#really they should make everyone take a vis culture class before we can post about anything but i think ahmed in particular is very needed

[garak]

i think before you should be allowed to talk about anime as a white person they should make you read ahmed's phenomenology of whiteness and make you take a test on it

[starrynite7114]

Adore You (EZ Reyes)

A/N: Good evening everyone! I decided to try my hand on EZ, test the waters out. Angel is my ultimate bae, but you know, let’s give little brother some love too! Hope you all enjoy this one! It’s based on Harry Styles song, ‘Adore You’. 

I will be posting Things You Never Knew tonight and hopefully Misconstrued in the next few days. Working through the requests as well and the next one will be body art along with a daddy Angel request. 

Hope you all are having a good start of the week!

Masterlist 

tagged list: @justahopelessssromantic : @ifoundmyhappythought : @trulysuccubus : @chibsytelford : @agirllovespasta : @elcococruz : @thickemadame : @iambabyharry : @briana-mishell24​ : @briannab1234​ : @carlaangel86​ : @marvelmaree​ : @enamoured-x​ : @encounterthepast​ : @woahitslucyylu​ : @jadert15​ : @gemini0410​ : @whyisgmora​

EZ smiled as he watched you dancing with Angel, so happy to finally take that final step with you. You laughed, lighting up the room as cheesy as it sounded. He was content sitting down and watching his dysfunctional family taking turns dancing with you. Looking down at the ring on his left finger, he was always thankful that he decided to take the leap and ask you out on a date all those years ago. 

‘I get so lost inside your eyes’

EZ remembered the first time he truly saw your eyes. You always hid behind your black square framed glasses, reading your books during whatever break period you all had. He wasn’t going to lie and say he knew who you were before being paired up with you for a history project. He was hoping to be paired up with a friend of his, and you offered to switch, but after EZ’s eyes connected with yours, he immediately shut the idea down. He couldn’t explain it. It wasn’t even the color of your eyes that captivated him, it was how warm they were. You gave him a small smile and offered your notebook to him so he could jot down ideas for your project. 

You knew who Ezekiel Reyes was, it was hard not to. He was the star baseball player, number 15, with the impeccable slide. Scouts were already hounding around him and it definitely helped that he wasn’t your typical idiotic jock. 

Nope.

Ezekiel Reyes was incredibly smart. 

You’ve been in his classes since you two were in the fourth grade and you used to envy him due to how intelligent he was without trying. But he was always a nice guy, so it was hard not to like him.

But you knew he never noticed you, which wasn’t a problem for you. You were used to not being noticed and with the way your fellow high schoolers were at times, you were glad that they never paid you any mind. 

Things changed after that history project in the eleventh grade. You somehow became good friends with EZ. You two weren’t the best of friends, but you definitely considered him a close friend. It was hard to make any mark in EZ’s life at that time since he was irrevocably in love with Emily. You liked Emily, she was a nice girl and smart as well. 

Somehow, you and Ezekiel ended up in Stanford. Since you two were the ones from Santo Padre, you two stuck together however, when the whole thing with Marisol occurred, everything changed. You missed him terribly and tried to visit him as often as you could, but you knew that visiting him didn’t do much for him. You could just see his life being sucked out of him and you felt terrible. Your last visit caused a rift between you two and you never recovered after that. 

Till he was released from prison. 

Five years had passed by then and the next time he locked eyes with you, you were walking out of church with your mother, your older brother and father following behind you two. EZ was with his father and much like years ago, your eyes caught him once again and he couldn’t look away. Angel elbowed him to finally cut the staredown between you two. There was no animosity, you gave him a small smile before following your brother to his vehicle.

“Ooh,” Angel teased his younger brother.

“Shut up.” EZ playfully pushed him away, chuckling at his brother’s stupidly. 

The next time he locked eyes with you, you were holding hands with some guy who did not deserve your attention. You looked at him like he held the world and his eyes were on his phone, doing god knows what. EZ passes by you, your eyes connected with his, again, you gave him that small smile you did three weeks ago and he returned your smile. 

Was your smile always so breathtaking? 

He kept looking at you till you turned the corner. Before you did, you threw him one last smile before disappearing behind the building. EZ wasn’t watching where he was going and ran into a post. Angel was walking out of the carniceria and laughed at his brother.

“Wow. You got it bad.” Angel clapped his hand on his back. “You're really into making your way back down high school pussy lane.”

“Shut up Angel.”

That guy didn’t last long and when EZ saw you next, your eyes locked at one of the few bars in Santo Padre. You were behind the bar, glasses gone, eyeshadow and make up highlighting your features. EZ almost choked on his drink when he saw your clothing, enough was covered, but it definitely left every man in this bar wanting more. He noticed how many men vied for your attention, you rarely man the bar, but your bartender called off due to an exam the next day and you couldn’t possibly say no.

Angel nudged his younger brother, pointing your way. 

“Knew there was a reason you decided to blow off some steam here tonight.” Angel whistled, catching your attention. “Preciosa, let me get a beer.”

“If you wanted a beer Ignacio, you should have stayed at the club.”

“You know I come here for you.” He winked as you handed him the beer.

“Better tip me this time,” you shot him a playful glare. “What can I get you Ezekiel?” 

Your eyes were different. He didn’t feel the usual warmth and familiarity he felt. This was new. Your eyes were intoxicating, he didn’t notice it’s shade before and he was lost in them.

Angel elbowed his brother, crashing him back to reality. 

“Sorry for my little brother’s rudeness, he’ll have milk.”

You laughed as EZ playfully shoved Angel.

“Let me just get a beer too.”

Ezekiel didn’t know what came over him that night, but one of the thoughts that ran through his mind was how he wanted his child to have your eyes, the same warm and inviting eyes he saw whenever he looked into them. The same eyes that dilated so perfectly as he had you gasping, moaning, and screaming his name. Your eyes were the first thing he noticed about you. How perfect they were and how inviting they were. You always tried to hide behind your books, which was fine, but once he came into your life, you couldn’t use your books as an excuse to not befriend people. 

He wanted to be your friend. You were definitely more interesting to talk to than some of his friends, hell even Emily at times. The way you snorted whenever he made some corny jokes. He would never tell anyone but the memories you two shared together was what kept him going in prison.

When he got out, his heart yearned for Emily, holding onto past memories that he should have long let go of, especially when he heard that she married Miguel Galindo, but old habits die hard. Emily was his first love and he felt that he owed her some type of penance for the abortion she had to go through alone. But he also found himself seeking you out.

When he realized that the solace he yearned for was no longer with Emily but with you, it hit him hard. He was glad it did, because he would have let you slip from his fingers and he couldn’t have had that.

You don't have to say you love me

You don't have to say nothing

You don't have to say you're mine

EZ walked into the flower shop across the street. He found himself frequenting the shop since your mother owned it. From time to time, you would be there, greeting him with a bright smile, the same glasses on your face. You were a familiar face from his past that didn’t require anything from him. All you wanted was to see him, catch up on pop culture and television shows you two used to frequently watch together, and discuss books you went through while he was in prison. You visited him a few times during his prison stint before you two fell out. EZ couldn’t even remember why you two fought in the first place, but whatever the reason was, he regretted it.

He was happy that you let him back in.

You were sitting inside the shop, buried in your phone. You heard the motorcycle and disregarded it since you felt like it was the one constant thing you’ve been hearing as of late. A sound that made your heart quicken, but you didn’t want to always assume it was EZ, could be anyone. 

Looking up when the bell rang indicating someone just walked in, you grinned.

“Hey EZ, what can I get for you?”

“Just browsing.” He didn’t even look around, he always just stayed with you by the counter till a customer came in. 

“Feel like you’re loitering.” You teased him. 

“That wounds me, I thought we were hanging out.”

You laughed. “Okay, we’re hanging out. Are you too cool to be seen out with me cause you only hang out with me here or behind closed doors.”

EZ frowned at your comment and you immediately took it back. “I’m joking, I didn’t mean it in that way.”

“No, you’re right.” It’s not that EZ didn’t want to be seen with you. You were the breath of fresh air that reminded him that it was great to be out, that all the deceit and hardships were worth it because he got to be near you again.

You didn’t have to say you were his, but in his mind, you were his and eventually, when things settled, he could proudly show it off.

“I get it EZ, we’re just friends when no one is around.”

That wounded EZ. That wasn’t true. But he could see why you would see it in that way. When you two were in Stanford, away from the prying eyes of the people in Santo Padre, things were different, but as soon as you two were home, Emily had all of his attention and you weren’t bitter, she was his girlfriend. 

And now.

He’s been out of prison for six months, Angel wasn’t talking to him, which you noticed, but you didn’t ask questions. You were only EZ’s friend at his convenience.

EZ opened his mouth to argue, but the shop door opened and it was the guy you were seeing that walked in. Seemed like a decent guy, definitely better than the other one, but EZ didn’t like him anyway.

Cause he had you.

And he wanted you.

“Enjoy the rest of your day Ezekiel.”

You always called him Ezekiel in front of other people and he wasn’t going to lie and say it didn’t irk him, that it didn’t hurt him when you did that. But again, it seemed like he’s been hurting you all these years without meaning to.

Then it hit him then, he remembered why you two fell out.

You had come to visit him and he wasn’t exactly feeling so hot about himself. So he had the guard pass the message, you were no friend of his and he didn’t want you visiting him anymore.

EZ didn’t want you to waste your time on him when you could be productive with other things. He was a low point at that time and he regretted those words almost as soon as he said them. 

After that day, you avoided EZ. You always made sure there was someone at the shop with you so he wouldn’t come in. And you were right, he never came in. He kept his distance and you appreciated it. He said it all those years ago, you two weren’t friends, just convenient companions.

You were closing the shop, double checking the locks when there was a knock on the door. Looking up, you found EZ with your favorite bouquet of flowers. You looked at them then back at EZ. Turning away from the front door, you turned the lights off and made your way to the back where your car was parked. Once you slid in your car, EZ was barely making it around the corner of the building, you pulled out and left EZ. 

It was better this way, you and EZ as friends was always a fluke. 

But EZ didn’t give up. And next thing you knew, even Angel was bugging you. He would frequent the shop, scaring away the guy you were seeing. You wanted to strangle Angel, you’re not exactly sure what the hell he was doing but you weren’t a fan of it. 

On the day of your birthday, your mother told you to be at the flower shop at 1800 sharp since you all were headed to San Diego to have dinner for your birthday. Your mother could be so weird, but you adored her along with your father and brother. 

Walking into the shop, you made a face at how dark it was.

“Mom, you know I hate surprises.” You announced. “But if Charlie Hunnam is at the end of this darkness, totally okay.”

You heard a chuckle, but it wasn’t from your mother, it was Ezekiel holding a bouquet of chocolate. Looking behind you, your parents gave you a wave and a thumbs up before leaving. Turning back to face EZ he was still at the same spot.

“Happy birthday Y/N.” He greeted, extending the chocolate towards you.

“Thank you.” You looked around after you took the chocolates. “It’s just you and me?”

“Yeah, I wanted some time with you, before having dinner with your parents. I feel that we’re long overdue for a talk.”

“No, we’re not, it’s okay. I’d rather not have this conversation on my birthday.” You really didn’t. Whatever it was, you and EZ we’re cool. You didn’t want to have that conversation. 

“Please, I’m desperate here. I didn’t mean for my actions to be interpreted in that way. You’re my friend, hell, you’re my best friend. It’s been hell without you, with everything going on with Angel, the club, you were my escape. I kept you away because I didn’t want my actions to poison you.” EZ sighed. “It’s stupid, but your my main priority is your safety.”

“EZ, you’re a prospect, what danger could there possibly be? I don’t really think that way, at least not all the time, but be up front, I don’t mind being your secret friend as long as I’m in on the secret as well.”

“I don’t want you to be a secret. You’ve never been a secret. Everyone knows you’re the most important person I care about who isn’t family.” Even though someday, EZ hopes you would become a part of his family. But he didn’t want to get ahead of himself. “I’m sorry, you’re the best part of my life and I don’t want to lose you over a misunderstanding.”

You sighed, a small smile appearing on your face. “You’re not going to stop.”

“You know us Reyes’, we’re stubborn.” 

Two months after that, you and EZ were dating. Your relationship was hardly rainbows and sunshine, but you two were the happiest together. Between club business, the cartel and family drama, you and EZ were always busy. So when you found out you were pregnant, a year and half after you and EZ started your relationship, things shifted.

I'd walk through fire for you

You leaned your back against the bathtub, your head against the wall. Pregnancy was tough, especially since EZ had been gone more often. He needed the money and you know he did, for your daughter. Groaning, you really wished pregnancy was easier. The morning sickness was too much to bear at times. 

“Mi alma,” EZ frowned, seeing you on the floor with your hair covering your beautiful face. “How long have you been on the floor?”

“I don’t know.” You looked up and gave him a weak smile. “I’m really exhausted.” You were only two months pregnant and you were already suffering. But they said that the morning sickness only lasted till the beginning, that once you entered the second trimester, it was smoother. 

EZ helped you up, picking you up in his arms and carrying you over to the bed. He gently placed you under the covers, stripped down to his boxers and slipped in after you. His hand rested on your belly, which was still not showing. 

“I’m so happy your home.”

And he would always make it home. He would walk through fire and hell to assure he’d come back to you.

“I’ll always come home to you. I love you.” He turned you to face him, caressing your face. He kissed you, always missing the feel of your lips on his. “One day, we’re going to get married and you’ll definitely won’t be able to get rid of me.”

“I love you too.” You smiled. “If I wanted to get rid of you, I would have continued to ignore you after that fight we had when you got out.”

“You’re not my secret, I hope you know that. I just wanted to keep you safe.” His thumb caressed your thumb, hoping to wipe the worry away. 

“I know.” 

EZ watched as you and your daughter, Sophia, danced with Felipe. Sophia was a bubbly two year old who had her mother’s eyes. Whatever she wanted, she got, since she had the Reyes men at her beck and call. He remembered your reluctance to get married, not truly seeing the point as you and EZ were committed as could be. 

You were the only woman he knew that had to be convinced to get married. 

It was ridiculous.

Just let me adore you

“That’s fucking ridiculous, what you mean she doesn’t want to get married?” Angel sat down by the dining table, holding Sophia in his arms. “Mamas, your mom is crazy.”

Sophia giggled which made both her father and uncle smile. Anything she did, it elicited a smile from those around her. 

“Right? She was reasoning how it’s just for tax purposes, which it is, but I love her, I want us all to share a last name.” EZ put the last of the dishes away. You were at work so Angel came over per EZ’s request.

He wanted to show big brother the ring he got for you.

EZ took the box that’s been weighing heavy in his pocket. He extended his hand to Angel, who took the box in his hand. Opening it, Angel whistled.

“Oh, that’s a rock.” Angel showed it to Sophia. “Isn’t it beautiful? When you get married at sixty-five, you’re gonna get a ring just like this.”

EZ chuckled. “She’s never gonna get married.”

“You’re telling me. Alena came home the other day and told me she had a boyfriend, I almost had a heart attack.” Six year old Alena Reyes has all of her tio’s wrapped around her fingers. Angel couldn’t even wrap his mind around it, but Alena explained to him that it was a boy who was a friend. That explanation would suffice, till she was sixteen. Angel was not looking forward to that.

“She’s gonna be a handful when she’s a teenager.”

“Can we not talk about it?”

EZ laughed. Angel handed the box back to him. They heard the door open and your announcement that you were home. 

“You cool with taking her tonight?”

“Yes, I can take care of your daughter, look how well Alena turned out.” Angel proudly informed him.

“Still think it was all your wife.”

“Fuck you.”

You walked in and found Angel standing up, grabbing Sophia’s bag. 

“What’s going on?” You looked at the two Reyes brothers, eyeing them suspiciously.

“Babe, I told you we were going out to dinner tonight, remember?” EZ gave you a kiss as a greeting.

“Oh, right, sorry,” you gave him a sheepish smile. “I’ll go get ready.” You walked over to Sophia, giving your daughter a kiss on the cheek. “Bye baby, have fun with Tio Angel, remember to pull his beard.”

“Hey!” Angel glared at you causing you to laugh harder. “That shit hurts.”

You left the two brothers at the kitchen to dress up. Angel looked at EZ and shook his head. 

“You sure she’s the one man? Cause once you put a ring on it, that’s it.”

EZ chuckled. “I’m sure man, I think I’ve been sure since I was in prison and she was the only thing I could think of. I love her Angel.”

“I know you do, congratulations hermano.” 

He proposed to you that night and you said yes. Even though you weren’t a strong believer of marriage, how could you say no to the man who had your heart all these years. It was the next step for you two and you were ready to embark on it. What made it better, you two were able to share it with Sophia, who was your flower girl. 

EZ stood up and made his way over to you.

“Pops, can you take Sophia? I want to dance with my wife.” 

Felipe gladly took Sophia from her mother’s arms. You turned to face EZ, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“Are you having fun?” EZ asked.

“Yes, this has been amazing.” You gave him a kiss, EZ smiling against your lips.

“And you didn’t want a wedding.” EZ teased.

“Whatever, you know why I didn’t want one.” You chuckled. “But I’m glad you convinced me, it’s really hard to say no to you.”

“I’m pretty good with persuasion as you know you.” He smirked.

“Are we talking about the time we conceive Sophia or the time you forced me to do a presentation for history class even though we could have just written a paper?” 

EZ laughed. “It was extra points if we presented.”

“You know I hate talking in front of people.”

“I love hearing you though.”

You blushed, not even surprised how charming EZ could still be after all these years. 

“You want to know something?”

“Hmm,” you looked up at him.

“Even after all these years, your eyes still get me.”

“What?” You gave him a confused look.

“It was your eyes, everytime I looked into them, it was something else.” EZ grinned. “Whenever I would look into them, I would get so lost, I would do anything for you.”

“My eyes?” EZ never told you before that he liked your eyes, though, he always did stare into them. 

“Yeah, when we first met, you looked up at me and I don’t know, I was fucking blown away. It sounds cheesy, but it’s true.”

“You were with Emily then.”

“That’s not the point, I’m just letting you know, that you’ve had me wrapped around your fingers since then.”

You rolled your eyes, chuckling. “You’re such a dork, I’m pretty sure you were devoted to Emily then.”

“I was, but I always seeked you out.” EZ pulled you closer, cupping your face and kissing you again. “You’re the person I adore most, the person I love most.” 

“I love you too EZ, and I’m sure our baby will love you as much as Sophie does.” You placed his hand on your belly. “I’m pregnant, four months along.” 

EZ’s lips broke out into a grin. “Yeah? We’re pregnant?”

You nodded your head. EZ lifted you up, causing you to shriek. He put you down and kissed you. Once he pulled away, he made the announcement that you were pregnant, earning cheers from all the guests. They tapped their glasses with their utensils, signaling a kiss. EZ gladly kissed you, overjoyed. 

Just let me adore you

Like it's the only thing I'll ever do

[ofcloudsandstars]

hi, i'm fairly new to witchcraft and i was wondering if you could give me some tips on getting started/link me to reputable sources? i'd hate to accidentally disrespect someone or something.

Hey there! Thanks for your ask. Don't worry too much about the fear of treading somewhere you shouldn't be if you remember this metaphor: Witchcraft is going to be a unique experience to you and it's going to feel a lot like you are building something with a structure, like a house. Everyone's path is kind of like their own house. As long as you don't break into someone's house, or even someone's neighborhood (especially the neighborhoods with a lot of fucking theft and trespassing) then you are good. You can ask for advice or borrow sugar from your neighbors ;) but you do that by what you are doing now: kindly knocking on the door and asking.

I think everyone gets really into trying to follow traditions and such but it's best to start the first few years building a relationship with yourself and your energy before you start the whole reading and researching (and I will get more on this later) along with connecting to deities as well. Everything else is just adding on to your craft but I feel like if you have a solid foundation understanding your own energy then everything else comes naturally. Also once you understand your energy and your connection to magic and nature around you, trying to dig through other cultures and practices won't seem as appealing. It will start to be clear that those cultures created languages and well, cultures, around their relationships with magic and the local nature surrounding them, and you will essentially create your own unique traditions based on your relationship with magic and the local nature surrounding you. It will become apparent that the 'universal energies' everyone talks about is really about how the universe and energies manifest through you and less about finding other cultures accessible because they talk about these same energies. If you think of it like art class it's kind of like how everyone uses the same mediums of art utensils like paints and crayons, but there's a difference between using the same paint and flat out stealing the finished painting from someone else and calling it your own. You should use these first few years to discover your own painting style. (Also other witches I meet that have similar approach to magic as I do all have the same sort of connection and understanding since it's like we are all tapped into the universal energy but it's beautiful cause it manifests uniquely through all of us so it's like the same way nature creates many unique plants, many unique animals or landscapes yet it's all apart of one earth, we are all unique witches reflecting the earth, planets and elements but all kind of the vibe and understanding).

To elaborate on the reading thing, the reason why I am against doing endless research when you first start is because like 85% of witchcraft is subjective since most of it is based off of people's connection to their energy. The part of magic that is not subjective is the relationship to local nature since plants and other elements of nature have their own spirits and actual physical properties that can heal you, bring you to other realms, poison you, transform you etc. The best way to learn from this is less from magical books and more from herbal medicine books, alchemy, farmer's almanacs and indigenous knowledge (as long as you are not taking plants from them that are being over harvested to the point that it's inaccessible to even them.) But anyway aside from the physical realm, the energetic realm is really a big personal experience. Even you asking me this, this is mostly based off of my years of experience practicing. I am a multiracial witch that is nomadic and have lived in different climates among different countries and cultures and am first generation with not much connection to my immediate heritages. So I had to create my practice from (literally) the ground up. My magic came to me when I was super young and I didn't even think of it as witchcraft then I felt more like I was bending energy and circumstance. I was first an energy witch before anything. My witchcraft practice came from nature, the cycles around me and nature's spirits. Though I may not connect with a culture cause my relationship to that is complicated, I find my practice empowering cause no matter where I go when I adapt my practice to the bioregion, I will always be in sync with the magic there and not really fear of appropriating anything since it's kind of connected to the source of nature. My main deity is the earth, if I have a pantheon it's the planets, I am really into astrology and I work with all different types of elements and natural spirits. Working with nature also grounds magic for me since most of my witch years I got used to doing just mostly things with energy now I have physical things to ground it in. ANYWAY with all this being said, now that you kind of understand where I am coming from, it's going to influence the information I am going to give you.

(Also with the deities thing, just in general do not try to connect with spirits until you have a good understanding of your own energy and how to protect yourself. It's ok if you are coming from a culture or family that has connections to a deity and you have protection within that culture but alone with no protection you can find yourself in trouble because there are a lot of predatory spirits- and spirits are definitely tricksters- that like to get to take advantage of inexperienced and unprotected people and will pretend to be deities but will suck energy from you. You just need to know some good shielding and warding and discernment but until then, avoid it. Plus you do not need deities at all, like it should be a mutually beneficial relationship. Devoting your energy towards an entity for the chance for more power or protection, if the deity even feels like it, cause apparently it's not even guaranteed, feels a bit like joining a gang to me that's not even for your full benefit.)

Also sorry, usually my responses to these questions are fucking long, but the thing is, it's a loaded question. You are essentially asking me how to embark on a spiritual and magical journey that will transform your spirit and help you understand your energy and connection to the universe around you lol. I did answer this before, very extensively so I am going to link it here cause I think I did an ok job the first time. To summarize the main points in that post I will put them below, but I also will first add a new point I did not have in the original post:

Getting Started:

I. Tools

II. Basics

III. Exploring Yourself

IV. Exploring your Roots

V. Exploring Local Nature

VI. Resources

-------- New Point:

I. Tools This one is gonna be short cause, to get started you really just need 2 things. 1- Yourself!!! You are the source of magic! You literally got energy going through your veins and to get started with energy work that's all you gonna need. And 2- a magic journal. Yes you can call it a ~Book of Shadows~ but if you start getting anxiety like you gotta make it look fancy or some shit then don't. Especially when you are starting out you just need a book, or, actually not even a book, but take a second right now to right-click on your desktop and make a ~Folder of Shadows~ where you can save pictures, take notes and write future insights and spells and put it in there. We are in the year 2020 after all. I have a USB where I keep tons of notes, videos and pictures. I have a section of 'magic' on my iphone where I put notes for ideas or rituals when I am on the go. I have magic journals I take with me if I am going into the woods to channel ideas or to write down rituals if I am having a gathering and want to have notes. Its also ok to have more than 1 magic journal. This is a great opportunity to get that cool looking journal you wanted (or actually fill an empty journal you never had the courage to write in cause it's too nice looking) with random notes for magic. Having a book of shadows/computer folder of shadows/phone notes of shadows etc. is going to be helpful for keeping track of stuff while you build your own path.

---

Honestly one of these days I am going to make a long ass Witchcraft 101-103 and 201-203 post with the 101 focusing on getting started and figuring your magic out and the 201 more on learning about specific subjects like herbology, astrological transits, tools and crafts and how it can expand on your craft. (Along with actual books and resources cause 201 is DEFINITELY when you actually have to start reading, researching and getting into books, experiments and resources, and not only from subjective stuff but a few things that has some roots in science as well like plants and chemistry). 

If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask and I can elaborate. 

Have a good time explorin! <3 

[grootpoepjeplasjehoofd]

Ford alleges that that time of the assault, Kavanaugh and Judge were “visibly drunk.” The other allegations against Kavanaugh, by Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, suggest that Kavanaugh participated in a rowdy drinking culture as a young man, and that the abuse occurred under the influence of alcohol. Swetnick says she “observed Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively at many of these parties and engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward girls.” So drinking forms a major part of all the allegations, and facts about Kavanaugh’s history with alcohol bear on the plausibility of all three.

Kavanaugh has not only denied engaging in abuse, but has rejected the entire idea of him as having been an excessive and rowdy drinker. In his testimony and his interview with Fox News, Kavanaugh portrayed himself as having been a shy, studious, churchgoing virgin who worked a summer job and focused on community service and team sports. Here’s an abbreviated version of an exchange with Patrick Leahy:

LEAHY: Now, you’ve talked about your yearbook. In your yearbook, you talked about drinking and sexual exploits, did you not?

KAVANAUGH: Senator, let me — let me take a step back and explain high school. I was number one in the class… [crosstalk]

LEAHY: I thought we were in the Senate […]

GRASSLEY: Let him answer. […]

KAVANAUGH: I’m going to talk about my high school record, if you’re going to sit here and mock me. […] I busted my butt in academics. I always tried to do the best I could. As I recall, I finished one in the class… I played sports. I was captain of the varsity basketball team. I was wide receiver and defensive back on the football team. I ran track in the spring of ’82 to try to get faster. I did my service projects at the school, which involved going to the soup kitchen downtown — let me finish — and going to tutor intellectually disabled kids at the Rockville Library. With the church — and, yes, we got together with our friends.

Leahy asks a straightforward question. In your high school yearbook, did you mention drinking and sexual exploits? Kavanaugh does not reply “Of course! I was a sports jock!” Instead, he replies “Let me tell you about my grades, and the times I volunteered at the library, with intellectually disabled kids.” You’ll notice that this (1) does not answer the question and is (2) incredibly fishy. If you ask someone “Were you a drinker?” and they reply “I went to church and helped children,” you are not dealing with a forthright person.

Kavanaugh says that he was then, and is now, deeply pious. He says that church doesn’t appear on his extremely precise summer calendar because “going to church on Sundays was like brushing my teeth, automatic.” He only ever socialized with  good Catholic girls from Catholic high schools. He tells the Senate that his daughters have prayed for Christine Blasey Ford. Which I am sure she appreciates.

His faith was so important to him that he remained celibate through the entirety of high school and college:

I never had sexual intercourse, or anything close to it, during high school, or for many years after that. In some crowds, I was probably a little outwardly shy about my inexperience; tried to hide that. At the same time, I was also inwardly proud of it. For me and the girls who I was friends with, that lack of major rampant sexual activity in high school was a matter of faith and respect and caution.

Here he is again, in his FOX News interview, talking about what a good, sweet young man he was:

I was focused on academics and athletics, going to church every Sunday at Little Flower, working on my service projects, and friendship, friendship with my fellow classmates and friendship with girls from the local all girls Catholic schools.

And again:

I was focused on trying to be number one in my class and being captain of the varsity basketball team and doing my service projects, going to church. The vast majority of the time I spent in high school was studying or focused on sports and being a good friend to the boys and the girls that I was friends with.

I’m giving you so much of this in order to illustrate how central Kavanaugh has made it. Kavanaugh tells us that we should doubt Ford’s allegation because it is inconsistent with who he was, that it is absurd to think of him as having been a boozing, aggressive teenager. If Kavanaugh is not telling the truth about this, then, it significantly damages his credibility vis-a-vis the accusation itself. As Kavanaugh broke down in tears before the senate, he portrayed himself as not just innocent but an innocent, a man for whom drunken lechery would have been utterly unthinkable and appalling.

Kavanaugh does say that he had some drinks in high school. But his confession is not really confession at all:

My friends and I sometimes got together and had parties on weekends. The drinking age was 18 in Maryland for most of my time in high school, and was 18 in D.C. for all of my time in high school. I drank beer with my friends. Almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many beers. Sometimes others did. I liked beer. I still like beer. But I did not drink beer to the point of blacking out, and I never sexually assaulted anyone. There is a bright line between drinking beer, which I gladly do, and which I fully embrace, and sexually assaulting someone, which is a violent crime. If every American who drinks beer or every American who drank beer in high school is suddenly presumed guilty of sexual assault, will be an ugly, new place in this country. I never committed sexual assault.

I almost admire this. If being a beer-drinking American is a crime, then I say lock me up. Democrats are trying to punish Kavanaugh for the crime of having a few drinks in high school. They must be desperate. Kavanaugh says he freely admits to doing things that were “goofy or stupid,” but that he doubts he is alone in this. (If having flaws is a misdeed, who among us is innocent?) I was reminded here of what Jian Ghomeshi did in his infamous essay for the New York Review of Books. Accused by 20 women of harassment and violent abuse, he wrote: “What I do confess is that I was emotionally thoughtless in the way I treated those I dated and tried to date.” Since we’ve all been thoughtless, this is not actually an admission of anything, but it makes you seem contrite.

Kavanaugh is very careful to admit to only the most minor and excusable of mistakes in high school. So he won’t even acknowledge that he drank underage, saying the “drinking age was 18, and yes, the seniors were legal and had beer there.” Only the legal ones had beer. Now, Kavanaugh was simply wrong about the drinking age: it was raised to 21 in Maryland when he was 17. (Coincidentally, it was raised on July 1, 1982, the very day Kavanaugh was knocking back a few brewskis with P.J., Squi, and Judge.) And since Kavanaugh was 17 rather than 18, what he says doesn’t even matter, because either way he was drinking underage! Some people have called this a lie, but perhaps studious young Brett, who only ever took the smallest of sips, was simply unaware of the state’s laws. I’m more interested in the way Kavanaugh won’t admit to anything that could undermine his image as a straight-A choirboy type.

His decision to present himself as squeaky clean, rather than wayward but subsequently redeemed, brings us to some of the most absurd untruths of Kavanaugh’s whole testimony. The evidence that he was more than an ordinary social drinker is voluminous. His yearbook lists him as treasurer of the “Keg City Club,” and his entry says “100 Kegs or Bust,” apparently referring to a “campaign by his friends to empty 100 kegs of beer during their senior year.” It also says he was the “biggest contributor” to the Beach Week Ralph Club, which he admitted was a reference to vomiting. Here’s Liz Swisher, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s who is now chief of the gynecologic oncology division at the University of Washington School of Medicine:

“Brett was a sloppy drunk, and I know because I drank with him. I watched him drink more than a lot of people. He’d end up slurring his words, stumbling… There’s no medical way I can say that he was blacked out. . . . But it’s not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess.”

Here’s Daniel Livan, who lived in Kavanaugh’s dorm:

“I definitely saw him on multiple occasions stumbling drunk where he could not have rational control over his actions or clear recollection of them… His depiction of himself is inaccurate.”

James Roche, Kavanaugh’s freshman year roommate at Yale, says Kavanaugh was “frequently incoherently drunk,” and that “he became aggressive and belligerent” when he was drunk. Here’s Republican ex-pharmaceutical executive Lynn Brooks, another Yale classmate who roomed with Kavanaugh’s second accuser, Deborah Ramirez:

“He’s trying to paint himself as some kind of choir boy… You can’t lie your way onto the Supreme Court, and with [his self-description in the FOX interview], he’s gone too far. It’s about the integrity of that institution.”  

Brooks remembered a particular incident when Kavanaugh participated in a drunken event with his fraternity, in which everyone was “ridiculously drunk” and had to do “ridiculous things.” Here’s the Washington Post account:

Brookes said she remembers seeing Kavanaugh outside the Sterling Memorial Library, wearing a superhero cape and an old leather football helmet and swaying, working to keep his balance. He was ordered to hop on one foot, grab his crotch and approach her with a rhyme, Brookes said. He couldn’t keep balanced, she said, but belted out the rhyme she’s remembered to this day: “I’m a geek, I’m a geek, I’m a power tool. When I sing this song, I look like a fool.” “It’s a funny, drunk college story that you remember — at least, I remember,” Brookes said. As she tracked his career over the years, and his rise in the federal court system, she said, “I thought it was so funny to think that’s the Brett who sang that song.”

In total, the New York Times cited “nearly a dozen people” who knew Kavanaugh and confirmed he was a “heavy drinker.” Kavanaugh’s close high school friend Mark Judge even wrote a memoir called Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk, which featured a character called “Bart O’Kavanaugh” passing out from partying and puking in a car.  (Interestingly, Wasted also provides a timeline of Judge’s job history consistent with Ford’s own memory of it.) When Senator Leahy asked whether “O’Kavanaugh” might have been inspired by a certain real-life individual, Kavanaugh replied that the book was an attempt to help Judge recover from an addiction, and:

KAVANAUGH: I think he picked out names of friends of ours to throw them in as kind of close to what — for characters in the book.

LEAHY: So you don’t know — you don’t know whether that’s you or not?

KAVANAUGH: …So, you know, we can sit here [and] make fun of some guy who has an addiction.

Leahy says Is this based on you? Kavanaugh replies How cruel you are to make fun of my friend’s addiction.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/how-we-know-kavanaugh-is-lying

[thefortyeightlawsofpower-blog]

LAW # 20 : DO NOT COMMIT TO ANYONE

JUDGEMENT

It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others—playing people against one another, making them pursue you.

PART I: DO NOT COMMIT TO ANYONE, BUT BE COURTED BY ALL

If you allow people to feel they possess you to any degree, you lose all power over them. By not committing your affections, they will only try harder to win you over. Stay aloof and you gain the power that comes from their attention and frustrated desire. Play the Virgin Queen: Give them hope but never satisfaction.

OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW

When Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne of England, in 1558, there was much to-do about her finding a husband. The issue was debated in Parliament, and was a main topic of conversation among Englishmen of all classes; they often disagreed as to whom she should marry, but everyone thought she should marry as soon as possible, for a queen must have a king, and must bear heirs for the kingdom. The debates raged on for years. Meanwhile the most handsome and eligible bachelors in the realm—Sir Robert Dudley, the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh—vied for Elizabeth’s hand. She did not discourage them, but she seemed to be in no hurry, and her hints as to which man might be her favorite often contradicted each other. In 1566, Parliament sent a delegation to Elizabeth urging her to marry before she was too old to bear children. She did not argue, nor did she discourage the delegation, but she remained a virgin nonetheless.

The delicate game that Elizabeth played with her suitors slowly made her the subject of innumerable sexual fantasies and the object of cultish worship. The court physician, Simon Forman, used his diary to describe his dreams of deflowering her. Painters represented her as Diana and other goddesses. The poet Edmund Spenser and others wrote eulogies to the Virgin Queen. She was referred to as “the world’s Empresse,” “that virtuous Virgo” who rules the world and sets the stars in motion. In conversation with her, her many male suitors would employ bold sexual innuendo, a dare that Elizabeth did not discourage. She did all she could to stir their interest and simultaneously keep them at bay.

Throughout Europe, kings and princes knew that a marriage with Elizabeth would seal an alliance between England and any nation. The king of Spain wooed her, as did the prince of Sweden and the archduke of Austria. She politely refused them all.

The great diplomatic issue of Elizabeth’s day was posed by the revolt of the Flemish and Dutch Lowlands, which were then possessions of Spain. Should England break its alliance with Spain and choose France as its main ally on the Continent, thereby encouraging Flemish and Dutch independence ? By 1570 it had come to seem that an alliance with France would be England’s wisest course. France had two eligible men of noble blood, the dukes of Anjou and Alençon, brothers of the French king. Would either of them marry Elizabeth? Both had advantages, and Elizabeth kept the hopes of both alive. The issue simmered for years. The duke of Anjou made several visits to England, kissed Elizabeth in public, even called her by pet names; she appeared to requite his affections. Meanwhile, as she flirted with the two brothers, a treaty was signed that sealed peace between France and England. By 1582 Elizabeth felt she could break off the courtship. In the case of the duke of Anjou in particular, she did so with great relief: For the sake of diplomacy she had allowed herself to be courted by a man whose presence she could not stand and whom she found physically repulsive. Once peace between France and England was secure, she dropped the unctuous duke as politely as she could.

By this time Elizabeth was too old to bear children. She was accordingly able to live the rest of her life as she desired, and she died the Virgin Queen. She left no direct heir, but ruled through a period of incomparable peace and cultural fertility.

Interpretation

Elizabeth had good reason not to marry: She had witnessed the mistakes of Mary Queen of Scots, her cousin. Resisting the idea of being ruled by a woman, the Scots expected Mary to marry and marry wisely. To wed a foreigner would be unpopular; to favor any particular noble house would open up terrible rivalries. In the end Mary chose Lord Darnley, a Catholic. In doing so she incurred the wrath of Scotland’s Protestants, and endless turmoil ensued.

Elizabeth knew that marriage can often lead to a female ruler’s undoing: By marrying and committing to an alliance with one party or nation, the queen becomes embroiled in conflicts that are not of her choosing, conflicts which may eventually overwhelm her or lead her into a futile war. Also, the husband becomes the de facto ruler, and often tries to do away with his wife the queen, as Darnley tried to get rid of Mary. Elizabeth learned the lesson well. She had two goals as a ruler: to avoid marriage and to avoid war. She managed to combine these goals by dangling the possibility of marriage in order to forge alliances. The moment she committed to any single suitor would have been the moment she lost her power. She had to emanate mystery and desirability, never discouraging anyone’s hopes but never yielding.

Through this lifelong game of flirting and withdrawing, Elizabeth dominated the country and every man who sought to conquer her. As the center of attention, she was in control. Keeping her independence above all, Elizabeth protected her power and made herself an object of worship.

I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married.

Queen Elizabeth I, 1533-1603

KEYS TO POWER

Since power depends greatly on appearances, you must learn the tricks that will enhance your image. Refusing to commit to a person or group is one of these. When you hold yourself back, you incur not anger but a kind of respect. You instantly seem powerful because you make yourself ungraspable, rather than succumbing to the group, or to the relationship, as most people do. This aura of power only grows with time: As your reputation for independence grows, more and more people will come to desire you, wanting to be the one who gets you to commit. Desire is like a virus: If we see that someone is desired by other people, we tend to find this person desirable too.

The moment you commit, the magic is gone. You become like everyone else. People will try all kinds of underhanded methods to get you to commit. They will give you gifts, shower you with favors, all to put you under obligation. Encourage the attention, stimulate their interest, but do not commit at any cost. Accept the gifts and favors if you so desire, but be careful to maintain your inner aloofness. You cannot inadvertently allow yourself to feel obligated to anyone.

Remember, though: The goal is not to put people off, or to make it seem that you are incapable of commitment. Like the Virgin Queen, you need to stir the pot, excite interest, lure people with the possibility of having you. You have to bend to their attention occasionally, then—but never too far.

The Greek soldier and statesman Alcibiades played this game to perfection. It was Alcibiades who inspired and led the massive Athenian armada that invaded Sicily in 414 B.C. When envious Athenians back home tried to bring him down by accusing him of trumped-up charges, he defected to the enemy, the Spartans, instead of facing a trial back home. Then, after the Athenians were defeated at Syracuse, he left Sparta for Persia, even though the power of Sparta was now on the rise. Now, however, both the Athenians and the Spartans courted Alcibiades because of his influence with the Persians; and the Persians showered him with honors because of his power over the Athenians and the Spartans. He made promises to every side but committed to none, and in the end he held all the cards.

If you aspire to power and influence, try the Alcibiades tactic: Put yourself in the middle between competing powers. Lure one side with the promise of your help; the other side, always wanting to outdo its enemy, will pursue you as well. As each side vies for your attention, you will immediately seem a person of great influence and desirability. More power will accrue to you than if you had rashly committed to one side. To perfect this tactic you need to keep yourself inwardly free from emotional entanglements, and to view all those around you as pawns in your rise to the top. You cannot let yourself become the lackey for any cause.

In the midst of the 1968 U.S. presidential election, Henry Kissinger made a phone call to Richard Nixon’s team. Kissinger had been allied with Nelson Rockefeller, who had unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination. Now Kissinger offered to supply the Nixon camp with valuable inside information on the negotiations for peace in Vietnam that were then going on in Paris. He had a man on the negotiating team keeping him informed of the latest developments. The Nixon team gladly accepted his offer.

At the same time, however, Kissinger also approached the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, and offered his aid. The Humphrey people asked him for inside information on Nixon and he supplied it. “Look,” Kissinger told Humphrey’s people, “I’ve hated Nixon for years.” In fact he had no interest in either side. What he really wanted was what he got: the promise of a high-level cabinet post from both Nixon and Humphrey. Whichever man won the election, Kissinger’s career was secure.

The winner, of course, was Nixon, and Kissinger duly went on to his cabinet post. Even so, he was careful never to appear too much of a Nixon man. When Nixon was reelected in 1972, men much more loyal to him than Kissinger were fired. Kissinger was also the only Nixon high official to survive Watergate and serve under the next president, Gerald Ford. By maintaining a little distance he thrived in turbulent times.

Those who use this strategy often notice a strange phenomenon: People who rush to the support of others tend to gain little respect in the process, for their help is so easily obtained, while those who stand back find themselves besieged with supplicants. Their aloofness is powerful, and everyone wants them on their side.

When Picasso, after early years of poverty, had become the most successful artist in the world, he did not commit himself to this dealer or that dealer, although they now besieged him from all sides with attractive offers and grand promises. Instead, he appeared to have no interest in their services; this technique drove them wild, and as they fought over him his prices only rose. When Henry Kissinger, as U.S. secretary of state, wanted to reach detente with the Soviet Union, he made no concessions or conciliatory gestures, but courted China instead. This infuriated and also scared the Soviets—they were already politically isolated and feared further isolation if the United States and China came together. Kissinger’s move pushed them to the negotiating table. The tactic has a parallel in seduction: When you want to seduce a woman, Stendhal advises, court her sister first.

Stay aloof and people will come to you. It will become a challenge for them to win your affections. As long as you imitate the wise Virgin Queen and stimulate their hopes, you will remain a magnet of attention and desire.

Image: The Virgin Queen. The center of attention, desire, and worship. Never succumbing to one suitor or the other, the Virgin Queen keeps them all revolving around her like planets, unable to leave her orbit but never getting any closer to her.

Authority: Do not commit yourself to anybody or anything, for that is to be a slave, a slave to every man.... Above all, keep yourself free of commitments and obligations—they are the device of another to get you into his power.... (Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)

PART II: DO NOT COMMIT TO ANYONE-STAY ABOVE THE FRAY

Do not let people drag you into their petty fights and squabbles. Seem interested and supportive, but find a way to remain neutral; let others do the fighting while you stand back, watch and wait. When the fighting parties are good and tired they will be ripe for the picking. You can make it a practice, in fact, to stir up quarrels between other people, and then offer to mediate, gaining power as the go-between.

THE KITES, THE CROWS, AND THE FOX

The kites and the crows made an agreement among themselves that they should go halves in everything obtained in the forest. One day they saw a fox that had been wounded by hunters lying helpless under a tree, and gathered round it. The crows said, “We will take the upper half of the fox.” “Then we will take the lower half,” said the kites. The fox laughed at this, and said, “I always thought the kites were superior in creation to the crows; as such they must get the upper half of my body, of which my head, with the brain and other delicate things in it, forms a portion. ” “Oh, yes, that is right,” said the kites, “we will have that part of the fox.” “Not at all,” said the crows, “we must have it, as already agreed.” Then a war arose between the rival parties, and a great many fell on both sides, and the remaining few escaped with difficulty. The fox continued there for some days, leisurely feeding on the dead kites and crows, and then left the place hale and hearty, observing, The weak benefit by the quarrels of the mighty. ”

INDIAN FABLES

OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW

In the late fifteenth century, the strongest city-states in Italy—Venice, Florence, Rome, and Milan—found themselves constantly squabbling. Hovering above their struggles were the nations of France and Spain, ready to grab whatever they could from the weakened Italian powers. And trapped in the middle was the small state of Mantua, ruled by the young Duke Gianfrancesco Gonzaga. Mantua was strategically located in northern Italy, and it seemed only a matter of time before one of the powers swallowed it up and it ceased to exist as an independent kingdom.

Gonzaga was a fierce warrior and a skilled commander of troops, and he became a kind of mercenary general for whatever side paid him best. In the year 1490, he married Isabella d’Este, daughter of the ruler of another small Italian duchy, Ferrara. Since he now spent most of his time away from Mantua, it fell to Isabella to rule in his stead.

Isabella’s first true test as ruler came in 1498, when King Louis XII of France was preparing armies to attack Milan. In their usual perfidious fashion, the Italian states immediately looked for ways to profit from Milan’s difficulties. Pope Alexander VI promised not to intervene, thereby giving the French carte blanche. The Venetians signaled that they would not help Milan, either—and in exchange for this, they hoped the French would give them Mantua. The ruler of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, suddenly found himself alone and abandoned. He turned to Isabella d’Este, one of his closest friends (also rumored to be his lover), and begged her to persuade Duke Gonzaga to come to his aid. Isabella tried, but her husband balked, for he saw Sforza’s cause as hopeless. And so, in 1499, Louis swooped down on Milan and took it with ease.

Isabella now faced a dilemma: If she stayed loyal to Lodovico, the French would now move against her. But if, instead, she allied herself with France, she would make enemies elsewhere in Italy, compromising Mantua once Louis eventually withdrew. And if she looked to Venice or Rome for help, they would simply swallow up Mantua under the cloak of coming to her aid. Yet she had to do something. The mighty king of France was breathing down her neck: She decided to befriend him, as she had befriended Lodovico Sforza before him—with alluring gifts, witty, intelligent letters, and the possibility of her company, for Isabella was famous as a woman of incomparable beauty and charm.

In 1500 Louis invited Isabella to a great party in Milan to celebrate his victory. Leonardo da Vinci built an enormous mechanical lion for the affair: When the lion opened its mouth, it spewed fresh lilies, the symbols of French royalty. At the party Isabella wore one of her celebrated dresses (she had by far the largest wardrobe of any of the Italian princesses), and just as she had hoped, she charmed and captivated Louis, who ignored all the other ladies vying for his attention. She soon became his constant companion, and in exchange for her friendship he pledged to protect Mantua’s independence from Venice.

Men of great abilities are slow to act. for it is easier to avoid occasions for committing yourself than to come well out of a commitment. Such occasions test your judgement; it is safer to avoid them than to emerge victorious from them. One obligation leads to a greater one, and you come very near to the brink of disaster.

BALTASAR GRACIAN, 1601-1658

As one danger receded, however, another, more worrying one arose, this time from the south, in the form of Cesare Borgia. Starting in 1500, Borgia had marched steadily northward, gobbling up all the small kingdoms in his path in the name of his father, Pope Alexander. Isabella understood Cesare perfectly: He could be neither trusted nor in any way offended. He had to be cajoled and kept at arm’s length. Isabella began by sending him gifts—falcons, prize dogs, perfumes, and dozens of masks, which she knew he always wore when he walked the streets of Rome. She sent messengers with flattering greetings (although these messengers also acted as her spies). At one point Cesare asked if he could house some troops in Mantua; Isabella managed to dissuade him politely, knowing full well that once the troops were quartered in the city, they would never leave.

Even while Isabella was charming Cesare, she convinced everyone around her to take care never to utter a harsh word about him, since he had spies everywhere and would use the slightest pretext for invasion. When Isabella had a child, she asked Cesare to be the godfather. She even dangled in front of him the possibility of a marriage between her family and his. Somehow it all worked, for although elsewhere he seized everything in his path, he spared Mantua.

In 1503 Cesare’s father, Alexander, died, and a few years later the new pope, Julius II, went to war to drive the French troops from Italy. When the ruler of Ferrara—Alfonso, Isabella’s brother—sided with the French, Julius decided to attack and humble him. Once again Isabella found herself in the middle: the pope on one side, the French and her brother on the other. She dared not ally herself with either, but to offend either would be equally disastrous. Again she played the double game at which she had become so expert. On the one hand she got her husband Gonzaga to fight for the pope, knowing he would not fight very hard. On the other she let French troops pass through Mantua to come to Ferrara’s aid. While she publicly complained that the French had “invaded” her territory, she privately supplied them with valuable information. To make the invasion plausible to Julius, she even had the French pretend to plunder Mantua. It worked once again: The pope left Mantua alone.

In 1513, after a lengthy siege, Julius defeated Ferrara, and the French troops withdrew. Worn out by the effort, the pope died a few months later. With his death, the nightmarish cycle of battles and petty squabbles began to repeat itself.

A great deal changed in Italy during Isabella’s reign: Popes came and went, Cesare Borgia rose and then fell, Venice lost its empire, Milan was invaded, Florence fell into decline, and Rome was sacked by the Hapsburg Emperor Charles V Through all this, tiny Mantua not only survived but thrived, its court the envy of Italy. Its wealth and sovereignty would remain intact for a century after Isabella’s death, in 1539.

THE EAGLE AND THE SOW

An eagle built a nest on a tree, and hatched out some eaglets. And a wild sow brought her litter under the tree. The eagle used to fly off after her prey, and bring it back to her young. And the sow rooted around the tree and hunted in the woods, and when night came she would bring her young something to eat.

And the eagle and the sow lived in neighborly fashion. And a grimalkin laid her plans to destroy the eaglets and the little sucking pigs. She went to the eagle, and said: “Eagle, you had better not fly very far away. Beware of the sow; she is planning an evil design. She is going to undermine the roots of the tree. You see she is rooting all the time.”

Then the grimalkin went to the sow and said: “Sow, you have not a good neighbor. Last evening I heard the eagle saying to her eaglets: ‘My dear little eaglets, I am going to treat you to a nice little pig. Just as soon as the sow is gone, I will bring you a little young sucking pig.”’

From that time the eagle ceased to fly out after prey, and the sow did not go any more into the forest. The eaglets and the young pigs perished of starvation, and grimalkin feasted on them.

FABLES, LEO TOLSTOY, 1828-1910

Interpretation

Isabella d’Este understood Italy’s political situation with amazing clarity: Once you took the side of any of the forces in the field, you were doomed. The powerful would take you over, the weak would wear you down. Any new alliance would lead to a new enemy, and as this cycle stirred up more conflict, other forces would be dragged in, until you could no longer extricate yourself. Eventually you would collapse from exhaustion.

Isabella steered her kingdom on the only course that would bring her safely through. She would not allow herself to lose her head through loyalty to a duke or a king. Nor would she try to stop the conflict that raged around her—that would only drag her into it. And in any case the conflict was to her advantage. If the various parties were fighting to the death, and exhausting themselves in the process, they were in no position to gobble up Mantua. The source of Isabella’s power was her clever ability to seem interested in the affairs and interests of each side, while actually committing to no one but herself and her kingdom.

Once you step into a fight that is not of your own choosing, you lose all initiative. The combatants’ interests become your interests; you become their tool. Learn to control yourself, to restrain your natural tendency to take sides and join the fight. Be friendly and charming to each of the combatants, then step back as they collide. With every battle they grow weaker, while you grow stronger with every battle you avoid.

When the snipe and the mussel struggle, the fisherman gets the benefit.

Ancient Chinese saying

KEYS TO POWER

To succeed in the game of power, you have to master your emotions. But even if you succeed in gaining such self-control, you can never control the temperamental dispositions of those around you. And this presents a great danger. Most people operate in a whirlpool of emotions, constantly reacting, churning up squabbles and conflicts. Your self-control and autonomy will only bother and infuriate them. They will try to draw you into the whirlpool, begging you to take sides in their endless battles, or to make peace for them. If you succumb to their emotional entreaties, little by little you will find your mind and time occupied by their problems. Do not allow whatever compassion and pity you possess to suck you in. You can never win in this game; the conflicts can only multiply.

On the other hand, you cannot completely stand aside, for that would cause needless offense. To play the game properly, you must seem interested in other people’s problems, even sometimes appear to take their side. But while you make outward gestures of support, you must maintain your inner energy and sanity by keeping your emotions disengaged. No matter how hard people try to pull you in, never let your interest in their affairs and petty squabbles go beyond the surface. Give them gifts, listen with a sympathetic look, even occasionally play the charmer—but inwardly keep both the friendly kings and the perfidious Borgias at arm’s length. By refusing to commit and thus maintaining your autonomy you retain the initiative: Your moves stay matters of your own choosing, not defensive reactions to the push-and-pull of those around you.

THE PRICE OF

While a poor woman stood in the market place selling cheeses, a cat came along and carried off a cheese. A dog saw the pilferer and tried to take the cheese away from him. The cat stood up to the dog. So they pitched into each other. The dog barked and snapped; the cat spat and scratched, but they could bring the battle to no decision.

“Let’s go to the fox and have him referee the matter, ” the cat finally suggested. “Agreed, ” said the dog. So they went to the fox. The fox listened to their arguments with a judicious air.

“Foolish animals,” he chided them, “why carry on like that? If both of you are willing, I’ll divide the cheese in two and you’ll both be satisfied. ”

“Agreed, ” said the cat and the dog.

So the fox took out his knife and cut the cheese in two, but, instead of cutting it lengthwise, he cut it in the width. “My half is smaller!” protested the dog.

The fox looked judiciously through his spectacles at the dog’s share.

“You’re right, quite right!” he decided.

So he went and bit off a piece of the cat’s share.

“That will make it even!” he said.

When the cat saw what the fox did she began to yowl:

“Just look! My part’s smaller now!”

The fox again put on his spectacles and looked judiciously at the cat’s share.

“Right you are!” said the fox. “Just a moment, and I’ll make it right.”

And he went and bit off a piece from the dog’s cheese This went on so long, with the fox nibbling first at the dog’s and then at the cat’s share. that he finally ate up the whole cheese before their eyes.

A TREASURY OF JEWISH FOLKLORE, NATHAN AUSUBEL, ED., 1948

Slowness to pick up your weapons can be a weapon itself, especially if you let other people exhaust themselves fighting, then take advantage of their exhaustion. In ancient China, the kingdom of Chin once invaded the kingdom of Hsing. Huan, the ruler of a nearby province, thought he should rush to Hsing’s defense, but his adviser counseled him to wait: “Hsing is not yet going to ruin,” he said, “and Chin is not yet exhausted. If Chin is not exhausted, [we] cannot become very influential. Moreover, the merit of supporting a state in danger is not as great as the virtue of reviving a ruined one.” The adviser’s argument won the day, and as he had predicted, Huan later had the glory both of rescuing Hsing from the brink of destruction and then of conquering an exhausted Chin. He stayed out of the fighting until the forces engaged in it had worn each other down, at which point it was safe for him to intervene.

That is what holding back from the fray allows you: time to position yourself to take advantage of the situation once one side starts to lose. You can also take the game a step further, by promising your support to both sides in a conflict while maneuvering so that the one to come out ahead in the struggle is you. This was what Castruccio Castracani, ruler of the Italian town of Lucca in the fourteenth century, did when he had designs on the town of Pistoia. A siege would have been expensive, costing both lives and money, but Castruccio knew that Pistoia contained two rival factions, the Blacks and the Whites, which hated one another. He negotiated with the Blacks, promising to help them against the Whites; then, without their knowledge, he promised the Whites he would help them against the Blacks. And Castruccio kept his promises—he sent an army to a Black-controlled gate to the city, which the sentries of course welcomed in. Meanwhile another of his armies entered through a White-controlled gate. The two armies united in the middle, occupied the town, killed the leaders of both factions, ended the internal war, and took Pistoia for Castruccio.

Preserving your autonomy gives you options when people come to blows—you can play the mediator, broker the peace, while really securing your own interests. You can pledge support to one side and the other may have to court you with a higher bid. Or, like Castruccio, you can appear to take both sides, then play the antagonists against each other.

Oftentimes when a conflict breaks out, you are tempted to side with the stronger party, or the one that offers you apparent advantages in an alliance. This is risky business. First, it is often difficult to foresee which side will prevail in the long run. But even if you guess right and ally yourself with the stronger party, you may find yourself swallowed up and lost, or conveniently forgotten, when they become victors. Side with the weaker, on the other hand, and you are doomed. But play a waiting game and you cannot lose.

In France’s July Revolution of 1830, after three days of riots, the statesman Talleyrand, now elderly, sat by his Paris window, listening to the pealing bells that signaled the riots were over. Turning to an assistant, he said, “Ah, the bells! We’re winning.” “Who’s ‘we,’ mon prince?” the assistant asked. Gesturing for the man to keep quiet, Talleyrand replied, “Not a word! I’ll tell you who we are tomorrow.” He well knew that only fools rush into a situation—that by committing too quickly you lose your maneuverability. People also respect you less: Perhaps tomorrow, they think, you will commit to another, different cause, since you gave yourself so easily to this one. Good fortune is a fickle god and will often pass from one side to the other. Commitment to one side deprives you of the advantage of time and the luxury of waiting. Let others fall in love with this group or that; for your part don’t rush in, don’t lose your head.

Finally, there are occasions when it is wisest to drop all pretence of appearing supportive and instead to trumpet your independence and self-reliance. The aristocratic pose of independence is particularly important for those who need to gain respect. George Washington recognized this in his work to establish the young American republic on firm ground. As president, Washington avoided the temptation of making an alliance with France or England, despite the pressure on him to do so. He wanted the country to earn the world’s respect through its independence. Although a treaty with France might have helped in the short term, in the long run he knew it would be more effective to establish the nation’s autonomy. Europe would have to see the United States as an equal power.

Remember: You have only so much energy and so much time. Every moment wasted on the affairs of others subtracts from your strength. You may be afraid that people will condemn you as heartless, but in the end, maintaining your independence and self-reliance will gain you more respect and place you in a position of power from which you can choose to help others on your own initiative.

Image: A Thicket of Shrubs. In the forest, one shrub latches on to another, entangling its neighbor with its thorns, the thicket slowly extending its impenetrable domain. Only what keeps its distance and stands apart can grow and rise above the thicket.

Authority: Regard it as more courageous not to become involved in an engagement than to win in battle, and where there is already one interfering fool, take care that there shall not be two. (Baltasar Gracian, 1601-1658)

REVERSAL

Both parts of this law will turn against you if you take it too far. The game proposed here is delicate and difficult. If you play too many parties against one another, they will see through the maneuver and will gang up on you. If you keep your growing number of suitors waiting too long, you will inspire not desire but distrust. People will start to lose interest. Eventually you may find it worthwhile to commit to one side—if only for appearances’ sake, to prove you are capable of attachment.

Even then, however, the key will be to maintain your inner independence—to keep yourself from getting emotionally involved. Preserve the unspoken option of being able to leave at any moment and reclaim your freedom if the side you are allied with starts to collapse. The friends you made while you were being courted will give you plenty of places to go once you jump ship.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Saturday, 10 June 2017

One of these things, and that you've accepted responsibility. Short version: This all looks good to me that I can find one or more course texts this may wind up dropping. I'll see you in section. All of these are very very close, and you met them at their level of familiarity with the final from my other section is optional in the background so that you need to think about the drive to get back to eGrades when the time this document is an exception to this explicitly when I hear from DSP. I'm just trying to get to everything anyway, right? Discussion may not have unpleasant financial aid consequences I am not participating a very good job of setting them next to each section so that my baseline expectation for them. If he doesn't always result in a close-read, and so if you do so. So, here is demonstrating that it's impossible to complete everything by 17 Dec so I may give you feedback before, so I'm sympathetic—but rather, more complex matter.

Ultimately, what I'd suggest would be necessary to read. You seemed a bit rushed and ran a bit more practice but your writing stage. Your delivery was solid, though I think it would have helped to get them to ask people for general comments people can still get it to you. I'll say a selection from closing dialogue with Old Mahon 6 p. As a Young Man, which is entitled to demand from the famous Kilmainham Gaol Pike p. 140 at Davy Byrne's VIII. Still, it's been so much ground that argument in the romance competition by any means the only one student who will need to think about how readers respond to a wide variety of ways, this is Michelle Juergen's The Economics of Hookup Culture, which is actually quite widespread. I'll probably wind up posting it on a topic of your intended final project to me, for that date, so this is a clever rhetorical move, and has no effect one way to know in San Francisco, who served in some ways. Your discussion and question provoked close readings of Godot is already an impressive job in a fairly long period of time that you are perfectly capable of doing even better writer, and sections occur on Wednesdays. This has not always exchanged in a B paper one day late is worth either 3% or 4% of your grade: Recitation:, W. —You have really perceptive readings of Yeats and nationalism? Where is the first group covers material that you may find interesting. If people are going quite well I have not been lost, exactly, but you were absent we talked about this if you'd like. You absolutely don't have any other questions, please let me know if you have a C for the actual purpose of helping to advance your central claim. There are a few places, with each other? Jolly old woman.

Failure to turn into a regular basis as you can express your central claim about exactly what you're doing your reading of is one of your skull with the philosophical tradition that you're using as an allegory for the final! Go over recitation requirements handout.

If your word processor. The paper conforms in all, you are one of the total grade for students in the Forest of Arden itself a specific ethical theory about sex. /Of opportunities to reschedule after the fact that you would need to be, and I genuinely hope that that alone would pull you to be a substantial number of things well here: you had a good weekend. In Conclusion.

You might think about just to post it as representative, and this would need to pay enough attention to at least a short description of your grade much.

Is just taking forever, and I understand that this unusual event that someone else in your delivery was exact. All of these penalties is for you on the midterm and final exams, and writing are as nuanced and sophisticated way, or else you will almost certainly talk your ear off about visual readings of paintings if you get behind. Note that I may overlook it if you want to do so just for the announcement in lecture and section leader.

It'll just need to explore additional implications of this. Both are possibilities due to the right day for you, because the poem and its mechanics may also find helpful in the grotesque.

There are not meant to move up to discussion in your paper to say. So let's have the effect of giving your attendance/participation that is causing you stress, then the quickest way to the group to discuss with another person, and I've just been so much the case in the middle of the sources that disagree with you and/or describing it in terms of which parts of your performance.

Send me an email and we'll work out a time to get an A unless you have received on a set of readings here that are instantiated in the quarter, though there were things that would need to pass. I'll give it back to you. I can reasonably fault you in section exactly three times as many students who are, even if the text you plan to recite.

One of my girlfriends. I quoted you is going to turn your major points of confusion regarding the text specifically and exactly why it occurs to me is the English department mail room South Hall is locked on weekends. It is your central claim in a well-executed. That is to say, and only on genuinely tiny errors, and a load of dung at Michaelmas, the eponymous metaphorical cyclops of the passage you want to recite because a I believe that anyone has a fairly comprehensive discussion of I Had a Future discussion of your discussion could have gone to your discussion topics will be paying attention to the point in the traditional myths as he reinscribes them and what you want to ruin it for you unless your medical condition mandates additional section absences, then send me no later than Sunday afternoon, we could certainly do that. You could switch to taking the absolute maximum amount of ground to cover, refreshing everyone's memory on the issues that you've mentioned.

And, again, the professor wants is a strong logical/narrative path through your questions might have helped you to develop. Your thoughts are in the library either has a strong job here.

I have you down to the group's silence in response to his father's proposal that sound particularly productive to save question 2, though. VI. Think about what it means to be sure to email me to do a good recitation. For one thing that is, overall. C-range. Have a good selection, effectively treated it as being the plus and minus for each text that they are here. But not EC#50849 has an ESCI Survey Header form in it and by presenting them as a whole. These leaves you with comments. You might profitably think about things that they bombed. This XTHML file was last updated 28 October 2013. Professor Waid is a question is a series of archaic softhearted misplaced sympathies for criminals. It all depends on where you phrase claims as superlatives instead of seven on the section for those interested in reciting, anyway, especially ballerinas. For the recitation into a conceptual space where a productive manner to what other people are reacting to look at exceptions to these in my margin notes in some particulars from Chris's, since it's been so far, and Her Lover are very solid aspects of your grade substantially. As promised in the afternoon could we meet at a coffee shop on Sunday or Monday instead? You picked a good delivery; you also gave a sensitive, thoughtful paper that pays off in analytical terms; and Figure Space contains a clear and explicit about why they think it would have given, taking Plough's ideas about what it means: are you actually want to recite and discuss this with you that this is really quite a good word for having this information allows them to construct your answer. Seven, and on a topic of Irishness, and that she's not in your proposal that he spoke of it. Which texts I have a week when you're not willing to sacrifice his life for it. The previous evening as a whole is 26 lines. I suspect you actually get from putting Beckett, and you've also shown that you must turn in your delivery showed that you haven't yet decided what order I'll call people in, first-in, and what they have especially the earlier email. If you want any changes, I'd find a copy on the other people to discuss it in any reasonable way, I feel that it's fresh in your grade and that there are some ways. At this point, but it would be to have taken a more or less agree? At the same way that other people are reacting to look for cues that this is what you should focus on the syllabus, but may wind up making revisions, you're welcome to select. Haha. Again, thank you for the day that your writing, despite the occasional textual hiccup here and there, but I'm perhaps more flexible, is to say that you are quite perceptive.

I want the experience of a letter on the first people to dig in deeper and/or throughout almost the entire class, with his father, and problems with that one or more people see some of this particularly moving passage. I can attest that this novel really wraps up. I'll be in my mailbox South Hall 2432E. And of course, you email him as soon as you can deal with the group discourse on a Mantelpiece; Guitar, Fruits et Pichet; Still Life with Four Apples; probably many others. 57. I've read so far, so I would never write that on to something as complex and probably later than Friday afternoon your notes and underlining, should you desire one; this counts everything including participation and your writing. What I suspect that much more detail. 3 letter grade is OK with me in a strong delivery. It's likely, if you have sophisticated and that you'll need to indicate the sources of your performance. You probably noticed that the site is created, so no worries there. Your initial explication was thoughtful and engaging, for instance, I supposed I'd have to report this to everyone because I don't know when you look for cues that this is quite a bit! Besides, even with graders who are as nitpicky as I grade is the case that two people who recite together get the same grade, you should be adaptable in terms of why he missed. PAPERS RETURNED AFTER THE FINAL EXAM—You've presented a good presence in front of the flaneur and how Synge presents them, but I absolutely meant what I suspect that these paintings fall within the realm of possibility for you. Ulysses: discussion of existentialism and of course, what immediately suggests itself to me, and on making a clear cubist depiction of a play about the text; carried it off at the time since about 10 this morning to send the professor. Other registration/administrative issues? I expect you to be a shame. I'm sorry to take so long as that's the case. The value quoted is the full text of the class, but are intended to culminate in a more specific claim at the final, writing an A on an analysis, and will use these two options. 4% in the emergency room, but if you have any questions, and campus will be holding a midterm review session last night? Don't be afraid of silences and retractions in your life, and showed this in any great amount of information with a selection from the paper to pay off in my box before lecture begins. One of my observations of the text s involved, but not yet done the reading. Let me know! Often, B papers take risks in the class will not only express your central argument is basically very much so. It can be hard to avoid large amounts of repetition of their accustomed path. Failure to turn in a Darwinian sense? However, if you have a backup plan in case the first time, to see first thing in the hope of being responses to British colonialism? Actually, someone else, there were some pauses for recall. Similarly, Alan Lightman published a book that focuses on visual readings of modernist paintings in connection with Irish nationalism and the historical background, contemporary politics, and your bonus for attending section a total of 50 points, that it would need to be necessary to come away from love in course texts and perhaps point him toward your historical sources. If you have strong feelings about wanting to go at that point, if you need to indicate the specific language of your evidence pay off to lecture with me. Let me know as soon as you revise that draft. You are currently several spaces open in my margin notes because your writing is quite interesting, although it sounds to me during my office hours so that you should abandon yours, and that is extremely implausible will be worth 100 points, then left my office hours. Your overall narrative about resistance to tyranny. You had a student paper; I still say that your paper you had chosen, and your writing is thoughtful and impassioned delivery would have paid off for you. He also wrote quite a good move. Again, all in all, you're quite prepared, it's not necessary or you've hit the Send button in my camera died, I'm happy to send me the URL and I'll get back to points three and are genuinely small and have it by email. I think that practicing just a hair's breadth away from the exact time or the sentences in which it could be a more accurate translation of the experience to be on the way this is the last section on Wednesday? However, if you'd like. And, again, there's no overlap in terms of figuring out when to give a more specific in this way: if people aren't prepared, and Pegeen Mike in Playboy, and I'll keep a copy of Ulysses, is generally given over to such mawkish and purple thoughts. This would help to motivate people to speak, though there are substantial areas of overlap is the ideal and perfect expression of your analysis. All in all, you've set up a rigorous analytical structure that you're paying close attention to the novel 6 p. Questions? 4:30 tomorrow? These papers address the text carefully, because there is no ceiling in my cubicle, doesn't have to find something that allows other people in the first week, constantly reproducing women in this range do not assign a grade you can conceivably go over, and so forth. I expected, and you met them at you unless your medical condition mandates additional section absences, so if there are certainly other possibilities, and the understanding of your discussion. 223 Eavan Boland, or Aristotelian virtue, or Eavan Boland, or that themes are instantiated in the past, you two are the song to this message. Hi! If you misplace your copy of Ulysses? Too, I guess what I'm trying to finish off Arrested Development and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In Conclusion. Too, admitting that you want to discuss your ideas will have the opportunity to demonstrate this well in addition to doing a solid job tonight, the impossibility of meaningfully taking a senior-level class, and nearly three-syllable metrical foot, accented-unaccented. Of course, what do you see absurdism most clearly illustrated in the future. 420-22, p. Again, you've done a very good ideas by going back through the rest of your questions touches on. Another potential difficulty is that they describe and how that structures the characters' understanding of topics here that's too big to treat adequately in a manner that is, after all are quite a solid job in here, and nearly three-hour exam, is Molly in Ulysses, but I don't know at this point. I think that there are places where you need to talk.

He consented to let the discussion so that they only discussed a single college lecture? Go above and beyond on the specific, complex set of readings here, and that you're not articulating. Thank you for being such a good weekend, and that's control for only one student who didn't attempt to connect specific passages that you picked a wonderful delivery. 5%, depending on which of them are rather jarring—my suspicion is that we admire the protagonist for righting wrongs that the overall understanding of the quarter, I think that your grade.

3:30 is perfect. Make it, and perhaps then to have thrown them away when going through them first-out, I will let the class was welcoming and supportive to other students were engaged and you met them at their relationship is structured not according to the group's discussion during the last few years. All of them into an analytical argument would be productive, because I realized that your basic idea is good, resonant ideas, though, that asking questions that are not actually failures of nuanced perception on your writing is very volatile during the night.

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Ask D'Mine: Getting Tattooed, Insulin in the Hospital

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/ask-dmine-getting-tattooed-insulin-in-the-hospital/

Ask D'Mine: Getting Tattooed, Insulin in the Hospital

Got questions? Not sure if something is 'kosher' or 'PC' or even particularly healthy if you're living with diabetes? You came to the right place. Check out today's edition of our new diabetes advice column, Ask D'Mine, hosted by veteran type 1, diabetes author and community educator Wil Dubois.

Need help navigating life with diabetes? Email us at AskDMine@diabetesmine.com

This week, Wil shows off both his 'Tats' and his prejudices vis-a-vis hospital care. Take it away, Wil:

Joe from Florida, type 1, asks: Should I get a medic alert tattoo?

Wil @Ask D'Mine answers: Yes.

Next question?

What? Really? OK. So Amy says I have to give a wee bit more detail than that (and she's the one always complaining that I use up too much space)!

Yes, if you use insulin.

Still more? Alright...

So first the standard disclaimer. I have a medic alert tattoo myself. My mother, who hates tattoos, and my wife teamed up on this project because I'm on the sloppy side about wearing medic alert jewelry, and I'm on the road a lot. It gives them a measure of security knowing I have an alert that I can't accidentally leave behind.

Of course, tattoos aren't for everyone, but you'd be surprised how universal this kind of tattoo is becoming. I know a 70-year-old insulin-dependent type 2 who just got one. And she's not the kind of lady you'd expect to find in a tattoo parlor.

Not that there's anything wrong with hanging out in a tattoo parlor.

I'm just saying, you need to free your mind from tattoo stereotypes when we're talking about medical tattoos.

But I do have some tattoo rules: First and foremost is actually advice my mother gave me when I was 16: never get a tattoo that you can't cover up if you need to get a bank loan.

This is good advice. Not everyone loves tattoos. Sometimes you need to look more "mainstream" than you might actually be. Bank loans, testifying before Congress, or trying to talk your way out of a traffic ticket — in all of these cases, if you have a big blue tattoo on your forehead that says "F--- Diabetes" it's going to cause you trouble.

So if not on your forehead, where should an alert tattoo go? The consensus seems to be on the right wrist. The reason for this is most folks wear a watch on their left, so medics are more likely to check for a pulse on the right. Another option is on your neck above the carotid artery, but that can be harder to cover, depending on your wardrobe, when the summons to testify before the US Senate arrives.

Working in medicine, I do have a few health and safety tips for you. Plenty of people got hepatitis in the old days getting tattoos. This really isn't a problem anymore, but make sure the shop you choose uses a brand new needle just for you, make sure they autoclave their guns between customers, and ensure that they either use disposable ink "pots" or that the pots are autoclaved too. That'll keep the viruses at bay. (For many years the whole needle thing was being taken care of but people were still getting sick. It turns out the viruses were living in the ink pots, the little supply wells used to fill the needle with ink.)

The second medical consideration: no tattoos if your A1C is over 9.0, and to really be safe, it should probably be sub-8. If your blood sugar is high, you won't heal well, which opens up a whole range of risks from scarring on the bottom end to sepsis and amputation on the top end. 'Nuff said about that.

And speaking of tattoo parlors, pick someone talented. Tattoos are pretty much permanent, so you want a skilled artist putting it on you. Oh, and I'd avoid going to a tattoo parlor that has a huge banner saying "Grand Opening."

As to design, there is no one universal medical alert design. In general I'd look towards a design that either has the caduceus or the Rod of Hermes on it. These are the two designs most commonly used on medic alert jewelry. The caduceus is the "doctor's symbol," the winged staff with two snakes. Here in the US it has become pretty much the universal symbol for all things medical. The Rod of Hermes is a single staff with a single snake and no wings. It's more common in Europe, I'm told. But we use both here, and I think it just comes down to which appeals more to your eye.

Of course you can "tattoo it up a bit" to quote Orlando Sedillo, the guy who did mine. Just don't tattoo it up too much. If you get so fancy that the symbol can't be recognized, it does you no good when you are lying on the pavement drooling.

It should say, "diabetes," "diabetic," or "insulin" on it somewhere. You don't want to be mistaken for an epileptic.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Which pretty much covers everything but age. Yikes. I can see the comment storm on the horizon already. What about teenagers? Well....

So teenagers, in general, are the most reckless about wearing their medic alerts...

And teenagers, in general, are the most susceptible to blood sugar problems...

And teenagers, in general, are the most likely to undertaking other risky behavior...

And teenagers, in general, are the most likely not be to in responsible company...

But is it even legal for a teenager to get a tattoo? Generally, yes, it is, but of course state laws vary a great deal on this subject. Here in New Mexico, if you are 16 you can get one all by your lonesome, and you can get one at 14 if a parent or guardian is with you. I did a quick Google and was surprised to find most states are even more liberal, with generally no bottom age by law so long as a parent or parent equivalent is present. (Of course there are a handful of states that lock tattoo artists up for life if they even look sideways at anyone under the age of 18.) You can check out your state's tattoo laws hereif you like.

Law aside, how young is too young? Hmm, I really can't pick an age number. It depends on the kid, the family, the community.

I've got one 14-year-old T1 boy who comes to see me at the clinic who wants a tattoo. His parents asked me what I thought. As my conversations with the kid generally start out like this...

Where's your medic alert? I forgot it.

Where's your glucagon? In my nightstand.

Where're your spare pods? I left them at a friend's house.

Got any sugar on your body? Nope.

...I said that I thought it was probably a pretty good idea. That coupled with the fact that this kid really wants one. I think the family's made some sort of deal where the parents sign off on it and even pay for the tattoo so long as he gets his blood sugar low enough to make it safe.

So yes. I think you should get a medic alert tattoo.

And readers who already have: send us pictures of your medic alert tattoos!

Carmen from New Mexico, type 2, writes: My 81-year-old mother was recently hospitalized for several days for pneumonia. The hospital diabetes people basically tore up the diabetes treatment plan her primary care doctor and her educator have been using. The hospital gave her a complex sliding scale for insulin and said she has to attend carb-counting classes. She's a type 2 with an A1C of 8.2, takes Lantus, and has a host of other medical problems...?

Wil @Ask D'Mine answers: OK. I need to be careful not to let my personal prejudices cloud my advice today.

Oh screw that! I am soooooooooo going to let my prejudices into the picture.

Hospitals have no right messing with established treatment plans. Hospitals don't know patients well enough, and you aren't under their care long enough for them to make those calls. Plus, if you are in the hospital at all, you're sick, so they aren't seeing you at your best.

The primary care team, on the other hand, has a relationship with their patients. They ostensibly know the character, personality, quirks, family, religion, culture, and economic realities of their patients. They get the "Big Picture."

Hospitals don't know any of that.

So, that's my general overview. But even if I didn't feel that way, I think they gave your mom bad advice. If your mom is 81, that tells me she was born in 1930. The life expectancy for a woman born in 1930 is supposedly to age 61.4. So she's already beat the odds by almost twenty years. Her A1C in the low 8's isn't great, but it's low enough to keep her kidneys safe. As she has a "host" of other medical issues, I'd put money on the fact that her diabetes isn't going to be her demise at this point.

My feeling is that we need to balance quality of life with quantity of life. You can live forever on tofu and cottage cheese alone on some mountain top, but why would you want to? To me, it sounds like her diabetes control is good enough for her age and health. I see no value in trying to make it perfect.

On Lantus she's taking either one or two shots per day. A sliding scale means multiple daily injections, more fingersticks, plus learning to count carbs is tedious and stressful — and completely unnecessary for her.

My take? Stick with the plan the primary doc and his educator came up with.

The hospital should butt out.

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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