#need the humous

[izzymalec]

ALLEMAGNE ZERO POINTS

[mostlykind]

god I love falafel

[somebucky]

Ok but what if because the NWH spell of Peter never existing happening post-humous for Natasha, Tony, Aunt May, Uncle Ben and obviously Mama and Papa Parker, then maybe it does not effect their memories of Peter?

So like if Tony (because RDJ said he would love to come back as Tony) came from another universe because he figured out interdimensional travel as geniuses tend to do. And he knows peter and when everyone sees him hes like "i see everyone but Nat and the kid." They tell him about Nat but no one knows who the kid is. "You know the kid. Parker. Spiderman." And he hunts him down and they instantly hug and its all fluff. I think we all need that.

[adelinamoteru]

imagine how much better bruce & jason content would be if they genuinely made it so that jason’s existence in gotham never lets bruce off the hook. you don’t get to forget, bruce wayne. batman.

jason will always be the reminder of bruce’s mistakes, but not in what caused jason’s death rather in everything that came after. jason should not be there to absolve him of his guilt and grief and contradictions. he should be constantly calling bruce out on his hypocrisy and it should be tearing bruce’s mind to shreds. because they BOTH know that there is truth in what jason is saying, whether its re: his post humous treatment of jason as robin or their stances on killing.

bruce only deals with absolutes. he only ever deals in black and white no matter how much his “people can always change” philosophy tries to convince the audience otherwise. because bruce knows in the case of the joker that its just not true, jason knows its not true and the audience knows its not true but the narrative and the writers and bruce himself is trying to gaslight everyone otherwise.

it doesn’t have to be that one is right and the other is wrong, there’s merits to what both are saying in gotham’s reality, but bruce will never, ever admit so and I personally think jason shouldn’t let him off the hook for it.

I think this also comes back to that post where op was saying that jason’s refusal to center himself around batman’s pain was what was seen as “the ultimate betrayal” and he shouldn’t have to! bruce doesn’t deserve it, god knows, and I’d argue he needs someone like jason in his vigilante life to give him that swift kick to the head

[fractal-voidling]

MAG111 - #0173006 │ Family Business

oooh, I finally get to hear Gerard

heh, dead serious

"Dying isn’t so bad. It’s staying dead that sucks." goes hard, ngl

that Gerard Keay sass 🤌

TMA, where a post-humous statement is just another Tuesday ✨

they are the fears!?

"Like colours, but if colours hated me. Got it. Christ, I need a cigarette." mood

so this is what a paranormal therapy session sounds like

aaaw, he wants John to call him Gerry

brilliant performances once again

[harrison-abbott]

A Small Start

When Pat woke up he felt pretty bad. He drank some of the water from his pint glass. It gave him momentary respite. Then he was lying there looking up at the ceiling. With yellow light beyond the curtains. Dehydration across his whole body. “How did I ever get to this point?” he said, quietly, to himself. Eventually he got up. His hair swished in his eyes. Had been doing that for weeks; badly needed a haircut. His face always seemed to look worse in the mirror in the mornings. But, maybe he shouldn’t be thinking about his appearance at all. He put his coat on and walked out into the street. With a brief wonder over the daylight that smarted the eyes. Pat wished that there were some things in life that he had done way differently when he was younger. He supposed that was the irony with older age: you were more mature, now, but you wished you’d been this way, back then. Hmm. Maybe he couldn’t call himself ‘mature’. It was when Pat was bathed in the sobering sunlight that he most felt like a nobody. He walked down to the supermarket. A pair of magpies flumed overhead in brilliant black n white and he saluted both of them. When he got to the supermarket carpark he remembered the story of the man who had been stabbed here. A few years back, there’d been a stabbing. And it was odd how, when it happened, he didn’t know about it until he saw it on the news: considering how close he lived to the building. Pat went inside the market. There was an odd mixture of workers in there with different nationalities. One of them was a very pretty woman who was hard to look at. Pat wondered whether he’d ever be with another woman in his life … Maybe not. Boo hoo. It wasn’t the most important thing. Pat figured that if he could work on survival, and keep his health in check, then he could think about other things such as those. He picked up some humous and a bag of tomatoes and a cucumber. The prices had gone up 10p since last time. Inflation. Hey: at least the city he lived in wasn’t being bombed to smithereens. … There were entire sections for the Easter weekend coming up; as in, a whole cacophony of chocolate eggs. Pat didn’t eat chocolate anymore, or eggs. Though when he was a kid he used to do the painting thing with them and roll them in the garden, the hard boiled eggs. It was odd how mass atheism in this country had turned into millions of overturn on chocolate products in bulky plastic boxes, sold by among the larger corporations in the world. Pat wondered what Jesus must think of it now, if indeed he was watching from Heaven. … Pat took his stuff to the checkout and scanned the items. There was an older chap there with a white fuzzy beard, who was always friendly and chatty with the customers. Even though it seemed like such a gruelling job, you never saw him in a grouchy mood; and Pat wished he could be like that, like him, most of the time. Pat went back home, up the long road. Maybe being a nobody was fairly normal. He was only 31. He hoped he could get to the age of 40 without dying. It’s just that it was getting harder to move as fast at this age and he really had no clue how his future would play out, and it often seemed that he could use his imagination well in certain ways, but not at all in others. He got back into the house. There was no other option than to deal with his issues. He went up into his room and reopened the book that he’d been reading last night. This was a small start.                                                                 

[adamwatchesmovies]

Patch Adams (1998)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

Patch Adams is based on a true story, which is shocking. Not because a real-life doctor called Hunter “Patch” Adams existing seems impossible; because this film is so phoney, so emotionally manipulative, so misguided and manufactured not an ounce of it rings true. Obviously green-lit as a dramatic vehicle for Robin Williams, the story he’s given leaves a bad taste in your mouth despite his best efforts. It was a hit upon release and you can see why. This is exactly the kind of manipulative melodrama that would sucker indiscriminating viewers.

While self-administered in a mental institution, Hunter “Patch” Adams (Williams) finds that humou - rather than the cold, clinical attitude most doctors hold - yields the best results among the patients. After enlisting at the Medical College of Virginia, he questions the attitude his teachers hold towards the patients, raising the ire of Dean Walcott (Bob Gunton) and his roommate, Mitch (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

You can tell which scenes Robin Williams juiced up with his improv. Those moments are great and genuinely funny. The man had a warmth to him that made you believe in his character. Patch seems genuinely sweet and sympathetic. The rest of the picture is unintentionally funny when it isn’t cloying, overly sanctimonious and overbearing. I’m still shocked we didn’t get a scene of Dean Walcott slaming his fists upon a table yelling “Aaaaadams!” like the crusty dean in so many frat-centered comedies. The man’s a cartoon, a bizarro-world version of Patch who wishes every doctor could surgically remove their emotional glands to be as robotic as possible while practicing. This portrait of the medical world is an insult to doctors, who - according to this film - do not care about their patients at all.

I could criticize the film for diverging from the real story of Patch Adams but I won't. While the 47-year-old Williams is twice the age the real man was when he began his career, the casting is good. It's fine to stray from reality because movies are not real life. If you want to take liberties, however, do it to make the film more interesting. This brings us to the worst character in the film: Monica Potter as Carin, a fellow medical student. In a movie filled with stereotypes, she may be the worst; a love interest introduced where none is needed, a token female whose sole purpose is to serve the male lead. It gets downright offensive in the end but even before then, it’s kinda creepy to see Williams flirting with the then-27-year-old who tells him she’s not interested. He persists until eventually, she relents. It makes the sweet Patch seem like a creep and further undermines his character. Perpetually goofy and never seen studying (though we’re assured he’s acing his tests and brilliant at medicine), Patch steals medical supplies, bursts into patients’ rooms unannounced, invades people’s privacy and repeatedly ignores his superiors’ orders. You understand why doctors feel the need to remain emotionally distant from their patients. They're very likely to see someone in their care die. It happens in this movie. There is something to be said about being too cold but this movie takes things to such extremes that no one would ever want to be cared for by Patch.

Relying on one cliché after another and going for cheap sentiments every time is the favourite tactic of director Tom Shadyac but let’s not forget to blame screenplay writer Steve Oedekerk. Ultimately, Patch Adams is interested in giving Robin Williams a role. Everything else was an afterthought. (On DVD, June 7, 2019)

[snowy-wife]

heyy, could you please explain the term “spirit wife” in this context? (ask long as youre comfortable with that ofc) i feel like i have a similar relationship/bond to a deceased person but i couldnt ever talk about it with anyone without being judged and i never really felt understood. hope you dont mind my message <3 you genuinely seem like such a cool person xx

Hello! Okay so the term "Spirit Wife" means you are the wife of a spirit that you're married to in a "Spirit marriage" aka a post humous marriage / ghost marriage! For further explanation, a post humous marriage is a relationship where one of the persons in the relationship is alive and the other is deceased. This type of marriage is practiced in many countries and in different ways such as continuing the family line, honoring the deceased, incorporating non-human spouses and proxy marriage! I can go in more detail about it in another post if you'd like, this is just a gist of what it is and thank you! I am more than happy to talk about it and try explaning stuff some more if need be!

[magpiejay1234]

Of course, since we are in the regular Adult Evolution segment of 02, this begs the question of why there hasn't been post-humous regular Perfect level Evolutions of the main trio.

Half of the 02 cast have them, with Wormmon's being Jewelbeemon. Presumably these would be weaker than Jogresses, so the main trio would still need their partners.

Granted, simply making more Jogresses between different duos would have been more interesting, especially considering the unresolved issues between Daisuke/Takeru, Iori/Ken etc. (make the canon Ultra Angemon a Jogress between Daisuke/Takeru for extra comedy points for example), but this is still another oddity of 02's Digimon line structure that continues to this day.

[zooterchet]

Pre-Law History (War on Terror, UMass-Amherst)

Scenario: The People's Crusade, a media stoked movement.  

Response: We need these cows, the Arabs stole our meat.

The First Crusade, the sack of Armenia for holding Slavics as Russian Orthodoxy, Satanists outside the Gypsy gene.  

Response: Satan, is a deliberate faith, to be reversed through athletics; not battle, the proper murder, outside of prison's threat of the cell as an athlete.

The Third Crusade, the betrayal of the Jordan River Valley tower, unpaid labor.  

Response: Anything on a non-payer commune, is open to a snitch; you need to understand the face of a foe, not the truth.  Truth, is outside of money.  But money, rules the world, that's a teacher.

The Children's Crusade, the sales of children in the thousands to African slavery in exchange for marijuana seeds and samples, "Houses in Scotland".  

Response: "Con Air"; each of you convicts, are a job, and you've been in prison, your entire life.  Don't go in with the Africans, you've been raised "black", and they're far older at the game.  The Oath of the Italian Mafia; find the Boss, the Don, the Chump.  She isn't what she seems.

The Fifth Crusade, Pierre the Coward, the Red Badge of Courage, versus Saladin, the Witch Hunter, the arts war of al-Qaeda.  

Response: Starscream, the Decepticons, the Catholics, versus Optimus Prime, the Autobots, the Arabs.  This is a rare treat, if you can find Northrup Grumman; the Charleboises.

The Eighth Crusade, the death of the German King, due to heart attack from falling in the Rhine River, forced into place.  

Response: Any leadership war, is nothing without the King; but why do you have to have the King, on the spot?  He's sacrificed himself, by coming to your quarries.  Let Christ be King; Jesus was a pedophile, he saw for himself the ruthlessness of his father.  Loose Change.

The Twelfth Crusade, RIchard the Lion-Hearted, the gold trade, in Iranian souls, trapped via captive.  

Response: An O'Neill classic, "The Merchant of Venice".  The beginning of a brand.  "Ave Satani", Tip O'Neill.  Are you mine, rule of thumb?

The Thirteenth Crusade, the retaking of Jerusalem by Moslems, the homosexuals bred as soldiers.  

Response: Gay Niggers From Outer Space.  The illegal play; the Statue of Liberty; DC Comics, a "narcotics officer".

The Iranian resistance against Turks, the assassins, bred on marijuana prenatal exposure, and marijuana hashish oils, butter lipids.  

Response: The Nietzschean Society, the King's Men, and EON Productions.  The breaker of the rule, is the champion.  Friedrich Nietzsche, Adolf Hitler, David Charlebois.

The Mongolian invasion, the conquest of Russia, Mesopotamia, and Vietnam, by Uighurs.  

Response: Sell toys, collect children's literature, and protect your women.  Three rules, together, a German, the modern anti-Semite.

The Reconquistda, the French Germans, conquering Spain, and allowing Uthman, to return to stature, as a Rabbinical Jude, a business owner and manager.  

Response: The Synagogue, is a punishment, unless refused three times; then an Arab, the old Southern Larchy Tune.  For the Goyim. 

The mince meat pie, the bond between priests and imamis, the beginning of the university, Muslim Shaykhs, college professors, managed by Rabbinicals, salesman, through priests, the homeless managers of the common people into military and police arms.  

Response: The whole thing has to be thrown out.  Then, you win, because someone, needed your help.  Law enforcement, is a tool of a university, and the arrest, is the highschool.  Elementary school, picks cops, the track athlete; the shutdown of a banking corporate, because a child, wanted to run away.  

The resurrection of Judaism, the victor of the military, as refusing products based on rationing, the bigot to be sided against in war.

Response: The Grand Ol' Party, The United Kingdom, the Nation-State of Israel, the Federal Republic of Russia, and the Assembly of France.  The last, John Wick, is post-humous.  Is France, ethnic?  Or just Jews? 

[dower]

No vote of confidence

It would be a lie to say I have voted religiously since I turned 18. In fact, in my 40 years of illegibility to vote, I have probably voted less than a dozen times. You see, I’m not very political in my thinking and regard most of the choices in the UK as minor variations on a theme.

The last decade has been different, though, the heady combination of increasing social conscience, a middle-aged financial mindset, and time to deep-dive societal challenges has driven me closer yo politics. I head our village committee and was approached to stand on the local council. So much for my former political ambivalence.

I still see politics as a trap for the feeble-minded and a festering nest of badly thought out personal agendas. I watch politicians stagger from defeat to defeat, there never seems to be any winners, just an endless stream of nobodies repeatedly picking pointless hills to die on. Its thankless and pointless at the same time, yet occupies so much of MSM.

Just maybe, after spending the last decade engaging in political policies, I will slip away again to my previous state of “meh”. I could skip the whole “Politics” section of The Guardian and I could care not a jot who governs our sceptred isle.

Just as long as it doesn’t affect my wallet, eh. Don’t change too much; I’ve evolved to benefit from pension rules, and tax bands and wheezes. Here I think is the crux of the challenge; we’re a well-heeled, middle class, middle aged, median couple - as long as our money boat is not rocked too much we’ll sail blissfully into the next 25 years without a care in the world. Does that mean we, and the millions like us, cannot vote Labour?

Turkeys not voting for Christmas springs to mind, so a decade of my policy of voting Conservative nationally for small government and preferential taxation might be over. Not that I could bring myself to vote red.

Jeez, is that it? Is the only reason I vote Conservative is for my self-centred quest for grubby money? Conversely, I have consistently voted LibDem at the local level as I do see the work our councillors do, hell I’ve met and know many of them personally. Maybe they should get a turn at my lazy postal vote in the national elections?

Voting LibDem might be seen as a protest or a warning to the big two parties that if they carry on being dicks we’ll vote in a real set of amateurs to turn the country into a idealised clusterfuck. I mean, a party with less than 100k members and a series of fuckups for ex-leaders - what could possibly go wrong!

Just need to see if I qualify … Consume humous? Drive an EV? Can pay for organic celery? Liberal mindset? Ride a bike? Wear upcycled clothes? Stop that now, of course I qualify - I can afford to vote LibDem but I’m not rich enough or grubby enough about money to need the Tories. Yeah, I’m in.

Post note: During my extensive research into the swamp that is the BritPol system, it was (maybe unsurprisingly) the LibDems that closest matched my values so I joined up, as much disillusioned by the Tories and still fearful of Momentum. As Daft Punk sang in 2000 … “one more time”.

[madafact]

nope

ill try to be concise and add as much detail as possible

sometimes writing can be a cover to a book that is about to be written, read, burned, or put down

my brother anthony john masters died on june 10th or 11th i cant remember, the days post have zero anchors or even dates. mostly just a sense of disbelief, and the need to still have to put on clothes, smile and get hair cuts and shit, ya know life bullshit, the stuff that doesnt fucking matter after you lose what you really have in this odd plain we occupy.

my first notice was a photo of his beautiful body being held captive by a hospital bed and three not even complete sentences,

"bicycle accident. head trauma. will be in for seven days"

this was sent by my most eloquent father, who will not hesitate to mention he is a writer who has a vocabulary that could sink the titanic.

how we communicate, to me, shows me the level of respect, admiration, reverence and connection you feel to someone. Ill let you connect those dots. but i will give you a hint at the ending, anthony died. and all the anger, disrespect, lack of trust was the missing words in the first transmission. i think ive said it before but my father does not like me nor does it seem he has any interest in knowing who i am. but this isnt about me

anthony was conscious for the first few days and the prognosis was picking up like the wind. the sun seemed to be parting the clouds and what seemed like just another 'slam at the park' was going to be in the rearview mirror. but ya know, another front moved in on it began to rain.

i have been well informed just how prickly of a cactus new york city can be, and if you dont respect the idea, then you become the grease that turn the wheels of incompetence. it seems incompetent doctors, nurses and medical staff cut anthonys life short. more on that later.

i arrived at the hospital to late to see my brother still squirming in this world and he let me know just what he thought of my tardiness. im trying to open the ICU doors (which open not by handle, but by button, and once initiated, do not stop not even for a 500 lb gorilla. my welter weight body was absolutely brushed aside, sat on my ass with a broken nose and blood, thanks ant, you loved a good board to the face or some shit like that.

anyway he was gone, his body was warm, in a failed attempt i tried to climb into his bed and kinda just spread over him like butter, backside stil moist from his path through life. i touched his chest, kissed his forehead, held his hands examined his post humous face, and went as far as to cut lochs of his beautiful hair for safe keeping, for as many years as i have left. he truly was a beautifully built creature, tats and all, scars, broken bones, off set nose and all. but when i got there, all that started its slow process of fading slowly, then quickly, and soon into ash.

even having him in my arms wouldnt let reality in. shock will be my blanket for the coming winter and it looks to be particulary brisk this season. it still hasnt set in. even after gallons of tears, thousands of racing thoughts, a landscape of sweaty palms and not much rest or fuel. its starting to take a toll. i showed up to a memorial for him a day early today. cold sores are tilling my lips and a general sense of seeking shelter on a partiulary blustery day is my commute to work these days.

the lochs of hair were for me but ya know, as soon as people see you getting something, they want it too. it wasnt supposed to be for everybody, its supposed to be for the ones who seized the opportunity. me.

but ya know find grace and share. even though...what ever.

i maybe spent 40 minutes to an hour with his physical form before the next step had to begin. the state makes money on beds, and once you dead, you out da bed. he was just another stat, another pair of pants to check for loose change and maybe an unspent bill or two. and they wanted us out to begin the search.

fuck the state, and those who tow its nets across the ocean floor decimating everything in its path to catch a few prizes and waste a whole host more souls.

fuck new york

fuck california

fuck me

so i guess thats the end of the experience, but it is only the beginning of the angelification of my brother. the people he affected, the tone (for lack of a better word) he set, the wake he created and the stories that will outlive him.

his chosen family was a mega group of friends made around the college years, fostered across both coasts and eventually planted in bay shore or point pleasant new jersey. a wonderful family of young and old. similiar age and even multiple species. but little was i aware, this was only a small portion of the spiders web. he had been very busy spinning intricate patterns that in the morning light and dew would mesmorize people. moths to flame but this was a bit more of like a cozy fire or even perfect coals to prepare food over.

california, new jersey, new york, mexico city, colorado, oregon, washington, and im probably forgetting a whole host, or just havent found out about the other places. multiple ceremonies were held for him, and are still being planned for future dates, future surf trips, future joy and happiness.

he truly went after being part of peoples love for life. he was a one way street to positive town. it took many forms, tropical mental attitude, tony masters association, boistrous, gregarious, know only for hug not handshakes.

the ceremony we held in the immediate day after was located in new jersy at the beach with more surfboards and beach toys than the coast could imagine. we were even granted passed past the usual, permits, rules etc. for a day, anthony has the bay head cops in his pocket and they nodded to his celebration while many local people looked around in an unusual jealous disbelief.

the waves were not typical for the time of year, the wind stayed the right direction, the sun shined ALL fucking day. all ages caught waves and hooted for each other. anthony was fully on display as his new angelic form. tending to the elements, playing jovial pranks and keeing safe passage for all. just like he always dreamed of. he had arrived. he had become that all powerful, undenieable indescribeable wonderful dream. the light was so bright i imagine. he must have felt the warmth. after all it is a very bright light that we must walk into.

im not even two days into the i think day 5 nightmare/ endless bummer that has no signs of slowing, callousing or even seeming at all acceptable. please help me find acceptance anthony. what happened to you was unacceptable but if your reward is the infinite, cheers dude

i think ill have to do this post based on emotional resources, because as i get to this point, crying in a coffee shop wearing sunglasses trying to stay low key. its not working. the sniffles are giving me away and my coffee cannot be sipped in a unrippled fashion. the hands tremble and my backspace button is just getting a workout.

so please forgive me as i collect myself, my thoughts, and look to the sky for the strength to even find reason to keep my foundation built by me, for myself to not come crashing down.

the crescendo continues..

[i-r-l-caitlinhendry]

Video for presentation

i haven't created or did any video work before this was challenging i don't think the quality is great however i think it gives some humous tones to the laid back presentation and gives visual as to what i need the participants to do.

three hours - to film edit and upload

[survey--s]

435.

Do you remember much from high school? Yeah, I wish I didn’t though lol. I really didn’t have a good time of things in high school.

Where would you go for the ultimate honeymoon? We rented a house in Scotland with a hot tub and it’s own private beach.

Can you access the roof of the building you live in? Yeah, if you put a ladder up the side of the bathroom.

Do you know anyone who has a strong accent that is hard to understand? Yeah, my in-laws lol. I can understand them now but I had to concentrate a LOT when we first met, hahah.

If you had to get a tattoo tomorrow, what would you get? An orchid in memory of my grandparents, or a paw print for the animals.

What was the last podcast you listened to? Do you listen to it regularly? I’m not really into podcasts - I don’t really get the popularity lol.

Are you more of an optimist or a pessimist, and why do you think this is? I’m more of a realist, I guess?

When was the last time you moved house? Uh, I moved here back in...2018, I think?

Have you ever held a gun? Did you fire it? No.

Do you like simple questions or deep questions that make you think? It depends on my mood. Mostly I like questions that require more than one word answer but that aren’t hugely deep.

How long have you been using Bzoink? I don’t use it.

When was the last time you threw up? Why were you sick? I can’t remember.

Are you on a first-name basis with your boss? (or last boss if unemployed) I’m self-employed, but yes, I’ve always called my managers by their first names. That’s completely normal here. I don’t know anyone who refers to other adults by anything else.

What brand is your laptop or computer? Apple.

Would you ever wear a bright orange shirt? Not voluntarily, lol.

What was the last thing you wrote in a word document? Prices for something for work.

Who do you miss and what do you miss about them? I don’t miss anyone at the moment.

What were the best and worst costumes you’ve ever worn? I absolutely hate dressing up.

Do you know anybody who is gay and married? Sure, plenty of people.

What did you last take painkillers for? Period pains.

Are there any hobbies you want to get back into? I wish I could still go ice-skating, but there’s nowhere to go anywhere near here, so it’s not really possible unfortunately.

Have you ever shared a home with a friend? Yeah, for a couple of years at university.

What’s the craziest or weirdest place you’ve ever slept? On a trampoline, I guess.

What did you have for lunch today and who made it? I had a turkey and cheese sandwich, a mug of chicken noodle soup and some carrots and red pepper with humous. I made it.

Do you believe in anything supernatural like ghosts or ghouls? Nope.

How many hours of sleep did you get last night? About eleven hours - it was much-needed, lol. I was exhausted when I got home from work yesterday.

Are you allergic to anything? How did you find out? Not to my knowledge.

What’s your favourite Thai dish? I don’t really eat Thai food as I can’t cope with spice, but our local Thai place do sweet and sour pork, coconut rice and duck spring rolls that aren’t spicy and that taste amazing. I don’t they really count as Thai food though.

Do you have any alarms set? What time and what for? Not at the moment, but for work my alarm is set for anytime between 7.30-9.30 depending on the day.

What are you going to do when this survey is over? Probably another survey.

Have you ever been on a date with someone you met online? How was it? Yes. We’re married now. <--- ha, same here.

What colour is the rug in your living area? Grey and red.

Do you call it a couch, sofa, lounge or something else entirely? Sofa.

Who is your favourite character on Friends? Chandler.

When was the last time you used a pair of headphones and what for? I can’t remember when it was, but I assume it was to listen to music.

Who was the last very physically attractive person you saw? In person? My husband.

Have you ever had teppanyaki? I’ve never heard of that before.

How long does it take you to get ready before you go somewhere? It depends on where I’m going and what I’m doing. For work, it’s an hour from waking up to leaving, but that includes feeding the animals, housework and sorting myself out.

Do you find it difficult to get rid of material possessions? No.

What sort of games do you like to play? Merge games are good.

What was the last candy you ate? A few squares of Dairy Milk.

Have you ever been hit in the face? What’s the story? Not maliciously, but it’s happened by accident when I’ve just been messing around. Also last week, Bailey accidentally head-butted me in the face when I went to pick up his ball, lol.

Do you know anyone who is deaf? Not fully, but I went to school with someone who was 80% deaf.

Name one thing on your bucket list. Travel.

[harrison-abbott]

At Fair Velocity Down the Street

They told me I was getting laid off. Or rather – I hadn’t passed the trial period and they weren’t keeping me on. Either way, there was no salary anymore.

 The woman who told me was this blonde fortysomething who spoke in this chirpy shrill way and she might’ve been announcing to me that she was just getting married or that she’d just gotten a new puppy for the family; or that she’d had cornflakes for breakfast that morning; or that she was watching the reality TV show last night and she was impressed by what happened with Mr Him and Miss She: it was delivered with such languid everyday glee.

 I thought about some machine gun exit but I couldn’t be doing that. Was too old. For that kind of childish revenge mentality. So I made sure to get my mug out of the cafeteria and then I left the office building and suddenly I was outside on the street with the trams and wind and voices blowing about the area all at once.

 My bus home was right there at the shelter. I ran for it. But just as I did its doors closed and then its entire hulk veered off down the road without me.

 I pondered whether to go and load up on beer at the supermarket next to the shelter but didn’t think this a perfect idea and so I decided to walk home through the city instead. What I did have in my pocket was the sandwich I’d taken in for work. Humous cucumber tomato & onion.

 The colleagues at work were always asking why I ate raw onions? How could I stand that? They took the mick out of me for being vegan (as did that blonde 40ish woman described above) a lot; alongside that other famous question of why I was vegan. Something which I’ve never understood or have taken to be politicised or offensive.

 Whilst I was walking I dipped down into the city cemetery and the volume of the world decreased and I called up my father to see whether he had a bit of wisdom about my predicament.

 “Hi Dad,” I said. I’d caught him in a bad mood already for when he spoke next.

 “Hello?”

 “How are you doing?”

 “Sound. You?”

 “I’m all fine. Well, all right …”

 “What are you calling for Dominic?”

 “I just wanted to speak. Is this not a good time?”

 “I can’t give you any money at the moment, Dominic. I don’t see why I should have to keep giving you money. Why do I have to do that? It’s not fair. Not fair at all: and whenever you call me it’s because you need something or because you’re in trouble. I didn’t expect to have such a calamitous son. Jesus. When I was your age I was already way ahead of you. And what do I get out of it? Sick of these phone calls from you telling me about your awful life. You just need to learn to deal with it.”

 I blinked and gulped and swallowed and listened to his heavy voice, and wondered whether I was still surprised by the things that came out of his tongue.

 “Dad … I wasn’t calling you for money,” I ventured.

 “You always call me for money.”

 “We spoke just last week about films. I called you after I left the cinema, didn’t I? And we spoke about movies. Don’t you remember?”

 “A one off.”

 “Why are you being so mean?”

 “What is it, son?”

 “Oh. Forget it.”

 “Well, you wake me up and you sound like you’re on some island of disaster and expect me to help you and then you won’t tell me what the issue is. What’s up?”

 “It’s no worries, Pop. See you another time.”

 I hung up whilst his voice still hammered the other side.

 Well, that was a complete fail of a telephone conversation. When you have a fight with a mum or a dad there is often this massive inclination to take what they say imperiously as if they command the finest wisdom on the plant and that their slights and dogma makes you small and defeated and this was just how I felt after the end of the phonecall and there was a tram coming to me at fair velocity down the street and I thought about running in front of it and letting it mash me up and turn me to goo right there in front of these hundreds of people.

 What would they say about me in the papers? There would ne no obituary-like content in the 50-word article in the local newspaper, or any obituary at all.

 So I thought I would procrastinate from suicide before they had fifty words decent enough to say about me.

 The tram passed by with its crimson blood colours and I crossed the street under the zappy electric wires and got to the other side and on that side there were a group of folks taking pictures of the famous castle which, indeed, perched so handsomely on the horizon; built eight hundred years back when threats of foreign invasion were so intense that they had to lock themselves into such a place and when the modern planet couldn’t be imagined by any great mind.

 Back in those days when they tortured people whom they suspected of witchcraft … and one hoped that the stories of said torture methods you heard about in museums or in film references or gothic books weren’t accurate or were fictionalised. You don’t get how you could even do that to another person. And even somebody eight centuries back must’ve known that there was no such entity as Satan or the Devil: at least not in any sense of imminent threat.

 I needed to pee.

 Under the castle there were the city street gardens and within the paths through the meadows public toilets. I went in search.

 A group of teens approached me on the path leading down to the park – eight of them and one of me – and a boy looked up and said some insult which I didn’t hear and then they all laughed and one of the other boys threw some sweets at my legs. Those mini gems (is that what you call them?) with the gelatine multicolour and some of them hit my shins and I wondered whether the pigeons nearby would be interested in them and eat them or if the birds didn’t go near that kind of ultra processed food or if indeed they ate them whether the mini gems would get stuck in their throats or cause cancer in their innards … wondered how long pigeons lived. What their life span was.

 I got to the public toilet. One of the male cubicles had an OUT OF ORDER sign outside of it and so it blocked up the admissions and there was a queue of men standing around in the sun.

 Three men. I stood at the back of the queue.

 The man in front of me turned wen I approached. And he ogled me as we both waited. Then he finally said,

 “Nice, day, huh?”

 “It is indeed.”

 “You look upset.”

 I shrugged.

 “Why are you upset?”

 “I’m not.”

 “Why you sweaty?”

 “It’s hot.”

 Somebody came out of the toilet. Looking furtive.

 This man in front of me gave me a bad vibe. And I still really needed to urinate but the desire wasn’t great enough to stay there in his vicinity and so I moved off from him. He hissed the word “arsehole” under his breath as I fled. I walked over the fields were the kids were playing soccer or eating picnics and/or yacking and bitching, drinking, smoking, destroying their internal organs in that finest sanguine blind period of youth.

 I dipped into the bushes that ran off from the main area next to the fences which looked on to the railway station. Into the nettles I pissed. Within the nettles there were discarded soda cans and an empty bottle of vodka and at one point a condom and for some reason a random playing card which was a Club of 8s.

 Out of bushes I went after zipping up and I ascended the hill to the main street again and walked past the art gallery and up through the little cafes with their yellows and pinks and as I went I wondered how un-pretty they were inside; because I’d worked in places like those before and what looks like bliss and prettiness on the outside of a homely little restaurant is not what it’s like inside; the minimum wage and sweat and heat and the miserable ratty colleagues and the animosity concocted within that environment.

 And the thought of working in a joint such as that again terrified me: it really did.

 Then there was the government building. With its various flags. And security personal armed with guns and daftly lurking outside the big doorways.

 I thought about running up to one of the men and stealing his gun off of him to see what would happen. How quickly it would take for them to shoot me down. That would certainly make the news. If it was about terror. Then no danger.

 Past the govt structure and along the street there was a corporate fast food joint. And outside it this beggar, begging for money. He had white hair. And was asleep.

 I tossed him the few coins that were in my pocket. He didn’t even wake up.

 I moved on.

 Away from the central street and up through the alleyways at the side. A band of seagulls were tearing at something inside an industrial bin (the bin bags being stacked too heavily inside and overshowing on the top of it). They raged and squawked and I was afraid to go near them. Gulls are wicked creatures. Almost as bad as people.

 I passed the museum with its great cream coloured walls.

 One time I went on a school trip to the museum and it was my first school trip when I was in P2 and so I would’ve been 6 years old and on the bus in to town I had a nosebleed. It was unprovoked and without physical impact: the nose just started bleeding. And when the classmates saw it they started screaming. The blood. It gave them this eruptive sense of glee. And the teacher came over to me. To hold my nose with her tissue. It wasn’t her tissue actually; she had a packet of them that smelled like perfume – and she was a very pretty lady with this long red curly hair.

 “Did somebody hit you?” she said.

 “No,” I responded.

 “Why did your nose bleed then? Did you bash it?”

 “No. I don’t know. Sorry.”

 “It will be fine.”

 And all of the other kids came over to me whilst we were in the atrium of the museum and asked me about the nosebleed. Then they lost interest when there was no fable. And went around looking in the murky aquarium and dinosaur quarters.

 My coat pockets were filled up with bloody tissues and I asked the assistant teacher if I could go to the toilet and I did need to pee (again) back then but when I sat on the toilet I was too anxious to let it out of my bladder and so I popped the tissues into the toilet and they splotched up in the water with their red marks and they all seemed dangerous and things which needed masked and so I flushed the toilet and when I went outside it felt like I’d done something guilty.

 Those were the only remaining moments of my childhood visit to the museum and it’s odd how memory works in belittled pencilled-in ways; as if there was no other content to the occasion or incident.

 But, so what?

 So what about any of my personal feelings, right?

 I walked on home and passed around a thousand folk on my sights throughout the journey and it was hard to know where I stood as an entity throughout the spectrum or whether I had any status at all and it was embarrassing to be unemployed and it was hard to feel normal in any way and I had no friends to call to try and speak to my problem like I’d tried to with Dad and I only had my brain going tick tock tick tock tick tock tock tock all the way with every step and yet I was still too stubborn to just get the bus home and on I walked instead of making things easier.

[witchmd13]

I woke up and chose to be mad about humous today. How’s your morning going.