#psa i am soooooo normal

[generaterandom]

I think you all deserve to know

[zymstarz]

just read all of "like father like son" in a day and a half and hey guys! what in the absolute hell world! oh my god!

[rossfckinlynch-blog]

PSA

SOOOOOO i’ve been writing fanfiction for quite some time now, and today i finally decided to post a little something i’ve been working onnnnnn let me know what y’allllll think about it

Warnings: drinking/cursing

Chapter One: Hey Bartender 

       I woke up on August 24, 2017 the way I did any other Friday morning. At 11:30, my alarm went off. I hadn't gotten until 4 am the night before, so a good 7 and a half hours of sleep would be enough for the day. I drug myself from my bed and draped open my bedroom curtains. Although I'd been living at the beach for almost two months, I never grew tired of the ocean view I got everyday.

         I quickly changed into a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt, and ran a brush through the mess on my head. I smacked my thin framed glasses on my face and made my way to the kitchen. In kitchen I found my husky, tattooed roommate sitting at the table, drinking his black coffee and eating his Fruity Pebbles.

         My daily routine was going as it always had, but in a way, it felt off. Something about today felt different, a good different.

         "Morning." I yawned to him, pulling a coffee mug out of the counter for myself.

         "What time did you get in?" I heard him ask before shoving a spoon full of cereal into his mouth.

         "Around 4."

         I poured myself a cup of coffee, grabbed my Salted Caramel creamer, and took a seat across from him.

         "Why so late?" He asked. "I thought you were done at 2."

         I sipped my coffee before answering him.

         "I closed down around 3, but decided to help Joe clean up everything, then he walked me home." I replied, and his eyes narrowed.

         "I thought I told you I didn't want Joe walking you home, or you being there alone with him." He said, his voice harsh.

         "Calm down, Dad." I laughed. "Joey's harmless."

         "For now." He raised his eyebrow. "At the end of the day Joe's a man, and I know how men think."

         I raised a brow back at him.

         "You know how gay men think." I corrected him, causing a smile to form on his face.

         I had met Chase in March of 2017. I had taken a weekend trip to the beach with my mom, sister, aunt, and a few family friends. Although I wasn't 21 yet, I had a fake ID and got into all of the bars. The bar Chase worked at, which I work now, was attached to our hotel. I quickly befriended Chase and when the weekend was over I revealed my secret, I was only 20 and he had been serving me for the last three days.

         He laughed about it, and felt connected to me enough to fill a secret in about his own self. The handsome, strong, inked up bartender that my sister and aunt's friends had spent the weekend swooning over was into dudes. I'd never had a gay friend before, and I thank God every day for now having one.

         After that March weekend, Chase and I kept in touch. We'd take weekend trips to visit each other, and when I finally turned 21 in June, he was there to help me bring it in. In our months of friendship, we'd talked about things we wanted to do with our lives, and mistakes we'd made in the past.

         Remembering my fantasy of one day living at the beach, spending the summer figuring myself out, Chase got me a job at the bar we met at, and asked me to move in with him a week after my birthday. It was an easy yes for me, being the beach was only an hour away from my friends and family at home. So, mid-June I packed up my things, and drove my red pick-up truck down to the shore.

         Since then, I'd fallen in love with the bartending life. It was summer, in my favorite place on Earth, working (most nights) alongside of one of my best friends. I couldn't have asked for anything better.

         "What do you work tonight?" Chase stood from the counter, dumping his remains in the sink before immediately washing the dishes he'd just used.

         "Supposed to be 5-2." I told him. He told me he'd been scheduled the same shift. When it came to working together, Chase and I had been just as in-sync as we were in real life. Thanks to this trait, we spent a lot of weekend nights on the same schedule.

         "Was thinking maybe I'd gym for a little, then come back, eat and nap before work." He told me.

         "Sounds good to me." I nodded, taking one last swig of my coffee before handing it to him to wash.

         "Great." He smiled, and I made my way back to my bedroom.

-----

         The “off feeling” continued when I got to work. For a Friday night, there was an odd amount of people at the bar. The dancefloor was tight, and most of the seats at the bar were taken. But, when a group of 7 came in and was able to fit, I knew it wasn’t a regular Friday night. They were on Chase’s end, so he served them, but I watched closely because they looked like a familiar bunch.

         “’Scuse me!” A voice chimed, pulling my attention away from Chase.

         I turned to see a girl waving a $5 bill over the bar at me.

         “What can I get for ya?” I asked in my nicest voice, even though the money waving had really pissed me off.

         “A vodka sprite.” She said with her nose in the air.

         I grabbed a glass and made her drink, setting it down on the bar in front of her.

         I took the 5 she had laid and put her $1.25 in front of her. She scooped up her change and walked away. No “thank you”, no tip, not even any eye contact.

         “Bitch.” I whispered under my breath, then turned to help another customer. A few minutes had gone by, and I felt Chase walk up behind me.

         “The blonde over there, black and tan button up.” He said calmly. I looked around the bar, and found the guy he was talking about, sitting among the party who had just walked in.

         “What about him?” I asked.

         “Bought you this.” Chase told me, and I looked down. In his hand he held what looked like Jameson and Ginger Ale.

         “No way.” I shook my head, laughing, then looked back at the blonde.

         He was handsome, very handsome. He sat conservatively at the bar, sipping on what looked like a whisky and coke.

         “What did he say?” I hinted at Chase for details.

         “Asked what the cute bartender in the denim shorts usually drank.” He laughed. “I told him a bottle of Miller Lite would do.”

         I started cracking up, because Chase was also in denim shorts, and Miller Lites were his drink of choice.

         “Then, when I realized he and I weren't on the same team..." He joked. “I told him your drink and he asked if he could buy you one.”

         “Should I go thank him?” I asked, taking the drink from his hands.

         “Um, yeah!” He exclaimed. “I’ll take this side for a little, go.”

         I took a huge swig from my drink, and made my way over to where Blondie was sitting.

         I wondered what I would say to get his attention, but as I made my way over he looked up, and our eyes met.

         "Is it rude if I say I've never met a girl who drinks whiskey like I do?" He smiled, before I had the chance to thank him for the drink.

         "Not rude. Just seems like you haven't been associating yourself with the right kind of girls." I joked.

         I decided to play it cool, and asked the guy next to him if he was ready for a refill.

         "Please." The brunette responded. "My credit card's running a tab back there."

         "What are you drinking?" I asked, continuing to ignore the blonde.

         "Rum and coke." He told me, and I nodded. I turned my back to them and made his drink.

         "I'm Ross, by the way." I heard the blonde's voice shouting over my shoulder.

         "Cassie." I finally looked back at him.

         "Nice to meet you." He replied with a grin on his face.

         "Likewise." I nodded.

         "Thank you for the drink." I smiled, taking a quick sip from the glass.

         "My pleasure."

         He downed the last of his drink, but didn't push his glass towards me. That action all but made me putty in this guy's hands. My biggest pet peeve with being a bartender was when people waved their money at me, or pushed their drinks towards me as if I didn't realize the glass was empty.

         "Another one?" I asked, reaching to grab his glass.

         "Yeah, please." He said. "Jack and coke."

         I filled his cup, putting in a little extra than I normally would before returning it to the coaster in front of him.

         "That one's on me." I winked at him.

         He smiled as he thanked me, then held his glass to mine. We clinked, and drank. We spent a majority of that night, clinking many drinks that were bought between the two of us. We got more acquainted, and I had introduced him and his group to Chase.

         I had discovered that the party he had come in with were his siblings, and his sister's boyfriend. They were in town for a show, and decided to make a small vacation out of it.

         The more we talked, the more attracted I found myself to him. There were times where I would've done anything for just a few seconds alone with him.

         The night came to an end and before any of us knew it, it was 2:00 and it was time to shut down. Chase called "last call" and those left at the bar finished up their drinks. Ross, his sister, and the rest of the boys began getting themselves ready to go.

         I tried to pretend not to pay attention to the fact they were leaving, and that I was concerned if I would see him again.

         "Before I go..." I finally heard Ross speak up. I turned eagerly to face him, and this was the first time I saw him standing up. He had to be at least 6'1, and he was now wearing a leather jacket.

         "Will you be here tomorrow?" He asked.

         "Yeah." I nodded. "I work at 11."

         "Okay. We've got some sibling stuff to do tomorrow, but I'll probably be back in to see you at some point."

         "Okay." I smiled, a poor attempt to hide my excitement.

         "Nice to meet you!" A drunk Rydel called to me as her boyfriend, Ellington, practically carried her out of the bar.

         "Are you guys good to get home?" I worried. They'd been at the bar since 11, and seemed as though they were drinking a lot.

         "Yeah." He laughed. "Riker called us an Uber."

         Riker was Ross's oldest brother.

         "Okay, good." I reached forward to grab their empty glasses.

         "Tomorrow." He put his hand down on the bar.

         "Goodnight, Ross." I winked at him, then said goodbye to his brothers, and they left. I turned around to get rid of their glasses and Chase appeared next to him.

         "You can put your tongue back in your mouth." He nudged me.

         "Fuck off." I laughed, throwing their glasses into the sink to wash.

         "Do you like him?" He poked, cleaning off the bar behind me.

         "No." I shook my head, lying a bit. "I just met him."

         "But you wanna fuck him, right?" His face was now right on my shoulder.

         "You know, not everyone wants to fuck every attractive guy they meet." I joked. "That's just you."

         "Oh, whatever." He groans. "I know you, and in a matter of days he'll be just another notch on your bedpost."

         I turn around and punched Chase's gigantic bicep as hard as I could. Of course, he barely felt it, and continued wiping and cleaning the bar.

         "Get me a shot." He told me, as he began boxing up the empty cases of beer to take out back.

         I pulled down a bottle of Jameson and poured us each a shot. At that point, Chase had returned and stood next to me.

         "Here's to you fucking Blondie." He winked.

         "And to you minding your own business." I spat back, and he laughed. We cheered our shot glasses, and slug them down. We finished cleaning, and taking shots, and stumbled down 3 blocks and into our apartment sometime around 3.

         Chase and I said goodnight to each other, and I headed to my bedroom. I thought fondly of Ross. Although I had just only met him, I started to piece together why the day had felt so out of the ordinary to me. And I hoped that in some way, it had something to do with him.

[renegadesepiida]

From February 3 until February 11 another King of the Hammers race week made Johnson Valley an enormous cloud of dust. I’d heard about the craziness of this event since I arrived in the Southern California desert five months ago. That was the time of innocence, thinking there was no possible way our country would take the turn that it has, and out here I was definitely in the minority.

While I don’t want to get too wrapped up in politics, it does have an influence on the world we live in and of course how people see each other. It is a shame, which is why I prefer to keep traveling, to experience every culture, and to understand it with respect. I looked at this event as a perfect way to do just that, understand and respect why these people feel this way.

The first thing I should do is to explain what King of the Hammers is. How my boss explained it to me and just so everyone knows these are the words coming out of a government park institution leader whose family all grew up in this area (so don’t hate me if you’re offended by the next sentence). “It’s a shit-ton of drunk rednecks who come out here with all their heavy machinery to tear up the desert.” Honestly, after hearing that I was way more terrified of participating than I was at the actual event. I expected super rowdy drunk off their ass spectators and racers on motorcycles, quads, and every other tricked out ATVs (all-terrain vehicles) you could possibly think of. There were plenty of tricked out vehicles, which were soooooo awesome to watch. I originally thought the vast majority of people were extremely kind and were just there for fun. In fact, there weren’t people just from that area, but all over the country and even the world. It was truly an international event with people driving from Canada, flying from England, Australia, and even China (along with many others).

I couldn’t believe some of these rigs, they cost upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars, crazy. I could never save up money for that, it’s the racers business, and if this event is anything to go by, business was good.

BOOTH DUTY

For my part, I was working with Art, the Mojave Desert Park Ranger (the only one), to educate the public on the native flora and fauna out in the desert and show them that they should protect it. A lot of the education was geared towards kids, but the teens and adults also got involved with questions and wanting to hold the animals Art brought. All the animals were rescues, or in the case of the baby desert tortoise, born and raised in captivity.

In the case of the desert tortoise, which is an endangered species, we told the people that, should they want a pet tortoise, to adopt one from a shelter. When they are taken out of the wild and interact with humans they develop a respiratory condition that can cause them to die around 15, the female breeding age, and will be passed to their offspring. Therefore, none of them can ever be returned to the wild. And this is especially sad because they can normally live for over a hundred years, and could be passed down through human generations. But they might be picked up, exposed and after a few years the people who took them get tired of looking after them and leave them back out in the desert where, soon enough, they die.

BTW: It’s actually illegal to take them, even really to interact with tortoises at all (except if they are on a road, then you can pick them up, keeping them low to the ground, and move them off in the direct they were originally going.) Also if you see any broken shells DO NOT COLLECT, scientists need to be able to see that that area is a tortoise habitat, otherwise people may try to build on it, displacing many more animals.

PSA… Anyways…

We also passed out maps of much of the land for free, don’t want anyone to get lost, and then it would also help them know where and where not to ride their ATVs. Everyone was extremely grateful for all of this information, and they were happy that the BLM (Bureau of Land Management – who I work for along with ACE – American Conservation Experience) was out getting involved with the public. A government branch that actually cares about the environment and the people – crazy!

Almost everyone who came by our booth really opened up to us: telling us where they are from, what they like to do for fun, and how they feel about the entire environment we were currently in. It’s interesting to see how people will act when you get them talking.

Along with the tortoise we also had a dead, stuffed raven, to explain how they eat the baby tortoises (first pecking through the soft underbelly of the shell, and then one they develop harder shells pick them up, bring them to telephone wires and then drop the tortoises on the rocks to break them – smart animals). Other than the tortoise, the living animals were as follows:

A false widow – looks like a black widow but not venomous and very common.

A desert hairy scorpion – also big (ladies are larger and almost white – glow in the dark with a black light, males are smaller and darker) and a little venomous, but not dangerous unless you’re allergic, like bees. And also very common here, shake out your shoes and jackets, really anything you left on the ground while camping.

A chuckwalla – lizard who thrives in 90+ temperature, with loose skin flaps on its sides so when it runs between rocks it can blow itself up like a balloon to keep predators from yanking it out and the detachable tail.

A California king snake – black and white (sometimes brown or red too, depending on the region) snake who eats all the other animals (including rattlesnakes) so the top predator that is nice to people and keeps us all safe and happy.

The desert may seem empty, but it’s sooooo not.

I spent most of the time with a baby northern alligator lizard, that Art saved to feed to his king snake, who loved my body heat and crawled up my sleeves and hung out under my shirt collar for hours on end. I named it Geoffery Carlile, and didn’t change it when I found out it was female; the name was too good. So now I have a pet/buddy.

OTHER SHIT

We did have a couple less than sober people come by, especially because the vast majority of adult (young to old) were carrying around cans of beer in cozies. But with thousands of people passing over the week there was only one man (probably in his late 50’s or 60’s) who passed celebrating Trump’s idea of shutting down the BLM, and all the ideas he had for tearing down all the governmental structures. What that man probably didn’t know is that, without the BLM Johnson Valley would be taken over by the military and, thus, they could never access it, which would mean no more off-roading. So, YOU’RE WELCOME.

Also btw, that is not me being ok with how much of the land and habitats the off-roaders are messing up with all this crazy behavior. Just trying to appeal to what they care about.

  TIME TO ESCAPE

Because standing/sitting in a booth all day is boring as shit, there were times when I would take a walk to the bathroom and take a longer way back, passing the other stalls and the stages. Almost none of the vendors were selling their products because, as I later learned, the man who puts this on every year charges through the nose for placement, and makes the vendor give him a percentage of whatever they sell. By the end, he’s basically pocketing around a million dollars a year.

But, to the casual fan, this stuff doesn’t have too much of an effect. The booths instead have people sign up through email, which gives them an opportunity to win a $500 credit with their company, spin a wheel, and get free little prizes (like hats, cozies, stickers, etc.). While $500 might sound like a decent amount, most of the products cost over a thousand dollars, so good if you are in the market for stuff like what they sell, but worthless if not.

On Thursday, the day before the final 200-mile car race, one of the fire station volunteers (who also volunteers for the BLM) offered to help me escape the monotony of the booth for a while. I took him up on the offer, we climbed into his jeep and showed me two of the coolest parts of the racetrack: chocolate thunder and the waterfall.

Since I am more comfortable in heels, rather than flat shoes (completely serious) I wore my high heeled boots every day, this made it more impressive (?) to onlookers when I jumped out of the jeep at chocolate thunder and walked through the steep sand hill and over the rocks one handed. The lizard was hanging out in my sleeve still and I didn’t want her shaken up too much. When we arrived we could see that one of the customized jeeps had flipped and the crew was trying to set it right so they could finish the race. The canyon was very steep and rocky and we watched long enough for me to take several pictures and videos of the jeep being righted and passed a couple times.

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The second location was “the waterfall” which had a straight three feet rock that both cars and motorbikes had to navigate both up and down, depending on the race direction. I only got to see the cars going down, but that was pretty awesome. Took some pictures and more videos (btw they have cameras along the track and in helicopters overhead so they can film and live stream the entire race) and my favorite was when one car drove through it like it was nothing, almost on the tail of another car and then after getting through the rocky bit slammed on the gas speeding up on the sand. Vroom Vroom motherfucker

            Watching the whole race filled me with adrenaline; I just wanted to jump on a bike or into a car and speed over all obstacles. Wouldn’t even think twice, as long as the owner wouldn’t care if I messed up the vehicle… no fear. Didn’t get to, though.

Overall, the experience was generally enjoyable and I’m glad I got to talk to groups of people that I would normally clash with. And, as it is Valentine’s Day I wish love and understanding to all people of the world, wouldn’t that be great?

  Happy Valentine’s Day and be safe on all your adventures.

Long Live the Hammer King From February 3 until February 11 another King of the Hammers race week made Johnson Valley…