#my brothers school also had latchkey so he got that too | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

vaspider · 3 years ago

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Okay but WHY are parents doing that? You went only as far as "parents are doing this" and then never made the next conclusion.

Parents give their kids iPads and hand them over to TV as babysitters why? When did that start? When did kids start getting a lot of their socialization at school and much less of it in the general world?

My grandfather lived on a farm. He had twelve brothers and sisters who made it past birth. He was one of the babies, so he spent most of his time following his older brother Tad around. His father's sisters lived with the family, and there were people up the road that the young kids could go look in on. Cooking for neighbors and sending your kids back and forth or just handing one of the babies off to one of the aunties, as well as the fact that his mother was able to stay home, meant that childcare was split among family, friends and neighbors. (He was also expected to go work in the coal mines when he was old enough and one of his brothers died of pertussis, I'm not glorifying his childhood.)

My father grew up as the first generation after the great post-WWII sundering of the American family unit and the creation of the idea of the "nuclear family." My grandparents moved around a bit for the Navy. When he left the Navy, they were able financially to buy a nice 3BR house on his pension. Dad ranged all over his small town. His mom could still afford to stay home full time, but without the support of aunties, mothers and mothers-in-law, sometimes to get a breath, Grammy just said "oh you can go watch TV."

Both of my parents had to work in order for them to buy the house they wanted in the school district they wanted. I spent more time watching TV in the afternoons than they wanted me to, but when I was young, Dad was at the office and Mom was at class, and when I was older, Dad needed to get this article done and Mom was teaching class. Like many kids of the 80s, I was a "latchkey kid." I was still able to range over a wide area when I wanted to, though, so I didn't spend as much time watching TV or playing on the computer (our shitty Apple IIe knockoff, a Franklin Ace 2000) as kids who didn't live in the ass end of nowhere in a forest. Mom had the same supports as her mother did, which was "not many."

During my childhood and adolescence, the range of kids got smaller. Turning your kids out the door to just go run around (which is actually super important for brain development and health, having time alone with themselves and their peers, without adult supervision) became less and less acceptable. Kids started to go to the mall, which was viewed as better bc there were always adults not far away, and it was a contained environment.

Then I had my daughter in 2000. I'm going to be totally fucking blunt, here: we were poor as fuck bc we made the decision that I wasn't going to pay hundreds of dollars a month for someone to raise my kid in daycare, but we were lucky even at the time to make that happen. It's nearly impossible to have a parent able to stay at home now unless you're at minimum upper-middle-class. The economic pressures have changed: wages are flat, inflation is ridiculous, you can't do the things you used to do bc there's no money.

It was beautiful but also terrible. My mother was hours away, I had no one to lean on, and my partners worked and dumped the baby on me even when they were home because "childcare is your job". Even when I left them both and got a more supportive partner, we both had to work our asses off once she hit kindergarten. We lived in apartments with high turnover, bc nowadays poor people (generally speaking) move around a lot more than they used to. So we didn't know our neighbors when MK was little, and I had no one I could hand her off to so I could have a minute of peace, or cook dinner safely when i was too exhausted to cook AND entertain the child AND my partner was still working. Did I stick my kid in front of the TV? Yes. Did she get to play with my cellphone even though the only game on my Nokia 3300 was Snake? Yes. Did I have the support I needed from my community? Fuck no! When she was a baby I was so isolated and unsupported that I seriously considered suicide. And that's not unusual.

When she was 8, we were able to get a townhouse in a blue-collar neighborhood with a lot of kids. I was utterly determined to give MK stability: a childhood where we didn't move house a lot, one where she could walk places if she wanted to, and one where there were other kids in the neighborhood. In achieving this, we were extraordinarily lucky, and among our peers, out of the norm. I had a corporate job at the time which I stumbled into bc I'm white and well-spoken and good at sales and could make $60-70k a year without a degree. (Then I got sick and lost that type of job forever, but that's another story.)

My kid had a much smaller range of being able to go rove than I had, but because we were determined and very very lucky, she could still do that. However, the attitude around free-range kids of the variety that my grandfather, father and I had been? That changed, and the kids tended toward staying in one or the other's houses bc that would keep the nosy neighbors from calling the cops about "unsupervised children outdoors." (Yeah, this really happened, and a lot.) And what did they do inside?

Video games, mostly.

Now MK is 21 years old, and I look at the families starting in her generation, and the families I know. The ones who are doing well in this specific sense, with a minimum of screen time, either:

Live near family

Live in a polycule

Have the money to hire someone full time

And if they don't have those things, then even before the pandemic, the answer is "give the baby a fucking iPad so you can fold laundry or take a shit in peace." And that's no different than when I put MK in front of a TV with Ice Age on for the 900th time so I could make lunch or brush my teeth without her literally hanging from me or go shut myself in a closet and breathe for a minute.

In the industrialized world, and especially in the United States, we expect parents to be able to both work FT jobs - and most parents are working 50-60 hours a week or have multiple jobs; keep houses clean enough to be shown on Zoom calls every fucking day; feed, bathe, and help their children with an absolutely monstrous and out-of-scope amount of homework; manage the activities and appointments necessary for a well-rounded child bc "structured activities" have replaced free-range kids, to the detriment of those children; and somehow in the middle of that, find enough time to take a goddamned shit in peace without handing the child some kind of technological distraction for 5 fucking minutes.

Add on top of this the fact that I really wanted MK, I love her to pieces, I think she's the best thing I've ever done with my life, I had 12 miscarriages trying to have another kid (or at least open to it) bc I wanted a big family when I was younger, and I still thought about ending it a couple times when things got really hard, bc I had no support. In a lot of places even when I had her, a lot of people had a lot less choice about that bc the right to family planning is in a very practical sense unattainable to a lot of my peers. Planned Parenthood may do sliding scale but you still have to take a bus into town to get there, which costs time and money you don't have. Abortions took hours of travel that required a car, cost money you didn't have, and local conservatives are still doing their best to make them actually inaccessible and skirt the edges of the law.

So even if we assume all of those children are 100% wanted, some of those children are being had in a situation where they're not economically viable. Quality child care costs thousands a month; an iPad costs like $50 a month on the family plan. Fucking bargain, honestly. Grammy isn't here for them to hand the kid to her for 5 minutes.

We have, as a society, blown apart the family as it used to exist as a support dynamic, done nothing to replace it, placed incredible pressures on parents which did not exist in prior generations and which increase generation upon generation, and then people like you tut tut how we have to blame the parents for this. And really what's usually meant there is "blame the mom," because that's what we always mean when we say "blame the parents, they're failing."

Blaming parents and saying "oh we have to put responsibility on them" is intellectually lazy and requires someone to willfully not look at how the experience of family and child-rearing has changed in the past century. The economic liberation of women didn't lead to true liberation for anyone, because capitalism looked at that and said NOW BOTH OF YOU CAN WORK. This is not an argument for going back to a "traditional" mom-stays-home nuclear family, bc that wasn't traditional and started this whole mess, and also yikes, gendered expectations. Not for nothing but there's a reason why the most stable child-raising situations I'm aware of exist in polycules where gender expectations are torn up and there are 3+ adults raising the kids, or in homes where multiple generations still live under one roof.

It takes more than two people to successfully raise a child, and the US has literally dismantled every support structure that parents had, both family and societal, and then people like you have the fucking gall to say mm well we do have to blame the parents actually like parents these days are somehow just all totally fucking lazy and don't really want to raise their children, they want someone or something else to do it for them, mmhmm, it's all on them, yup, that's the answer.

Like honestly, please do a moment of actual thoughtful inquiry into why your brain instantly went to "blame the mother parents" and get the fuck out of my notes with this sloppy, counterfactual, capitalist-media-driven narrative that absolves society as a whole and bullshit capitalist predation on individuals of the damage they have done and continue to do.

The reason a lot of us build found families is in part bc we are distancing ourselves from toxic family patterns, but also bc there is not an economic or practical way in the modern US as currently set up to have the kind of family support and structure that our grandparents and great-grandparents had. Zoning laws and landlords discriminate against multi-generational households -- bonus round, find a 4 bedroom apartment or house for rent near you. If you can find one at all, tell me how much it costs!

Like, fuck! I can't fully express how mentally lazy this point of view is. I usually agree with you but you really fucking missed the mark here.

This is a good overview of the data that backs up what I've been hearing anecdotally from schools all over the country: that this has been an absolute nightmare for kids. Some other stuff I've heard from schools about behavior problems:

Little kids have been supervised by teenage relatives for so long that they have no idea what kind of language is appropriate for school, or for human society in general and there aren't many existing protocols for how to address a five year old saying racial slurs.

Anti-mask/anti-vax parents have, intentionally or not, taught their children that teachers don't need to be respected and it's really broken classroom management.

Kids are just at least a year or sometimes two years behind socially. Elementary schoolers bite. High Schoolers have the emotional maturity of seventh graders. Older elementary schoolers don't know how to have conversations with other children or how to solve disagreements without an adult.

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ulyssesredux · 7 years ago

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Lotus Eaters

Quarter past.

O how I long to meet you.

Poor papa! What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? Faced with this realization, Randolph Carter. Kind of a clawed, snouted race of that chap. The priest came down from his ancestors, both human and non-committal in age—lean, with the alien rhythm to which those cowled Shapes on the pedestals, with important information to give; and a penny.

Still like you better untidy. The honourable Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man.

Mohammed cut a piece out of it: only the faint, cryptical pulse of the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. Still Captain Culler broke a window in the theatre, all places, time or setdown, no. Going under the lace affair he had undergone he burned for the philosopher's stone. His son's voice! Turkish. Sees me looking. And white wax also, he spoke back, reading a book he imported from Nepal, and so on up to this. Can't he hear the difference? What perfume does your? In Carter's boyhood the venerable gambrel-roofed farm-house, and had doubtless thought he lacked nothing. Rachel, is he pimping after me? Safe in the year of 1928, the full, naked, in the prescriptions book. Could hear a pin drop. Save China's millions. With it an abode of bliss. Fools! He crawled through the door. Could have given that address too. These pots we have to be envisaged. Talk: as if hypnotized, while nimbuses of unclassifiable light—resembling that of the finest Ceylon brands. In another moment he thought of words, of Carter's vanishing in the money to be next some girl. Police tout. Post here.

Gluttons, tall, coffin-shaped clock seemed to say that I am.

Clever of nature. Better get that lotion made up. Sees me looking. Poor papa! I'm off that, Mr Bloom said. We ought to be aware of how he got it made up last? His speech had an oddly forced, hollow, metallic quality, family tea. Something pinned on: photo perhaps. Bald spot behind. He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the price of their similar tastes and outlook.

Barber's itch. Getting up in the hideously carved box of fragrant wood, and trips back and forth through eons of light-beam envelopes of the arrangement. No worry. Phillips could not detect any eye-plates of the persistent recurrent dreams of mystics against the wickedness and snares of the hills was balm to his surprise. At his armpit Bantam Lyons' voice and hand said: Is there any … no trouble I hope? Might just walk into her mouth, murmuring, holding the thing out from him, but when they both served in the sands of Arabia Pettraea the prodigious domes and uncounted minarets of thousand-pillared Irem. Some of that awful wonder, the chemist said. The chemist turned back page after page. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens. An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, was lean, with heads still bowed in their house, and there are besides the known directions of up-hill deeper and deeper into the porch he doffed his hat again, by Jove!

Hamlet she played last night. Hamlet she played last night. Shows you the needle that would. Lollipop.

Yes, he realized, no doom, no, the odd voice of Nathan who left the God of his. Pity. He caught one fleeting glimpse of a manifestation visible to his earthly eyes. Sit around under sunshades. Betting.

Letters on his back: I.N.R.I? Leopold. Those two sluts in the sun in dolce far niente, not doing a hand's turn all day typing. Ah yes, Mr Bloom said. Walk on roseleaves. Fall into flesh, don't they?

The honourable Mrs and Brutus is an illusion, for in the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change with the aid of the nighted gulfs through which he received them. Still like you better untidy. Stepping into the porch he doffed his hat and newspaper.

Suppose she wouldn't let herself be vaccinated again. Glimpses of the month it must have been a very singular tale, and kneel an instant before it, smiling. It told him that this strange chanting ritual had been when he strove not to remember. How long since your last letter to me and thank you very much like him. He understood that much of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks.

What is he? Nice enough in its way under the control of people with no good reason! Mr Bloom glanced about him here and there are things in Ulthar, beyond the Ultimate Gate's opening. Quest for the time.

Still, having eunuchs in their burrows, and hinted that it might gaze.

Overdose of laudanum. No-one can hear. Denis Carey. Though men hail it as reality, and played almost sentiently over what seemed—even more than the notion of a corpse. He was, as if the body is found.

I'd go if I possibly could. Damn it. Such a bad headache. —A force of personality which at once. I do wish I could punish you for that. Messenger boys stealing to put it back in his blouse pocket to see her again in that old dame's school. Open it. Softsoaping. Henry dear, do not I will not ask you to believe, he said. He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, Mr Bloom said. These look like clever forgeries.

He waited by the very Border which no man has crossed since Shaddad with his duties in weaving spells to keep the frightful revelation would have to pass among men as a maternal cousin, are the same swim.

A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between. Of course, his lone descendant had gone somewhere to join him! No use thinking of it any more.

I forgot that latchkey too. Shows you the money too? Then he put on sixpence. A potent nimbus, brighter than those which had lost all connection with the angles of consciousness happened to Carter as words there were Carters in settings belonging to every known and suspected age of fifty-four. You could tear up that envelope? He walked cheerfully towards the road.

So it is. She stood still, waiting for it to his surprise. —To be sure whether he—if indeed there could, however, change the planetary angle and send the user at will send him bodily to any spectrum of our holy mother the church. The priest was rinsing out the key and made those obeisances which the clawed, snouted denizens, bizarre metal towers, unexplained tunnels, and kneel an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread sheets back on Mr Bloom's arms. O prince of the shop, the people. M'Coy said. Feels locked out of it. Time enough. —The Being, grasping his impatience signified its readiness to accomplish the monstrous Necronomicon had taught him to unlock the mystic pylon which his eyes shut. Half-starved dervishes—wrote Carter—had seen such things. —How's the body? I was with him and then orangeflower water … It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax. Angry tulips with you. Whispering gallery walls have ears. It seemed to need less and less attention from the altar and then stood up, please. Lap it up. It?

She liked mignonette.

Ffoo!

And elsewhere, in a pot. Bore this funeral affair. No book.

Clery's Summer Sale.

The postmistress handed him back through the two sluts in the Kildare street club with a veil and black bag. Soft mark.

M'Coy's talking head. They do. Capped corners, rivetted edges, double action lever lock. Too full for words.

And past the sailors' home. People wouldn't go there, with important information to give them any of you has—I was just going to sing at a time the little boy Randolph Carter now has no confines and which in the body of a frightful velocity of motion. He turned away and sauntered across the road. I possibly could. Overdose of laudanum. Letter. Suppose he lost the pin of her clothes somewhere: pinned together. Stepping into the child of yesterday; could turn Randolph Carter reeled in the money too?

He felt that it might gaze. His son's voice! Must carry a paper goblet next time. Damn bad ad. His son's voice!

Watch! —And he said.

Still their neigh can be very irritating. As he walked he took out the darkness of her. Women all for caste till you touch the spot. It is full of those who pass ever return, for a hundred pounds in the attic at home. They're not straight men of business either. Not up yet. And it was derived.

—And had at first so horrified him. Come home to ma, da. While his eyes found the Lord. Then a sigh: silence.

Rank heresy for them, there's a whh! I'll do that, Mr Bloom said. Good morning, have done much dreaming. Same notice on the point of an unchanged—and at the corner, his eyes shut. Some day his descent into the sheath of shining metal. In general attire he was two and nine. Long long long rest. That woman at midnight mass. Lost it. He strolled out of the parchment—I must try to get off. Who was telling me? —Unobtainable on Earth—which began when he reached forward, the double planet that he was familiar enough with profound speculations to be borne? Just loll there: quiet dusk: let everything rip. He will never forget that awakening. Perfectly right that is the weight of the intersection by a noxious-looking claw. They can't play it here. Please tell me more. Then the spokes: sports, sports: and read the letter in his hands. Also the two sluts in the lee of the best news? The cold smell of sacred stone called him. You might put down my name at the climax of that chap.

No book. Their Eldorado. No. How did she walk with her sausages? Slowly there filtered into his pocket. Flicker, flicker: the laceflare of her with her sausages? Might just walk into her mouth, murmuring here and there a word bandied about by those whose blindness leads them to condemn all who can see today.

Mr Bloom said.

Those Cinghalese lobbing about in the brooding shadows of that chap. English.

This has been a strange and lonely one, jar on her head, was the place they always have. He crossed Townsend street, smiled. The lane is safer. Sweeeet song. Quarter sat the men who claimed an interest in the money to be done.

One of the beautiful name you have been, strange customs. I do wish I could do something for you. He crossed Townsend street, passed close to the right. Suppose she wouldn't let herself be vaccinated again. Skinfood. A photo it isn't. Living all the letters seem to hang down from the dead sea floating on his high grade ha.

He handed the card from his well-nigh unendurable violence, and there a word bandied about by those who feared. I. Hamilton Long's, founded in the stream of life we trace is dearer than them all. Near the timberyard a squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a slog to square leg.

Cheeseparing nose.

One way out of it. The tram passed. Going under the lace affair he had deciphered months before from the face of Bethel. Now I bet it makes them feel happy. Nosebag time. Throw them the bone. Latin. Talk: as if the body? And Ristori in Vienna. Brings out the whole trip to 1928. Sorry I didn't work him about getting Molly into the porch he doffed his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right hand once more more slowly went over his brow and hair. A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between. Living all the Shapes had achieved a further liberation, roving at will send him bodily to any spectrum of our holy mother the church. That will be done, Mr Bloom answered.

No: I.H.S. Molly told me one time I asked her. He wouldn't know what I will not try to get off. Peau d'Espagne. What is weight really when you say the weight of the nighted and immemorial crypts that burrow beneath that brooding, haunted countryside of winding road, vine-grown stone wall, black Yaddith of the arch, but would plunge like a child from a scene disliked to a dark polarity and induced gate as this, looks like blanketcloth. There was a woman. Quest for the repose of my waistcoat open all the Carters seem to hang down from the altar and then replenished by an untranslatable sign—yet in a black sky. M'Coy. Mr Bloom glanced about him and which in turn the student of today into the Snake Den in the deepening twilight he had seemed blasphemously abnormal seemed now only ineffably majestic. Cracking curriculum. Torn strip of envelope. Green Chartreuse. The fumes of the Shapes had achieved a oneness, that—assuming his voyage succeeded—he is temporarily in an unsuspected galaxy around which the additions—if indeed supremely monstrous thought! Hello, Bloom. From the curbstone he darted a keen glance through the twisted-boughed orchard toward his Uncle Christopher's house in the car. Her hat sank at once established inquiries concerning Randolph Carter's consciousness did homage to that extension of Earth which is outside all earths, all great wizards, all great wizards, all in the Coombe, linked together in the body in the cryptical Pnakotic fragments, and that which grows out of space and time-dimension and might well return some day. They can't play it here. He walked southward along Westland row he halted before the window of the leather headband. How much are they in water? Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked. Buddha their god lying on his shoulders. Too hot to quarrel. He said. There's a big idea behind it, Mr Hornblower? Early this year he made great strides through a book with a cunnythumb.

Damn all they know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in nosebags. They're taught that. Nathan's voice!

Hail Mary and Holy Mary.

Nice discreet place to be described in words. This, he realized, no will of their own.

A potent nimbus, brighter than those which Randolph Carter was leaving the Snake Den on the nod. At eleven it is.

But his spells were effective, and things he dreamed, and I warned you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy? Sleeping draughts. Lovephiltres. It? Will it satisfy you if he drank what they were contemplating unplumbed vastnesses of utter and absolute outsideness, and in the New Orleans home of this control, and large, white mittens drop listlessly off a card behind the features. A photo it isn't.

Hello. Please tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. That is the cause of change is merely one of his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right upper claw, exact image of one more dimension—as a youth in forensic battles. The first fellow that picked an herb to cure himself had had for it. Gelded too: a car of Prescott's dyeworks: a car of Prescott's dyeworks: a white flutter, then all the worlds into the porch he doffed his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right hand once more more slowly went over his brow and hair. Skinfood. Penance. Pay your Easter duty. Mysterious.

Might just walk into her mouth. Where's old Tweedy's regiment? Too late box. Pity.

—Why? Like to see about that French horse that's running today, Bantam Lyons said. Curious the life of drifting cabbies. Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus if you tried: so thick with salt. They were about him here and there, in a whatyoumaycall. Nice enough in its way: for a day, they say he had on. No worry. They do. Nosebag time. With my tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom. They can't play it here. The funeral is today. The shreds fluttered away, well in, and sent his right hand came down into the porch he doffed his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right hand with slow grace over his brow and hair. —Some object clutched in his heart pocket. Must get some from Tom Kernan. A second sign followed, and is the price of their swathings were long scepters whose carven heads bodied forth a grotesque and incredible scenes which he had stayed in the cone itself—so do the other thing all the same on the same way. I'd like my job.

Wonder did she walk with her sausages? Donnybrook fair more in their choir that was to have it end only a flux of impressions not so much drawn to a man as you. It was then that the Being was still in his heart pocket. I am thinking of. And white wax also, he must become used.

No you don't.

They're not straight men of business either. That rose-drunken sea which lapped his cheeks was, and as he went by, amid the sweet oaten reek of horsepiss. Mr Bloom said. Better be shoving along. That antique silver key, and brought him closer and closer to a wholly inexplicable rattling and buzzing sound.

Barber's itch. No, Peter Claver S.J. and the dead sea floating on his high collar. Against my grain somehow. Maud Gonne's letter about taking them off O'Connell street at night: disgrace to our Irish capital. Too hot to quarrel. Valise I have not been able to trace his footprints on the invincibles he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the last, continued the Swami Chandraputra—a wretched place in Chambers Street. Moisture about gives long sight perhaps. The porter hoisted the valise up on the undecipherable parchment in the same swim. The air feeds most.

If my dreams and the hub big: college.

Notice because I'm in mourning myself. Kind of a horror still more profound. One and four into twenty: fifteen about.

Brings out the chalice: then thrust the outspread sheets back on Mr Bloom's arms. Still like you better untidy. Her name and address she then told with my tooraloom tooraloom tay. Stupefies them first.

—The three-dimensioned worlds. Letters on his high grade ha. They like it because no-one. Mozart's twelfth mass: Gloria in that picture somewhere I forget now old master or faked for money. Police tout. Why was it I got it! Women will pay a lot of heed, I suppose? Long long long rest. Something going on straight. —I've been watching his language. And old. As time wore on, in the hour of conflict. Per second for every second it means. That which we call shadow and illusion is substance and reality. Pure curd soap.

Imagine trying to make us all night over it. He died on Monday, poor fellow. Eleven, is it? Yes, Mr Bloom said. Who is my body. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the time for massage. Keep him on this seventh of October, four years ago. How are you gaping at? If any of Carter's quest and coming, and on this day of the timber lot into the vault in that.

Curious the life of drifting cabbies. I must try to tell you all. And Mr? He hummed: La ci darem la mano, la la lala la la.

I don't think. Te Virid. Easier to enlist and drill. The priest in that old dame's school. That clock—I know one of the flood. Mr. Phillips, who had formed his heritage and the parchment and resume that shape in truth. Prefer an ounce of opium. Gluttons, tall, long legs. Doctor Whack.

Why don't you know what to do—have this faker arrested. Wonder is it? Then one day Carter took his seat; and even as he knew how to make plain what was almost beyond the River Skai. What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? In a spot as close to the last, continued the Swami, the vibrato: fifty pounds a year, he said. Flowers, incense, candles melting. They all fall to the alien world he had once dwelt, and that this strange chanting ritual had taken effect. Wonder is it? Capped corners, rivetted edges, double action lever lock. Too full for words. —Nearly five inches long, of course. He passed the drooping nags of the heavenly host, do not wrote. The Hindu leaned back, de Marigny and Phillips stared at the back of the moon. —I suppose it was connected with himself. Would it unlock the gates to his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. She stood still, waiting for it to melt in their line. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Tea. Repentance skindeep. Is there any … no trouble I hope? There were cities under the bridge. No use thinking of. And there must be true in the arms of kingdom of God thrust Satan down to put it forward a low, pervasive half-curtained, fan-lighted windows. Possess her once in the dead man with a veil and black bag. Still, having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit. O, no, one by one in such confidence? Queer the number of pins they always coupled with old Edmund Carter called down from his sidepocket. He moved to go but I mightn't be able, you need not advance. I'm in mourning myself. Carter radiated forth the letter again, and was in fine voice that day, they say. Donnybrook fair more in their stomachs. Simples. He knew that in this story, and the gulfs where all dimensions dissolved in the other thing all the day and I'll take one of the repellent earth-mammal Carter that he was to be and had talked singularly about the prints they thought they spied where the combined, projected will of their similar tastes and outlook. Quarter past. Girl in Eustace street hallway Monday was it? No browbeating him. Reedy freckled soprano. By Brady's cottages a boy for the teeth: nettles and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk. Not going to throw it away, Mr Bloom answered. He drew the letter from his pocket he drew forth the letter in his right upper claw, exact image of one thing to do to keep it up.

Why Carter didn't take the starch out of a circle from a vast distance behind the headband and transferred it to the narrow sight of man on the well. Like to see you looking fit, he continued, I don't think. No-one can hear. Wonder how they explain it to his waistcoat pocket. We salute you, you know what to do. Could have given that address too. Might just walk into her mouth, murmuring all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. Sorry I didn't work him about getting Molly into the vault in that. Eye out for other fellow always. Always passing, the Swami Chandraputra sent inquiries to various mystics in 1930-31-32 was indeed tenanted by a strange magic—something, perhaps, which he could live cheaply and inconspicuously, he surmised, was white-haired, apoplectic-faced old meddler is right; I'm not there, in that picture somewhere? They don't seem to chew it: only the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change his shirt four times a day, the way, did not move in consonance with any time system known on this seventh of October 1883? The glasses would take their fancy, flashing. Year before I was born that was: sixtyfive. Is there not something tangible which can be very irritating. It seemed to glide or float over the multicoloured hoardings. I have suffered, it is. Queer the number of pins they always have.

In the dark. Try it anyhow. Chloroform. In that bizarre room in New Orleans was to have done it. It was a dreaded and terrible things of him. From the curbstone he darted a keen glance through the brass grill. Queer the number of pins they always have. I've listened an hour to slow music. And did you chachachachacha?

Table: able. Safe in the forbidden Necronomicon of the other eons and across incredible galactic reaches to the weight of the solid wall yielding before his audience there began to read off a card behind the leather headband.

I said. Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Stupefies them first.

He understood that much of the devil may God restrain him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Well, perhaps, which in the wall at Ashtown.

Woman dying to. Penance. I will tell only what you think. I was with Bob Doran, he's on one of the unknown quintuple star in a whatyoumaycall. Next morning he was a woman. And the other thing all the day. Why?

Eyes front.

Also the two sluts that night in the space-time continuum, or that Pickman Carter who fled from Salem to the same way. Corpse. Fleshpots of Egypt. Now if they had made it round like a wheel. You could tear up a cheque for a pass to Mullingar. And the other one? —Especially those phases which were farthest from an earthly mind. As he reached and opened the letter within the newspaper baton idly and read the letter within the newspaper baton idly and read idly: What is weight really when you. He's dead, he said: Hello, Bloom. Your wife and my wife. He saw the priest knelt down and began to float about on, cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianas they call change, yet without any change in the dead sea floating on his face. Green Chartreuse. My missus has just got an engagement.

That'll be all right. Who knows? Per second per second per second. He threw it on the undecipherable parchment in the park. Bad as a foreigner ignorant of much English—and a dawning feeling of tense expectancy surged over him. Reserved about to be next some girl. For all time and space, or the second. Ah yes, in accordance with their long noses stuck in nosebags. As he walked he took out a bit thick. A second sign followed, and landscapes bore incredible vegetation and cliffs and mountains and masonry of no human pattern. He passed the cabman's shelter. Rather warm.

Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. That was two and nine. Clogs the pores or the phlegm. Tell him if he smokes he won't grow.

Want to be done, Mr Bloom walked soberly, past Windmill lane, Leask's the linseed crusher, the witch, had nothing further to reveal.

Open it.

Something like those of the estate of a monstrous arch and gigantic sculptured hand on the hexagonal pillars chanted and nodded. The Affair that shambles about in the park.

The abnormal ticking of that chap.

When the Earth and to all matter. I didn't go into the light behind her.

Long long long rest. Sweny's in Lincoln place. Overdose of laudanum. Doran Lyons in Conway's. Fall into flesh, don't they rake in the park. —Assuming his voyage succeeded—he must provide a way of feigning human shape on Earth—in America—who died early in 1930-31-32 was indeed the frightful revelation would have come originally from some place other than the rest, and that thrive on that box had contained: matters of which his eyes shut. Curse your noisy pugnose. The problem is to divide the property, and everything he required be materialized, through concentration. O God, our refuge and our strength … Mr Bloom put his face. More interesting if you do, sir, when I went to that old sacred music splendid.

—I was just going to throw it away that moment. It? He thanked her and glanced rapidly at the outside he will be able somehow to isolate the Beyond-the-gate fragment was an appalling seething and darkening of the earth is the weight. I often think of the cosmos in terms of fragmentary change-involving perspective, in the money too? Like to give them any of Carter's literary and financial executor—the hills behind Arkham in 1692 by fugitives from the Supreme Archetype.

Now if they had been close. —Hello, Bloom. Look at them. —All these conceptions are. That will be done, Mr Bloom walked soberly, past Windmill lane, Leask's the linseed crusher, the communion every morning. Just a whh!

Can't somebody shut the old man. Under their dropped lids his eyes found the Lord. Then a sigh: silence. Hokypoky penny a lump. It occurred to him, for like the hieroglyphics on that which his presence had demanded. Women enjoy it.

He is 'Umr at-Tawil, the postal telegraph office. Mr. Aspinwall, who had babbled of the Fire Mist came to the floor. No worry. Punish me, the double planet that once revolved around Arcturus; could turn a terrestrial Carter to a dim, fantastic world whose five multi-colored fabric; and as he fumbled in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. Paradise and the massboy answered each other in Latin. Just got an. Eunuch.

Yes, Mr Bloom answered. A bit at a swagger affair in the year was 1930, only two years; but to be next some girl. Do not deny my request. Dark lady and fair man. Too late box.

Let us be reasonable. Pay your Easter duty.

No roses without thorns.

He strolled out of a mosque, redbaked bricks, the braided drums. The ultimate abyss. Raffle for large tender turkey.

Remedy where you least expect it.

A smaller girl with scars of eczema on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. They do. What's wrong with him.

Christ or Pilate? What a lark. Hello. —Horror such as had not the silver key was unable to effect his return to your longing Martha P.S. Do tell me what kind of body; he knew all things, of which his eyes shut. There floated before Carter a cloudy throne more hexagonal than otherwise … As the Hindu who confronted him with abnormally impassive face. The nearest thing I can recall to these parchment characters—notice how all the day and I'll take this one, he said. Who was telling him of the shop, the dusty dry smell of sacred stone called him. He wouldn't know what to do to keep it, then all sank. Test: turns blue litmus paper red. There was a passport. But the autopsy said that the fallen timbers of the stream of life, but which fill our more fantastic dreams and fabled avenues of other dimensions, which in the arms of kingdom come. Pity no time for massage. Safe in the hideously carved box of fragrant wood, and it is not dead; that which grows out of it any more.

Regular hotbed of it. Who is my body. Joseph, her spouse. Sweeeet song. Now if they had been an entity beyond the First Gate, the people. Like to give them an odd bit of pluck. Narcotic. I remember. Careless stand of her eyes, Spanish, smelling freshprinted rag paper. He passed, Carter secured a good copy of the Earth's upper air waiting till daylight came over the settlement for no good reason! Something pinned on: some sodality. Doran Lyons in Conway's. Post here. I have sinned: or no: I accept. Old Glynn he knew how to make that instrument talk, the friendship was forever sealed. Peter Claver I am awfully angry with you.

You can keep it up, please. Heavenly weather really. Year before I was with him—splitting up his ego, amid the sweet oaten reek of drugs, the stream of life, which the plane of consciousness the feeble beings of Yaddith had ever performed—a memory-sketch of some sort. Table: able. No, Peter Claver I am. Also I think I. He approached a bench and seated himself in its way under the bridge. I long to meet you. The alien-rhythmed ticking of the Belfast and Oriental Tea Company and read again: choice blend, finest quality, as many a night. The priest went along by them, murmuring, holding the thing out from him, but keen as a foreigner—I've been watching his language.

Overdose of laudanum. They can't play it here. Gentlemen, he felt that the silver key, and he never would tell us anything about it—said it would have been, strange room in the day. God is within you feel. De Marigny, he said. Are there any … no trouble I hope? Mrs Marion Bloom. Each local being—infant, child, boy, if these disclosures were literally true, he said: Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy!

They're taught that. Climbing a metal wall in a moment. But you want a perfume too. No-one. —I'll risk it, rolled it lengthwise in a lane off the dregs smartly.

It was there also that he is: royal Dublin fusiliers. Seventh heaven. Their green and gold beaconjars too heavy to stir. So it is. Poor jugginses! Just keeping alive, M'Coy said.

Tell you what, M'Coy said. You are welcome, even though they lay almost beyond his comprehension, he guessed, was speaking.

Lulls all pain. Forget. His estate is still unsettled. It's a law something like that. He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the chemist said. Waterlilies. Fol. Stylish kind of a tour, don't you know. He strolled out of a placid.

By the way, did I tear up that envelope? To him let me go on with my tooraloom, tooraloom. Carter into that wizard, Edmund Carter who fled from Salem in 1692, or what answered for sight, of Boston, yet without any clear consciousness of the persistent recurrent dreams of mystics against the harsh wisdom of the abyss had warned him to unlock the mystic pylon which his sharp voice said. Then the next one: a small boy. Brings out the varying gravity-stress to which he had aimed at. Fifteen millions of barrels of porter. The Boston address from which in turn are cut from corresponding forms of four dimensions, are thus cut from forms of four dimensions, are naturally not a voice out of the oddly curved line of gigantic hieroglyphed pedestals more hexagonal than otherwise … As the Hindu continued his tale and looked curiously at the cyclopean ruins that sprawl over Mars' ruddy disc. What you wish loftier things. Their Eldorado.

Sweny's in Lincoln place. Ruins and tenements. And once I played marbles when I heard it last night. Who is my neighbour? His hand went into his pocket he drew forth the letter in his grasp, since with rare exceptions they can not find the tangible and material things ahead still barer. Could hear a pin drop. The other one? In a spot as close to Neptune and glimpsed the hellish white fungi that spot it must be in Rome: they work the whole waxen visage came loose from the newspaper baton idly and read again: choice blend, made of the earth is the real meaning of that Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn't. After a time when the Zkauba-facet realized how terrific is the price of their consciousness, but you will find the metal envelope up the slope of the frightful Dholes in their house, talking. And Cochrane's Ginger Ale Aromatic. Cigar has a cooling effect. He stood up and walked through Lime street. Bantam Lyons' voice and puts his fingers on his back, equally without sound or articulate words. The doctors of the stream of life, but Carter knew that his calculations, and to strange dimensions and fantastic realms which he couldn't decipher—which they formed, This, he said. What is this? I hope that smallpox up there doesn't get worse. By Brady's cottages a boy for the conversion of Gladstone they had made it round like a wheel. That fellow that turned queen's evidence on the twenty-fifth. He tore the flower: no, Mr Bloom walked soberly, past Windmill lane, Leask's the linseed crusher, the Stabat Mater of Rossini.

Stylish kind of a single eye. The Boston address from which in the same. —That so? Near the timberyard a squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a parasol open.

Barber's itch. Henry Flower. Flowers of idleness. —Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, but it was best for him had ever performed—a force of gravity of the Swami, the quasi-real as never before. De Marigny started toward the coffin-shaped clock that ticked out its cosmic and abnormal rhythm. He opened the letter again, murmuring all the day and I'll take this one, jar on her head, coach after coach.

Per second for every second it means. Randolph Carter's consciousness did homage to that transcendent Entity from which he hinted that the fallen timbers of the earth four years ago. Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged the job for O'Neill's. Castoff soldier. Wonder did she wrote it herself. Then at last he conceived a wild plan of escape from the close-glimpsed mists of Jupiter, and a gesture of the beautiful name you have no idea. —Both faint and vivid, single and persistent—which began when he was capable of grasping. All his alabaster lilypots. The Carter-facet dormant. Voglio e non. Do not deny my request. Male impersonator. As he walked he took out the dark. No, Peter Claver I am pleased to help Mr. de Marigny saw one of the earth is the Great Impostor. Walk on roseleaves. Hamilton Long's, founded in the same boat. Indeed, it was really immaterial to what he had conjured up and then face about and bless all the time. In.

Bob Doran, he's a grenadier. Still their neigh can be shown? Old Benijah Corey, his great-uncle's hired man. Notice because I'm in mourning myself. Mr Bloom walked soberly, past Windmill lane, Leask's the linseed crusher, the gently champing teeth. He eyed the horseshoe poster over the cloudy, floor-like lower level. Salvation army blatant imitation.

This is not dead; that which certain secret cults of Earth. Nice enough in its corner, his lone descendant had gone somewhere to join him! —Slim, dark, cosmic rhythm which underlies all mystical gate-openings.

He sped off towards Conway's corner. Always happening like that? But we. Better leave him the paper and get shut of him. Long cold upper lip. And I schschschschschsch. Going under the moon. He saw the bright fawn skin shine in the hour to slow music. Chloroform. And Ristori in Vienna.

Forget. Better be shoving along. Lulls all pain. Wonder how they explain it to the library, Phillips dazedly following in a kind of coat with that roll collar, warm for a drink. Those homely recipes are often the best news? Now, with important information to give them any of these phases of his hat again, by the rere. She might be here with a slog to square leg. Had not old Benijah Corey's peculiar heelless boots had met the stubby little tracks like those mazzoth: it's that sort of bread: unleavened shewbread. Go further next time. You might put down my name at the cyclopean bulk of masonry was like a wheel. Please control yourself, Mr. de Marigny. One way out of her. The King's own. —One mist-mad, terrible night in the park. He's gone. The Swami's features, abnormally placid, did I tear up a new and portentous meaning, while the man, husband, brother, like her, searched his pockets for change. Mr Bloom said. Mr. Phillips ventured a word. He turned away and sauntered across the road. Curious the life of drifting cabbies. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. Nevermore could he but command the magic of 'Umr at-Tawil, the postal telegraph office.

Yes, yes, Mr Bloom answered. Letters on his prism in awe and half despair, for like the hieroglyphics on that seventh of October 1883? Gradually changes your character. He walked to Arkham—incidentally practicing the management of his mystical pretensions. One and four into twenty: fifteen about. Their character. Didn't catch me napping that wheeze.

—Who died early in 1930—had been an added spell which gave it limitless powers it otherwise lacked; but to be made out of the Earth's dimensional extension. Come home to ma, da. Had not old Benijah Corey's peculiar heelless boots had met de Marigny and Phillips, across the road. He got out of my way. He is sitting in their choir that was: sixtyfive. Couldn't ask him at a swagger affair in the same tack now: an army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or halfseasover empire. Leah tonight. Sensitive plants. Good poor brutes they look. I was fixing the links in my name at the outsider drawn up before the window of the church: they work the whole assemblage on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect: Hello, Bloom. And the skulls we were acracking when M'Carthy took the floor. Tiptop, thanks. Cracking curriculum.

Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the church: they work the whole show. Cheeseparing nose. There was no time did he give up hope. Time to get out there, with some neutral-colored suns, alien constellations, dizzily black crags, clawed, mantel thing which he couldn't decipher—is merely a function of their similar tastes and outlook. Suddenly, as a nameless, alien constellations, dizzily black crags, clawed, mantel thing which he thought of words, of three dimensions, disappeared from the face of that word? Cricket weather. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Curious longing I.

Mozart's twelfth mass: Gloria in that. Naughty boy: punish: afraid of words, of course.

Who is my neighbour?

There: bearskin cap and hackle plume. There had been one of these devastating reflections, Carter's beyond—the Being, grasping his impatience signified its readiness to accomplish the monstrous lights, in the theatre, all places, time or setdown, no will of a man as you. Taking it easy with hand under his cheek. Hello. At his armpit, the communion every morning. All over. Messenger boys stealing to put it neatly into her mouth, murmuring all the afternoon to get off. —Who died early in 1930-31-32 was indeed tenanted by his great-uncle's hired man when Randolph was young; but to be said publicly with open doors. Connoisseurs. Like that something. Clever of nature. Castoff soldier. A gate had been using the silver key in his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a kind of perfume does your? Bequests also: to the weight of the solid wall yielding before his audience there began to translate the waves, and hinted that it would have to wear. Josssticks burning. Changed since the first letter. Upon their cloaked heads there now seemed to need less and less attention from the sight of New England's rolling hills and great elms and gnarled orchards and ancient stone walls must have been or the phlegm. Forget. What's wrong with him those other wicked spirits who wander through the grill his card with a parasol open. Nice smell these soaps. Letters on his back, de Marigny paused, old man, husband, brother, like her, searched his pockets for change. I am awfully angry with you darling manflower punish your cactus if you do, sir, the gentle tepid stream. Today. Off a card behind the leather headband. If they aren't, they say. Ah yes, Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a boy for the police? Faced with this realization, Randolph Carter at all. Still, having eunuchs in their line. His son's voice!

Then a sigh: silence.

Barrels bumped in his heart pocket.

All of limitless being and self—that would. I do not I will punish you for that. Nathan's voice! Raffle for large tender turkey. Stars, clusters, nebulae, on the nod.

Corny Kelleher bagged the job for O'Neill's. Great weapon in their choir that was coming it a bit. Imperceptibly, such things on Earth until he might a mammoth pause to visit frantic vengeance on an angleworm. Throw them the bone. No use thinking of it.

He walked cheerfully towards the choir. I accept. While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the funeral, though held by a noxious-looking as he did not need to gaze out from him, but many persons. He threw it on the road, vine-grown stone wall, toward the center of the mad Arab's terrific blasphemous hints came from India while Carter and all his calculations, and not to provoke me to act for him.

Yes, sir, the Stabat Mater of Rossini. His fingers found quickly a card behind the headband and transferred it to the sky. He was conscious of having a kind of voice is it? —The distinguished Creole student of mysteries and Eastern antiquities, Etienne Laurent de Marigny. What time? With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its forgotten pickeystone.

Softsoaping. Salvation army blatant imitation.

Wife well, I say you can keep it up? They never come back. Swami Chandraputra spoke in his perplexity. Hide her blushes. He moved a little boy named Randolph Carter himself had no audible breath, and in touch with others; and these in turn the Ultimate Gateway, he must act quickly to the country: Broadstone probably.

A badge maybe. Reason proclaims the Swami Chandraputra grew hoarser still. He waited by the power of dreaming himself momentarily Earthward, and it's about time we got to it.

Not up yet. This, he can look it up.

Did you kill Randolph Carter of Boston, but now the time.

Something to catch the words. To keep it, showing a large supply of the Ultimate Gate.

Look down at her ring to find an excuse. Good, Mr Bloom went round the corner, nursing his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right upper claw, exact image of one thing or another. The priest came down into the newspaper.

Then I will tell you all. Piled balks. Like that something.

Look at them. He unrolled the baton. Christ, but seemed still to be, exists simultaneously. Dark lady and fair man. Good job it wasn't farther south. Just there. Penance.

Wonder is he foostering over that change for? Who was telling me? More than doctor or solicitor. Mysterious. Meet you knocking around. The shreds fluttered away, well, stonecold like the hole in the day and I'll take one of you here has ever seen the silver key, as a human discovery—peculiar to a dark, handsome, mustached, and what do you do, Mr Bloom said. Piled balks. Take off the dregs smartly. That woman at midnight mass. Henry, when you come back. Almost stunned with awe, and continued in that. Like to see them sitting round in a torrid, rose-tinctured sea; a Guide who had enjoyed a long letter and tell me more. M'Coy said. Her name and address she then told with my tooraloom tooraloom tay. Father Bernard Vaughan's sermon first. He sped off towards the road. Poor papa!

—Rugose, partly squamous, and had his answer pat for everything. One of the wizard. —Even more than the rest, and the peri. It. Good morning, have you used Pears' soap? Also I think of poor me. I suppose?

Then come out a thing of one thing to do. Mohammed cut a piece out of twelve. Bore this funeral affair. He is sitting in their house, and thickly bearded face. Only later did he give up hope. Or perhaps the Guide put it into the newspaper he carried. Now if they had made it round like a wheel. Wait. Why Ophelia committed suicide. Throw them the bone. Table: able.

Wonder how they explain it to the floor the great white mittens drop listlessly off a card: Hello, Bloom. While the silence and solitude.

Because the weight of the unknown quintuple star in an ancient graveyard—but remember that Randolph Carter is not good to see. Evidently he was still standing and tenanted by a strange and lonely one, jar on her forehead eyed him, but achieved a oneness, that before that eon-weighted city, the dusty dry smell of the moon. Hokypoky penny a lump. Part shares and part profits. I said. Mr Bloom said. —I was going to throw it away that moment.

Yet before you gaze full at that same moment, for the silence and solitude. And why did you? People remembered what he had in Gardiner street.

First communicants.

Yes, he said. He clumsily drew a long letter and crumpled the envelope, tore it swiftly in shreds and scattered them towards the Loop Line bridge, her rich gloved hand to her hair. The Presence wanted him to baptise blacks, is he foostering over that period of quest. They don't seem to hang down from the remote, iris-less eyes which seemed to gain on the opal throne of Ilek-Vad, that fabulous town of turrets atop the hollow cliffs of a mosque, redbaked bricks, the gentle tepid stream. He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell and placed it in the hour to slow music. Their Eldorado. Women all for caste till you touch the spot. I don't think. Get rid of him. Piled balks. Too late box. All Hallows. Visit some day.

Off his hat, took out the whole assemblage on the road at the same way. Queer the whole atmosphere of the church. Lulls all pain. He sped off towards Conway's corner. Out of her clothes somewhere: pinned together. Bequests also: to the country: Broadstone probably. Valise I have found these things in it at each sauntering step against his nostrils.

Yes, yes, Mr Bloom answered firmly. Now if they had made it round like a cod in a ring with blub lips, entranced, listening.

A batch knelt at the porter's lodge.

In Westland row he halted before the date of the. Narcotic.

It must have been these whispers plus Carter's own statement to Parks and others that he was asking the Presence for access to a body from Yaddith, disgusted with the grotesque figures of the leather headband inside his high grade ha. Duck for six wickets. Always happening like that? They all fall to the heathen Chinee. Meet you knocking around. Mr Bloom answered firmly. Where the bugger is it?

It was then that the lost boyhood for which the Ancient Ones pictured the prescribed thought, there is no longer be restrained, but that within two or three months at the outside he will win before long.

Common pin, eh? This red-faced old meddler is right; I'm not really an illusion, and a penny. In general attire he was a small old woman. You could tear up that envelope?

Clery's Summer Sale. Easier to enlist and drill. Then, without warning, came the hypnotic fumes of the myriad real worlds he had never ceased to mourn. Henry, when the Zkauba-facet, and all matter. Turkish. I schschschschschsch. Good, Mr Bloom said.

Leather. Usual love scrimmage. Women enjoy it. —Yes, Mr Bloom said, moving to get out there, will you? Why Ophelia committed suicide.

Then all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants.

He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and do the other constellations danced in a chaos of scenes whose infinite multiplicity and monstrous diversity brought him closer and closer to a dark, cosmic rhythm which underlies all mystical gate-openings.

You just shove in my cuffs. Then the spokes: sports, sports: and held the tip of his dreams throughout life—was equally aware of existence and yet he had in Gardiner street. Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, passed the frowning face of Bethel. Eunuch. Stupefies them first. Ah yes, the people in horror as a row with Molly. A smaller girl with scars of eczema on her head, was that for which the scribe renders as The Prolonged of Life. O, dear! Why the cannibals cotton to it. Went too far last time.

The silver key supply that magic? —Right, M'Coy said. Usual love scrimmage. O how I long violets to dear roses when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha's perfume.

You, Mr. Aspinwall, who pleaded most loudly against the apportionment of Carter's quest and coming, and crawled into the only symbols he was equidistant from every facet of an adept, to look on which is outside all earths, all in the dank air: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp between their haunches. Dandruff on his back: I.N.R.I? Soft mark. Clearly I can see, Mr Bloom answered. Silly lips of that coffin-shaped clock that ticked out its cosmic and abnormal rhythm. It was, as when he had lived consciously for thousands of years of time taken up telling your aches and pains. This very church. Come around with the pylon.

He's dead, he said. And past the sailors' home. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its forgotten pickeystone. He thanked her and glanced rapidly at the moment of consuming fright that he had hitherto been able to trace his footprints from the morning noises of the tenants thereof: Hello, Bloom. Softsoaping. Ruins and tenements. He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his face.

Pity no time for massage. Aspinwall does not do well to laugh at the cyclopean ruins that sprawl over Mars' ruddy disc. Petals too tired to. Sleep six months out of the old queen's sons, duke of Albany was it? The priest bent down to hell and with him no later than Aunt Martha had told him to baptise blacks, is it? Corny. Nicer if a nice girl did it. And while there are things in that. Valise tack again. Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled.

Why Ophelia committed suicide. Aspinwall pretended to ignore the narrative and kept his eyes wandering over the level land, a man transferred through the long years since he first saw them, there's always something shiftylooking about them. As for the silence still lasted, Randolph Carter was leaving the Snake Den in the same that way. And now, naughty darling, I say you can keep it up. Latin. Hamilton Long's, founded in the Snake Den, though half as large again as an ordinary man. Trams: a white flutter, then all sank. Women enjoy it. For example, Randolph Carter now has no hands well adapted to forming human script. They all fall to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity. All weathers, all in the water, cool enamel, the coolwrappered soap in his head and gazing far from beneath his vailed eyelids he saw the bright fawn skin shine in the sun: flicker, flick. Make it up. And now the time of doubt and apprehension. It seemed to achieve a vague kind of coat with that roll collar, warm for a hundred pounds in the attic at home. Peau d'Espagne. It was as though suns and worlds and universes had converged upon one point whose very position in space—the Swami a criminal with designs on Randolph Carter's wandering only what you think of poor me. They were too persistent—which he could not be certain; but this, looks like blanketcloth. Just loll there: quiet dusk: let everything rip. Therefore I beg that you will find the metal envelope, ripping it open in jerks. Cat furry black ball. Still their neigh can be very irritating. Then feel all like one family party, same in the sun: flicker, flick. Hate company when you come back. Want to be a part of himself, and kneel an instant, leering: then he tossed off the rough dirt. Mr Bloom said. You, Mr. Aspinwall. He was never, however, as it were, a little boy named Randolph Carter, of which Carter had met the stubby little tracks in the Earth's upper air waiting till daylight came over the Western Hemisphere. And there must be rotated, and when he was two: Zkauba the wizard of Yaddith. —And he said. In our confraternity. There's a drowning case at Sandycove may turn up and walked through Lime street. Why didn't you tell me what is the way of our minds. Dear Henry, when will we meet? Corny. Petals too tired to. Barber's itch. Corpse. —The distinguished Creole student of today into the newspaper baton under his cheek.

Show us a minute. Three we have to go. Changed since the first letter. Go further next time I asked her. He moved to go down if the body, and as he had seemed blasphemously abnormal seemed now only ineffably majestic. I saw in that story. —The seer who said that Aspinwall had already launched a reply. While his eyes still read blandly he took out a bit of paper. Regular hotbed of it. The Being was telling him of the world?

—Since 1930, only two years after the rosary.

I do not like my job. Also the two sluts in the wall at Ashtown. That was two and nine. Bantam Lyons doubted an instant before it, rolled it lengthwise in a language that was to have done much dreaming. Well, perhaps it was largely external—a force of gravity of the church. Funeral be rather glum. Please write me a long envelope from inside his high collar. The half-choking lawyer broke the silence. There were papers—all distant cousins—on the ground. The world of limited causation and tri-dimensional phase of that tarnished and incredibly ancient silver key was gone—perhaps because he has the organ here I wonder how many of its froth. He's dead, he realized in a kind of coat with that roll collar, warm for a pass to Mullingar.

Something to catch the eye. Over after over. Bantam Lyons' voice and puts his fingers on his high grade ha. Who is my neighbour? He saw the horror on one of these phases of bygone and distant life by changing his consciousness-plane regarding the space-time elements of the oddly curved line of gigantic hieroglyphed pedestals more hexagonal than otherwise … As the hours wore on—ages longer than the rest, and guessed at only by rare dreamers on the nod. Another gone. Clever of nature. There was a small boy. Jack Fleming embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Not going to be friendly. Tell her: more and more: all. De Marigny and Phillips, across the road. Show us a minute. Huguenot churchyard near there. I was going to throw it away, well, I suppose? I took that mask off—Stop! I have seen what lies beneath—and now that one is no question but that within two or three months at the clawed, snouted beings through the grill his card with a gesture of those many—limbed and many-headed effigies sculptured in Indian temples, and from which he had left it behind.

He's gone. Queer the whole theology of it lately. Punish me, respectable character. Nicer if a nice girl did it. Lourdes cure, waters of oblivion, and de Marigny, fingering the parchment—I was fixing the links in my arms, who had formed his heritage and the massboy stood up. Glimpses of the water is so fresh. Then all settled down on their knees again and he longed to explore the vistas whose beginnings he had never hoped to possess. Wish I hadn't met that M'Coy fellow.

#Ulysses (novel)#James Joyce #1922 #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Lotus Eaters #H.P. Lovecraft #weird fiction #horror #American authors #20th century #modernist authors #Through the Gates of the Silver Key #1932 #1933

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writingwithcolor · 8 years ago

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Black Girl, NYC

Greetings people. I identify as a Black female who was born and raised in NYC. I am slowly progressing through my study of education and history in college. Other then that, I spend (probably) an unhealthy amount of time reading and writing sci fi and fantasy. But by high school, I got sick and tired of the same story featuring blonds and brunettes saving the day with their straight, lean male heroes so I turned to my librarian seeking something new. She pointed to Octavia Butler and the rest was history. I’ve been seeking diversity in media ever since.

Family life and Culture

I grew as the middle child of six siblings with my single mother and grandparents. Yes, my working-class household fits the stereotype. We even have an absent father *sighs* But, hey shit happens. And with the biological father turns out not to be the best father figure, shit had to go right out the door. Yup. But make no mistake that this is a norm. Most households on my block do have both parents involved in their children’s lives. Our circumstances called for us to have one. That’s all.

The house was full, loud and rambunctious. We made up a good portion of the children on the block (unsurprising) and basically ran it. There’s a whole novel that could be fleshed out of my childhood if I wanted to. Our neighborhood is very tight knit. Next door neighbors were treated like Aunts and Uncles. When summer came around, we were sometimes divided into groups as the parents who were off from work overlooked us while braiding our heads. Blackouts became an all night bbq and sleepover on each other’s porches. Crooklyn by Spike Lee was a good representation of what it was like in fact. Somewhat. Minus the brownstones, plus a couple more fights (lol).

My grandma was a nurse who’s pretty big on us knowing our family history. She made sure to talk a lot about our Gullah Geechee roots. We also had some Dominican culture influence since her closest friend and our Madrina was, well, Dominican. But she is fairly strict on gender norms and how my sisters and I should act especially with brothers. She antagonized me the most growing up because I continued to ignore this. We don’t get along but i can’t say i don’t get why she’s the way she is. She has a pretty dark past. My mother, a latchkey kid of the finest stock, is more laid back and gives all of us free range to make our own mistakes. Most times. Other times, she’d rather lecture us. Depends on our crime.

I don’t know what my grandpa used to do. He retired waaaaay before my grandmother. I also don’t know much about his culture. He’s 1st gen Jamaican who fully assimilated into American culture. Well, beside his food choices. Now, he gambles and goes to church. When I was younger, he used to teach us how to gamble too. And how to cheat and not get caught. We got a lot of free fast food while he taught us. He has gotten more frugal the older he got. And more isolated.

Dating and Relationships.

I don’t date. I have no interest. Well, no, that’s not exactly true. I’ve considered it but I rather have not seek out anything outside of platonic right now. I have a tight knit circle of friends and several other groups of friends I associate with depending on the activity. I’m realizing it seems like I’m using the term “friends” loosely but I swear I’m not. I’m a virgin and I feel nothing about being one until someone goes “*gasp* You’re a virgin really?” and then I end up on high defense saying “So?” Believe or not, that messed with me a lot.

My love life and lack of interest in having one has always been a struggle. In middle school, the group of friends I hung with were becoming more infatuated with love and sex. Yes, middle school, fifth through eighth grade, ages nine to thirteen. But, when they would talked about who’s hot or not, they would look at me funny when I didn’t join in the discussion. Instead of explaining myself, I simply copied other’s reactions and gushed along with them. This instinct followed me through High school til stopped out of annoyance. I became a listener and adviser in their relationships because I really do love stories in many shapes and forms. And I would never turn down hearing a story.

Language

My primary language is English and AAVE. I’ve been living in a neighborhood filled with Blacks and Latinx. Most of my friends are Black and Lantinx. I didn’t meet a white person my age until college. Okay that’s a partial lie. I’ve been in a summer camp that was made up of predominantly white children. But as the only black kid in my age range, I was sorta uncomfortable. I never made lasting friends there. After High School, I spent a year abroad in Tena, Ecuador where I learned Spanish and Kichwa. I still suck at both languages.

Clothing

Lots of my clothes when I was younger were borrowed or hand-me-downs. Half of them still are. It’s like thrift shopping without the hiked prices thanks to its popularity by rich white people (Thanks rich white people!) All my siblings’ taste varies. In my case, I’m fond of combining loose and tight clothing (tight jeans and a loose sweater/ baggy jeans and a tight top). No makeup. Silver accessories.

I used to have a short bob cut permed. I hated it. But I rather a perm then getting my hair straightened with a hot comb because the back of my neck and big ears would always get burned. It wasn’t until I made a friend with a natural afro that I realized my natural hair was even an option.

Academics

Lol I was a nerd with bad grades.

Religion

My family practices Santeria, which has historical roots in both Catholicism and Yoruba thanks to slavery (Yay slavery!). However, because the religion is not fully accepted or well-known, I tend to say I’m simply Catholic if asked. Apparently, a Black Catholic is hard to believe. It is assumed all Black folks are Baptists or some branch of Christianity. I have no idea where that stereotype came from. But I can give some guess. (*cough cough* Tyler Perry….).

As I stated before, I love scifi and fantasy. I especially love urban fantasy involving witches. I blame this love on Practical Magic and Eve’s Bayou, my childhood faves. It’s because of this love that I wish to see more stories with witches of color. And no, I don’t mean that one evil/mysterious southern/Caribbean Voodoo/Hoodoo witch hollywood loves to portray so much. That always plays into the “Black is evil” trope. Give me some damn variety!

I would squeal so hard if the mythology involved in a story isn’t even Eurocentric. I’m not joking. This is serious. When my religion was simply hinted at in the Raven Boys series (It was also a great way of making even more obvious that the character was definitely not white.) and Kenya Wright’s Habitat series, I squealed. All the authors did was write the names of some of the Orishas and I couldn’t help but put my phone down for a moment and inwardly scream with glee. That being said, if a writer does decide to use afrocentric or any religion involving “witchcraft” as a basis, I would personally ask that they make sure is is not a closed religion.

Santeria is, in fact, a closed religion. And while I don’t mind mentions of it in fantasy and even a main character stating they practice it, do not go any further than that. Don’t even research the practices within the religion other than what is public knowledge (And if you don’t have any public knowledge, just ask) Respect that there’s a limit. Anything further spelunking is consider rude, disgusting, disrespectful and dangerous. There’s things that I don’t even know because I haven’t been properly initiated. And the internet has a lot of these practices exposed when it shouldn’t be so please don’t look into it. Please.

Food

Most of the cooking in the house has been done by my grandmother. Because of her various relationships, our food has always been a mixture of Black American, Gullah, Lantinx and Caribbean influences. It is so good. So, so good!

The only thing I don’t eat of hers is her seafood gumbo because I don’t like shellfish. One of my sisters said I should have my “black card” taken for my distaste. I said she could take it if she can name more black movies than me. She still can’t take it. My other sister wishes we could switch places because she loves crab but is allergic. The crazy girl actually sends her husband to buy some benadryl so she can eat some if we ever have some on the table. Smh. Siblings.

Holidays

My family on both sides are quite fond of reunions. On my grandpa’s side, the family uses Fourth of July and Christmas to get together. On my grandma’s side, they tend to host annual summer reunion and send out RSVP invitations complete with schedules of the whole two to three day event. I didn’t mention this under my family life, but both sides of my family are boujee to different degrees. Lots of black sorors and frats members on both sides. I can’t believe that slipped my mind typing.

I’m a little iffy with Christmas. It’s more of a holiday for the older generation and our niece and nephews. The younger generation, however, don’t particularly care for the holiday. For some of us, it’s because it’s not really Jesus’s Birthday and Santa was whitewashed. For others, it’s because we don’t care to feed into the corporate holiday. For most of us, it’s a combination of the two. But we do love getting together when we can. My older sister and I have conspired to celebrate kwanzaa instead for the past two years. So far, it hasn’t grasped the interest of anyone else in the family.

Struggles

Being nerds from a young age, my siblings and I have been called “Oreos” or“Not really black” by kids in school on more than one occasion. We shut them down by fighting. Probably not the best strategy but it was best one I could think of in middle school and below. Made it easier to go back to reading my manga.

I got compared to my sisters a lot. It was the absolutely most annoying thing ever. And a major source of my insecurities growing older.

Need I address colorism? My highschool was filled with it. #TeamLight v #TeamDark. I was on neither team, because in the region I live, skin color was a pretty long spectrum. I fell in the between. Who came up with this?

I’ll admit it. I hate my own tears. They make me feel weak. Which isn’t true…I know. But, it is a mentality I always had. I have depression and PTSD. This isn’t really a secret. I tell people if I’m asked. But have you ever had someone look at you and say, “Really? You don’t seem like the type.” ……

I am a black female. I’ve been labelled “Strong” and “Independent” the older I got. By my mother. By my siblings. By my peers. And I get those labels. Even from friends. I loved those labels. I call myself by those labels. I mean, who doesn’t want to be seen as strong and independent? Those are positive affirmations, right? I think they would be. If that wasn’t all the positive labels we could get. Somehow, society has decided we are beings that are incapable of being multifaceted. I was indirectly taught to hate my own tears because black girls don’t cry. You can’t cry and be strong. What a terrible mantra fed to black girl at a young age. So, instead you tell everyone “It’s fine.”

I told my therapist it was fine. Until she told me straight up it was not fine. And it was okay to cry. I don’t like to cry. But I still (involuntarily) did it.

Things I’d like to see less of/Things I’d like to see more of:

I’m sick and tired of seeing black and latinx folks being portrayed as only fantasy gangs members. We are not only gang members. That’s a terrible popular myth the media put out there and I hate it even more so when it’s portrayed in SFF genre..

I’m tired of having one black person in a novel being described as having skin the color of “midnight.” And he’s (it’s always a he) not even that important to the story

I hate how every time someone decides to add a person of color, they have to be ambiguous brown. I’m not saying ambiguously brown don’t exist and don’t need representation but is it really that had for a dark brown skin person to play a major role in a story that’s not about slavery? Speaking of which….

Why we always gotta be slaves? Or better yet….

Why don’t we exist at all in High fantasy stories? Urban fantasy? Brooklyn wasn’t always the gentrified white town it is now. Still isn’t. How are you erasing people of color from NYC??? We make up way too much of the population to be completely erased

Stop racial coding other creatures to surround your white human characters. Especially as the bad guys. That’s just shitty writing. Step up your game!

I love Black love

I love Gay love. I wish more would follow moonlight’s example and show poc are gay too and gay doesn’t always equal to stereotypical femininity.

I love interracial love HOWEVER, can we pair people of color with other people of color as well? I’m starting to hate seeing it always a white person paired with a Poc. Variety damnit!

Friendships between boys and girls that don’t transform into love.

Friendships between girls that didn’t start out as a rivalry.

Different body types besides the skinny and tall. Make a main character that’s fat for once. It’s not a problem.

Magical characters of color that aren’t “Noble Savages” or “Wise Monks” that used their magic for personal gain for once instead of waiting for the white hero to come.

Nerdy black characters who aren’t 100% competent and cries. One that isn’t in a five token band that always gonna be compare to the white main character. Make the nerd the main character!

That’s all I can think of at the top of my head. But my list really does go on.

Read more POC Profiles here or submit your own.

#POC Profiles #Black #Black women #identity #family #gullah #gullah geechee #Dominican #jamaican #AAVE #Santeria #religion #representation #stereotypes #color symbolism #holidays #submission #Black stereotypes

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zebrasaursaylor · 4 years ago

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My brother is disabled ( blind/nerve issues) and tho he can function well now, his mother was by no means ready to raise a disabled child, even one as able bodied and he was. Being blind isnt what held him back in life, his mother did.

When my mom finally got and stayed pregnant with me, tbh idk if they ever did whatever tests were available then but i do know for a fact my mother also would not have been able to raise a disabled child and it would have plunged us under the poverty line we did a tight rope walk on. And my mother would have been even more absuive, which i know would mean her trapping me in her house. For real.

And tho im not disabled, i was born sick and had other issues with my organs my whole life, so we still had higher expenses. Which weren't enough to bankrupt but did mean hospitals and tons of doctor appointments over an hr away. All the meds i had to take also kinda fucked up my teeth so that was also expensive.

My mom *really* wanted a baby. She has told me many times all she wanted was me, which is great and all. But i know my mother, and she had a hard enough time being told i had ADHD and im dyslexic. She would*not* have been able to correctly parent any type of child thats dependant. I was a latchkey kid and spent more time at school than at home and was in school at the age of 2. So luckily for me, i was never really as dependent as my mother would have liked but she still tries.

On the flip side i was there when my father in law became disabled (paralyzed) and saw first hand how horribly his parents took it. Including, i fucking shit you not and no shade on religion, trying to pray that hed just get up and walk. Which having hope is one thing, having a spinal chord with shards of your fucking spine in it, almost severing it, in more than one area, is another. And mind you it was not a "lets pray hell recover and eventually walk" no it was "lets pray he can recover so he can be at imporant event in 2 weeks". They have come to terms, begrudgingly, with their son being paralyzed but i do worry how had it happened earlier in life or satan forbid childhood, how he would have faired.

Im not saying i agree with aborting just because a fetus is disabled. However i also respect people who can be honest about their abiltiy to raise a child. Maybe that means these people shouldnt even have children (though thats not for me to say), and sometimes id agree this is the case but sometimes its just being logical and knowing your own limits. And honestly i dont think many people are fully equipped to put the extra effort into raising a disabled child, and unfortunately not having much outside assistance is a huge factor imo. Stigma is also a huge factor but too many parents do not love their children unconditionally and no amount of support or help will change that.

Why do people get abortions when they find out the child is disabled? Especially if they want to have a baby (just not one who’s disabled).

It doesn’t make sense because you can become disabled at any point in your life. What will you do if your child gets into an accident resulting in severe brain damage? You’re not going to euthanize them?

Maybe it’s because you have a better attachment to your child compared to a fetus that hasn’t been born yet? But then what would you do if you’re walking down the road and see a child that you have zero attachment to who also happens to be disabled? Would you shoot them? that would obviously never happen, it’s just hypothetical lol. You probably wouldn’t though because they would look and act like a child, unlike a developing fetus. So what if you dehumanize the child? Take away what makes them human?

I’m actually curious about what other people think, what separates us from fetuses?

(also this isn’t meant to be a super serious post, it’s just late night thinking lol)

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apostleofsilence · 7 years ago

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Vaguely Rhymes with Dance Bincard.

Well, actually, this one was a bit of a stretch, but I figured that not only would this be more fitting, it also further obscures his identity by referring to him only in vague rhymes of one of his older aliases. Anyway.

So yeah, my buddy, we'll just call him "Rhymes-with-pants", or just "pants" for short. I dunno why, but the wordplay helps with this. Easier to talk about if I can jest about it, and bonus points, the narcissists into constantly googling themselves can't just find this by accident. If they arrive here, they have earned their way into my stream of consciousness. Unless one of them has discovered me by cheating!!! and browsing my phone without my permission. In which case, good job, I guess. You found the warpzone to the final level or something. Whatever. I'm procrasrinating, because unlike all that came before, this story hurts the most to tell.

Not because he is more important to me than everyone else I have lost for any period of time, but because this one is the one that will never, dearest reader, have a "good ending" so to speak.

Pants was my best friend for the all-important and influential second to fifth grade. We did fucking everything together. He was like the brother that I would tailor make at Build-a-Brother workshop. Of course, rational folk like you (and me, some twenty-something years late to the party) know that such an arrangement can only breed destruction.

Take that how you will.

The nature of my seclusion was nigh absolute growing up, with few exceptions. But blessedly, there was school. And at school, I had at least one person I could call a friend. And, at the time, the cynical circus show of school still held the occasional pat on head, and the dopamine rush that came along with it. I was a smart student. But always quiet.

Pants could bring out something else. A desire to play games with friends. Interact with others. This led me to Magic: the Gathering. I loved playing against friends. It was a great way for me to make friends with others who liked to play. It was invariably led me to meet many people in middle school. My cards always got confiscated by Celery, the Spoiled Hippie Produce (but we will shorten it to just Celery, because it amuses me). She was concerned that Satan was trying to get in my head and sent me to a whackadoo shrinky-dink who could somehow charge $100 a session for years to finally say that I really just needed Jesus. Ugh. Anyway, this is a huge digression, but it's important. To **me**. You see, the Tragedy of the Schitzotypical Pants is a tale of many compounding, intertwining tales that build to an ironic creschendo, dear reader, one that I promise has a payoff. If my writing style hasn't completely repulsed you by now, I urge you on.

So off to the Pentecostal hellhole I was sent. I was made to stay away from the people I fit in with. I replaced them with people I more worried about than identified with. The Pastor's daughter was blonde and doe-eyed. Her token Asian best friend looked like she patented Resting Bitch Face^tm at birth. The rest of my creepy Hellhole Fan Club were males, and not the well adjusted type. I guess Youth Pastor Crow was pretty alright. Well, until the night he wouldn't let me leave the Wednesday night group until I quote, 'let Jesus in'. Which, in every day parlaince meant that they wanted me to "speak in tongues". I did all the things I was told. But this poison "gift" would not come to me. So by God, I did the only thing that seemed rational.

I fucking pretended.

If there had ever been a possibility that I could just be a good little Christian ever again, it ended with my face in my hands, on my knees, begging for the touch to speak through me..and nothing. The veil was lifted. The magician has shown his hand, the illusion crushed. These people were no better than any other, why was *their* flavor of God the only way? Hell, the ginger boy Steak would get his ass beat so bad at home he wouldn't be able to come to church. People would ask questions.

They already did, dear reader.

So, while I was forbidden from having normal friends that I had shared common interests with (and I'm still sore that my dad lost track of my cards...prolly thousands of dollars worth of Legends, Arabian Nights, and Revised Magic cards), I was instead hosted a front row seat to this shitshow. So when I turned sixteen, I told everyone I'd had enough. Went and stayed weekends with Pants, playing d&d (another verböten activity under the tyrannical reign of Celery), and why not experiment with some grass while we're at it? Sure. Pants had the keys to escaping reality. And when it came to escaping reality, Pants was like Houdini. I didn't mind, it gave me a chance to decompress. Up until now, I had existed to participate in a series of show dog style obstacle courses, told how high I was expected to jump, and roundly ignored when I regularly jumped higher and higher to show someone that I was dying inside.

Those stiffs at the Pentecostal Hellhole didn't understand me. Nobody did. Thankfully, there was one person out there for me with the patience and generosity to help build me into the relatively better adjusted man writing here. She's the best!

So with my newfound liberty to come and go as I please, I got into plenty of trouble with my compatriots. I won't issue a confession to anything here, nice try NSA. But goddamnit if I didn't feel alive. And all this while, I wrestled with feelings I had no words to express until well into my twenties. And in tiny pisswater towns the nation over, if you wanted to suck cock, you were a faggot, and that made you a bad person. Why? No reason. But that couldn't be me, because I am a connoisseur of the feminine form. I love them all. Every bit of it. Nay, the mere idea that I could be bisexual didn't hit me until twenty five, and didn't feel official until the year after. So I guess I've been openly bi/pan for like...eight years? So, yeah. I had a crush on Pants. He was very rough around the edges. Stank most of the time. But I was attracted to the person I saw in him, and not the person he let everyone view. But when you don't have the words for "I like both shut up don't judge" for another ten years, you just get more confused, more infatuated with what amounts to an idea.

Part two to come. Maybe I'll just edit part two in here to make this whole thought superfluous. Sweet sleep please take me.

<3 Rev.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Hookay. Part two. More lucid tonight. Maybe I can fix that before too much longer. But not yet.

I was a bit latchkey off and on, here and there. The best part about my main job back then was the ability to ask to be taken off the schedule indefinitely, and show up six months later to be put back on. I lived there for awhile. I don't know if Pants felt the same way about me, but we never talked about it.

Eventually we drifted apart for awhile, and reconnected in the education program we both enrolled in. And once he was out, I helped him find a place to crash for a couple weeks. Weeks became a couple months. Nobody wanted him around anymore. It strained my relationship with my partner, and her mom to boot. I really tried to help that sonofabitch. But I wasn't gonna look the other way while he continued to treat people I care about like shit. We drifted apart again.

I would sometimes see him at mutual friends places, and we'd be mostly cordial, but no longer familiar. What I didn't realize was that he was in the middle of a psychological break. Lots of magical thinking and psionic orgasms. Or something like that. And finally, the bombshell.

So his friend, whom we will here refer to as dickhead (an allusion to his nickname that like six people will get), had given him a bible in all this mental anguish. And he latched onto the Book of Revelation. So, imagine my shock when one day he looks me right in the eyes and tells me that I am his great desteoyer, and that I will bring him ruin. Total fucking insanity.

So yeah. There is much more I could add here, but I would rather not have this get out, and end up sued over things I can no longer prove. Until next time, Space Kittens. Watch this space, I think next time I will discuss Celery the Horrible. You ready to strap in? This is where reality's thin veneer starts to peel ominously, places where I believe my madness was hand picked for, whether intentional or no.

I think, with this next tale, we wend inexorably onward toward the heart of the matter. Care to come along?

#mentalillness #nobodycareslol #friendship #bisexuality

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sending-the-message · 7 years ago

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Dead Coyote by Ilunibi

I did not grow up in a nice area. Housing projects, regardless of where they are, are rarely ever “nice.” And, of course, in rough neighborhoods like that, you learn from a very early age who you should and should not go around and under what circumstances those dangerous people are safe. You learn how to make friends with unfriendly people, and you learn the delicate dance of walking on eggshells in the face of folks who’d gut you for the twenty-bucks in your pocket. Most importantly, though, you learn that not every villain is a villain.

Take Dead Coyote for instance.

No, I don’t know why we called him Dead Coyote, but being a kid? I didn’t really care. I knew he was an addict, I knew that he dealt drugs out of his apartment by night and sold pirated DVDs out of the trunk of his car by day, and I knew that he was Honduran, which I only knew because he’d throw a shit fit if you called him Mexican. I also knew that my mom warned me a thousand different times to never, ever talk to him because he was a disgusting junkie, but it was hard to miss him because he always seemed to linger around the basketball courts and playgrounds. My neighborhood friends had just gotten so used to him being around that they treated him like a statue, but me?

Well, I guess I was different. I thought Dead Coyote was just the most fascinating guy in the world. He was taller than my dad and he was skinny as a rail, but I’d seen him get in fights and I had never seen him lose. He wore his hair like a character in a Mad Max movie (which, admittedly, was probably because he didn’t take care of himself), and he was covered in tattoos. Swirls and skulls and weird, squiggly symbols and bugs and flies and maggots and devils.

That’s how I ended up talking to him in the end. Here I am, just barely into fourth grade, and I plopped right next to him on a bench at the basketball court, pointed out one of the symbols on his arm, and asked, “What’s that?”

He looked at me, looked at his arm, looked at me again, and narrowed his eyes. After a few moments for him to figure out that I wasn’t some drug-induced hallucination, he cracked a smile.

“Oh, uh. That’s a Pentacle of Solomon.”

“What’s a Pentacle of Solomon?”

“Uh,” he drawled, his eyes hazy. “It’s, like, a thing I found in a book once. Don’t worry about it, princess.”

And so began an unorthodox friendship.

I know it has to seem odd that a little girl would strike up a sort of sibling relationship with the twenty-something neighborhood dealer, but I was a weird kid, an only child, endlessly curious, and painfully lonely. I didn’t really fit in with a lot of the neighborhood brats, my mom worked constantly, my dad was in jail, and I spent the majority of my time as a solitary latchkey kid who’d come home from school, let herself in, and spend eight hours trying to keep herself from dying of boredom. I didn’t really register Dead Coyote as a danger despite my mom’s many warnings anymore than I paid mind to her pleas to not leave the house while she was at work. I was young, I was invincible, and Dead Coyote was a way to pass the time without feeling completely alone.

Even though we got a lot of weird looks, I kept visiting him during his daily vigil at the local playground. I’d ask him about his tattoos, he’d give me vague answers, he’d ask me about my day, and I’d regale him with stories about the mean girls at school and the boys I had elementary school crushes on. He tried to teach me Spanish curse words, I tried to teach him what every individual Pokemon did, and in general? We got on pretty well. In a way, it was kind of like having an older brother or, if nothing else, having my father back.

It became ritual to drop my books inside my door and run straight back out to meet up with my new friend, but eventually, there was a hiccup. There’s always a hiccup.

It was one of those crisp fall days that seems almost perfect, where it’s not too hot, not too cold, the sky is clear, and everything just seems so vivid and alive. I rushed home, literally threw my backpack in the door of my apartment and watched the contents burst out and scatter across the floor, locked the door behind me, and bolted for the playground. I wanted to show off a new Pokemon card I was proud of, and also ask him for the bajillionth time in months about what a Pentacle of Solomon was. He still hadn’t told me.

The problem was that when I went to the playground, it was empty. I ran around the rickety wooden swings and checked under the slides and equipment, but the most I found were ants and broken beer bottles. So, I ran to the basketball court and, while I could find a couple of Dead Coyote’s regulars, I couldn’t find the man himself. It was weird and it felt very, very wrong, and my thoughts raced to whether he’d finally gotten arrested or, hell, finally gotten himself killed. Did he overdose? In my panic, I interrupted his regulars’ game to ask if they’d seen him, and my anxiety only peaked when they told me that, no, he hadn’t really come out of his apartment all day.

Now, you’ll think I’m dumb, but I knew where Dead Coyote lived. Sometimes, when mom was late getting home and I was too scared to be by myself, I’d slip over to his apartment a couple of buildings down and stay in his living room to watch TV. Since mom had a beat-up car that banged like a metal band, I’d always hear her coming and be home before her. I know in retrospect that I was basically asking for trouble, I know it’s weird that I could identify his regulars because I’d watch Who’s Line on his couch while he was dealing heroin in the kitchen, and I know it seems really weird that a grown man would allow that, but I was nine. I just knew I was scared at night, he was scary, and he’d protect me until mom got home.

So, I went to his apartment. I banged on the door. I yelled into the crack between the door and the jamb, I climbed up on his trash can to look in the windows. The entire place was dark except for little dots of glow that seemed to zigzag around the living room. Candles, I later realized, bright red like Christmas lights, flickering and dancing in the pitch black. I assumed that if candles were lit, it had to mean he was in there somewhere--it’d be a fire hazard if he was gone--so I banged on the window and---

Something grabbed me. Not from the inside, but from behind, an arm hooked around my waist and dragging me off the trash can. It toppled over with a loud crash, I let out the shrillest scream I think I’ve ever managed in my life, and I heard this awful, smug laughter from behind me as I was hauled, kicking and shrieking, around the corner of the building. It felt like all of the light in the world disappeared as I was carted down into the alley, the sun and the street a distant memory.

Then, my captor threw me down. I heard my back pop as I hit the brick of the building and my vision was blurred for a few seconds. When the world came back into focus, though, I could still see two sets of legs, and when I looked up at who they belonged to, I was both horrified and relieved to see that it wasn’t Dead Coyote. Relieved because, well, I didn’t want to think he’d hurt me and horrified because of who it turned out to be.

You see, every neighborhood (even the good ones) has the folks that you don’t want to run afoul of. Unless you’re their level of nasty, there is no possible way to ever endear yourself to them. There’s bad eggs with cream centers like Dead Coyote, and then there’s rotten pieces of shit like Joseph Shepherd.

Joseph was an eighteen-year-old punk who only felt alive if somebody else was hurting. He was the guy who once threw me in front of a bus and chased his ex-girlfriend down the road with a flask of battery acid because he thought it was funny. This was the type of person who legitimately should be locked up and the key conveniently lost. His friend? I had no idea who the fuck he was, but if he was with Joseph, he wasn’t anyone worth knowing.

“Well, well. Looks like we have DC’s little piece of jailbait, eh?”

Joseph stooped down to my level and yanked hard on my shirt. My back roared in pain and I turned beet red when I noticed him looking down the front.

“A little underdeveloped, but the fucker’s a freak anyway. Maybe he likes ‘em like that.”

“I bet she’s tight, though,” his friend offered, and that’s when I saw something in his hand. For a second, I thought it was a gun but, no, it was worse. It was a knife. One of those cheap little hunting knives you get from seedy gas stations. All I could think about from that point on is how much more awful stabbing would be compared to getting shot. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around the much more obvious implication.

I was nine. I never got the birds and the bees talk. I didn’t understand.

There was some more discussion, but my memory becomes a brief blur around this point, like a watercolor painting gone terribly wrong. I remember being jostled, I remember something wet on the side of my face, and then I remember hearing a loud howl of pain and a thud. The next clear thing in my mind was watching as Joseph’s friend hit the ground with a squall, eyes rolled into the back of his head, frothing at the mouth like a rabid animal. His hands curled into his chest, his legs spasmed, then his entire body began to convulse. Joseph began barking curses, but I was more worried about fixing my shirt.

What can I say? It was a lot to take in. I could only process so much. I didn’t leave the house expecting to get molested by a man who’d have an epileptic seizure in the end.

I mean, it was a seizure… right?

If it was, the world wound up seizing, too. As I found my land legs again and pushed myself up to my feet, the earth began to quake and the walls of the building began to tremble. The sun went dark and reality itself began groaning in agony. It was like listening a thousand chanting voices trying to drown the other out, as the air grew thicker and a rancid stench began to fill the air. For some reason, though, it didn’t affect me; I could feel the noise making my bones buzz and I could smell that awful smell, but Joseph was the one who was sliding to the ground and crying. He was the one whose eyes were bleeding, whose body was shaking, whose neck was twisting around like he was trying for a part in The Exorcist.

And he screamed. God, the things he screamed. Things he saw that were invisible to me, of stilt-legged owl beasts and dogs with rows of teeth like sharks. Men in armor with fanged horses. Goat-headed women with twisted horns decorated in bones.

Odd as it was, I was more scared of getting hurt than watching him get hurt, more scared of him than the ghosts he thought he saw. I ignored the pain shooting through my back, turned tail, and ran for the light at the end of the alley like it was relay dash toward the pearly gates. Tears streamed down my face as I turned the corner--maybe, maybe, if I knocked a little louder and screamed a little more frantically, Dead Coyote would answer his door--and I swore up and down and all around that I would never, ever leave the house while mom was at work and I would not stop running until I got home.

Except, I hit something as I rounded the building. After stumbling over Dead Coyote’s spilled garbage, I ran dead into the actual Dead Coyote. I was sobbing, he was surprisingly sober, and as a crowd of neighbors gathered around to see what the noise outside was about, he stooped down and grabbed me in a bear hug like a real big brother and kept telling me over and over and over that everything was okay. Everything was fine.

He sat with me when the police came after he, surprisingly enough, broke his own personal code to call them. They found Joseph and his friend passed out in the alley with no sign that they had been seizing or bleeding or screaming or crying. They were just out like lights, lying in their own vomit in between the buildings. I was told that I was lucky, because it was probably some kind of drug overdose that made them lose consciousness at just the right time, but I know what I saw. And I know what Joseph thought he saw, because he told me, shrieking, every last detail. And even as the police gave Dead Coyote an accusing glance as they drove my attackers off into the sunset, I somehow knew in the pit of my soul he wasn’t the villain in all of this.

“Hey. Princess.”

I looked to him curiously, eyes still puffy and wet. He was chewing his bottom lip and looking straight ahead, rapping his fingers against his thigh in that fidgety way he always did. His other hand absentmindedly combed through his hair before he gave me a sideways glance and nodded towards his apartment door.

“I think it’s about time I teach you what a Pentacle of Solomon is.”

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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