#oh and podcast moratorium

[onlyforalwayswith]

I get recency bias and all that jazz but panthers won three games too? Everyone thought it would be a close series to start… idk I might have to go on a social media moratorium until Tuesday

[sroloc--elbisivni]

Prompts open until 2022

I announced this on the last chapter of Definitionless in this strict atmosphere that went up today, (!!!!!!) but to say it again and for anyone here who likes my writing but doesn’t care about Transformers: **I am opening prompts until January 1, 2022. I will make an effort, within reason, to respond to any prompt I get for the rest of the year. **

They can be for scenes from another perspective, or missing scenes from, or future timestamps of fics I’ve already written. I’m even putting a moratorium on my no-responding-to-sequel-requests rule.

They can be for any fandom I’ve written for, or ones I haven’t but you know I know about.

They can be for ‘things I mentioned one time and never elaborated on’ or completely new ideas.

They can be for single words and a ship, song lyrics and a fandom,  completely original snippets, character dynamics, whatever. Anything goes. If it really squicks me out, I just won’t fill it, but for pretty much any request (assuming good faith) I’ll give it a shot.

All I ask is that if I ask you to narrow something down, please do! otherwise I’ll take a wild guess, but I like specificity.

Why I’ve done this, gross sentimentality, and rambling personal crap under the cut.

The first and fastest reason is that I’m almost at 1000 followers, and I always meant to do some kind of prompt thing in celebration. Another reason is...so this is my wordcount on AO3 for 2021 as of finishing Definitionless.

For context, here are the previous three years

2020 includes the total word count of Universe Collision, which has been a work-in-progress since 2016. It’s 37k but only about 8k of that is from the last three years. I have literally written more this year than I have in the past three combined. This is your brain on Transformers, I guess!

Most of that is Definitionless, which is part of why I’m sentimental today, because that isn’t the first fic I wrote for Transformers but this--it was a big, long project that I started back in January and kept chipping away at a little bit at a time and now it’s done. That’s cool. I’m celebrating that.

The last reason...In 2019, my dad died.

I know. Subject change. I said I’d be getting grossly sentimental and this is part of why but it’s been over two years now and I still haven’t figured out how to explain that delicately. My dad died and I kept functioning outwardly like a person but I got kind of fucked up on grief for a while, enough that in 2020 when everything shut down and classes went online it honestly came as a relief. This is my context for I think the single most traumatic collective event of my generation: it was a relief.

In between these things, while behaving outwardly like a person, I tried to relearn how to behave inwardly like a person. How to keep my mental and emotional health and enjoyment of things ticking. A lot of that, for me, filters through fandom and online friends because these have been huge parts of my life since high school. So looking back, when I think of how I got briefly, wildly into the Penumbra podcast and started three fics only to realize now that I haven’t been able to touch the show in months and I don’t know if I’ll ever listen to it, because I was in such a painful place at the time I was first drawn to it, I can realize ‘oh. I was kind of fucked up.’ in a way I truly honestly wasn’t able to see at the time. Sometimes understanding your own pain is really counterproductive to surviving it. (I ran the stats on my own daily poems and the word ‘grief’ just...vanishes in 2020, before coming back in force this year. it’s kind of wild)

In late December, my friend Iz asked me if I’d join the D&D campaign she’d been running for a while. I went ‘sure, I’d love to, and also by the way, I’m really interested in playing as a character from your canonically post-apocalytic decaying world who’s lost everything for some reason.’ (At the time, if you’d asked me how I was doing, I would have said ‘oh, I’m fine’ and genuinely believed it.) Iz, you are a saint and a gift of a friend and the game you made was a lifeline for me. I don’t think I can say that enough.

About that same time, I finally gave these comics Steph had been telling me about for ages a shot and picked up MTMTE. I didn’t make it through on that first round, but I did watch the Bumblebee movie, and between those two things I got enough context that when someone on my dash started raving about astolat’s MegOp fic I went ‘hm’ and opened those. And then I read my way through a solid chunk of the archive. And eventually I went back to MTMTE and had Some Kind of Feelings. 

In March or so, feministbatman who I was now playing D&D with and I started talking about our characters, and an AU where they had a different first meeting, and over the next four months we co-wrote a novella set in just that scenario. I wrote out a small percentage myself, but mostly I cheerled and edited and opined and generally just got the chance to remember: wow. I really like writing, actually. If you’re reading this: thank you, thank you, thank you.

Right after this is about when I got back into MTMTE. And watched TFP. And I kept reading a lot of transformers fic, and mentioned it to my friend Jess, who went ‘hey another friend is also telling me about transformers recently’ and then started playing in that space with me as I started to come up with ideas. and still hasn’t stopped, even though it’s been over a year of me sending her many stupid and silly ideas and fics in 400-word chunks over the course of weeks. Thanks. Thanks thanks thanks. I owe you so much.

I’m as stable and I’m happy as I am today because of dear friends, because of community, and because of the silly things I’ve done with words online. I want to celebrate that, and give back a little bit, and since the thing that I have fun contributing and that I think other people often have fun with from me is my writing, well...here you go. Ask away. I’ve been lucky enough to received a lot of joy from the people I’ve interacted with in the past couple of years, and I want to put some of that joy into the world.

And if you’ve ever clicked on something I’ve written because you wanted to see what it was, if you’ve ever liked a poem or fic I’ve posted, if you’ve ever taken that extra step to reach out and tell me ‘hey I liked what you made’--this is for you, in particular. Thank you all. Thank you so, so, much.

[notebooknebula]

Favorite List For Direct Mail | Corey Reyment & Jay Conner, The Private Money Authority

https://www.jayconner.com/favorite-list-for-direct-mail-corey-reyment-jay-conner-the-private-money-authority/

In real estate, direct mail is a posted mail that advertises your real estate business. It’s the most common marketing strategy and is still widely used by realtors.

The key to a successful direct mail is finding your potential list of buyers and sellers.

In this short video, Corey Reyment guest of Jay Conner shares some of his favorite lists in sending direct mail to find probable leads.

Corey Reyment is a full-time real estate investor originally from Green Bay.

Corey and his wife Carrie bought their first duplex at the end of 2016 and parlayed that into 115 doors within three years of that first purchase using the BRRRR Strategy almost exclusively creating a portfolio now worth over $8 Million dollars.

They also run Fox Cities Home Buyers and Wisconsin Discount Properties, the largest real estate wholesaling company in Wisconsin, where they did about $2 million in revenue in 2020.

They teach students across the country who are looking to get their first BRRRR Deal and run a Mastermind Group called Launch, which helps businesses go from working in their real estate business to working on their business.

For more valuable information click on this link and watch the complete episode: https://youtu.be/ZSq-AX2-1PM – “Discover the BRRRR Method with Corey Reyment and Jay Conner, The Private Money Authority”

Private Money Academy Conference:

https://jaysliveevent.com/live/?oprid=&ref=42135

Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now? It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at https://www.JayConner.com/Book

Free Webinar: http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.

What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference

https://youtu.be/QyeBbDOF4wo

YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateInvestingWithJayConner

iTunes:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/private-money-academy-real-estate-investing-jay-conner/id1377723034

Listen to our Podcast:

https://realestateinvestingdeals.mypodcastworld.com/11308/favorite-list-for-direct-mail-corey-reyment-jay-conner-the-private-money-authority

Real Estate Investing With Jay Conner

Jay Conner:

Direct mail has been working for a long time and it still does. I’m doing direct mail right now. What are your favorite kinds of lists? You can get all kinds of lists to mail to from absentee owners, to vacants, to probates, long lists. What’s your favorite list to mail today?

Corey Reyment:

We have some specialty lists that we get that we don’t have no idea what they are. Actually, we pay a provider and they use their algorithms and stuff I don’t understand. And then they give us the list and some of those are our best, but they’re our biggest, most expensive lists. Some of the old bread and butters that have just been consistently working is we call it “Pend”. P-E-N-D. So, Probate, Evictions, Notice of default, and Divorce. Those are consistent and those we can continually get in our state just from a public record. So we don’t need to hire anybody outside of a- We have a virtual assistant that goes in every week and pulls all those and puts those lists together. And they’re pretty consistent. Probates are, you know, we don’t do a lot with them. It’s kind of one of those things where morally, we sometimes are like, “Oh, I know we’re helping some families,” but other families we’re like, “Oh, I don’t know.” We just don’t do a lot. And they get hit really, really hard in our market by other people. So we don’t do as well with those, but we still get some deals now and then. Evictions are great. It’s a little tougher to find evictions now because of the moratorium and stuff like that. There haven’t been as many people filing evictions, but it’s still an old bread and butter.

Jay Conner:

So on the evictions, what you’re looking for there is a tired landlord, right?

They had to go through the eviction process and they’re just sort of like done. I liked the acronym that you just, that you gave out. It was like a Panda. Tell everybody about it again. One more time. What does PEND stand for?

Corey Reyment:

Yeah. P as in “Probate,” E as in “Evictions,” N as in “Notice of default,” and D as in “Divorce.”

[alaturkanews]

TDR Live: Cori Bush & AOC Make The Haters Look Ridiculous

TDR Live: Cori Bush & AOC Make The Haters Look Ridiculous

It’s a Fran-tastic Wednesday! The Damage Report host John Iadarola is joined by Francesca Fiorentini, host of Newsbroke on AJ+ and The Bitchuation Room podcast, to break down Wednesday’s top stories. Shontel Brown defeats progressive Sen. Nina Turner in OH-11’s congressional primary. Biden extends the eviction moratorium – thanks to Rep. Cori Bush! Gun-toting St. Louis couple pardoned after…

[rationaromanceblog]

Loving you is Red: Part II

The love I was experiencing was the love you were told was unrealistic and only existed in movies. Suddenly love songs made perfect sense. Colors became brighter, tastes were more delicious, life was worth living. It felt cliché in it’s amazingness. I couldn’t believe that I was lucky enough to find a love so intense, and so out of nowhere. It was perfect. Until he started sleeping with his ex girlfriend. 

“Are you okay?” He asks breaking the long silence. 

“Processing.” I chirp.

 More silence. 

“I don't like it.” I finally say. “You have feelings. That’s not what I thought we were doing.” 

“You never said not to.”

“You’re right but I am saying it now.” 

“Hm…” I hear him breath heavily. 

“If it wasn’t her it’d be fine.” I say when something occurs to me.  “Are you thinking about getting back with her?” 

“No! I mean.. I don’t know. I don’t think so.” 

“You don't know?” I ask incredulous. 

“No.”

“I can’t be with you if you're with her.” I said. “You. Love. Her.” I remind him. “You just broke up too.” I add

“Okay.” He answers, sounding defeated. 

None of the podcasts I listened to  talk about this. What do you do when your boyfriend starts sleeping with his ex girlfriend who he still hasn’t gotten over because you said you wanted an open relationship where you sleep with other people? I am panicked. If he goes back with her, I can’t even… I start to hyperventilate. Losing Kevin feels like the end of the world. I found something incredible and precious, is it really going to be taken away from me? Like that?

When I pictured an open relationship I figured we would only casually date other people but keep each other as the primary relationship. She threatens that. We just started falling in love.  I have no chance of competing against their history. He needs to move forward with me not backwards with her. 

I do what I do best. I write him a note. I beg him to understand. I ask him to stop. I apologize for how madly in love I am, and how silly it is to be so desperate for someone. But I am. It takes him a week to decide. The entire time I am wrecked with fear.

Eventually I am in the clear, he agrees to stop sleeping with her. We agree to stay open but now we have a new rule. No exes. I don’t care that Kevin is still in love with her. That’s to be expected.  It’s going to take time to move past a relationship like the one they had, and sleeping with her is not the way to do that. 

One of my dates goes really well, and I decide to have sex with them, excited about the opportunity. I will finally have a story to share. It’s the beginning of my adventures being open, it’s thrilling. What we’re doing feels official now.  I expect Kevin to be excited with me. I can’t wait to tell him all about it.

I call him, and by the end of the conversation I am very confused. He is hurt beyond belief. And now I feel like I did something wrong. Sure logically, I know I didn’t. I know we had an agreement and it was all above board. But he was so hurt and I was the cause. He was trying to be okay with it, at first. Then he started to relive the pain that his ex caused him when she cheated on him, except it felt like I had done the cheating. Maybe I did do something wrong? A voice in my head questions.  I can’t argue with his heartbreak

The next day he apologizes. But when I give him the option of not being open anymore he doesn’t want it.  “We agreed to this, this is what we’re doing.” He says, ever stubborn. 

As much as I want to, I can’t shake the feeling that dating is wrong. I never want to do anything to hurt Kevin like that again. So I decide to stop.  I don’t tell Kevin. I just stop. After being with him for 3 months I’ve started to change how I feel about monogamy anyway, maybe it doesn’t have to be so constricting and suffocating the way I was thinking about it. But it’s too late, Kevin won’t consider it an option anymore. 

 We fall into a state of limbo where we’re not acting on our open relationship but not outright choosing monogamy. We put a hold on dating and we don’t broach the subject. This is when I notice a subtle shift in Kevin’s interactions towards me. I feel as if I am being held at an arm's distance emotionally.  He doesn’t gush about me as much as he used to. He keeps his affections towards me brief. There’s a new edge to his playfulness. He starts to make fun of me at my expense, like a kid pulling your ponytails because he likes you. I don’t like the new dynamic, but I don’t say anything. There’s a part of me that feels like I did something to deserve it. And a part of me that is just happy Kevin is still with me in the first place and will take whatever she can get from the man she loves.

Occasionally I receive a drunken phone call or text. His walls fall down. These are the times he gushes openly, here he tells me that he is as mad for me as I am for him.  I am reassured. And this becomes how I keep myself afloat. This is how I justify the strange new form our relationship has taken. He still loves me and things will be okay soon. I ration.

Months into our new state I gather some courage and decide to bring it to light.

“You’re not very romantic.” I say after a particular rough monologue of him criticizing me.

“Oh no. I am very romantic.” He responds, “Just not to you.”

“Um. Ouch.”

“I am sorry about that. I have my reasons.”

“Are you serious?” 

“This is what I need to do right now.” 

I don’t push it, it was stressful enough addressing it. It’s as if he has become scared of loving me since becoming aware of the acute pain that can accompany it. But he doesn’t want to leave me either so this callousness has become his middle ground.  What strikes me is that he is being this way intentionally. I’d believed he really wasn’t aware of the way he was acting. I want nothing more than to be openly and unabashedly adored by the man I love. How do I get that? I have to be patient and hope he comes around I guess, but it leaves me feeling powerless.

Things continue much the same. We don’t kiss or hug very much unless we’re being intimate. We don’t hold hands when we walk together.  Our relationship is still intense and wonderful in many ways. We still talk for hours and laugh until we cry. I can be 100 percent myself, knowing he will understand me fully. We bask in each other and our connection. But without our affections it’s like dating my friend. Granted a friend I am madly in love with. 

I don’t feel like I have the right to demand more. I don’t even know how to ask for more. Eventually this becomes our normal, and the voice that tells me to question it gets quieter and quieter. Romance is childish. We’re above that. A new voice tries to convince me, but I can’t stop myself from wanting it, from wishing and hoping for that piece our relationship lost. I become deeply turmoiled. And still I can’t fathom leaving him, so I aim to enjoy what I am given instead. 

During a late night conversation, 6 months into dating, Kevin informs me that he is ready to date again. I swallow hard and take a deep breath. Okay here we go.

“Have you considered it?” he asks

 I had, but I didn’t want to complicate matters. I still held a deep fear that my actions were going to lead to his heartbreak. 

“I am not sure I want to.” I say

It felt a little odd that Kevin started dating again and I wasn’t. But just because I wasn’t ready to didn’t mean he had to wait, technically. For the next few months Kevin went on several dates and I asked not to hear about them. I didn’t want the unevenness thrown in my face. I wanted to want to start dating but I couldn’t get myself to. Truly I wanted to be monogamous, but I wasn’t brave enough to demand such a thing.  It still bothered me that Kevin kept me at an arm's distance. I was convinced that if I started dating again he would do that even more. We were deeply engrossed in each other day after day but he still had a problem calling himself my boyfriend. There was no way I was going to take a risk like that. I decided not to care that he was dating. I am a highly evolved individual who recognizes and is above the fallacies of monogamy, or whatever. 

I moved out of my parent’s house around this time. This was difficult for me. I worked two jobs and 70 hour weeks to get by. My entire life was working, sleeping, and occasionally seeing Kevin. I was isolated, constantly exhausted, and fairly depressed. Life was grim, and loving Kevin my only bright spot. Luckily Kevin had moved closer to me. He was only half an hour away instead of an hour. We started to see each other twice a week, and even spend some nights together. He was still dating, and I tried to keep as distracted as possible whenever he was out. I worked constantly so this wasn’t usually an issue. 

One day I was off work, I was caught up on sleep and all my errands were done, a rare occasion.  Kevin was out. The darkness and deep unhappiness I was usually able to keep at bay started to encompass my thoughts and I had nothing to escape it. I scrambled for something to do, but I couldn’t think of anything that would help. The idea of trying to find a date now, from this dark place seemed unimaginable, but it was the only thing I could think of that might work. Instead I went for a parallel move, I called my ex. It made sense. I knew he would see me.  He was the only one I could think of that I felt comfortable around enough to even ask. He became the perfect distraction from the aching loneliness. 

“Oh my god. I knew you were gonna be upset!” I yell, after I tell Kevin about it.

“No! That’s not what this is about. I don’t care, I just thought we had a ‘no exes’ rule?” “What?” “When I slept with my ex you threw a fit about no exes. What happened to that?” Oh shit. “ Wait... I just meant that one ex. I didn’t issue a blanket moratorium.” 

“That’s how I took it.’ “I… uh…” He looks at me expectedly. “Okay here.” I say gathering my thoughts. “My problem with you sleeping with her was that you had feelings and a past with her. I don’t like my ex like that. I never did. That’s why we broke up. So it’s not the same at all.” “Okay and if you don’t like him why are you seeing him?” “I dunno! He was there. I am comfortable around him, he’s familiar. I knew it’d be easy. I don’t want to put in the effort of having to meet new people.” “I don’t like it. It feels hypocritical. But do whatever you want. I don’t care. “ “No. I mean. I won’t see him again.” I scramble. “I totally didn’t think it was the same thing.” After a pause he responds. Choosing his words deliberately “ I am serious. See him. I know it’s not the same thing. I see your point. It’s fine.” 

We leave it like that, and I continue to see my ex for a while more. Kevin’s questioning as to why I was dating someone I don’t like made me realize, reluctantly, that this wasn’t actually where I wanted to invest my time. I give it up before we become too involved.

The overwhelming loneliness doesn’t go away.  It waits for a quiet moment where I am not distracted to strike again. Desperate for relief, my brain follows a similar thought pattern as last time, this time going to a different person from my past for the answer. Not an ex per say, since we were hardly official, but someone familiar all the same. I don’t think about it, I just need to do something. I ask him to come over as a quick distraction. We sleep together. It’s sudden and for a second afterward the pain isn’t there. My plan at distraction worked. Instead it’s replaced by thinking about the implications of what just happened.

I consider telling Kevin but I can’t bring myself to. I want this to be for me, I don’t want to have to report to him. I don’t ask him for details on his trysts. Although he’s made it clear he wants to know about these things, I pretend it didn’t happen. I choose not to feel guilty since it's not technically cheating. I just don’t want to deal with it. Suddenly, I feel a sense of power. I can have other people too, an indignant voice in my head says. Like it’s some competition and I just got a point.

This event brings an awareness of the growing dissatisfaction in my life and I get desperate for a real solution. I am running out of people from my past to call. I start to imagine what ending things with Kevin would look like. I am already pretty miserable. Could it really get much worse?  It would hurt. It would be the most painful thing I’ve ever done. But it would be relieving too. I am pretty convinced that Kevin doesn’t want more out of this relationship the way I do, we never talk about he future or becoming serious. I might even be doing him a favor. 

I sob in anticipation of the heartache. I am preparing myself in advance. It sucks, but it’s not that different from the constant pain I am already experiencing, just more acute. At least this way I can add a sense of hope that things might change. I try to have the conversation with him over text. Me: I think that we both want two very different relationships for this to really make sense any more. And we should probably consider possibly not being together. Kevin: Maria Wait. Don’t do this to me over text. Me: I am not doing anything I just want us to consider it. Kevin: I don’t want to consider anything, I like what we are. Me: And I don’t. Kevin: Say this to my face please. If you feel this way, look at me and say it. I agree to go to his place on my next day off. I arrive as he was getting there too. He’s unloading groceries and I start to help. “You don’t have to do that.” He says, more formally than I am used to from him. “I know.” I answer, and keep doing it. He shrugs and we continue in silence. When we finish with the groceries we sit at the table and he gestures to me, he seems more nervous than I expected.  I try to be polite and straight to the point. “I love you, but I can’t keep going the way we are going. So I am taking myself out.” “You didn’t even give me a chance to do anything about it.” “You’ve made it very clear that you don’t want things to change.” “Yea but I didn’t know you wanted to break up!” “I am not trying to give you an ultimatum. I don’t want the choice to be ‘commit to me or I am gone’.” “Yea. You’re not even giving me the choice.” I shrug. “You’re so cold. I don’t like this person.” “I made a decision, I have to go through with it.” I knew this would be hard for me to do, but it didn't occur to me that he might not let me go easily. His lack of romantic affection and not wanting commitment began to mean to me that he must not have strong feelings. His heartache at my decision is alarming. “Is this really what you want?” “No.” I answered truthfully “but this is what I need.” “Come here.” He says and pulls me towards him. We embrace for a long time and I start crying. “I am sorry.” I say. “I understand.” He says. “I’ve been a very bad boyfriend to you. I shouldn't have expected you to put up with it, I am surprised you did for so long.” “I’ve never been in love like this before, I thought I could put up with anything.” He nods and wipes away my tears. We stay there in silence, enjoying the warmth of each other. “Are you sure this is what you want?” He asks again. “No.” I say again. “But I can’t continue in the same relationship.” “Okay. He says and pauses. “But I can’t commit to just you yet. I am not ready for that.” “Something still has to change.” “It will.” He promises. “Just don’t leave.”

 He becomes more willing to make me a prominent part of his life. We start to see each other with more frequency. He acknowledges me as his girlfriend to people in his life. We start to talk about the future in a way that seems concrete. He realizes he wants this to be real. He’s ready for more. He starts to show me in all the way’s I’ve dreamed.

Feeling more empowered, I make strides to add more balance to my life. I quit one of my jobs and move into a cheaper place. I aim to take better care of  myself. I get out of survival mode. As I start to feel good I decide that I am ready to date and explore our open relationship the way I intended to from the beginning. In a way that is actually fun and interesting and not out of desperation. I start dating and quickly hit a stride. I am meeting fun cool people and basking in the joys of it.

 This is when Kevin decides he’s done. 

Kevin: I deleted my dating profile

I read the text and laugh in disbelief. 

 Me: What the fuck? You can’t be serious. 

I am livid. I have been dreaming about this day since I realized you were using our non monogamy as a reason to stay emotionally distant from me and now when I am finally ready to embrace it, you say this? Excuse me?  I never get angry at Kevin, but I am pissed. He’s doing this on purpose just so I won’t date. I am convinced. 

By now Kevin is on an opposite journey. He has had his fill of casual dating, and is beginning to wonder if monogamy and committing to a future with me is the answer to his unwavering unfulfillment. He wants to find out. 

I, however, am having a blast dating. I even tell Kevin about them, and I start to get curious about his dates too. I was ready to fully embrace the life we’d chosen. 

Kevin: I  am not telling you what to do. He reassures me. Keep dating. I am just telling you that I am not interested in it anymore. I’ve been thinking that as far as the future goes I see myself being monogamous. 

Even though Kevin dated while I didn’t for months, I don’t want to date if he isn’t. More than anything I’ve been ready to be monogamous for a long time, I simply didn’t believe he’d be willing. He was so adamant before. Now I am both angry and excited. On the one hand, I lose this adventure. On the other, Kevin wants to be a serious exclusive couple. Wow. 

Something changed in Kevin. He has a new air of determination. He is ready to take charge of his life. He wants more and I am so ready.

We start to plan and dream together. We spend our weekends going downtown. Kevin’s favorite place. “Imagine living here.” He motions as we walk past tall buildings “This would be your backyard.” 

I love his vision, and it becomes mine too.  This unites us. I search for work closer to the city, that pays well and has growth so that I can contribute as much as he can. 

He helps me pay off debt I’ve accumulated so we can make this dream happen faster. We start to see each other everyday. I am practically moved into his apartment before I realize. He introduces me to his family, and we spend Christmas together. It’s happening. The real life adult relationship is coming to life. By the end of the summer we are looking at apartments, and making plans to move. We find a great place with a view of the buildings Kevin loves so much. It’s wonderful. 

I notice that Kevin points more to the things he doesn’t like about our new life than to the things he does. Although I think it’s perfect,  he has a tendency to nitpick why it isn’t quite right. Why it isn’t really what he wanted. He seems to be looking for the reason why he isn’t truly satisfied. 

We start to buy furniture. There was a bed bug incident in the old apartment that left us with almost nothing for the new one. Those trips are a lot of fun and bonding for us. We acquire a couch, a rug, and a king size bed. I am loving the new domesticity of life. Part of me still can’t believe it’s happening. But Kevin continues to search for the cause of his unfulfillment. The apartment was supposed to make it go away.

Ultimately, it had to be me after all. 

Kevin was right in that our relationship had turned into a friendship. We no longer knew how to be affectionate, loving, caring, vulnerable or just stupidly in love with each other. We never fixed that issue in our interactions. We got too used to it.  We certainly felt all those things. They came out on nights when our inhibitions came down. On the evening we spent drinking and talking until too late in the night. But it wasn’t in our day to day. Convinced that his happiness had to be elsewhere, Kevin decided it was time to leave us and go find it.

Next: The Breakup

[dirtnappod]

This Here Is The Guest FAQ

If you are reading this, it is probably because you are interested in making a guest appearance on The Dirt Nap Podcast. Here are the questions I've gotten the most: Q: What do I need to do to prepare? A: You need a pretty solid 20-30 minutes on the death topic of your choice. Past topics include: the life and suicide of Sylvia Plath, immortality, famous last words, cannibalism, Jeffrey Dahmer, last meals, the end of the solar system, and suicide notes. As you can see, there is a whole lot of variety in potential topics. Please research your topic carefully, and bring your references (the websites and/or books you read to get your information). If you are doing a personal topic (see below), please include a list of recommended reading instead. Q: Can I tell a story about how my grandma died and it was sad forever? A: Well, can you make it funny? Generally, we are oriented more toward historical overviews of topics, but if you've got a great, compelling story that you really think would be a good fit, let me (Henny) know. dirtnappod@gmail.com Q: Can I talk about [BTK/the Zodiac killer/Elisa Lam/other true crime topic]? A: Sorry, but... probably not. I just talked about a guy cooking and serving his own balls and then did 45 minutes on Jeffrey Dahmer, so I'm imposing a moratorium on true crime topics for now. We are not a true crime podcast. Q: What tools do I need? A: Well, if you're local to Northern California, you might be able to come record in my tiny bedroom studio and share my and Chris' podcasting beer. If not, you'd call in on Skype and we'd record the whole thing with a program called MP3 Skype Recorder. Ideally, you'd have a good mic and either a.) speakers that are far from the mic or b.) headphones, so that we don't get that terrible Skype echo. Q: Oh, no! I've never been on a podcast before! How do I do this? A: If you're Skyping in, it's kind of like you're just talking about a topic with two friends. You can riff on random things, get tangential, make puns... Essentially, just be yourself. If you are not comfortable talking on the phone or voice chatting, podcasting is probably not for you. On the other hand, some nervousness is totally normal and if you stutter, say "um/uh/er" a lot, or have a long pause, that's the kind of stuff I edit out. Q: What is the format of your podcast? A: I guess you should give a listen to Episode 002, because that's the closest to our usual format. Basically we start with a "question of the day" which spins off into about 5-10 mins of talk, then we each present a death topic we've researched, about 20-40 mins each. (We all agree on subjects beforehand so that there isn't repetition/overlap.) There is a break in between each person. If a guest presents a topic, they go last, to have time to get comfortable. At the end, they plug whatever project they're working on. After that, I do my spiel where I plug the website, Twitter, Patreon. Q: How long does it take to record? Will I be compensated? A: 2 hours generally, and HAHA NO. We're not Max Fun. We're literally just two history nerds with a Libsyn feed.