said quickly, and his mum paused for a second then continued to load the plates into the rack. 

“What for?” She asked, she sounded very calm, but Damian could see her eyes studying him as she straightened up. “Well, you know how I’ve been tired and getting stomach aches and everything…” He muttered, swivelling his foot onto the ground and watching it so as he didn’t need to look into her face. “I wondered whether I might be anaemic and that might be what’s causing how I feel…” “It could be,” his mum admitted, then took a few steps towards him. “Let me see…” Her cold hands took hold of his face and pulled slightly at the skin of his cheeks so she could see the insides of his eyelids. “You are a bit pale.” Then unexpectedly she pulled Damian into a tight hug. “Mum?” Damian questioned, surprised at how tightly she held onto him. “I’ll call and make you an appointment in the morning,” she agreed, releasing him from her embrace. “But now, I want you to have something to eat.” Damian let out a little groan, but his mum ignored him. “How about a banana on toast?” “Fine,” Damian replied, understanding that this was a battle not worth fighting. It had only been half an hour after eating his toast and banana that Damian’s stomach began to burble and ache again. Under the pretence of going to start his English essay, he excused himself from the living room and went up to his bedroom. But when he was there he didn’t sit down at his desk, instead he sank down onto his bed, lying on his back and cradling his belly with both of his hands. He groaned aloud, unable to hold in his discomfort; he slowly pulled up the front of his t-shirt to reveal his bloated stomach, which continued to gurgle. He closed his eyes, resting his head back onto his pillow, and using one hand to rub across the warm flesh of his upset belly. “Damian, I – oh…” Jude’s voice came abruptly from the doorway, then trailed off. Damian’s eyes snapped open and he tugged his t-shirt back down over his exposed flesh. “What?” He snapped at his younger brother, who was still staring at the place where Damian’s exposed flesh had been. “That looks really painful,” Jude murmured and he sounded quiet and concerned. “Yeah… well…” Damian pushed himself up on his elbows on the bed. “I came to see if you wanted a coffee but…” Jude started then tailed off again, seemingly considering something. “Do you want a belly rub?” “What?” Damian asked, sure that he must have misheard. “I mean,” Jude was staring pretty intensely at Damian’s laminate flooring. “I know that helps me when my belly hurts, so…” “Yeah,” Damian found himself agreeing, and Jude looked surprised at Damian’s acceptance. “Move over a little bit then,” Jude said, and he perched on the edge of the bed as Damian shuffled over, letting out a low groan as he did so. After a few moments Damian felt his brother’s warm hand slip onto his painful and bloated flesh, then began to rub very small circles. It was nice, someone else’s hand administering gentle ministrations, and he laid back his head again. It wasn’t long until Jude could hear Damian’s breathing evening out as he fell asleep, then drew his hand away while staring at his brother. He couldn’t stop the guilt rising up in him for treating his brother so awfully, and the worry that something was really wrong…

[saintorr]

Gentrification Genocide

(Four sketches)

c. 2017 by Steven Orr

 I.  Having survived AIDS, a gay-bashing, 9-11, Sandy and an endless stream of queens posing as no-show clients, I wonder if this latest wave of too-close-for-comfort gentrification will be my own, personal, genocidal Swan Song? Tonight, while riding my bike like the crazed, clowning pterodactyl, I found myself breathily imitating a very feminized bicycle bell. “Ding-ding” one moment; and the next, I’m screaming like a wolf-crazed banshee as I fly past a very proper, chic and rich-looking woman, giving her quite a start! Indignantly, she screams “Oh my God!” in a belting, masculine voice tinged with a Valley-girl accent. This happens just off 7th Street and First Avenue and I pedal on gleefully, half ashamed for my acting out; and half empowered and self-congratulatory for my anarchistic tendencies, praying and hoping that maybe, just maybe this entitled-acting cannibal is one of the new billionaire zombies inhabiting the crystal cardboard and obtuse glass towers on the eastside of Avenue A between 6th and 7th; or the newly renovated Shul four doors west of my man cave. Oh, you know, that confusing condo/synagogue, half place of worship, half billionaire-broken-hearted-haunt of the ghost of the big Rabbi with the swarmy, philandering son, also named Sandy; the one who finagled, then sold off the temple’s rights for close to a billion dollars.

 II. In the morning, do not fear, I tell myself, for those monstrous explosions are merely the renovation of De Maria’s former studio, semi-formerly a Con-Ed substation; now currently being magically transformed into the billionaire Brant’s private museum. Ordinary neighborhood citizens will not be allowed access to the beatific garden growing between 421 E. 6th St., and cutting straight through to 7th Street, like a slender, cold, fish knife slices through a babe’s beating heart, nor will they be allowed into the private storage space where priceless, insipid and modern works of art will be stored and kept; available only for private viewing to the coterie of fellow billionaires, stars and their kingly cronies. Cannibalize yourselves, you lowly 99%, suffer the noise! Let the new money frighten away the former spirit guides and the friendly semi-wild gypsy cats that once played and sang and danced in between these dishwater-lit toy tenements of beer and dreams and young strains of songwriters’ guitars and falling in love with the moonbeam dreams of East Village hungry-hearts and shadowy leather lovers; for the new owners of this house of bomb-sounding billions was seeking a location and tax-write off in an edgy, creative neighborhood, so here we are! He sought to color his taste in architecture with the pronoun “creative”. Oh you poor 99%, you starving nothings. Yes, you may die of construction noise, dust, and fumes; and you may have to walk around the red-velvet ropes when the chic parties begin and the drones and helicopters start landing and the limousines begin pulling up with their stars with their even more glamorous billions but oh now look how your property values are increasing! With every chiseled BOOM of detaching chards and jagged, dusty bricks the work crew of flying monkeys flings into the the BOOMING maw of the dumpster from hell; comes the skeletal, fire-cracking, whacking-snapping chorus of never-ending jackhammers (often five at once), for this is a war of money over time, fought, won and played out by short trollish billionaires with crooked smiles. For WE THE PEOPLE--are irrelevant and WE THE PEOPLE are little better than charming old engines, White slave labor, memories of America’s fragmented, shrunken middle class, now addicted to crack, Walmart, Nikes and Disney digital dreams of “Searching for Dory”. WE THE PEOPLE, better forgotten, better disposed of, better buried by Trump, so the young, rich litters of billionaire spawn can play here anew, can fling themselves into their endless selfie-cesspools of Chai lattes tropical banana and protein powder smoothies, funny, arthritic, black French bulldogs named Lucy and lovely, decadent, divinely narcissistic empty and burning consumeristic dreams of pretension and nothingness.

 III.  As a matter of fact, Medicaid was specifically created to hasten us to an early grave; Those of us that weren’t exterminated by the first, or 2nd waves of gentrification genocide. Someone said “We don’t know how good we have it.” “We don’t’ know how good we have it” I repeat as I am having a nervous breakdown trying to make an appointment, trying to get a referral from my (formerly caring) community healthcare clinic where now only Trans-people matter; for, besides the billionaires, THEY are also the new masters of the New York human race; everyone else is basically irrelevant. I’m trying to make an appointment for this back pain that’s made every other step excruciating for three months now, (all through the holidays; the wine helped, sometimes the sex). “No, Goddammit I don’t NEED ESTROGEN! FUCK YOUR ESTROGEN AND YOUR PHONE MENU AND YOUR INSTRUCTIONS TO CALL 9-1-1 IF THIS IS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY!” One of the patient associates handling referrals starts quoting policies to me, a vicious little queen with bitchy glee touting too-fast, meaningless and bureaucratic buzzwords at me like he’s throwing cream pies in my face. The next confusing day (nervous breakdown number two due to my continuing efforts to seek relief from this nagging pain), I am contacted by a manager named Stephanie (what sex is she? Dare I ask and be reported for inappropriate behavioral tendencies?). With balls of steel she attacks and berates me for my wholly unfriendly, overtly hostile and indeed homophobic language (referring to the “mean queen” of yesterday’s nervous breakdown).  “This is Callen Lorde” she proclaims, like a punitive, belittling, parole officer or a sexless, dominatrix cop, “You should know better!” Her rawhided, delivery strips me bare and exposes me for all my vulnerable, bisexual silliness and tendencies toward anarchistic prostitution and polymorphously, pleasure-seeking perversity that I am; for all that I inhabit and display, for this is the magical stuff that makes me me! I have an allergy to anything that coldly ignores and debases men only for being men. Why do some females act like raging amazon warriors slicing through the air, their angry clitorises waving like sharpened dragon’s teeth; so ready with a threat or an admonishment in response to any miniscule drop of incorrect language that happens to ejaculate casually from an innocent man’s mouth merely for the sake of jest…

 IV.  Once upon a time, there was a neighbor non-friend of mine, a sexless tomboy with frigid, uptight boundaries who had a talent for making me feel as warm and welcomed as a serial killer rapist. “Don’t nag me” she asserted testily at the coop board meeting one Saturday afternoon, and with jerking movement of her dry, tendinous and over-vascularized torso, SLAM CRASH, the mirror behind her slides off the wall, and onto the floor. Everyone jumps “There, you see?” I intone, smiling like Joan Crawford as Crystal in “The Women”, “That’s what you get for attacking me.”

[wordsonpagespress]

Venus, by Sara Flemington

fiction by Sara Flemington | third-place winner of the 2016 Blodwyn Memorial Prize in fiction, sponsored by Book*Hug

We were suddenly on a lucky streak. Following a very long, very unlucky streak. For example, the movies. Four bad movies in a row. And you being the type of person who could tell right away if a movie was going to suck or not, and me being the type who was clairvoyant enough to start panicking as early as the concession if it seemed like I’d taken someone out to a sucky movie, it was an all around uncomfortable series of unfortunately campy and “ha-ha” date nights. Then, there was X. Popping up everywhere: drugstore aisles, bars, the post office. And you being nice enough to always say hi, and me being nice enough to not comment on how her smile made her look like she was teething, or ask the reason as to why she was regularly done-up as if about to hit Prom ’85, we always had to stop and have a quaint little chit-chat about her newest accomplishments — arts-grants-wise — or about the tragic passing of Dear Aunt Beatrice, who was nothing if not her biggest source of moral support and guidance, as the lesbian of the family, and therefore, the only other dissenter. And on top of all that, the cactuses died. For no reason, as if by suicide to get away from the doomed home they had recently been moved into. And so I was pretty certain that, Mercury retrograde aside, I had become a jinx for you and our love would never be allowed its proper chance to sprout, let alone effloresce, (remember that homemade haircut I tried to give you ultimately resulting in a entire shaving of the head?) and in very little time you would, in turn, begin to despise me and wish we had never met and hope that somehow, in some life, you might find your way back to the inflatable tube man arms of X.

And then, Christmas came. But not in the It’s a Wonderful Life sense of the holiday, where we both would learn the power of a positive outlook; more like, in the holiday-packs-of-scratch-tickets sense. Because we were sitting beside each other at the very back of the very last bus of the night, heading home from drinking far too much acrid red wine at a disappointing poetry reading held at the “recently renovated” i.e. recently primer-painted community art gallery, and the heat was cranked far too high for our winter jackets and toques and scarves so we were both uncomfortably sweating through the crevices of our armpits and nostrils, and the reddish + greenish hue our skin had adopted from the alcohol + overhead bus lighting was making us appear even more dismal than we already naturally did. And that’s when I spotted them, jammed between the two seats directly across from us: the shimmering, unopened stack of lottery cards. Of course, it took a while for one of us to get up and “just take them,” being overly anxious over-thinkers plus regular sufferers of mental inertia, but finally, seconds from our stop, I threw my arms up as high as they could go in a puffy winter jacket + two more layers of sweaters and declared, “It’s not like they’re gonna be winners anyway,” and tucked them into purse. Then we stepped off the bus into the refreshingly frozen night.

But I was wrong. Ten dollars. That’s what we won. And Jupiter was about to make its move through Cancer.

“Can you believe it?” I said to you — sincerely, actually. “Can you believe we just happened upon these tickets? And now we have enough to buy like, four more bus rides? That’s like, two bus rides each.”

And you with your ever-salient shrug replied, “Happened upon? Really?”

Regardless, that was just the start. Because then, along came the cat.

“How is the cat good luck?” you argued. “He’s disgusting and annoying and he gets litter everywhere. And I’m pretty sure he’s slow. Like slow slow. Watch his eyes.”

“But, re-examine the point,” I begged. “So I was just walking along, like normal, like I always am, and right there in the window, there’s this little guy! Fresh off the streets, all shaking and on-sale and with a weird squinty eye. Look, it looks like he’s winking. Which is just like how you described your beloved childhood cat that only just two nights ago you had come across an old picture of and went on and on about how much you missed so much, which led right into a conversation about adopting our own little kitten –”

“Maybe adopting our own little kitten.”

“Maybe adopting our own little kitten. But anyway, here he is, and it was clearly meant to be.” And even though, granted, this particular kitty was a bit off somehow, he did serve to prove my point that good, possibly even great things, were now on the horizon for us. You still didn’t believe me at this point, but you had, at least, learned to love to humour me, and also learned to love the oddly vacant cat, while I was taking a daily inventory of signs from the universe divining our good fortune:

Your favourite hat — lost two months prior — resurfaced, magically, while I was cleaning out the refrigerator.

The day every single item written down on our grocery list was on sale at the grocery store.

The cookie thing (when the second cookie got stuck to the one we bought to share, but the lady behind the counter didn’t notice, so basically we just got a free cookie, which was mostly good for you because then I wouldn’t eat two thirds of the first one after claiming I only wanted a single chocolate chip and leaving you with basically nothing).

The second chance you gave me at giving you a haircut, and it turned out to be a pretty spot-on attempt modelled after a picture of Ryan Gosling.

The discovery that we had, at one point, attended the same film screening in Toronto, on the same day, years before ever meeting in real life.

The discovery that we had ALSO been at the same concert for one of our mutually favourite bands, in Toronto, on the same night, ALSO before ever meeting in real life.

The lucid dream I swear we shared.

“Maybe you’re right, like, maybe we’re soul mates or something,” you said one day, petting the winking feline and, joking or not, I continued to discover more coincidences to add to the inventory; a rare 1979 Boba Fett Loose Action Figure with Original Back Blaster for pennies in a bin of kids books at Goodwill; the big power outage and thus free popsicles from the convenience store the same night I found some old weed in the bookcase; the twenty bucks in the building’s dryer. Even kitty seemed to be getting a little bit smarter, not batting his turds out of the litter box so often. And with the new moon beginning to wax, everything in both of our entire lives began to feel like it was not only coming together to complete a circle in which we would inevitably end up in the centre of — deeply happy and entirely X-less — but a sphere. Like we existed in some sphere type thing, like a planet, like our own planet following its own orbital path. Or fate. Or something.

“You’re losing your mind,” you said to me, combing your fingers through my hair one night as we lay across the couch watching yet another good movie. Maybe, baby, maybe. But maybe, I wasn’t, actually. Because then, as it often happens when things are going well, I started to wonder when it all might start to go wrong again; you know, when karma would decide it was time to balance things out. It was turning into spring, and while everyone around us was getting cheerier and everything around us was getting colourful and good-smelling, I was becoming paranoid that at any moment you’d be calling me at work in the throes of a severe allergy attack, or the hospital would be calling me with news of your newly broken legs due to a bicycle accident (knock on wood), and I continued to I waver consistently between calm and vomit-mode. But these grand fears never materialized. What did end up materializing was the bagel you burned one sunny morning resulting in the whole apartment smelling like singed sesame seeds.

“That’s a thing,” I said.

“It’s not a thing if I don’t even care,” you replied.

And I guess I kind of liked the smell.

So while I was out, walking along again, like I always did, I decided to take a chance and step inside the floral boutique I usually passed by but of course, never went inside of anymore. I meekly approached the thin young florist with a swoopy haircut and very well-ripped jeans who was tying white ribbons around lilac bouquets, and asked:

“Excuse me, I was just wondering, which plant would be relatively easy to maintain and, maybe doesn’t require much extra care and maybe, you know, could be left alone for an extended period of time or even accidentally forgotten about and still be okay afterward?”

And whose shrill snort should I hear pipe up right behind me, followed by her sudden eagerness to show off all of the green-thumb knowledge she had apparently accumulated over her many years of being perfect at everything, but X. Our lovely lanky phantom X.

“A cactus?” she laughed, and began in on how she used to raise orchids, nurse Venus flytraps, shape bamboo stalks into elaborate spirals and hearts and I could feel the acid reflux pushing up my trachea and clogging my nasal cavity. Sensing my panic, the florist stepped out from behind the counter, linked his arm through mine like a best girlfriend, and directed us safely away from X and towards the corner of the room, where the moderate moisture-loving shade-dwellers were kept.

“I think you’ll do just fine with one of these,” he said. I pocketed the laminated fertilization instructions.

And that was the day I brought home the spider plant. I set it down in the middle of the kitchen table with a dramatic thud, and I stood there and looked you in the eye and I made a promise. I promised that I would keep the damn thing pretty and green as long as I lived in this damn apartment with you, so help me dammit, and I may never be able to cultivate a banana plant or whatever, and even if we wake up one day to a flood or a fire or full body rashes or something, or Mars and Saturn and Pluto all simultaneously backspin right through both of our signs at the same time, I will still be here, keeping everything pretty and green and alive, for you, and for that weird cat over there, and for this plant, and that was about the point when I started to run out of breath, and kind of doubled over a bit, and realized how comforting it felt to know that while I was there, one hand on my chest and one hand stroking the long pointy leaves of our newest addition, you were looking at me with that composed smile.

“Okay, love. Sounds good.”

[saintorr]

“Gentrification Genocide” Three scenes (as to be published in R. Roth’s “And Then” 2018)

I.  Having survived AIDS, a gay-bashing, 9-11, Sandy and an endless stream of trickster, horny-queens posing as no-show clients, I reflect; will this latest wave of too-close-for-comfort gentrification be my own, personal, genocidal Swan Song? Tonight, while riding my bike like a crazed, clowning pterodactyl, I found myself breathily imitating the sound of a very feminized bicycle bell. “Ding-ding” one moment, and the next, screaming like a crazed banshee at a female pedestrian dressed in black as she is mindlessly stepping directly into my on-coming path. My crazed battle-cry makes her stop bunglingly in her tracks; her oral addiction to her mobile device unforgivingly interrupted. Indignantly, she screams “Oh my God!” in a belting, bleating voice tinged with a Valley-girl accent. This happens just off 7th Street and First Avenue. I pedal on gleefully, half ashamed for my acting out, and half empowered and self-congratulatory for my anarchistic, bad-boy tendencies. I’m hoping and praying that maybe, said jay-walker is one of the new billionaire zombies inhabiting the crystal cardboard and colorless tag-team duo of buildings that went on the market last fall. They are located on Avenue A between 6th and 7th Streets; or perhaps she's a new resident of the renovated and reconverted Shul just four doors west of my man cave. Oh, you know, that confusing condo-synagogue; that half place-of-worship, half billionaire-broken-hearted-haunt of the ghost of the big Rabbi; the one survived by his swarmy, conniving, snake-eyed son, also named Sandy.

 II. In the morning, do not fear, I tell myself, for those monstrous explosions are merely the renovation of the deceased artist De Maria’s former studio. Semi-formerly a Con-Ed substation, the building is currently being magically and noisily transformed into a private museum for one Mr. Brant, the new billionaire owner. Ordinary neighborhood citizens will not be allowed access to the beatific garden growing between 421 East 6th Street, and cutting straight through to East 7th, like a slender, cold, fish knife slicing through a newborn babe’s beating heart, nor will they be allowed into the private storage space where priceless, modern (and most-likely insipid) works of art will be hidden away. Here will be housed Brant’s sacred treasures of the inner sanctum; here in this great, tall, glass-walled chapel of a structure, art will dwell. Rich man’s art, available only for private viewing to the coterie of fellow billionaires, stars and their kingly cronies. Cannibalize yourselves, you lowly 99%, suffer the noise! Let the new money frighten away the former spirit guides and the friendly semi-wild gypsy cats that once played, sang and danced along and in between these semi-lit row houses of tenements, filled with the ghosts of beer and dreams and young strains of fading songwriters’ guitars and falling-in-love-with-the-moonbeam-dreams and rainy-days-and-Sundays of East Village hungry-hearts and shadow leather lovers. Monsieur Brant wanted a location and tax-write off that was “creative”, so here we are! Oh you poor 99%, you starving nothings, yes, you may die of noise, entitlement and achingly tight ass-holeism when the chic parties start and the drones and the helicopters and the limousines start arriving with darling, parasitic models and the zombie-hungry, spoiled-cool, hipster billionaires and their cold, cold parents but oh! Just look how your property values are increasing!

 With every chiseled BOOM BOOM of chards detaching and jagged, dusty, broken bricks flinging, the work crew of flying monkeys is tossing all, all into the the BOOMING maw of the dumpster from hell (it must be half a block wide). Then comes the skeletal, fire-cracking, whacking-snapping chorus of never-ending jackhammers (often five at once), for this is a war of money over time, fought, won and played out by short, trollish billionaires with crooked smiles and hawk-like noses. For WE THE PEOPLE are obsolete and irrelevant; WE THE PEOPLE are little better than charming old engines, White slave labor, memories of America’s fragmented, shrunken middle class; now addicted to crack, Walmart, Nikes and digitized Disney dreams of “Searching for Dory”. WE THE PEOPLE are better forgotten, better disposed of, better buried by the Trumps, so the young, rich litters of billionaire spawn can play here anew, can fling themselves into their endless selfie-cesspools of Chai lattes, tropical banana and protein powder smoothies, funny French black bulldogs named Lucy and lovely, decadent, divinely narcissistic empty and burning consumeristic dreams of pretension and nothingness. In short, WE THE PEOPLE are poor, inconsequential, invisible and don’t matter.

 III.  As a matter of fact, Medicaid was specifically created to hasten us to an early grave. Those of us that weren’t exterminated by the first or second waves of gentrification genocide will surely spill into the trenches or be forced to emigrate now with this new third and greatest wave. Someone once said “We don’t know how good we have it.” “We don’t’ know how good we have it” I repeat as I am having a nervous breakdown trying to make an appointment, trying to get a referral from my (formerly organized, now Trans-dystopian) community healthcare clinic where only Trans people now matter; for, besides the billionaires, they are also the new co-masters-of-the-race, everyone else is irrelevant. I’m trying to make an appointment, for this back pain’s made every other step excruciating for three months now, all through the holidays (the wine helped, sometimes the sex). “No, Goddammit I don’t NEED ESTROGEN! FUCK YOUR ESTROGEN AND YOUR PHONE MENU AND YOUR INSTRUCTIONS TO CALL 9-1-1 IF THIS IS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY!” One of the patient associates who handles referrals, Martino, a vicious, little queen with bitchy glee is quoting too-fast and meaningless policies at me like cream pies. The next confusing day (nervous breakdown number two due to my inane, continuing efforts to make an appointment hoping for an end to my seemingly endless saga of back pain) I am connected with a manager named Stephanie. Is cisgen, transgen genderqueer, genderfluid, or something else? Dare I ask and be reported for inappropriate behavior? Stephanie pulls no punches and begins to attack and berate me for my wholly unfriendly, hostile, and homophobic language, for I made the mistake of referring to the "vicious queen? of yesterday’s quoting policies-to-me-episode.  “This is Callen Lorde” she proclaims, like a punitive, fixed, female, pit-bull cop, “You should know better!” Her raw, neuter, Bougie-Bitch delivery strips me bare, exposing me for all the bisexual silliness and tendencies toward anarchistic prostitution and polymorphously, pleasure-seeking perversity that I am; that I inhabit and display, for this is the magical stuff that makes me me. Imagine her, lambasting my essence! I have an allergy to anyone that coldly ignores and debases men only for being men. Why do some females act like raging amazon warriors slicing through the air, waving their clitorises like sharpened bayonets; so ready with a threat or an admonishment over any microscopic drop of incorrect language or innuendo that happens to ejaculate, albeit casually, from any MAN’S mouth merely for the sake of jest? For we all know men are not innocent; especially older white ones who protest the the stinging swipe of the feminist’s cattle prod. Still, I refuse to go gently into that “older-white-male-former-slaveowner’s-guilty-place night”.

[saintorr]

“Gentrification Genocide” Four scenes

c. 2017 by Steven Orr

 I.  Having survived AIDS, a gay-bashing, 9-11, Sandy and an endless stream of trickster, horny-queens posing as no-show clients, I reflect; will this latest wave of too-close-for-comfort gentrification be my own, personal, genocidal Swan Song? Tonight, while riding my bike like a crazed, clowning pterodactyl, I found myself breathily imitating the sound of a very feminized bicycle bell. “Ding-ding” one moment, and the next, screaming like a crazed banshee at a female pedestrian dressed in black as she is mindlessly stepping directly into my on-coming path. My crazed battle-cry makes her stop bunglingly in her tracks; her oral addiction to her mobile device unforgivingly interrupted. Indignantly, she screams “Oh my God!” in a belting, bleating voice tinged with a Valley-girl accent. This happens just off 7th Street and First Avenue. I pedal on gleefully, half ashamed for my acting out, and half empowered and self-congratulatory for my anarchistic, bad-boy tendencies. I’m hoping and praying that maybe, said jay-walker is one of the new billionaire zombies inhabiting the crystal cardboard and colorless tag-team duo of buildings that went on the market last fall. They are located on Avenue A between 6th and 7th Streets; or perhaps she's a new resident of the renovated and reconverted Shul just four doors west of my man cave. Oh, you know, that confusing condo-synagogue; that half place-of-worship, half billionaire-broken-hearted-haunt of the ghost of the big Rabbi who is survived by his swarmy, conniving, snake-eyed son, also named Sandy.

 II. In the morning, do not fear, I tell myself, for those monstrous explosions are merely the renovation of the deceased artist De Maria’s former studio. Formerly a Con-Ed substation, the building is currently being magically and noisily transformed into a private museum for one Mr. Brant, the new billionaire owner. Ordinary neighborhood citizens will not be allowed access to the beatific garden growing between 421 East 6th Street, and cutting straight through to East 7th, like a slender, cold, fish knife slicing through a newborn babe’s beating heart, nor will they be allowed into the private storage space where priceless, modern (and most-likely insipid) works of art will be hidden away. Here will be housed Brant’s sacred treasures of the inner sanctum; here in this great, tall, glass-walled chapel of a structure, art will dwell. Rich man’s art, available only for private viewing to the coterie of fellow billionaires, stars and their kingly cronies. Cannibalize yourselves, you lowly 99%, suffer the noise! Let the new money frighten away the former spirit guides and the friendly semi-wild gypsy cats that once played, sang and danced along and in between these semi-lit row houses of tenements, filled with the ghosts of beer and dreams and young strains of fading songwriters’ guitars and falling-in-love-with-the-moonbeam-dreams and rainy-days-and-Sundays of East Village hungry-hearts and shadow leather lovers. Monsieur Brant wanted a location and tax-write off that was “creative”, so here we are! Oh you poor 99%, you starving nothings, yes, you may die of noise, entitlement and achingly tight assholeism when the chic parties start and the drones and the helicopters and the limousines start arriving with darling, parasitic models and the zombie-hungry, spoiled-cool, hipster billionaires and their cold, cold parents but oh! Just look how your property values are increasing! With every chiseled BOOM BOOM of chards detaching and jagged, dusty, broken bricks flinging, the work crew of flying monkeys is tossing all, all into the the BOOMING maw of the dumpster from hell (it must be half a block wide). Then comes the skeletal, fire-cracking, whacking-snapping chorus of never-ending jackhammers (often five at once), for this is a war of money over time, fought, won and played out by short, trollish billionaires with crooked smiles and hawk-like noses. For WE THE PEOPLE are obsolete and irrelevant; WE THE PEOPLE are little better than charming old engines, White slave labor, memories of America’s fragmented, shrunken middle class; now addicted to crack, Walmart, Nikes and digitized Disney dreams of “Searching for Dory”. WE THE PEOPLE, better forgotten, better disposed of, better buried by the Trumps, so the young, rich litters of billionaire spawn can play here anew, can fling themselves into their endless selfie-cesspools of Chai lattes, tropical banana and protein powder smoothies, funny French black bulldogs named Lucy and lovely, decadent, divinely narcissistic empty and burning consumeristic dreams of pretension and nothingness. In short, WE THE PEOPLE are poor, inconsequential, invisible and don’t matter anymore.

 III.  As a matter of fact, Medicaid was specifically created to hasten us to an early grave. Those of us that weren’t exterminated by the first or second waves of gentrification genocide will surely spill into the trenches or be forced to emigrate now with this new third and biggest wave. Someone once said “We don’t know how good we have it.” “We don’t’ know how good we have it” I repeat as I am having a nervous breakdown trying to make an appointment, trying to get a referral from my (formerly organized, now Trans-dystopian) community healthcare clinic where only Trans people matter now; for, besides the billionaires, they are the new co-masters-of-the-race, everyone else is irrelevant. I’m trying to make an appointment,  

for this back pain’s made every other step excruciating for three months now, all through the holidays (the wine helped, sometimes the sex). “No, Goddammit I don’t NEED ESTROGEN! FUCK YOUR ESTROGEN AND YOUR PHONE MENU AND YOUR INSTRUCTIONS TO CALL 9-1-1 IF THIS IS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY!” One of the patient associates who handles referrals, Martino, a vicious, little queen with bitchy glee is quoting too-fast and meaningless policies at me like cream pies. The next confusing day (nervous breakdown number two due to my inane, continuing efforts to make an appointment for treatment of this seemingly endless back pain) I am connected with a manager named Stephanie. What sex is she I wonder? Dare I ask and be reported for inappropriate behavior? Stephanie pulls no punches and begins to attack and berate me for my wholly unfriendly, hostile and homophobic language, for I made the mistake of referring to the “mean queen” of yesterday’s quoting policies-to-me-episode.  “This is Callen Lorde” she proclaims, like a punitive, spayed, female, pit-bull cop, “You should know better!” Her rawhided, neuter, Bougie-Bitch delivery strips me bare, exposing me for all the bisexual silliness and tendencies toward anarchistic prostitution and polymorphously, pleasure-seeking perversity that I am; that I inhabit and display, for this is the magical stuff that makes me me. Imagine her, lambasting my essence! I have an allergy to anyone that coldly ignores and debases men only for being men. Why do some females act like raging amazon warriors slicing through the air, waving their clitorises like sharpened bayonets; so ready with a threat or an admonishment over any microscopic drop of incorrect language or innuendo that happens to ejaculate, albeit casually, from any MAN’S mouth merely for the sake of jest? For we all know men are not innocent; especially older white ones who protest the the stinging swipe of the feminist’s cattle prod. Still, I refuse to go gently into that “older-white-male-former-slave-owner’s-guilt-place night.”

 IV.  Once upon a time, there was a neighbor non-friend of mine, a sexless tomboy with frigid, uptight boundaries who had a talent for making me feel as warm and welcomed as a serial killer rapist. “Don’t nag me” she asserted testily at the coop board meeting, and with a jolt of movement from her dry, tendinous and over-vascularized body, SLAM CRASH! The mirror behind her slides off the wall, and onto the floor. Everyone jumps “There, you see” I intone, smiling like Joan Crawford as Crystal in “The Women”, “That’s what you get for attacking me.”