#so many authors that started at the same time as me during covid getting published or just becoming less active

[butchvamp]

[writingonleaves]

were you sent by someone who wanted me dead? (did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?) - jeremy swayman

pairing: jeremy swayman x original female character

warnings: swearing, pretty angsty. hopeful ish ending because i can't do sad endings, very personal but i think many can relate in their own way, cliche ish, barely proofread

inspired by + title: "the smallest man who ever lived" by taylor swift

word count: 5.6k

author's note: i'd argue almost every piece any author writes is personal, because it has their life interspersed through the words. but this one really is, because a majority of this is the exact same words i wrote years ago after a break-up. heard the bridge to this song and immediately knew i had to write something inspired by it. also trying a new format of sorts (maybe a bit meta??), so i hope you enjoy and lmk what you think!!

~*~*~

When Noelle Betsko walked away from Jeremy Swayman, holding back tears until the call dropped, she knew it was going to be a tough time for the foreseeable future. 

It didn’t matter that the pandemic had forced them apart. She knew she would still feel him for months to come.

She did the only thing she knows how to do when trying to deal with things. The one thing she always resorts to as an aspiring novelist. Sometimes on her laptop when the words were spilling out too quickly for her brain to catch up, tears littering the keyboard. Usually in her old beat-up journal, scribbling in the cursive that Jeremy claimed he always loved (“It makes your handwriting unique”) with the pens he had gifted her just a few months prior. 

At the age of 21, Noelle got her heart broken for the first time. At the age of 26, she’s about to publish her first poetry collection of sorts, all of the poems modeled after journal entries written throughout her life. So not really poetry, though her mother would say otherwise. 

She swallows as she thumbs through the middle part of the first known and binded copy of “miscellaneous.” There are only eight entries in the whole collection that are taken verbatim from her past writing. These are the eight.

May 13, 2020 (three days post-breakup, crying in my childhood bedroom)

I don’t even recognize who I was and who you were in those writings before these pages filled with love and hope and happiness. I can’t even summon up those feelings anymore that I knew existed at one point. Those feelings of complete bliss and love for someone so deep you can’t explain it. 

I’m mad at myself for not being able to conjure those feelings, because at one point, I did love you. How could something that was part of my daily life for over two years just disappear so quickly? 

But now, I’m not mad at myself. I’m mad, but I don’t know where to direct that anger to. I feel a bit empty sometimes, but then frustrated the next. Sometimes I get sad, but not so much compared to the other feelings. I spent enough time being sad during our relationship.

When we broke up, on an annoyingly beautiful Tuesday in May — over the damn phone, mind you, which whatever, it’s COVID. Fine — You told me you felt like you had been putting more effort into us. 

At the time, I didn’t react, but I’ve been thinking about how angry that statement made me. Makes me, actually. I was always very open with how much I gave to that relationship. How much it meant to me. How much it affected me. But I understand that with some people, sharing everything too much equates to things not meaning anything anymore. But you out of all people should’ve known that I mean everything I say.

I felt like I gave so much. I know I gave so much. When I told you I loved you, I always meant it. Every single time. When I told you I missed you, I always meant it. I wished you were right next to me at that moment. I mentally gave so much, because to me, I wanted to. You were always on my mind, always high up on my list of priorities. I never took us for granted.

I’ve been questioning if that was the same for you. Did you start becoming complacent?

The second thing you said that day that hasn’t left my head is that you knew me pretty well. And initially, I remember not thinking much of it. So I don’t doubt that; you always knew right when I was about to cry, even over the phone. You often knew when I was mad or upset, but when I look back now, you never pushed. Which is a good thing, to an extent. But it was a bad thing sometimes too. I knew you often wanted to give me space, but sometimes I didn’t want space. I wanted you to push. To try to understand. Maybe that’s unfair of me; it probably is. I should just say I want to talk about it more, right? 

But if you genuinely knew me, you would’ve known.

After two years, seven months and 12 days,  I still feel like I didn’t know you. Did I ever know you at all?

When people talked shit about you, I always defended you. And I still would defend you now. But lately, I've questioned what I’m even defending. All those good qualities that I thought you had, were they even real? Of course, I know some of them were, to a certain extent. But as I look back on us, there’s a lot of doubt about whether I even knew the person I called my boyfriend for so long. I know there was a point where you cared about me, but I can’t remember when. 

I often felt like I was letting you know so much about my life, but you didn’t do the same. I get that sometimes a person just wants to forget about the bad and focus on the good with a person you like for awhile. I get that. But once that was happening every damn time? That should’ve been a red flag. 

June 7, 2020 (twenty eight days post break-up, outside my childhood room on the deck) 

I don’t understand how you can give so much to something or someone and have it not be recognized or appreciated or enough. If I wasn’t enough for you, how will I be enough for anyone?

I hope one day you’ll truly understand how much this hurt. Not just the breakup, but feeling like I was always being pulled in a direction I didn’t always want to be pulled in. Feeling I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and never ever being able to win. I hate that I settled so much in the last year. Because I should’ve demanded more, even though deep down I knew you were never going to be able to give it to me.

I think back to our past daily texts, and I just don’t get it. At one point, we both meant the things we said to each other. 

Yet we still hurt each other. 

This fucking hurts.

You’ve hurt me so much, but most of it wasn’t intentional, which I think is somewhat even worse. Because I’m not totally mad at you for causing the pain. You never did anything outright to cause me pain, but I still feel like you did. 

Unintentional pain almost stings more than intentional. 

When I asked you out that night after we were both on an emotional high, I took a chance. For once in my life, I took the leap, knowing that I could get humiliated or hurt or just straight up shot down. 

Where did it all go wrong? Or, more realistically, how did we think that we could go through the wrong when it was there at the start?

I’m trying not to blame myself too much. Trying not to tell myself that I should’ve known better. 

All those times, especially at the start, when I would ask you if you genuinely liked me, you always thought I was just trying to be annoying. But you never understood that I genuinely thought that way. My self confidence from the start was lacking, and you didn’t try to understand that, because I come across to everyone as confident and self-assured. 

It hurt, when you would brush things off like that. I felt like you didn’t care.

And then, it got to the point where I stopped asking that question. Part of that is because I did become more confident and you did show that you cared, and part of that was because I knew it would piss you off.

The amount of things I was scared to talk about with you because I knew it would piss you off? I don’t wish that feeling on anybody.

I shouldn’t have been scared. I shouldn’t have been uncomfortable. But I was. And if you did notice like sometimes you claimed to, why didn’t you make it more comfortable for me? Was that too much to ask for? 

So larger than life that at the end, you faded into just the smallest man who ever lived. Fuck you.

Was it too much to ask for when I just wanted to know why you were upset? You didn’t have to ever tell me the full story (lord knows there were times I didn’t), but was it too much to ask for something? You told me once that I’m the person you’ve told the most to. How? You barely told me anything. And when I wanted to talk to you, whether it was about growing up in Alaska or why you were in a bad mood last night, you always brushed it off. Always. 

So I don’t feel so bad about feeling like I gave more effort. I gave so much of myself to you. If you really cared about me like you claimed you did, why couldn’t you show even just 1% of that care back? Or just meet me in the middle?

I could’ve tried harder to meet you in the middle, I’ll admit that. But you didn’t even give me a map or a clue how to. 

I felt so fucking left in the dark. I felt left in the dark about my own fucking relationship, something that I should be completely sure about. If you really love someone and care about them, how can you leave them in the dark? How could you not even see that I was struggling to find a flashlight?

You did care about me. I know that. To some extent and at some point in time, you did care about me. But caring about someone and their well-being isn’t always enough.

Why couldn’t you have worked with me? When I was extending my hand out, why didn’t you reach for it? How can someone just be so blind? I mean, I’m practically always spelling it out for you. 

Maybe I am being selfish. But fuck, I just wanted to be happy. At some point, you made me happy. When did I start making you feel like I wasn’t enough? Why wasn’t I enough for you?

It’s useless, in a way, to keep going about this. Because I know I deserve better. And we’ll both find people who are better for us. We just couldn’t be that person to each other.

I fucking loved you.

I wish it ended differently.

July 8, 2020 (fifty nine days post-breakup, in front of the lake)

I really really fucking miss you. 

I do. 

I miss being able to text you that i love you and not necessarily expecting a response until the next morning. I miss knowing that as soon as you wake up, you’ll text me back and assure me that yeah, you love me too. 

I’m left feeling bittersweet as I look back on memories that are just splashes and not definite strokes on the canvas that used to be us.

I miss having you as a friend. 

I’ve been having more urges lately to want to text you. And it isn’t even anything important. Just moments I experience throughout the day.

Do you get the urge to do the same?

July 19, 2020 (seventy days post-breakup, still in the same damn house)

It’s hard. It really is. And it kinda just hits you at random parts of the day. Sometimes I wake up from a dream that you were in and have to remind myself that it didn’t happen. 

Sometimes it physically aches when I realize that you won’t ever help me put on my jacket again, or complain that my hair is in your face when we’re lying on the couch watching Brooklyn Nine Nine, or groan when I drag you up to dance with me (which you never improved on, no matter how many times I tried to teach you basic rhythm). I can’t view our song the same way anymore, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. 

The other day, I read some simple thing on Twitter. I don’t even remember what it was, but I do remember that for a split second, I could see your smile in my mind. But it wasn’t just any smile. It was the smile you gave me when you took me ice skating that first time. I remember asking you what you were smiling at, and you said that you just were taking in this moment. I don’t know if you took a mental picture that day, but I know I did. That day seems so long ago now. 

In almost anything I do, you somehow pop into my mind or into the conversation. And it’s not even in a harmful way either. It’s because you were part of my life for so long. I see a dog on the street, and it reminds me of how you always stopped to pet every single one we’s see I write something in my messy handwriting, and I remember how you always used to complain that you couldn’t read the notes I’d occasionally leave around your place when you went away. I went to the doctor’s the other day, and they said I was 5 feet and 3 inches, which is just definitely not true, and I almost reached for my phone to text you, because you would’ve cackled and insisted that no, I’m 5 feet 2 inches and it wouldn’t even matter because I’ll always be shorter than you. It’s simple and minute things that make me miss you that much more.

I still can’t listen to some songs the same way anymore, but I can at least listen to them now, which is a feat in itself. I was unpacking from college and found the teddy bear you sent me the first extended time we had to be apart and had to immediately put that out of my sight. From those boxes also came photos that I had decorated my dorm room with, and to be honest, I’m glad now that I let you keep our best one. I deal with all my emotions, besides writing, by making Spotify playlists, and I made a new one earlier this week. I think it’s helping. It’s a slow process, this whole moving on thing, but it’s one that I’m trying to be grateful for, because like most things in life, you just don’t truly know until you go through it.

Sometimes, I find myself wondering how you are and how you’re healing. But, even though we’ve both changed since the day we met, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you’re incredibly strong and stubborn. I hope that you’re finding some growth in this process too. 

October 17, 2020 (one hundred fifty seven days post-break up, apartment in orono)

It’s been almost 5 months, and you still cross my mind everyday. 

Why wasn’t I enough for you? Why didn’t you fucking tell me what you were thinking? Why was I the one who had to approach you just because I was just so done with the silent treatment?

But I’m not mad at you. Not anymore. The mad phase passed ages ago. 

Closure is a fake word. Even a breakup as mutual and smooth as ours was still left me with so many questions that will probably never be answered. 

Any breakup fucks you up to some extent. I knew it was going to mess me up even back when we were together. But not like this. Never like this. 

But like anything in life, I guess you can never really prepare for what you think you might feel, because most of the time, you discover a whole new side of you that you never thought existed. 

I don’t miss you. I don’t. I don’t feel that love in any way anymore. 

But I did once.

You did too, right?

November 15, 2020 (one hundred eighty six days post break-up, fogler library)

I hate Halloween. 

Though, it did bring me to you three years ago. I’m pretty sure I fell in love with you right then and there. 

Three years later, you texted me on Halloween, five months after our breakup. The universe really, really wanted to fuck with me. 

It was a tough night for you. I knew that. Because I know how you are after losing a game you should’ve won. But that didn’t mean that I owed you anything and had to respond. 

We agreed on no contact if we ever wanted to stay friends. Clearly, friends is out of the picture now, but come on. A vulnerable text after a bad night because you know I would feel bad for you?

Fuck, you know how much I would hate that. You had to have known. 

Just because we’re not dating anymore doesn’t mean that everything about you just disappears. I still know your tendencies. I still know exactly how my head burrows into your chest during a hug. I still know the actions I used to do that would be followed by you attacking me with a hug. I still could point you out in a crowd. 

I looked for you in every crowd for years. 

That stuff doesn’t just go away, no matter how much I want it to. But fuck. Fuck. Why did you text me? 

I don’t regret how I handled it. I probably would’ve responded months ago. But just like you, I’ve grown these last couple of months. 

It was comforting, for a split second, to know that maybe, just maybe, these past couple of months have been hard for you too. It makes me feel human. It makes me feel like I’m not crazy.

I’m glad you texted me. You gave me another level of closure I hadn’t known that I needed until then. 

But fuck, dude. You know me better than that. You should know me better than that. 

I hate Halloween.

November 26, 2020 (one hundred ninety seven days, at the coffee shop i brought you to when you came home with me two years ago)

I don’t regret loving you, but I hate you for what you did to me. 

Or maybe not. 

I hate knowing that even though we haven’t been in a relationship in a bit, it feels like sometimes, you’re on my mind the exact same amount when we were dating. I hate knowing that I gave so much of myself and my love to you, and it always felt unrecognized. 

Fuck, will it ever stop hurting? Will I ever be able to have to stop myself from thinking about you? Will it ever stop?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

Happy birthday. I hope you enjoy it.

June 12, 2021 (three hundred ninety five days post-break up, in boston, visiting a friend)

Tonight, when a friend asked me about you and how I felt about how we ended, I was able to articulate my thoughts clearly. I’m really proud of myself for getting to a point where I can take the lessons I learned the few months after we broke up and acknowledge them in a succinct way without breaking down into tears. Just watery eyes and the occasional voice crack 

I’m also proud that I can say that when we were dating, I lost a bit of myself. For months, it was really hard to admit out loud.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come. Sometimes, I wish I could call or text you about it, because I think you’d be proud too. And I know I’d be proud of you. I am, to be honest. I do break resolve once in awhile and check on you through various avenues.

I still haven’t seen you in person since the last time COVID made us say goodbye. Maybe I never will again. But day by day, I’m starting to accept that and be okay with it. I’m accepting that memories that used to be so painted in my mind are blurry or almost completely erased now. But that’s okay. Honestly, it’s probably for the best. 

I wonder, when you think about it, if you think about different moments that I do. That’s the thing when something ends. You have to be okay with letting go of those moments and realizing that just because you forget them, doesn’t mean they weren’t important. 

I don’t think I miss you. I hesitate in saying that. Because I’ve moved on and handled the aftermath of it better than I think both of us ever thought I could. When you hung up the phone for the last time, I proved to myself again that I’m stronger than I give myself credit for. I think we all are. But we don’t realize it until we’re thrown into a situation that we think we’ll never be able to overcome. 

But we do. Whether it’s because we’re forced to because there’s no other option, it doesn’t matter. Because we get through. We move on. 

I hope you're moving on. 

And then it goes into other topics, graduating during a pandemic specifically and losing what’s supposed to be your last year of no responsibilities before adulthood. There are other poems in here that reference a past relationship, but not as much as these eight. 

If there’s one thing that Noelle did change, it was taking out the details. Jeremy may have hurt her, but he doesn’t deserve someone possibly making a connection between these poems and their shared background. She’s not a famous author by any means, but she wanted to be careful.

Not that she makes that part of her life publicly known. People don’t need to know that her brother was Jeremy’s captain for two years at Maine and that’s how they met. 

Noelle grew up going to rinks. She hasn’t gone to one since they broke up. 

But also, what the fuck? It’s been five years since she’s dated the guy. She really is over it by now, even if his rise to stardom in the Bruins flittering on her social media feeds still sometimes has her swallowing a bit before she can continue with her day. 

Brooklyn is far enough from Boston. But sometimes it feels like it’s right outside her door. 

She’s proud of her first published work. She really is. People believed in her and after numerous notes swapped back and forth with her editor, she did it. She always knew she wanted to work in publishing. She never knew she herself would publish anything.

And here she is now, two weeks after the book release, in Boston, about to do a q&a and a signing. Apparently, “miscellaneous” has been on top of numerous lists and it’s flying off the shelves. Noelle can’t really believe it and tries not to think about it too much, trusting her agent with all of that. 

She’s happy to talk about her work and process though. That she can handle. And she’s grateful for all the love.

After a signing at a local bookstore, she decides to walk the 20 minutes home in the Boston fall. It’s a bit brisk, but she doesn’t mind and she just wanders, belly filled with delicious sushi she inhaled for dinner with an old friend.

Of course it happens the one time during her walk when she doesn’t avoid eye contact with someone. The song playing in her earbuds fade out of her focus and she almost stumbles. 

Jeremy’s eyes were always Noelle’s favorite thing about him. She thought she would’ve forgotten what they looked like by now. But clearly she hasn’t. 

Her eyes quickly cast to the person next to him. It’s definitely a girl. They’re a bit too far away for Noelle to pick out details. But it’s enough. He’s walking on the side closest to the street. It’s a Friday Night in a bustling part of the city. 

It hurts. She wishes it didn’t.

Even from far away, she sees his eyes blink in recognition. Noelle puts her head back down and walks faster. 

(She cries in the shower when she gets back to the hotel. She had debated feeling super sorry for herself and going to the hotel bar but refrained)

She has a few free days in Boston before flying back to New York. When she wakes up the next morning, she debates on going home early. But no, she won’t let a three second glance at someone ruin her time here. She used to occasionally come here during her college days. She loves this city. 

The city may be Jeremy’s, but she can make space for herself here too. 

She takes her time at a cafe, people watching and eating some breakfast. As she takes her coffee to-go, she looks out the window at the bookstore she was in the night before for the signing. She almost drops her coffee. 

Jeremy walks into the book store. 

Now, Noelle is debating her options. What she should do is continue with her day and walk in the opposite direction. But she’s always been too nosy for her own good. And maybe a bit self destructive. She decides to leave the cafe and cross the street immediately, so impatient to where she’s almost tapping her foot as the pedestrian signal stays red. 

As a writer, she’s no stranger to movie moments. The scenes written in books or movies where the timing is too accurate to be real. The situation too good to be true. But after a car speeds through an orange and she can finally walk, she stops in her tracks instead, feet glued down to the sidewalk.

Because Jeremy is right in front of her on the other side of the street. Her book in his hand. And he’s looking right at her. 

The first feeling she can recognize in herself is anger. Anger at the way their relationship panned out. Anger at the way they ended. Anger at the radio silence the years following. Anger at him for everything. Angry at herself for everything. 

The second feeling is, weirdly, shame, which she’s embarrassed by. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. But she feels it anyways. 

The third, and perhaps the most prominent, is emptiness. Five fucking years later, and she’s brought back to the emptiness she felt immediately after they broke up. The emptiness that the person you loved isn’t yours anymore — who maybe wasn’t ever yours to begin with. 

Before she can run, he’s already crossed the street to her. He looks naturally different as someone who you haven’t seen in five years would. But he also heartbreakingly looks the same. 

“We should get out of people’s way,” Noelle manages to chokes out. 

Jeremy laughs a bit. Her heart lurches. “Yeah.” He starts walking and she follows him wordlessly. This is his city after all. 

He leads them to a bench under a tree with beautiful fall foliage. She puts at least a foot between them as they both sit down, staring out at the people passing. She can’t take the silence. 

“I see you bought my book.”

“I did,” he replies evenly. “Congratulations. I always knew you would do it.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. Maybe if she squeezes hard enough she’ll forget when she originally pitched Jeremy the bare bones idea of the exact same book that’s currently in his hand. “Thank you. Congratulations to you too. On everything.”

“You’ve been watching?”

She shakes her head. “No. But, you know Seth and…yeah. It comes up during family calls sometimes.”

“Why didn’t you say hi last night?”

She looks pointedly at a couple walking their dog. “You seemed busy.”

“She wasn’t-that-it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Oh. Because that makes me feel so much better,” she spits out, before taking a deep breath. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. We broke up ages ago.”

“I’m sorry,” she gives him a look and is slightly proud of how he seems to shrink into himself a bit. “I-I know it’s five years too late. I know I didn’t handle it as well as I should’ve. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

The thing is, Noelle always thought that maybe hearing an apology someday would make her feel better. But now that’s heard it, she’s not sure she does. 

She swallows. “I appreciate that.”

“I’ve already read it, you know.”

“Read what?”

Jeremy runs a hand through his hair. “Your book. One of my teammate’s girlfriend recommended it and I asked to borrow it. It’s fantastic,” He looks down at the book in his hand. It’s like the cover is taunting her. “I wanted my own copy.”

“Oh.” 

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me off the hook with the poems I know were about me,” he scoffs, shaking his head at himself. “You could’ve written way worse.”

She can’t help but let out a chuckle. “I thought I was pretty mean.”

“Your definition of ‘pretty mean’ is tame compared to a lot of people,” he says, mindlessly flipping through the pages of the book. “You were always the kindest person, even when you shouldn’t have been..” 

He puts his hand out in her direction, the hand with the book in it. She furrows her eyebrows. “What-”

“Could I get a signed copy?”

“Jeremy. What do you want from me?”

He sighs, taking his hand back. “A chance to apologize?”

“You’ve already done that.”

“Not in the way I want to and what you deserve.”

She lets out a sigh, turning to face him fully. “I don’t know if that would be worth my time or yours. I know the book just came out, but that was five years ago. I’m over it. Forgive and forget, right?”

“But do you?” Jeremy counters back. “Clearly, you don’t forget, which I deserve. But forgive?” 

“We’re just going in circles now.”

“No we’re not,” he says firmly. “You’re just shutting me down because you don’t want to talk about it. I’ve had five years to prepare what I would say to you if I saw you again. You’re telling me you haven’t?”

“Of course I have,” Noelle tips her head back. “But also, what’s the point?”

“The point, is that I still love you.”

“Fuck you,” she says in a strained voice. “You can’t just-you can’t just throw that shit out there. Fuck you.”

He bites his lip, and to her annoyance, he laughs. But she listens more carefully, and it sounds very self deprecating. “I deserved that.”

“Yeah,” Noelle looks down at her feet. “So…what? You still love me?”

“I do.”

“And what are you going to do about that?”

“What are you going to let me do?”

“I live in Brooklyn.”

“I know,” she whips her head up. Jeremy looks sheepish, which she didn’t even think was something he knew how to do. “Seth mentioned it when we caught up a bit ago. I also still follow you on Instagram.”

She tries again. “It’s been five years.”

“And I’m here sitting with you and still feel the exact same way I did back then. Even more, to be honest.” He eyes her pointedly. “Any more excuses?”

Her voice softens. “You really hurt me.”

“I know. And I’m so sorry, Noelle.”

“I hurt you too.”

He shrugs. “We were young and stupid.”

“And we’re still not?” Noelle says with a snort before swallowing. “I’m not the same person you fell in love with.”

“I’m sure I’m not either. But I don’t know if there’s a world where I don’t love every version of you.”

“Even after reading the book?”

“Especially after reading the book,” he sighs. “Noelle, I know this is unfair of me. All of this. And I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to reach out. But I always intended to. And then you’re here? And I see you twice in two days? I’d be an idiot to not try. More of an idiot than I am, anyways.”

“Try for what?”

“A second chance? To be friends? Whatever you want.” He suddenly deflates. “Even if you don’t want anything to do with me. At least I’ll know.”

“Why did you never text me?”

“I thought about it a lot,” he admits. “I tried once, actually, after the high of a really good win. But it didn’t go through. I got the message.”

“The message?”

“You blocked me, right?”

Oh. “Yeah,” she lies. “I did.” She reaches into her bag for a pen and gestures for the book, which he gives to her, a curious gleam in his eyes. “I’m in Boston for two more days, including today.”

He takes the hint immediately. Eagerly. “I have a game tonight, but I’m free tomorrow.”

“Who are you guys playing?”

“Toronto. And I’m starting. Should be a good one.”

She hums non-committedly, scribbling on the inside of the front cover. She hands it back to him with a small, close-lipped smile. She nods at him to read the message.

to my first fan, 

i still love you too. 

xxx-xxx-xxxx

yours, 

noelle

He looks up, eyes shining but a bit confused. 

“I never blocked you. I just changed my number.”

“Oh.”

“And even if I still love you, I’m still mad at you.”

“I know. I’d be more surprised if you weren’t.”

She stands up, adjusting the bag on her shoulder and putting her sunglasses on. “Text me?”

His mouth splits wide into a grin. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

She backs away with one last attempt at a smile before turning down the street.

[richincolor]

Book Review: Julieta and the Romeos

Title: Julieta and The Romeos

Author: Maria E. Andreu

Genres:  Contemporary/Romance

Pages: 400

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Review Copy: ARC by publisher

Availability: Available now

Summary: Julieta isn't looking for her Romeo--but she is writing about love. When her summer writing teacher encourages the class to publish their work online, the last thing she's expecting is to get a notification that her rom-com has a mysterious new contributor, Happily Ever Drafter. Julieta knows that happily ever afters aren't real. (Case in point: her parents' imploding marriage.) But then again, could this be her very own meet-cute?

As things start to heat up in her fiction, Julieta can't help but notice three boys in her real life: her best friend's brother (aka her nemesis), the boy next door (well, to her abuela), and her oldest friend (who is suddenly looking . . . hot?). Could one of them be her mysterious collaborator? But even if Julieta finds her Romeo, she'll have to remember that life is full of plot twists. . . .

Review: I read Julieta and the Romeos the same time as I was reading a heavy tome for work and it was the perfect brain break. The story was engaging and fun, with a little mystery, and a whole lot of “will they/won’t they” thrown in. Maria Andreau wove a number of romantic tropes together that made me question which boy was really going to be endgame. I absolutely loved this aspect of the story because it made me be in the moment with Julieta as she tried to figure out which boy was Happily Ever Drafter and which one to really date. 

Julieta’s confusion, no indecision, about which boy she wanted to be with made her somewhat of an unreliable narrator but not in the annoying sense. It was because she was so convinced that one of the “suitors” was the mysterious Happily Ever Drafter that each interaction with her “Romeos” was experienced from that lens. Sometimes this made for hilarious interactions and sometimes I was just frustrated with her character, especially when it was revealed who the mysterious writer was. But then again, Julieta is a teenager and they are often unreliable narrators for their own stories. 

On the flip side of the story, Julieta was really using this mystery as a distraction from all the other drama in her life. Her parent’s restaurant survived COVID, but was on the brink of closing and she was taken up their stress. Julieta idolized her parents and their marriage, so to see both struggling really challenged her world view so to compensate she threw herself into the mystery of the writer and which “Romeo” it could be. I felt that for Julieta as sometimes when life is challenging, it’s the fun little quests that don’t mean much in the end that helps us get through. 

Lastly, this was the first book, for me, that really dealt with our lives during COVID and the after effects we are still experiencing. Julieta’s abuela doesn’t outright state that Julieta’s grandfather died of COVID, just regrets that her last words to him were something silly over the phone from a nurse holding the phone to him. That one line was a gut punch and really grounded the story in the here and now for me. Julieta references the “zoom year” many times and how her parents really struggled to keep their store open during the lockdown. The tone that Andreu used towards COVID was beautiful in that she acknowledged this trauma event that the world experienced and how our lives have been forever altered. 

Julieta and the Romeos was a perfect summer read that had a lot of heart, fun, and romance. It balanced a number of deeper issues skillfully while having a soft sense of whimsy at summer love.

[ozma914]

Haunted by a Haunted Book Project

 Well, I finally finished the first draft of Haunted Noble County, Indiana, which is all well and good, but would be better if the whole thing was done.

Especially after a year. A whole year.

I love researching, and I love history. I'm not a big fan of doing interviews, being what they used to call shy, and then antisocial, and now call introverted. (I'm sure there are differences between the three, but I don't like asking people.) Still, the interviewing hasn't taken as long as I thought, and the researching has taken way longer, so I can't complain.

What I can complain about are the numerous delays in the project that had nothing to do with the project. Don't get me started on Covid.

This is the face of Covid. It's pretty much the same as my tired face, except with a fever.

Anyway, my goal was to be finished by April, and it's now June. I still haven't added photos, or even captioned the photos. I don't have the project finished enough for Emily to go through and show me all the mistakes I've made. I haven't heard back from some of the people I reached out to, which is understandable because they probably haven't heard back from me since August of last year.

As a result, sadly, once again, I have no one to blame but myself. And Covid. Hey, the Chinese planned this whole pandemic to delay my writing career!

No? No, I guess not.

History! Photographed by John A. Harkless, who was responsible for many now-historical Albion photos.

This is the part where I apologize to everyone--and yes, I mean you--who I may have forgotten to get back in touch with in the past year. If anyone reads this who had a story, photograph or other information for me and may have gotten lost along the way, please contact me here, or on the book of faces, or wherever discerning patrons of history may haunt. Yes, I am trying to wrap it up, but there's still time to throw in more information.

On a related note, for anyone I have talked to, please let me know if it's okay to use your name in the book (if you haven't already said). If I made contact with someone but didn't get consent to use their name, they'll go down in Noble County history as "anonymous". After that, if you sign anything you have to remember how to spell anonymous, and no one wants that.

Finally, yes, the project has been pushed back, almost certainly until next year. The traditional publishing industry is a lot of things, some good and some bad, but above all else the wheels grind slowly.

The original Ligonier City Jail. Very cool, especially if you got stuck there during winter.

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

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Remember: Ghost are always looking for new books to read over your shoulder.

[didanawisgi]

I came across this on Facebook and decided to go ahead and share it, I do not know the author. If you do, feel free to share. - REGIII

Surviving the Great Reset

I've been working on an article on the World Economic Forum's 'Great Reset' which is an attempt to collapse the current economy in order to then offer a 'solution' in the form of a high-tech, neo-feudal world government - with 'Carbon pricing' cast in the role of the late Caesar Diocletian's Edicts (on maximum prices), being the economic policies responsible for the last 'Dark Age'.

Historically, the only thing that has proven capable of bringing about a wholesale restructuring of a sophisticated economy, is war. Hence all the 'war footing' rhetoric around climate/ covid, the nauseating Churchill impressions and infringements of our civil rights heretofore unheard of in peace-times. Nuclear weapons have made war against another advanced nation very unlikely (see, M.A.D.); that said, expect to hear much rhetoric to the contrary, from our compromised 'Global Leaders'. For this reason, various 'crises' must instead be engineered and propagated into the public mind so that they can be politically exploited, in much of the same way as war historically has been.

I'm unsure when I'll get around to publishing, and so I've decided to post draft 'bits' of the final chapters on how to survive what's coming - for reasons I hope are self-evident at this point.

As some of you know, throughout my early-mid 20s I was an active part in a nation-wide resurgence of land-rights campaigns, using 'direct action' tactics like squatting land, to draw attention to the socially intolerable and economically inefficient concentrations of land in this country; whilst promoting low-impact, human-scale alternatives to the prevailing economic 'wisdom' of land, as a store of wealth - a legacy of the Norman conquest.

During this time I spent three British winters living outdoors in simple structures (benders, yurts) many of which we built ourselves. Back then, and over the decade that followed I spent much of my time studying wild foods and nutrition, it was more than just a hobby. I once attempted to live solely on what I could forage or otherwise 'acquire' ;) from the forest - I didn't last long. Surviving without the conveniences of modern life is a steep learning curve and one which many of you may be forced to climb over the coming years, as the controlled-demolition of the current economic model really starts to get underway. I heard someone say that 2020 was "like 9/11, every day" - but trust me when I say, you ain't seen nothing yet!

So when the lights go out, the taps/ pumps run dry and supermarket shelves are as barren as England's once fertile soils. What then? I mean, aside from the contrived 'solutions' the emerging World State will be oh-so keen to present us with, as if that wasn't the plan all along...

Well, I'll tell you what but first, here's the top three (natural) ways you're likely to perish in such a world.

Warmth (hypothermia can kill you cold, in around 3 hours)

Water (dehydration or water-born disease - around three days)

Food (three weeks before you're looking at irreparable damage)

Now, with those priorities firmly in your head - here are the things that might keep you alive...

WARMTH

Wearing woollen clothing rather than cotton/ nylon, may well save your life. Wool, unlike cotton, will keep you warm and even when it's wet. Cotton is not only a poor insulator, but the cooling effect caused by water rapidly evaporating from its fibres can and does kill. Honestly, I know it sounds silly but in a world without central heating our ancestors depended upon wool to keep themselves warm. Cotton or synthetic clothing, will not do the same.

Get a log burner. Depending on the National Grid to keep you alive, is not a good option these days! If you are unable to have a log burner where you live currently, consider stocking up on gas bottles as a temporary solution, to allow you to cook and keep warm for long enough to find an alternative; and realistically, when the grid goes down, no-one is going to care about you running a chimney out of your top-floor apartment window. Just make sure to get what you need to be self-sufficient, now! How are you going to stay warm without electric or gas? Have a plan. Prepare.

Fire-starters are essential, keep well stocked in a wide range. Have short, medium and long-term options.

Short term: disposable lighters; safety matches (last longer than strike-anywhere in my experience)

Medium term: petrol lights + flints + a jerrycan (or ten) of fuel

Long term: ferrocerium rods; flint/ steel; and finally bow drills (Ivy for the base, Buddleia for the shaft), char cotton cloth for an effective tinder.

WATER

We're very lucky in the Forest, likewise Wales has many springs that can be relied upon for drinking water. Look for signs of 'adaptation', large stones intentionally placed near the source is a good sign that the water has been used in the past. Of course, be wary of potential sources of contamination from either agricultural or industrial run-off, especially up-land from the source. Ceramic filters are inexpensive, the branded 'water dispensers' are not, buy ten filters rather than a 'dispenser' and rig-up an old demijon or plastic jerry-can to act as the filter housing. Filters clog, so stock up. Charcoal (wood burnt in a low-oxygen environ, i.e. in a metal tin with a tiny hole) filters heavy metals, nitrates, other chemicals.

FOOD

There is a word in the English language that is a bar against all hunger, a remedy for the worst depredations of poverty and a great leveller of inequality; it is by this word that soil and all life that walks upon it is nourished and sustained.

... and that word is: ruminant.

Ruminants are how you will survive long term, whilst avoiding futile efforts like trying to grow enough calories to survive without mechanised agriculture. Sorry veggies, but without coconut-oil colonialism, ruminants are the only thing that stand between you and certain starvation.

Our ancestral Forester's knew this all too well, which is why they were resolute in their defence of our ancient Commoning Rights, to graze sheep and other animals in the 'Forest Waste'. No matter how oppressive the economic/ political conditions of the day, with a few dozen sheep you can survive.

For the vast majority of our time on this planet (i.e. the 99.999% of our history before mass-transportation and industrial agriculture) human life in Northern climes has been entirely dependant upon the ability of ruminants (sheep, cows, deer) to convert grass (cellulose) into Omega-3 essential fatty acids, proteins and bioavailable vitamins and minerals. Nature will thrash your ideologically-driven dietary compulsions, every time. Do not fight it.

In terms of energy expended to digestible calories produced, sheep and cows are the most efficient source of food by orders of magnitude.

Metabolic history.

We are said to have been 'recognisable' bi-pedal hominids for some 2.7 - 3 million years, and throughout this time our diets consisted primarily of wild game, fish/ crustaceans along with some fruit in summer and nuts/ roots in autumn. You can think of the fruit and nuts as 'supplements', sugars that provide calories which your body preferentially burns, allowing you to store the more important fats (from game), in preparation for winter. Bearing in mind most of this time we've been in an Ice Age and so fruits and nuts were an occasional treat. Not a staple food. In terms of our calorific staple, i.e. the fuel that we use to power our bodies day-in, day-out - high-quality dietary fats are quite literally the only game in town.

Sugar/ carb based foods are rare in nature, that is why we didn't evolve an hormonal 'off-switch' (like ghrelin) to tell us when we've eaten enough sugar. For millions of years our bodies have evolved to rely on fats, specifically Omega-3's as our primary source of fuel. It's slow burning, and once you've adapted your body to efficiently metabolise and use Omega-3s as your primary calorific fuel, a single meal will provide you enough energy for 3 days of solid hiking. Carbs on the other hand are fast burning, low-energy density and that is why people must constantly snack to maintain blood-sugar levels.

Relying on easily available carbs is not a luxury you can afford, and adapting yourself to a ketogenic diet (burning fat for fuel) is arguably the most effective thing you can do to stay healthy now, and to prepare for the real world (without Govt subsidised, nutritionally inferior grain-based junk foods). There is no dietary requirement for carbohydrates - none. On the other hand, without a source of Omega-3 ESSENTIAL fatty acids, you will not survive long. Unless you're near the sea, ruminants are your only option for getting the necessary fats. Now...

"Get theeself zum ship, lad... afore it be too late!"

[arcticdementor]

Imagine that the US was competing in a space race with some third world country, say Zambia, for whatever reason. Americans of course would have orders of magnitude more money to throw at the problem, and the most respected aerospace engineers in the world, with degrees from the best universities and publications in the top journals. Zambia would have none of this. What should our reaction be if, after a decade, Zambia had made more progress?

Obviously, it would call into question the entire field of aerospace engineering. What good were all those Google Scholar pages filled with thousands of citations, all the knowledge gained from our labs and universities, if Western science gets outcompeted by the third world?

For all that has been said about Afghanistan, no one has noticed that this is precisely what just happened to political science. The American-led coalition had countless experts with backgrounds pertaining to every part of the mission on their side: people who had done their dissertations on topics like state building, terrorism, military-civilian relations, and gender in the military. General David Petraeus, who helped sell Obama on the troop surge that made everything in Afghanistan worse, earned a PhD from Princeton and was supposedly an expert in “counterinsurgency theory.” Ashraf Ghani, the just deposed president of the country, has a PhD in anthropology from Columbia and is the co-author of a book literally called Fixing Failed States. This was his territory. It’s as if Wernher von Braun had been given all the resources in the world to run a space program and had been beaten to the moon by an African witch doctor.

…

Phil Tetlock’s work on experts is one of those things that gets a lot of attention, but still manages to be underrated. In his 2005 Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?, he found that the forecasting abilities of subject-matter experts were no better than educated laymen when it came to predicting geopolitical events and economic outcomes. As Bryan Caplan points out, we shouldn’t exaggerate the results here and provide too much fodder for populists; the questions asked were chosen for their difficulty, and the experts were being compared to laymen who nonetheless had met some threshold of education and competence.

At the same time, we shouldn’t put too little emphasis on the results either. They show that “expertise” as we understand it is largely fake. Should you listen to epidemiologists or economists when it comes to COVID-19? Conventional wisdom says “trust the experts.” The lesson of Tetlock (and the Afghanistan War), is that while you certainly shouldn’t be getting all your information from your uncle’s Facebook Wall, there is no reason to start with a strong prior that people with medical degrees know more than any intelligent person who honestly looks at the available data.

…

I think one of the most interesting articles of the COVID era was a piece called “Beware of Facts Man” by Annie Lowrey, published in The Atlantic.

…

The reaction to this piece was something along the lines of “ha ha, look at this liberal who hates facts.” But there’s a serious argument under the snark, and it’s that you should trust credentials over Facts Man and his amateurish takes. In recent days, a 2019 paper on “Epistemic Trespassing” has been making the rounds on Twitter. The theory that specialization is important is not on its face absurd, and probably strikes most people as natural. In the hard sciences and other places where social desirability bias and partisanship have less of a role to play, it’s probably a safe assumption. In fact, academia is in many ways premised on the idea, as we have experts in “labor economics,” “state capacity,” “epidemiology,” etc. instead of just having a world where we select the smartest people and tell them to work on the most important questions.

But what Tetlock did was test this hypothesis directly in the social sciences, and he found that subject-matter experts and Facts Man basically tied.

…

Interestingly, one of the best defenses of “Facts Man” during the COVID era was written by Annie Lowrey’s husband, Ezra Klein. His April 2021 piece in The New York Times showed how economist Alex Tabarrok had consistently disagreed with the medical establishment throughout the pandemic, and was always right. You have the “Credentials vs. Facts Man” debate within one elite media couple. If this was a movie they would’ve switched the genders, but since this is real life, stereotypes are confirmed and the husband and wife take the positions you would expect.

…

In the end, I don’t think my dissertation contributed much to human knowledge, making it no different than the vast majority of dissertations that have been written throughout history. The main reason is that most of the time public opinion doesn’t really matter in foreign policy. People generally aren’t paying attention, and the vast majority of decisions are made out of public sight. How many Americans know or care that North Macedonia and Montenegro joined NATO in the last few years? Most of the time, elites do what they want, influenced by their own ideological commitments and powerful lobby groups. In times of crisis, when people do pay attention, they can be manipulated pretty easily by the media or other partisan sources.

If public opinion doesn’t matter in foreign policy, why is there so much study of public opinion and foreign policy? There’s a saying in academia that “instead of measuring what we value, we value what we can measure.” It’s easy to do public opinion polls and survey experiments, as you can derive a hypothesis, get an answer, and make it look sciency in charts and graphs. To show that your results have relevance to the real world, you cite some papers that supposedly find that public opinion matters, maybe including one based on a regression showing that under very specific conditions foreign policy determined the results of an election, and maybe it’s well done and maybe not, but again, as long as you put the words together and the citations in the right format nobody has time to check any of this. The people conducting peer review on your work will be those who have already decided to study the topic, so you couldn’t find a more biased referee if you tried.

Thus, to be an IR scholar, the two main options are you can either use statistical methods that don’t work, or actually find answers to questions, but those questions are so narrow that they have no real world impact or relevance. A smaller portion of academics in the field just produce postmodern-generator style garbage, hence “feminist theories of IR.” You can also build game theoretic models that, like the statistical work in the field, are based on a thousand assumptions that are probably false and no one will ever check. The older tradition of Kennan and Mearsheimer is better and more accessible than what has come lately, but the field is moving away from that and, like a lot of things, towards scientism and identity politics.

…

At some point, I decided that if I wanted to study and understand important questions, and do so in a way that was accessible to others, I’d have a better chance outside of the academy. Sometimes people thinking about an academic career reach out to me, and ask for advice. For people who want to go into the social sciences, I always tell them not to do it. If you have something to say, take it to Substack, or CSPI, or whatever. If it’s actually important and interesting enough to get anyone’s attention, you’ll be able to find funding.

If you think your topic of interest is too esoteric to find an audience, know that my friend Razib Khan, who writes about the Mongol empire, Y-chromosomes and haplotypes and such, makes a living doing this. If you want to be an experimental physicist, this advice probably doesn’t apply, and you need lab mates, major funding sources, etc. If you just want to collect and analyze data in a way that can be done without institutional support, run away from the university system.

The main problem with academia is not just the political bias, although that’s another reason to do something else with your life. It’s the entire concept of specialization, which holds that you need some secret tools or methods to understand what we call “political science” or “sociology,” and that these fields have boundaries between them that should be respected in the first place. Quantitative methods are helpful and can be applied widely, but in learning stats there are steep diminishing returns.

…

Outside of political science, are there other fields that have their own equivalents of “African witch doctor beats von Braun to the moon” or “the Taliban beats the State Department and the Pentagon” facts to explain? Yes, and here are just a few examples.

Consider criminology. More people are studying how to keep us safe from other humans than at any other point in history. But here’s the US murder rate between 1960 and 2018, not including the large uptick since then.

So basically, after a rough couple of decades, we’re back to where we were in 1960. But we’re actually much worse, because improvements in medical technology are keeping a lot of people that would’ve died 60 years ago alive. One paper from 2002 says that the murder rate would be 5 times higher if not for medical developments since 1960. I don’t know how much to trust this, but it’s surely true that we’ve made some medical progress since that time, and doctors have been getting a lot of experience from all the shooting victims they have treated over the decades. Moreover, we’re much richer than we were in 1960, and I’m sure spending on public safety has increased. With all that, we are now about tied with where we were almost three-quarters of a century ago, a massive failure.

What about psychology? As of 2016, there were 106,000 licensed psychologists in the US. I wish I could find data to compare to previous eras, but I don’t think anyone will argue against the idea that we have more mental health professionals and research psychologists than ever before. Are we getting mentally healthier? Here’s suicides in the US from 1981 to 2016

…

What about education? I’ll just defer to Freddie deBoer’s recent post on the topic, and Scott Alexander on how absurd the whole thing is.

Maybe there have been larger cultural and economic forces that it would be unfair to blame criminology, psychology, and education for. Despite no evidence we’re getting better at fighting crime, curing mental problems, or educating children, maybe other things have happened that have outweighed our gains in knowledge. Perhaps the experts are holding up the world on their shoulders, and if we hadn’t produced so many specialists over the years, thrown so much money at them, and gotten them to produce so many peer reviews papers, we’d see Middle Ages-levels of violence all across the country and no longer even be able to teach children to read. Like an Ayn Rand novel, if you just replaced the business tycoons with those whose work has withstood peer review.

Or you can just assume that expertise in these fields is fake. Even if there are some people doing good work, either they are outnumbered by those adding nothing or even subtracting from what we know, or our newly gained understanding is not being translated into better policies. Considering the extent to which government relies on experts, if the experts with power are doing things that are not defensible given the consensus in their fields, the larger community should make this known and shun those who are getting the policy questions so wrong. As in the case of the Afghanistan War, this has not happened, and those who fail in the policy world are still well regarded in their larger intellectual community.

…

Those opposed to cancel culture have taken up the mantle of “intellectual diversity” as a heuristic, but there’s nothing valuable about the concept itself. When I look at the people I’ve come to trust, they are diverse on some measures, but extremely homogenous on others. IQ and sensitivity to cost-benefit considerations seem to me to be unambiguous goods in figuring out what is true or what should be done in a policy area. You don’t add much to your understanding of the world by finding those with low IQs who can’t do cost-benefit analysis and adding them to the conversation.

One of the clearest examples of bias in academia and how intellectual diversity can make the conversation better is the work of Lee Jussim on stereotypes. Basically, a bunch of liberal academics went around saying “Conservatives believe in differences between groups, isn’t that terrible!” Lee Jussim, as someone who is relatively moderate, came along and said “Hey, let’s check to see whether they’re true!” This story is now used to make the case for intellectual diversity in the social sciences.

Yet it seems to me that isn’t the real lesson here. Imagine if, instead of Jussim coming forward and asking whether stereotypes are accurate, Osama bin Laden had decided to become a psychologist. He’d say “The problem with your research on stereotypes is that you do not praise Allah the all merciful at the beginning of all your papers.” If you added more feminist voices, they’d say something like “This research is problematic because it’s all done by men.” Neither of these perspectives contributes all that much. You’ve made the conversation more diverse, but dumber. The problem with psychology was a very specific one, in that liberals are particularly bad at recognizing obvious facts about race and sex. So yes, in that case the field could use more conservatives, not “more intellectual diversity,” which could just as easily make the field worse as make it better. And just because political psychology could use more conservative representation when discussing stereotypes doesn’t mean those on the right always add to the discussion rather than subtract from it. As many religious Republicans oppose the idea of evolution, we don’t need the “conservative” position to come and help add a new perspective to biology.

The upshot is intellectual diversity is a red herring, usually a thinly-veiled plea for more conservatives. Nobody is arguing for more Islamists, Nazis, or flat earthers in academia, and for good reason. People should just be honest about the ways in which liberals are wrong and leave it at that.

…

The failure in Afghanistan was mind-boggling. Perhaps never in the history of warfare had there been such a resource disparity between two sides, and the US-backed government couldn’t even last through the end of the American withdrawal. One can choose to understand this failure through a broad or narrow lens. Does it only tell us something about one particular war or is it a larger indictment of American foreign policy?

The main argument of this essay is we’re not thinking big enough. The American loss should be seen as a complete discrediting of the academic understanding of “expertise,” with its reliance on narrowly focused peer reviewed publications and subject matter knowledge as the way to understand the world. Although I don’t develop the argument here, I think I could make the case that expertise isn’t just fake, it actually makes you worse off because it gives you a higher level of certainty in your own wishful thinking. The Taliban probably did better by focusing their intellectual energies on interpreting the Holy Quran and taking a pragmatic approach to how they fought the war rather than proceeding with a prepackaged theory of how to engage in nation building, which for the West conveniently involved importing its own institutions.

A discussion of the practical implications of all this, or how we move from a world of specialization to one with better elites, is also for another day. For now, I’ll just emphasize that for those thinking of choosing an academic career to make universities or the peer review system function better, my advice is don’t. The conversation is much more interesting, meaningful, and oriented towards finding truth here on the outside.

[jackalgirl]

Archive.org (the Brouhaha, recapped)

There’s been a post going around about archive.org, and a suit against it by four large publishers.  And there’s a lot -- I mean a lot -- of hyperbole going on about it.

I had a very constructive conversation here with @helenisfair (I had in fact bought into some of that hyperbole) and wanted to recap what I learned so far (I have more research to do).  Be warned: it is very long.

Claim #1: the Internet Archive scans copyrighted books and makes them available to everyone, which is illegal and robs publishers of revenue, and if the publishers are robbed of revenue, so are the authors.  Ergo, the Internet Archives is pirating authors’ works.

This claim plays on what it means to “make available,” and is strongly implying that this means unlimited digital copies of a physical book available for anyone to download and possess, always and forever.  It would be like me buying a book, then making 10 photocopies of it, and giving those photocopies to my friends (or worse, selling them).

This is not really true (but in the case of the lawsuit, it is kinda true, see below).

The Internet Archive claims to function like a library.  What this means is that, like a library, it buys or acquires (e.g., by donation) books.  It does scan them and make them available online, and this does include books that are under copyright.  Now here’s the part I don’t know yet: I don’t know if the Archive has a brick-and-mortar location where you can go and check out physical books.  I am operating under the pretense (for the moment until I know for sure) that it does not.  Therefore (again, I presume), it is not possible for the physical copy of a book and its digital copy to be loaned out at the same time.

Once the Archive has this scanned copy, it lends that copy out to readers using something called “Controlled Digital Lending”.  For example: if you have an IA account, you can “check out” the scanned copy into your account’s loan list for one or 14 days.  You can then read this book online, via web-enabled reading.  You can return it at any time, or, once your lending time is up, the file is released from your loan list and is now available for someone else to check out.

It is also possible, if you have the proper Adobe application, to download an encrypted ePub or ereader version of the book.  This allows people manipulate the display more appropriately for their needs.  I think that the function of this Adobe software is the same thing as the web-reader: after the loan time, it removes the file from your device and (presumably) notifies the IA that the book is free to check out again.  (I say “think” and “presumably” because I have not yet researched how the actual mechanics of this software work.)

The function of this is to ensure that extra copies of the book are not generated: one digital copy per physical book in the possession of the Archive (unless the book is no longer under copyright, that is), available to one person at a time.  So, under the “lending libraries should be allowed” presumption: no revenue is being lost, no author is losing money.

Claim #2: The Internet Archive is doing exactly what libraries do with their eBooks!

Well, no.  As I understand it, libraries license the digital copies of books from the publishers.  So they do pay.  What they get for paying is a number of digital copies that they can lend out that way -- entirely separate from any physical copies in their collection.

Claim #3: The Internet Archive made unlimited copies of millions of books under copyright available, and that’s why they’re being sued.

Well, actually the lawsuit only alleges 127 specific titles, to the “millions of books!” statement is an example of that hyperbole I mentioned earlier.  But if you’re a fan of writers being compensated for their work (which I am), it’s not the quantity of books being “stolen” that is an issue.  It’s the fact that unauthorized copies were available which could have, if they had been authorized, generated income for the original authors (or their estates).

And note my earlier statement about the idea of “copy”.  It was not unlimited copies, as in “files I can download to my computer and have forever”.  It was “multiple people potentially accessing the same digital copy of a physical book.”

So what actually did happen?

Well, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many libraries were closed -- or otherwise inaccessible to people with health limitations and/or concerns.  People were trapped at home, with no access to libraries.  So what the Internet Archive did was remove the 1:1 lending limitation for books in their library, calling it the “National Emergency Library” (it’s still not 100% clear to me whether this was all of the books in their holdings, or just some of them).  This meant that for every physical copy of a book, there could theoretically be an unlimited number of digital copies checked out at one time (again, though, no one would get to keep their copy).

Apparently, the Archive had an “opt-out” option, wherein a publisher could notify the Archive that they didn’t want a book included in the “National Emergency Library” offering.  I don’t know if the publishers could say “nothing from us”, or whether they’d have to fill out the “opt-out” form or whatever for each individual title.

Personally, and this is just me here, I do not particularly like “opt-out” options.  If I’m going to take something from you, or collect something from you, or otherwise benefit from you, I think it is fundamentally shady for me to just start doing it and saying “but you can always opt out if you jump through these hoops”.  I think the Archive would have been better served by sending notification to the publishers that they were going to do this thing for the benefit of people during this emergency, and ask them to opt-in, and not "unlocked” the affected books under copyright until they had done so.

Anyway, the publishers (Hachette, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Wiley, for the record) filed suit against the Archive for copyright infringement, at which point the Archive stopped the “National Emergency Library”.  As of this writing, the Internet Archive is back to what it was: 1:1 lending of the digital copy of a physical book in its possession (I think).

Claim #3: The Internet Archive did nothing wrong -- all of this is covered under “Fair Use”

That’s what IA is claiming in its response to the lawsuit.  However, this may not be a very strong argument.  The Mass Law Blog provides an analysis of this argument and concludes that the claim fails to meet most of the required prongs, or elements, of Fair Use doctrine (again many thanks to @helenisfair, who provided the link to this article).

Claim #4: By suing the Internet Archive, these publishers are trying to bring an end to the lending of books!

This is a claim made indirectly -- by refutation -- on the IA’s blog: “Copyright Expert on Publishers Lawsuit: 'The idea that lending a book is illegal is just wrong'”. Well, I can imagine a world in which publishers would, indeed, prefer to be paid for every time the contents of a book entered a reader’s brain.  However, it’s my understanding this lawsuit is much more narrow -- it’s about unauthorized copies, which (if correct) would make this claim is a strawman.

Claim #5: This lawsuit will utterly destroy the Archive, and thus remove a lot of material from being available, including its archive of US political shenanigans (particularly from 2016-2020), which if lost, will impact people’s ability to fact-check said shenanigans.

This may very well be true, and it’s a concern. There is a lot of material there that would benefit future historians (or any current people who are interested in fact-checking and primary research), and to lose it would be a tremendous loss (though it would absolutely benefit certain persons’ ability to continue to create “alternate truth”).

End conclusion: I personally think that, if multiple people had access to the same digital scan of a copyrighted book during the National Emergency Library period that yes, the IA did infringe on the copyright, and they absolutely should be held accountable.  I do not feel that the ends (helping out people during the pandemic) justified the means (essentially stealing from publishers and, by extension, the authors).  I feel all of this could have been avoided via an opt-in system.  I am also perturbed and annoyed by the hyperbole being utilized by the Internet Archive itself -- it has the feeling of handwaving, slippery-slope, and catastrophic-thinking arguments, to distract people from the issue at hand: did the Internet Archive make unauthorized copies of books available to its users?

I hope that the Archive can settle with the publishers for any actual copyright infringements that occurred, if they occurred.  I think we’ll have to wait for discovery to find out how many of the 127 titles were checked out by more than one person at a time during the “National Emergency Library”, but even one infringement could be pretty hefty (see the Mass Law Blog article for penalties).  

I personally feel that the Archive is incredibly useful, especially because it gives me the ability to access some very old manuscripts, and also books that -- while still in copyright -- still haven’t been digitized by their publishers.  For example: “The Architect of Sleep”, by Stephen R. Boyett, is an absolutely excellent book about a guy who falls through some kind of multi-words rift and ends up in a Florida in which the dominant, sentient form of life is a bunch of really large, upright-walking, sign-language-using raccoons.  This sounds like an absolutely ridiculous premise, but dear reader, the book is fantastic and well worth the read.  It is also out of print, not available as an eBook, and is contained within the collection of the Internet Archive, so if I have intrigued you but you don’t want to pay for a used copy, you can go check it out online.

Likewise, I’d really like it if the ability to access the Wayback Machine, and also to fact check shenanigans, were as readily available in the future as they are now.  In short, I would hate to lose the Internet Archive, and will continue to support them (provisionally; I sure hope they don’t try to pull another “opt-out” stunt in the future).  If you’d like to do so as well, there’s a donate button on their main website at archive.org.

[luvdsc]

Hey Cat!! I hope you're doing well as always ! 💖 AHHHH huhu I closed the form last Sunday since I've collected enough responses dy! (NOOOOOOOO ToT) I got a total of 221 responses at the end of the week, which is 3x the amount I initially needed! :o I'm beyond grateful and appreciative ToT I've cleaned the data and have proceeded to run some data analysis, but I ran into an issue whereby the scores on the subscales are equal (it has never been reported in past studies! :O) so I'm waiting for my supervisor's feedback on how to proceed. Hopefully it's nothing too serious ToT

Hehe finance is interesting indeed! I just started reading a book on finance for young adults (Rich Dad Poor Dad) and I look forward to learning more from the author's tips! The Coursera introductory course has also made financial terms a lil more familiar, even though it's just the basics and it's really helped w my financial literacy 🥺 I can push myself to study but it's also the numbers and calculations I'm worried of cuz I am rly a nong (idiot) when it comes to numbers * - * it runs in the genes I guess AHAHAHAHA my mom and sister aren't good at numbers either keke

Aww I'm glad yr professor made financial accounting enjoyable and a fruitful experience for you! Some lecturers / professors rly just have that spark in them to inspire ppl and I'm blessed to be surrounded by a bunch of em in the psych department!🥺😭 it truly makes a difference and I'm sure we both are living proofs of that!

After debating for a while, I've decided not to take a minor mainly because I'm so tired HAHAHAHAHAHA and I'll just do my own self-studying and exploration whilst working! Go out and explore the world, live life! Whilst ironically still staying in my room because of the COVID-19 situation in our country (cases are abt 20+k every day :') ) My proposal has been finalized and it's been accepted! It's just that some elements of my proposal is also part of my actual report, so I have some guidance to refer to in terms of structure! :3 and yes don't worry! I got plenty (sometimes a lil too much) rest during the sem break whilst remaining productive! Plus, I got to catch up w some friends and had game nights (maybe too much of game nights hehe) and movie nights w my friends which was truly refreshing! Also cuz I might not see a lot of them again after we graduate so we gotta cherish every moment 🥺😭

I'm a freelance graphic designer for my uni's newsletter! Occasionally, they'd ask us to create both the content and design! I'll place the link to my recent work below if you wanna check it out! UwU I'm trying to incorporate the same practices during sem break in my last sem (current sem) too! cuz yes mental health is so so important and I'm just tired of being academically tired you get me? :(

What makes me most trilled abt learning abt psychology is how to apply it in daily life too! I find it so fascinating and awestruck at how relatable and within reach these things are like wow we can be influenced in such ways?? :o can be both good and bad but imma stick w seeing it as the development and evolution of us humans UwU

Also, the vaccine has fixed my sleep schedule HEHE (another perk of getting vaccination :3) I got some rly good rest and managed to reset my usual sleeping time, thank you science ToT oooo I see I see, we've had cases of nurses injecting empty syringes hence the recording :( but GHIOGHWEOGIOHW I could never do that, I can feel the liquid entering me as it is so that's good enough ToT (* plays Love Talk * I can feel it coming)

OMG YOUR ART PIECES ARE SO BEAUTIFUL, ADORABLE AND ELEGANT! 💖🥺🥰 it must've required a lot of hard-work and effort AHHH thankiew for showing me yr work!! it's truly unique in its own manner despite it's simplicity UwU is there a reason or backstory to yr chosen theme and objects? :3

I just Googled Somi Somi and omg that's such an UwU ice cream AHHHH 💖🥺😭 ice cream is my fav food of all time and it looks like an ice cream haven omg imagine eating it after a loooong hard day's of work ToT and OMG THE SATISFACTION OF EATING THAI MILK TEA ICE CREAM ON A HOT DAY YASSS 😋🤤 hehe if you get the chance to try milk & biscoff, do try it! It's amazing !😍 and ooo i haven't tried alcoholic ice cream before but I will one day!! :3 my alcohol tolerance is rly low though, will I get tipsy over alcoholic ice cream? We shall see UwU (i can only drink half a bottle of apple cider before my face gets red and I start getting a lil tipsy + headache)

and lovie....knowing yr school schedule now...OURS IS DEFINTELY BRUTAL OMG a 3 month long sem break huhu that's only the total amount of sem breaks we get in a year ToT i thought uni was hard but not that hard ToT

Always glad and honored to have you onboard! and AHAHAHAH the contractions about to start soon 👀 I enjoy talking to you huhu you're such a sweet and supportive person 💖🥺🥰😙 huhu for my period cramps, I've been having them since I was 12 ToT my doctor prescribed me some panadols but sometimes I can't even swallow them cuz I'd puke them out ToT I've settled w heatpacks to reduce my reliance on medicine, but I finally got some upgraded and safe to eat medicine from my gynae! She said it's fine to take it every month to keep my womb healthy and apparently my ms. lil uterus is suffering from inflammation, hence the super crazy bedridden cramps :( the upgraded medicine worked for a while, but after time it kinda didn't help either :/ but I realised that exercise rly does wonders to reduce the cramp too (gynae also recommended exercising) so i take walks and do my back stretches more frequently now! my period in the previous months (2 months ago) have been almost painless and bearable, it's so weird not seeing my bedridden ._. when I was in high school, there would always be a day in every month in which I don't attend classes, and that's solely because of my cramps. It just isn't worth suffering in school, plus we don't have a sick room :/ I hope the pain continues to subside! ToT

And ayy internship is also working experience, yr advice would be of great help to me regardless! 🥺 oh yes, I always remind myself that interviews are similar to the speaking test I took for my Cambridge English exams! That kinda help calm my nerves down a lil, but w nerves comes bigger smiles, so I guess it takes on a rather practical form of coping mechanism (sublimation) AHAHAHAHA

WAAAA WHAT A QUEEN you got an offer from every interview?? I aspire to be like you! 💖🥺🥰 huhu skill wise I believe I have lots to prepare esp in terms of case studies, and I perform rly poorly on certain assessments (*ehem * esp those concerning numbers) so I took the chance to study a lil during sem break too ToT but noted on that! I will work on that too and try to maintain that me element in interviews and overall just be myself keke

That's all from me for now! Imma wait for my supervisor's feedback and journey on w my last semester. Bon voyage! Link to my recent work: https://www.instagram.com/p/CTBqGzjr6sN/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link Other works: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPpv-IyM7Gi/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link https://www.instagram.com/p/CL55EG-MbL2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

hi hello honey bee !!! 💓 omg i'm so sorry for the belated response, i finally got on my laptop 😭 i'm gonna put my response under the cut since it got a little long 🤧

omg 221 responses !!!!! that's so many 🙀 congratulations aaaaa it's amazing that you were able to get 3x the data you needed !!! was it difficult to run data analysis? were you able to solve the issue with the equal scores on the subscales? i hope it didn't create too much additional work for you ):

omg yes finance is really interesting! i enjoyed the classes i took for it :') how is rich dad poor dad? did you learn a lot from it? i know it was a book my prof recommended, but i never got around to reading it 😶 did you learn any helpful tips? and ooo i'll have to look into coursera! yeah, there's quite a lot of terms for finance, and it can be a little intimidating paired with all the math formulas and such, but it's pretty useful imo! how are your financial studies going so far? 💕 omg nong is such a cute word?? i would never think it meant idiot asdkfhlkajsdf omg my whole family is good at numbers and really like math, but i didn't like it 😭 my mom made me study it a lot everyday though rip are the financial calculations getting easier for you as you practice more hopefully?

yessss omg i absolutely agree with this!!!! like you can just feel when a professor loves to teach and is genuinely so excited to talk about their subject, and it just makes the most boring horrible subject into something you learn to enjoy and hate less :') and i'm really happy to hear you have tons of professors like that in the psych department 🥺💗

that's great to hear!!!! 🌷🌷 i'm glad that you're prioritizing yourself and your health, which is so much more important than taking on a minor. what fun subjects have you decided to explore and self study so far? 💞 oh my gosh, the rising cases are so high?? i hope it's gotten better there for you ): are you able to go outside yet?

big congratulations on your proposal being finalized and accepted, lovebug !!!! 🥳🥳 i'm very proud of you and hoping one day i can read your published studies in a scientific journal :') aaaa i'm so glad to hear that you got to rest and enjoy your time with your friends!! i definitely feel that omg i regret all the times i skipped out on movie nights or game nights with my friends because now we're all scattered across the country and the only way we can have them again is over zoom calls 🤧

I SAW YOUR DESIGNS AND THEY'RE GORGEOUS OMG I LOVE THEM SO MUCH !!!! 💖 I'M IN AWE AAAA IF PSYCH DOESN'T WORK OUT, I HOPE YOU BECOME A GRAPHIC DESIGNER 🤩🤩💖 and yes i totally get it ): i really felt the academic burn out when i was in college and it was really difficult at times 🤧 but i hope it's going better for you nowadays, sweetpea 💝💝

omg yeah i absolutely agree !!!! whenever i read about psychology, i keep it in the back of my mind and then when i see something irl that relates to it, i'm like :O amazing. it's so cool to learn about different psych tricks too and see how it works when you test them out yourself and whatnot. and it's really crazy to see how the human brain is so easily influenced at times ??? it truly is an amazing subject !!!

ah what a great side benefit of the vaccine - a better sleep schedule 🤩 i'm happy to hear that your schedule has been fixed 💘 and omg what ??? they're injecting empty syringes wth ????? 😭 that's absolutely horrible, are they getting sued?? lmaooooo that love talk reference askdfhlaksjd

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR KIND COMPLIMENTS 😭😭💗💗 there were many late hours spent in the art studio to finish them, but i'm really happy with the end products :') i thought light bulbs are an interesting subject to do, and my prof said that cutting out circular objects or sculpting them is the most difficult since they're made up curves and not straight lines and i was like ok bet i'm gonna do it aND I'M SO GLAD I DID BECAUSE I REALLY LIKE THEM 🥺 and i love honey bees !!! that's why i decided to paint them and we were supposed to paint them in a combined style of two artists so i tried monet's impressionist style with the short brush strokes and pop art triptych style like marjorie strider 💕

somi somi is sooo good and i just had it again a couple weeks ago :') omg ice cream is your favorite food? :o and YES ice cream is so satisfying after a long day of hard work, like it's such a nice reward to look forward to at the end of day ✨ aaaaa i have to try thai milk tea ice cream one day now !!!!! it sounds amazing 🤩 and YES i must look for places that sell milk & biscoff ice cream !! i have milk ice cream from somi somi, but i need to try to combined flavors 💘 i don't think you'll get tipsy over it !!! it's a really faint taste of alcohol, like i didn't even notice it at first, and i don't think they put very much of it in there! aksljdfhals omg you're a lightweight :o at least that means you save money on alcohol LOL i need like nine shots to get drunk 🤧

your school is too hard 😭 you need more than just 3 months of break !!! 😡 we get a week off for thanksgiving in fall semester and a week off for spring break in spring semester too and then the month long winter break and three month summer break. and we have the one day holidays off too like labor day, memorial day, etc. i can't believe they give you so little time off after working so hard???

asdfhlkajshdlksja loool are the contractions over yet? has it been born? what's the current status, doctor? 👀 i really enjoy talking to you too !!! i'm very sorry for the late responses, work is really taking over all of my time, and i never have enough time to get on my laptop to reply to my asks 😭 and thank you for saying such kind things about me 🥺🥺💝 oh my gosh, i'm so sorry to hear that you have such terrible cramps 😭 i can't even imagine going through that - mine are nowhere near as horrible 😖 do the heatpads help a lot? i'm relieved to hear that you were prescribed better medication though! but yeah, your body does eventually get used to the medication and you have to continue taking stronger meds for it to work, but that's not a very healthy solution /: but i'm really glad to hear that exercise has been helping out a lot!! 💖 hurray for almost painless and bearable periods 🥳 i'm sorry to hear that you had to go through that in high school ): that sounds absolutely horrible 😭 periods are just awful, but it's like i'm grateful that i have my period because that means i'm not pregnant, but also please go away aslkhdfaklsj

omg what was the speaking test for the cambridge english exams like? :o it sounds so formal and a lil intimidating askdjfhalsd do you know of any psych tricks that can possibly help calm your nerves? :')

aaaa yes i did !! i was really surprised that i got an offer from them all because at the time, i was not in the right major and i think i was one of the most underqualified applicants 🤧 one person who interviewed me asked why i withdrew from my engr physics class and i explained it in a kinda funny way but in my head, i was like "oof i'm not gonna get this offer anymore" but then he laughed at my response and told me about how his prof told him he should drop a guitar class he was taking because he was doing very poorly and we bonded over that aklsjdhfkals omg how do interviews for psych jobs go? do you have to discuss a lot of case studies? do they give you a list of possible case studies they'll ask about? :o what sort of assessments do you have to do? good luck on all of your interviews, honey bee 💛 i'm rooting for you, you're gonna do amazing !!!! 💘

omg what did your supervisor say about your case study? and how is your last semester going? are you almost done now? 🌸 (also how have you been? what have you been up to? thank you for taking the time to leave such detailed messages for me, i'm really excited to see all the fun updates in your life, lovebug 🌷🌷)

[youarejesting]

My fics in 2020

I am proud of this year. I worked hard until the end. 2020 was my year of finishing my stories. I have done so much and next year I want to do more. So keep an eye out Jester will take over.

Fandom(s): BTS, mentions of NCT, BLACKPINK, MONSTA X.

Networks:@btscreatorscorner @castlebangtan

Total Fics: 34

Total chapters: 404

Total Words: 565,587 Total vids and fake subs: 13 

Best and Worst Title?

Best: ‘Music is the spark that sets my soul on fire’ and its sequel ‘Dance is the celebration of the flame’

Worst: The Check Up

Best and Worst first line?

Best: Yoongi never understood why people would say one's blood is important. (Mania)

Worst: It all started in Mykonos. (Steal my sunshine)

Best and Worst ending line?

Best: “I got you this pretty dress” Seokjin grinned showing you the dress before hugging you and giving your forehead a kiss, “Let’s go burn it” (Me & the ghost in number 23)

Worst: But all you got was a sharp-toothed smile. (Pandemonium)

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than, or about what was expected?

I think I wrote what I expected, but I think I could have definitely finished more. Which is a bit upsetting.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year? 

I don’t have limitations to my writing so nothing is deemed unpredictable.

I am however generally surprised by my love of throwing in twists and also gore, I love gore.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

Wild space: it is strange because I am not particularly a fan of space and scifi, but I am really into writing world building things and having the ability to create a whole planet was amazing.

Most popular story? 

Tumblr:

Seoulmates

Femme

Quarantine

AO3: 

Quarantine

BTS365

Love Listening

Story most underappreciated by the universe? 

Tiny Tan: Limited Edition

Story that could have been better? 

All

Sexiest story?

 Love Listening

Saddest story? 

 Me & the ghost in number 23

Fluffiest story? 

Mall Santa

Most fun story? 

BTS Among Us 

Hardest story to write? 

Kisaeng

Daylight (i'm still writing it haha)

Easiest/most fun story to write? 

Light it up

What story took the longest?

365 lol took all year

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? 

The biggest risk I took all year was posting my work. Living life on the edge.

What are your fic writing goals for next year? 

To double my writing

Fics that you wrote in 2020:

BTS365: 365 mini stories ✓ fluff, comedy, angst, romance, mature, action, adventure, smut. This has it all. Find your birthday and read your story. I wanted to give something unique to people.

Quarantine: 100 Chapters ✓ Something to accompany you while you are alone during quarantine and the pandemic. I was lonely and I figured so was everyone else. So, I decided to have BTS help us all go on an adventure that didn’t focus on the covid virus but on some other aspects around it.

Femme: 50 Chapters ✓ A futuristic world where women are rare. This was an indulgement fic that gave circumstances for the reader to be in a polyamorous relationship with the boys and live a glamorous life. Ending was a bit rushed.

Seoulmates: 29 (ongoing) Each member of BTS has a unique soulmate bond. I love the idea of this, another indulgent fic but you aren’t alone with the boys you have friends and you can play different parts.

Witching: 11 Chapter ✓ When your brother goes missing trying to find them gets you in a turf war between two covens. This fic was actually a way for me to vent for a project I wanted to complete but the project is so big that I wrote this instead.

Herb: 2 Parts ✓ mature, smut. Jimin claims he has everything you need, he doesn’t disappoint. I came across this idea within the 365’s and extended it because I liked the idea so much. Jimin has everything from casseroles to scarfes, cat food to cell phone chargers and the reader just wants to be loved and relieve stress.

Limited Edition: 10 Chapters ✓ BTS boys are sold as limited edition figurines. This was originally me venting about not having any merch and then became a daydream that what if the merch came alive. And the story was born.

BTS Among Us: 7 Chapters ✓ gore, action, adventure, scifi, angst, death of main characters. This one was so funny for me, I had my friend pick a colour and that was the imposter from the start. I was amazed that no one figured it out in the end. I want to play again soon.

Light it up: 13 Chapters ✓ fluff, comedy, angst, romance, mature, action, adventure. This was inspired by the dynamite trailer, I loved it so much that I began writing, I had no clear direction but as I wrote it started to shape and someone said it was like stranger things and I credited Stranger things cause it did indeed have a similar premise and I don’t want to pretend I came up with something that has already been done.

Love listening: 2 Parts ✓ SMUT, comedy, fluff, angst, romance, mature. This was inspired by a strange video that came up on the internet, I was searching for BTS misheard lyrics and the video I clicked had some funny ones but after that the next suggested video was bts moans and auto play was on and well this fic was born.

Me & the ghost in Number 23: 11 ✓ fluff, comedy, scifi, supernatural, romance, angst, mature, smut, death of main character. This was inspired by many of the ghost text au’s I had read but many of them were like the show oh my ghost where the main ghost character isn’t actually dead just in a coma and I thought the opposite way instead of them waking up, I wanted things to shape the other way. This one was so difficult to write and I cried a lot due to the loneliness Jimin was facing and the mourning from Yoongi.

Hope in the sheets: 4 chapters (so far) fluff, comedy, smut, adventure, slice of life, romance, angst, mature, growing up. This one is a fic that targets my childish desires. I have grown up so much and this fic is a visual representation of that. 

Asks: 77 (ongoing) where the bts boys answer the readers questions and concerns.

Reactions: 15 (ongoing) 

Prompts: 18 (ongoing)

One shots:

Kisaeng: This was a reverse fic project, the idea that instead of Mulan pretending to be a man and going off to war, it was BTS dressing as women to stay home from war. I loved writing about fictional history. 

Steal my Sunshine: This was a summer project. I wanted to write something that felt like a very bad spy movie, like Mellissa Mccarthy and Mr Bean-esque. I formed this one and it made me laugh the whole time writing it.

Blue Side: This was talking to myself about being sad and admitting that I could be sad but I should learn to split the happy and sad into two worlds and limit my time in them both, it was about equal balance and finding the good in the sad and the sad in the good. I don’t know how hard to explain.

Temptation: I had fun writing but it is pure SMUT. not even good SMUT.

Pandemonium: This was really fun. The premise is dark and the ending is left ambiguous, in the original, Namjoon kills the reader but I left it open so you can imagine them continuing their relationship or not.

Mall santa: A fluffy christmas piece. A secret santa I wrote that I felt needed to be soft and quirky and have just all the hallmark moments.

Mad: This one is finished, but I have it published privately at the moment waiting to unveil it as it is well SMUTTY. I don’t know what it is about Taehyung but he is always so dark and I guess that's what people find appealing. I had this idea from a 365prompt and well I had to write it.

One wish: This was a birthday fic that I wrote for a friend. I wanted people to read it on their birthdays or imagine their birthdays and themselves in this position if they made the same wish.

The Check Up: I wrote for this for a friend going through a personal procedure, they were nervous so I took their bias and made something I hoped they could think about while in the procedure and I even explained the steps and what might happen over the next few days hoping the whole thing wouldn’t seem as scary because technically her mind had already been through it when reading the story.

Sparks of the heart: Robots developing human feeling. It was a cute universe and Yoongi’s story will be a series within 2021.

Dance machine 3000

Digital Art

Electronic Tonic

Circuit chef

Random Access Memory

Kookies Trojans and Malware

Feel Better: Another fic written for a author who was sick, I wanted them to endulge in some escapism whilst they were sick.

Music is the spark that sets my soul on fire & Dance is the celebration of the flame: These two were requests that I loved dearly.

Horror movies: Cheesy damsel in distress meets boys will be boys.

I will wait (somesay): This song wouldn’t get out of my head so I had to write it.

Wild Space: When I wanted to write a hybrid AU but I already have a hybrid AU being edited. So hybrid werewolves meets space.

The Bomb: This one is compete and ready to post I had to talk myself out of writing this as a series but I love the story line. I love the end.

Lost Boys: This has been stuck in my head since i had a dream about it and I finally wrote it into the new year. I hope you like it.

Mania: Not my favourite work, love ABO universe I just haven’t got an actually story line so it is on hold.

Incaceration: The story that never was, I really need to get around to this one.

Tagging: @moccahobi I know you wanted to tag me... but I am finished so I am tagging you.

[h2omyeon]

You Were Beautiful (KJM x Reader)

Summary: You had been in love with your classmate Kim Junmyeon for the last year and a half. You finally find the guts to tell him the truth about how you feel, but at the wrong time. (PS: Chanyeol makes a cameo in this story and Junmyeon is an Art History major!)

Pairing: Junmyeon x Female Reader

Tags: College Student Junmyeon, Art Hoe Junmyeon, bittersweet stuff

Warnings: Mentions of suicide towards the end of the story (not in this chapter)

Word Count (in total): 8.5k

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is my first ever story I wrote and published on here. Feel free to leave comments and I will try to publish each chapter weekly! This story is based off of a combination of dreams that I had which included people who weren’t Junmyeon and Junmyeon himself during the beginning of this whole COVID pandemic (AKA: when things began to fall apart). Like the world that I was living in at that time, this story/dream is just as (I hope to believe) chaotic. I also apologize if there are a ton of plot holes in the story because it was based on a dream and I could not think of any filler parts. Enjoy!- PS

Read the previous parts here: Part 1 Part 2

Chapter 2: Starry Night

The rest of the semester and graduation week came and went like a breeze. While you and your friends went crazy on your graduation caps and dresses, Junmyeon went shopping to buy stuff for his family and friends in South Korea. Despite his time being spent more on shopping, his cap came out the best and won 1st place in the cap decorating contest at graduation. 

You and Angela decided to throw him a surprise goodbye party on his last day, which was the day after graduation, at your place. There was predominately Korean music playing and people were happily dancing along to it despite not understanding what was being sung. Junmyeon, despite wearing a sweater vest on a warm May evening, danced like a pro to literally every song that played. You had no idea he could dance so well. There was also food that would have lasted your family a week and a half that was finished in less than three hours, mostly by Junmyeon’s bar musician friend Chanyeol and Angela. 

The party went successfully and those who were not able to see him off the next day gave their little goodbye gifts. Chanyeol was eating the remaining chips and looked at the clock; it was 9:30pm. “Shit! I have a date. Thanks for the party, Y/N.” He gave you and Angela quick hugs and walked to Junmyeon, who was packing his stuff in his bags. 

“I’m gonna head out. I’ll see you in the future, man,” Chanyeol said as he gave Junmyeon one last bro hug and handed him his gift, then left the house and into the night.

Once Chanyeol left, it was only the three of you.  “That was fun,” Junmyeon said. “Thank you, Y/N. Thank you, Angela. I’m really gonna miss all those people, even Chanyeol.” 

“Anything for you, Junmyeon.” you and Angela replied back in unison while you and Angela had cleaned up the cups and plates left on the table. Junmyeon helped tidy up the sofa and swept the dining table floor. 

Music played in the background loud enough for you all to not realize that your parents and sisters had come back. Junmyeon went to lower the music as he greeted your parents in the process. 

While you went to throw out the last of the plates, Angela began to follow you into the kitchen. 

“When are you gonna tell him?” she hissed softly. Junmyeon was happily looking at the gifts he got in the living room, silently observing them. 

“Never at this point,” you replied a little too loudly. Luckily he was in the middle of a conversation with your parents and younger sisters, so he didn’t hear you. “Maybe later,” you softly replied. 

“You’ve been saying that for two years, Y/N. The man is leaving TOMORROW,” she clapped back. “It’s now or never.” 

“I thought he was gonna stay in New York like he had planned. I was gonna tell him sometime after college, but I didn’t think he was gonna leave tomorrow,” you snapped. 

“Come on, Y/N, go tell him after he’s done with your family,” she suggested while watching your 12 and 18 year old sisters talk to him endlessly about some random stuff. After inserting the final dishes into the washer and wiping the counter, you guys danced and sang along to “Rough” by GFriend as it played from a faint distance at your speakers and laughed when you both messed up on a few steps. 

“Junmyeon, don’t leave yet. We have a gift for you,” your mother could be heard saying to your friend who was about to leave. You and Angela had walked out of the kitchen and into the living room by the time your mother walked out with a red box. 

“It’s a deity for good luck while you are in the military and for your wonderful future ahead as a future curator,” she explained. Your father handed him an envelope. “Here’s $200 that you can use for your future education after the military,” he added. Junmyeon added the gifts into the bag. 

“Thank you all for the gifts,” Junmyeon said humbly. “I have so many I don’t know how they will all fit in my luggages!” he exclaimed, showing off the bags of gifts he got. Everyone began to laugh. 

After a few minutes of small talk, Junmyeon and Angela wished everyone a good night. Your parents wished them a good night in return, while your sisters went to get ready for bed. 

“Y/N, go walk Junmyeon home,” your mother suggested with a smile. “It’s so late at night, I don’t want him to get into any issues right before he leaves.” You immediately agreed. Your sisters made kissy noises; “Shut up!” you snapped at them. They laughed when you realized you had turned red. You then left the house with Angela and Junmyeon, who were waiting at the front door. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right when you three reached the crosswalk, Angela gave Junmyeon one last hug; she let go of the embrace as she started to silently cry. You felt tears form in your eyes. “I’ll miss you, Jun,” she tearfully stated.

“Thank you for everything and making college the best three years of my life. I joked around with you a lot, but I really liked you. You made both my best friend and myself really happy. Let me give you my gift,” Angela ruffled through her bag and took out a purple box. She handed the box to Junmyeon; he thanked her. She began to cry even more. 

“Angela, I will miss you too and thank you for the gift,” Junmyeon replied to the heavily upset Angela, holding her hand for a brief second. “We have each other’s contact information. I’ll try to text and email all of you when I can. The military is strict and oftentimes we’re not going to be allowed to go on our phones, so I’ll try my best. Don’t worry, Angela, we’ll see each other in the future. Once I’m done with my military service, I’ll come and visit New York before I go on and do my masters.” he explained while wiping her tears. They hugged one last time while you watched in silence. 

“What if you die?” she joked after letting go of the embrace. You all laughed.

“I really wanted to send you off tomorrow, but I have work. Serve well, okay?” Angela declared

“Angela, he’s going for training, not fighting in a war. Although with Trump as president I won’t be surprised if there was a Third World War,” you sarcastically remarked. 

“I know, but-,” a car honk interrupted her sentence. Her hipster vegan boyfriend, Nicholas, had come to pick her up in his car. 

“Goodbye, Junmyeon,” Angela said. 

“Goodbye, Angela.” he said back. 

She gave him one last hug and waved at the both of you before crossing the street. You both observed the couple drive off into the night, living a life of their own. 

“I’ll really miss that girl,” he sighed, while you two walked. “She reminds me of my friend’s sister in Korea. Funny and naive.” 

You were silent the whole walk. Now was your chance to tell him, you didn’t know the next time you would see him again to tell him. Junmyeon began to notice you were unusually silent. 

“Y/N, what’s wrong?” he asked as you both finally reached the front porch of his house. You both sat on the bench and looked at one another. Now is the time to do it, you thought to yourself. You felt your heart beat out of your chest, but it was now or never. 

“Junmyeon, I-I’ve been wanting to tell you something for a while. It’s something you probably wouldn’t expect from me, but if I don’t say it, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. I don’t know when I’ll ever see you again, so… ah, fuck it!” you nervously began.

“What do you want to say?” He curiously asked. You must have looked like a fool because he then began to say: “Why are you so nervous? Let me get a bucket-,”

“There’s no need. I’m not going to throw up; I wanted to tell you that…” you continued, trying to avoid his gaze. 

“That what, Y/N?” he proceeded to ask. You then made eye contact with him. God he has pretty eyes, you thought a little too loudly. He began to giggle. 

“Are you okay? What’s up? We’re friends, you can tell me anything.” 

You took a breath. “Junmyeon, I realized as time passed that I really started to like you. Not in the friendly way, but in-,”

“I actually wanted to tell you the same thing,” he confessed with a chuckle. “I was going to tell you tonight, but you beat me to it. That’s very brave of you.” 

You had a surprised look on your face; he began to laugh. 

“Really?”

“I’m serious,” he began. 

“Y/N, in the years that I got to know you,” he continued, holding your right hand. “You’ve grown to be a beautiful person inside and out and I want you to know that. I know self deprecation is your signature suit, but hear me out. You are kinder, more loving, sweeter and funnier than you think you are. I have always loved you because of who you were and I want you to know I will never let you go, even if we will be 14 hours away from another. You will always be a huge part of my life. You were friends with me at a time when I was starting to miss home and spending time with you and Angela made me realize that New York will always be my second home. That is the best thing anyone could have ever done,” he admitted. 

The two of you smiled at one another. Immediately, you looked up at the sky, silently observing the moon and its surrounding stars. 

“Those stars are very beautiful, like you,” he gushed. You scoffed then looked back at Junmyeon, who was smiling at you; the glow of the moon went onto his face and he became even more beautiful than he was before. 

“Thank you for being a part of my life, Junmyeon. I know it was too late now for me to tell you that I loved you, but I’ve accepted that we can’t be together because duty calls. I will always love you as my best friend,” you began. “You taught me how to live life in ways I didn’t consider before. I grew to love art in a weird way and I became happier. I was at my worst when I met you. I was confused, lost and didn’t want to be on this planet at all, but the more I got to know you and be around you, I realized that you were the reason I stayed,” you revealed. 

“Hey, I’m sorry that we can’t be together because of me. I know we will both be living different lives, but I will always think of you when I think of New York. For god’s sake, you were the first girl I ever fell in love with this seriously. I know you will be a wonderful teacher and if I ever get assigned to curate a whole Picasso exhibition, I will invite you first so you can make fun of my tastes in art,” he stated, jokingly implying that you won the Picasso had shitty art debate.

“Well, I have to pack these things and some rest so I can fly safely tomorrow.” you got up to leave and so did he. You hugged him and let go of the embrace and walked away to go back home. 

“I love you,” he called out.

“I love you too, Junmyeon. I’ll see you tomorrow,” you waved.

Just as you were about to go back to your house, you heard footsteps and he grabbed your arm. You turned around and he stroked your cheek, then leaned in closer to your face until there was almost no space between the two of you to breathe; “I love you,” he whispered and then closed his eyes. You knew what was happening; what had happened to the main characters in all those rom coms you watched was happening to you at that moment.

Like the characters, you too began to lean in and close your eyes as your lips touched his. “I love you too,” you whispered between kisses. The butterflies grew in your stomach and your heart began to beat faster. It didn’t help that his Dior cologne smelled really good at the moment. The kiss was deep, but quick because you could hear the door begin to open. You opened your eyes and moved back when you saw Mrs Kim watching through the next door with a smile. Junmyeon turned around and became flustered like a child in the spotlight for the first time.

“Goodnight again.” you said. “Goodnight Mrs Kim!” you waved at the woman at the net door; she called out goodnight as well. 

“Goodnight, Y/N. You’re a good kisser for someone who claimed they’re an old lady,” he stated just before he walked into the house with his gifts. Once he entered the house, you watched him until he turned into a shadow; you then walked back to your own house in silence.

You smiled knowing you finally kissed the man of your dreams, but it felt bittersweet at the same time because he was going to leave the next day. You finally reached your own house and walked into it with a smile, your mother watching with a smile on her face as well. The TV was blasting as your father watched it like a zombie. Your father then looked up from the TV and watched the two of you in slight confusion, then smiled knowing what had happened. 

“I always knew he liked you, but I’m so sorry he had to leave you so early.” she sympathetically stated when you walked in. You smiled, then went to get ready for bed while texting Angela what had happened on the Kims’ magical porch.

Part 4

[ehyeh-joshua]

Understanding the coming 2021 Economic Crisis.

TL;DR - the banks and hedgefunds have been screwing the US economy over and merely repeating what happened in 2008 is a good outcome at this point, with the worst case scenario being the complete collapse of the United States Dollar, and with it the entire global economy.

It's not an accident that Bank of America and JPMorgan have both issued Bonds totalling $15 billion and $13 billion dollars - both record breaking amounts - at the same time Warren Buffet has sold 100% of his JPMorgan stock.

To explain why goes back into the history of Wall Street greed; for decades they have been targeting companies to short-sell their stock (where a share is borrowed and sold, and replaced later at the lower price, causing a profit of the sale of the original share minus the cost of the replacement share and the interest fees on the borrowed share, which can be more profitable than holding the share for the person being borrowed from) on a massive scale; the goal is to make the victim company into a worthless penny-stock, and then force the company into bankruptcy by not having enough liquidity to pay off things like toxic debt, default on issued bonds.

They will even do it to their own; this behaviour was what truly killed Lehmann Brothers and Bear Sterns - Wall Street made hundreds of millions of dollars shorting those two all the way to the ground. In total, they made well over a trillion dollars shorting businesses that went bankrupt as a result of 2008.

There are hundreds of public companies - especially brick and concrete building based companies - that are affected by this, right now, on the stock exchanges; they've been hit hard during the last year, and Wall Street is betting that they will fail between Covid and the shift to online retail.

Then the second side of the attack comes in - they will replace the old leadership with their own team and blame the previous team for all the problems, ride the short term boost in confidence, then control the collapse of the business.

And knowing that the business will go bankrupt makes it safe to do a much more risky and profitable version of short-selling - counterfeit short-selling.

The difference between the two is that in a normal short sell, there is a share that is actually borrowed from someone else in order to be sold; in a counterfeit short-sale, they get a friendly market-maker - a company with the authority to create counterfeit shares as a normal part of trading (make a million of these IOU shares, and fill them with a million real shares milliseconds later in order to create liquidity in a stock, which is hedged by the sale of calls and puts options) to create these counterfeit IOU shares.

They can do this because in the actual transaction, although the money transfers instantly the actual shares transfer on a T+2 settlement system (day of the trade, plus two days) - it's a relic of the old days when physical share certificates had to be moved around.

The IOU share is treated as a legal share - to all legal purposes, you own the share. This is not a "Contract for difference" arrangement, in which you are just betting on the stock going up; this IOU, this synthetic share, is a legal share that is meant to be replaced by the real share during the T+2 system. When it doesn't deliver, it is called an FTD; a 'Fail to deliver".

But it is a fake share - instead of there only being X shares in existence, there are now X+Y shares in existence. This devalues the stock due to increasing the supply.

This is why the news media is going on about meme-stocks - a bunch of 4Chan and Reddit "retarded apes" figured it out and YOLOed their savings on these stocks, and because they refuse to sell the stocks and have bought as many of these counterfeit shares as they can afford (and a few actual retards have bought more than they can afford) and now Wall Street has been caught counterfeiting at least 140% of the shares (the absolute minimum, based on SEC fillings for institutional ownership of GME stock, which necessarily does not include the retail investors) ever issued by GameStop. If you go through the SEC's published data on FTDs, you see that typically hundreds of thousands of shares have failed to deliver each day in the case of GameStop. Hundreds of thousands of fake shares that have been sold and are now trading on the market, in dark pools or sat in some Ape's account.

Now, GME is not going to crash the economy, and this is from someone who fully believes the hype about a million dollars a share not being a meme; there aren't nearly enough retarded apes to make it so big that the dollar will crash, although I do think that GME will temporarily cause the dollar to halve or drop to a third of present value before it all gets spent as apes pay taxes and buy Lambos and houses and continue to make the badly judged options bets that made r/WallStreetBets famous.

The real big nuke is that Wall Street has been shorting the US Treasury Bonds market. Worst case scenario is seven times more Treasury Bonds - especially the ten year Bond - are trading than were ever issued by the Federal Reserve. Best case scenario they've only managed to double the Bonds in existence.

To explain just how terrifying this is:

Imagine that you are a major bank. You need liquidity - you have customers in so many sectors that you have departments to track what departments you have covering different sectors of finance.

So, you use the Treasury Bond; they are backed by the government so they can't go wrong. You buy them when you have money, sell them when you need cash; these things trade typically in total values of trillions of dollars each day. The whole system works because Bank A borrows from Bank B to pay Bank C who owe a Bond to Bank D who need a Bond for Bank E who owe Bank A a Bond; all the time all the members stay afloat, they can play hot potato with the Bonds.

As soon as one goes down, the dominoes fall.

"But what on earth could take out a Bank?"

The Mother Of All Short Squeezes.

GameStop going boom to a thousand dollars a share might take out a single hedgefund, but the damage stops there. And back in January, $1k per share was a meme amount even to the most dedicated autistic retard ape. These days, the apes realise that the economy is as screwed as it was in 2008, and they are using GME to hedge against another global financial crash, which contributes to why they want millions - it's no longer about Lambos and YOLO options bets, but about making sure their families don't lose their homes when banks go boom and the housing market crashes because the bubble pops. Its about having support systems for people who will be left with nothing.

Back in January, apes thought that it was just Melvin Capital - a single, not particularly big hedgefund only worth ~$20 billion in Assets Under Management. Subsequently, they discovered how deep in this Citadel group are; a group of companies that is ultimately worth a trillion dollars and handles 46% of all trades on the New York Stock Exchange.

Citadel are backed by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. Bank of America is involved as part of their own short-selling position on GME.

When GME squeezes, the US stock market will crash as the Depository Trust Clearing Corporation margin call small fry like Melvin Capital, large players like Citadel and eventually major banks like Bank of America and JPMorgan. (Goldman Sachs have hedged their short position and will survive, the other two however...)

How do I know this?

Last week, the Biden administration appointed Gary Gensler - who oversaw the fallout from 2008 - to being the head of the Securities Exchange Commission; the organisation who regulates the US securities markets.

Six months ago, the Trump administration gave the US markets a respite on collateral to be deposited to be held to cover investments on margin.

The SEC has been kept up to date with the situation - once apes figured out that this was going to cause a 2008 style collapse they started sending it all in to the SEC; sure, they want Lambo and tendies, but they also want the economy to survive. They've watched The Big Short, and serveral times a day you'll see the Don't ****ing dance" quote cited because they've realised that they have discovered what Michael Burry found out back in 2005. They are terrified. I've had sleepless nights over the last month, and I'm long GME because I think it is the only hedge against the economic collapse that could be on it's way. I don't want to imagine what someone who knows about this stuff and isn't long GME is thinking.

What gives me hope is that the SEC are rapidly changing the rules - there have been three massive legal developments since I started following the situation - in order to contain the damage that can be done from GME going off. I believe that the SEC is coordinating with long institutional investors - particularly BlackRock and Fidelity - GameStop's leadership (who are pushing to turn the company around and need this dealt with so that they can move forward) crypto-currencies experts and the Federal government to ensure a situation where retail gets paid (roughly a hundred thousand Chinese people and a Chinese investment fund are long GME - the US government cannot afford to give the CCP the propaganda coup of betraying the principle of free markets, the US economy would never recover from the blow) and the system has a systemic crash this year and rebuilds much better now that a decades old criminal practice is gotten rid of and the shares system is converted to blockchain and instant settlement to make sure the factors that led to this disaster aren't repeated. I.e. I become a millionaire and retire at 28, buy the dip knowing that things are going to recover from a massive but temporary crisis.

A "normal" bad situation, where this does not completely worst nightmare wrong? I walk away from GME a billionaire, but a loaf of bread costs a million dollars.

Worst case? Well, the bit before Jesus' return in glorious victory is seven years of hell on earth, under an economy where no one can buy or sell without the beasts involvement. How you get that is you arrange a global financial crisis to bankrupt nations all over the world and make your centralised one world economy look like the saviour.

Whatever you do, don't rush to pull money out the banks - that only screws everything over guaranteed because if everyone has a run on the banks you immediately get a short squeeze on the Treasury Bonds, which nukes everything. If everyone pretends that life goes on as normal and the Fed gets away with giving Treasury Bonds to those who need them to complete their chains then only GME goes boom, and the economy survives, and therefore hundreds of thousands of people will not lose their jobs and houses. But they need GME to go boom so that they can use it as a cover story so that they can get away with covering up the Treasury Bonds problem.

As always, none of this is financial advice, and while I'm not a cat, I'm also not a financial advisor, and this is written by a guy who has 19 tickets on rocket built by self-proclaimed retarded apes knowing he only knows of one actual physicist among them, having YOLOed his savings on hope that his affordable investment won't lose value even in the event of 10,000% inflation.

This is going to be my last post on the subject, because frankly, I'm scared. I've seen the Cthulhuoid monster lurking in the depths, and I hope and pray I'm wrong.

[richincolor]

Book Review: Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask

Title: Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask

Author: Anton Treuer

Genres:  Non-fiction

Pages: 400

Publisher: Levine Querido

Review Copy: Copy provided by Publisher

Availability: Available now

Summary: From the acclaimed Ojibwe author and professor Anton Treuer comes an essential book of questions and answers for Native and non-Native young readers alike. Ranging from "Why is there such a fuss about nonnative people wearing Indian costumes for Halloween?" to "Why is it called a 'traditional Indian fry bread taco'?" to "What's it like for natives who don't look native?" to "Why are Indians so often imagined rather than understood?", and beyond, Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask (Young Readers Edition) does exactly what its title says for young readers, in a style consistently thoughtful, personal, and engaging.

Updated and expanded to include:

• Dozens of New Questions and New Sections—including a social activism section that explores the Dakota Access Pipeline, racism, identity, politics, and more!

• Over 50 new Photos

• Adapted text for broad appeal

Review: The ARC for the young reader’s edition of Anton Treuer’s 2012 book that answered questions about Native American Indians happened to fall into my lap so I thought I’d spend some time during my spring break reading the questions that had been asked to Treuer throughout the years and his illuminating responses. I’m glad that I spent some time this week exploring this book because I learned so much from it while enjoying the read at the same time.

Anton Treuer is Ojibwe professor who grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota. In the introduction we learn much about his life and what inspired him to write this book, both the adult and young reader version. The book is split into sections such as Terminology, History, Religion Culture & Identity, Politics, Education, Social Activism, and ending with Finding Ways to Make a Difference. Each section has a series of questions that Treuer uses to answer in a conversational manner. He makes sure to stress repeatedly throughout the book that he does not speak for all Native American Indians and uses his own life experiences as examples in the book. Since Treuer has traveled throughout the country speaking with other Native American Indians, he is able to write and share the perspectives from other tribes he has interacted with to give a fuller picture of Native American Indian culture. Some of the questions get right to attacking stereotypes and some of the questions Treuer takes the time to explain why a concept is so hurtful to Native American Indians (such as the mascot issue). Many of the questions explore Native American Indian life and culture in a way that is easy for the non-Native to understand but doesn’t delve too deep into specific customs as I know that some tribes are sensitive to sharing parts of their culture to non-Natives. Using his own experiences, highlighting his family and close friends who definitely gave him permission, is the strength of this book and at times Treuer doesn’t hold back in his criticisms of US policies towards Native American Indians. Since many of these questions are taken from actual questions he’s been asked at his talks, Treuer definitely has a lot of patience, thought sometimes he does hit back in his responses (One example: “Q: Why are Indian politics often such a vipers’ pit? A: Why are American politics such a vipers’ pit?” Reader, I cackled.)

Overall, I enjoyed the book and learned a lot at the same time. The format of the book allows one to read it straight through or bounce around. I started reading it straight through, then bounced around and I enjoyed reading it both ways. To me, I found the History section very illuminating as I learned about specific policies I’d never heard of before. And of course, I really enjoyed the Education section  that went into depth about the residential schools and their disastrous effects that Native American Indians still experience today. The book was also filled with current information such as discussing how the Navajo Nation was effected by COVID-19. This book is a great book to be shared with educators to use in their classes to show that Native American Indians are not a people of the past but are a people of our present and our future.

[sciencespies]

What the Pandemic Christmas of 1918 Looked Like

https://sciencespies.com/history/what-the-pandemic-christmas-of-1918-looked-like/

What the Pandemic Christmas of 1918 Looked Like

On December 21, 1918, the Ohio State Journal published a warning about the lingering flu pandemic from the state’s acting health commissioner: “Beware the mistletoe.” Not only should readers resist the temptation of a holiday kiss, but they shouldn’t even be at a social gathering where it might come up.

“You will show your love for dad and mother, brother, sister and the rest of ‘em best this year by sticking to your own home instead of paying annual Christmas visits, holding family reunions, and parties generally,” the commissioner said.

Christmas 1918 was not Christmas 2020. The pandemic had already peaked in the U.S. in the fall of 1918 as part of the disease’s second wave. Meanwhile, this week the deaths attributed to Covid-19 in the U.S. are the highest they’ve ever been, showing no signs of waning as the holiday approaches. But the flu also killed far more people (675,000) than Covid-19 has to date, in a country that was much smaller, population-wise, at the time. And it wasn’t over by any means. In some cities, a third wave was already starting as Christmas approached, says Kenneth C. Davis, author of More Deadly than War, a history of the pandemic and World War I aimed at young readers.

“There was an uptick, and it was a serious uptick in some,” he says.

A century ago, the federal government held much less authority and power than it does today; the CDC, for instance, wouldn’t get its start until 1946. Decisions about how seriously to take the disease fell to states and, especially, municipalities.

Davis says San Francisco took it quite seriously, implementing a strong mask mandate in the fall as well as measures that’d be described today as social distancing. After cases rose sharply in mid-October, the city locked down harshly; the measures worked to keep the flu at bay and, a month later, the city reopened and dropped the mask mandate. But the flu was not done with the city yet. Come Christmastime, Davis says, the cases were again on the rise, and residents, having finally escaped from the pandemic shutdown, were not eager to go back.

“San Francisco wanted to institute the mask rule again but people resisted,” he says.

Davis said some anti-maskers of the day felt their rights were infringed on. Some Christian Scientists cited religious objections. And other people simply found masks too much trouble. It didn’t help that masks at the time were generally homemade, using several layers of cheesecloth and were supposed to be boiled for ten minutes every day to keep them clean.

While it’s hard to tease out whether Christmas gatherings or shopping contributed, influenza case numbers did indeed rise again in San Francisco in early January.

Lendol Calder, a historian at Augustana College in Illinois and author of Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit, says it wasn’t just the debate over masks that seems familiar today. In some places, residents complained that officials shut down churches but left saloons open. The closing of churches was a major issue in Milwaukee, a city that took the pandemic especially seriously—and that was also home to deeply observant German and Norwegian immigrant communities.

“To have churches closed during the Advent-Christmas season was huge,” Calder says. “That was people’s social media, to go to church.”

But, Calder adds, even Milwaukee allowed churches to hold services on Christmas Day.

Of course, Christmas is also a shopping season, and that was already true in 1918. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade wouldn’t start until 1924, and Black Friday mania was decades away, but retailers were beginning to realize that the holiday shopping season could make or break their year.

“They pushed hard in November and December with advertising to get people to come shop,” Calder says. He says retailers were concerned about potential supply chain issues and urged shoppers to come in early in case items ran out. They also made sure to let potential customers know that they could deliver goods to those who were afraid to go out in public.

Davis says store-owners’ desire for a strong Christmas season also figured in anti-mask sentiment.

“They don’t want people to wear masks in the stores because they thought it was frightening,” he says.

Despite the anti-maskers, Howard Markel, director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, says the question of how to guard against the flu was not politicized in the way that anti-Covid measures are today.

“Most people did comply because they had greater faith in their public officials, and they had greater faith in the science of medicine, even though it was much more rudimentary than today,” he says.

Markel notes that epidemic disease was very familiar to the early 20th century public. Families, many of which had lost a child to diphtheria or watched a loved one suffer from polio, were generally willing to comply with some limitations on their activities. Most public health departments wore badges and had police powers, and this was generally uncontroversial.

“They could forcibly quarantine you or put you on a quarantine station on an island,” Markel says.

As municipalities determined what public activities should or shouldn’t be permitted, Calder says people were puzzling through their own choices about how to celebrate the holidays.

“When you’re reading people’s diaries, they are fatigued obviously but also measured,” he says. “You don’t find people freaking out about this. They mourn the loss of traditional ways of celebrating the holidays, and they want to see relatives and are wondering whether they can or not.”

Markel, who is also editor of the Influenza Encyclopedia, a digital archive of materials from the pandemic, says one advantage people of 1918 had in terms of making holiday plans is that family gatherings were generally not the treasured once- or twice-a-year events they are for many people now.

“Extended families often lived together or right near each other, next door or upstairs,” he says. “Getting together for a holiday meal was much less of an event than it is today, when many people don’t live in their hometown.”

At the same time, Americans longed to see each other during the holiday season of 1918 for a reasons beyond the Christmas spirit: Young men were returning from the battlefields of Europe and military bases following the official end of the First World War on November 11.

“Many people had the sense that they had just lived through one of the most historic years in history,” Calder says. “[The war was a] victory for democracy over authoritarianism. Just 11 months earlier, it hadn’t looked so good. It was just a huge shock and relief to see the Armistice signed.”

For the families of more than 100,000 men lost in the war, many dying from the flu, in the course of less than a year—and for those who had lost someone to the flu at home—it must have been a somber Christmas. But, for many others, the relief of the war’s end and the apparent decline of the pandemic encouraged many Americans to come together.

“The mood was absolutely euphoric for most of the country,” Davis says. “There’s a pent-up desire to get out—that existed back then as well. The mood of the country was, ‘We’ve come through something terrible. We have something to be thankful for.’”

To whatever extent that joy encouraged people to gather in public or hold Christmas parties at home, it certainly contributed to some of the infections and deaths in the third wave of the flu. In light of the current high rate of infections, that’s something worth taking seriously today. Much like Ohio’s health commissioner in 1918, Markel says we must go against the instincts that drive us to gather together in order to protect the people we love.

“It goes against everything we love to do to not celebrate the holiday season,” he says. “And we must nevertheless not do it. It makes me sad to say it.”

#History

[fuzzywitchsoul]

They Had Mild Covid. Then Their Serious Symptoms Kicked In.

Pam Belluck is a health and science writer whose honors include sharing a Pulitzer Prize and winning the Nellie Bly Award for Best Front Page Story. She is the author of Island Practice, a book about an unusual doctor. @PamBelluckMs. Khan said that she experienced “heart palpitations if I just got up to open the curtains.” Her cardiologist said she was the fifth previously healthy young person to walk into his office that week. In the beginning, her fatigue was so severe that walking two or three laps around her 600-square-foot apartment would exhaust her for the rest of the day. In addition, she said that she had “really intense mood fluctuations that don’t feel like they’re mine.”“Waking up every day in this body, sometimes hope feels a little dangerous,” said Ms. Khan, who will soon start the cognitive rehab program. “I have to wonder: Am I going to recover, or am I going to just figure out how to live with my new brain?”In his job, “my clients would tell me things like a passcode or an address and I couldn’t remember it,” he said.At Mr. Palacios’s first appointment with the Northwestern clinic, “I did the cognitive tests, and I failed them all,” he said. On a return visit, he did another battery of tests, he said, “and I didn’t do so hot on that, either.”Mr. Palacios was referred for cognitive rehab at a long-established program in Chicago that helps give patients strategies to manage and improve memory, organizational and cognitive difficulties. But he didn’t go, he said, because “I completely forgot.” He plans to go now.In the Northwestern study, 43 percent of the patients had depression before having Covid-19; 16 percent had previous autoimmune diseases, the same percentage of patients who had previous lung disease or had struggled with insomnia.Experts cautioned that because the study was relatively small, these pre-existing conditions might or might not be representative of all long-term patients. “We are all seeing very small pieces of the elephant in terms of the long Covid group,” Dr. Bell said. “Some of us are seeing tail; some of us are seeing trunk.”Along with neurological symptoms, 85 percent of the patients were experiencing fatigue, and nearly half had shortness of breath. Some also had chest pain, gastrointestinal symptoms, variable heart rate or blood pressure. Nearly half of the participants were experiencing depression or anxiety.“I was cleaning my gutters and I forgot where I was, I forgot what I was doing on the roof,” Mr. Palacios said. When he remembered, he added, the idea of doing “something as simple as climbing on a ladder all of a sudden became a mountain.”Dr. Allison P. Navis, a neuro-infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City who was not involved in the study, said that about 75 percent of her 200 post-Covid patients were experiencing issues like “depression, anxiety, irritability or some mood symptoms.”Participants in the study were overwhelmingly white, and 70 percent were women. Dr. Navis and others said that the lack of diversity quite likely reflected the demographics of people able to seek care relatively early in the pandemic rather than the full spectrum of people affected by post-Covid neurological symptoms.“Especially in New York City, the majority of patients who got sick with Covid are people of color and Medicaid patients, and that’s absolutely not the patients one sees at the post-Covid center,” Dr. Navis said. “The majority of patients are white, often they have private insurance, and I think we have to figure out a little bit more what’s going on there with those disparities — if it’s purely just a lack of access or are symptoms being dismissed in people of color or if it’s something else.”In the Northwestern study, Dr. Koralnik said that because coronavirus testing was difficult to obtain early in the pandemic, only half of the participants had tested positive for the coronavirus, but all had the initial physical symptoms of Covid-19. The study found very little difference between those who had tested positive and those who had not. Dr. Koralnik said that those who tested negative tended to contact the clinic about a month later in the course of the disease than those who tested positive, possibly because some had spent weeks being evaluated or trying to have their problems addressed by other doctors.Ms. Khan was among the participants who had a negative test for the virus, but she said she later tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, proof that she had been infected.Another study participant, Eddie Palacios, 50, a commercial real estate broker who lives in Naperville, a Chicago suburb, tested positive for the coronavirus in the fall, experiencing only a headache and loss of taste and smell. But “a month later, things changed,” he said.Across the country, doctors who are treating people with post-Covid neurological symptoms say the study’s findings echo what they have been seeing.“We need to take this seriously,” said Dr. Kathleen Bell, the chairwoman of the physical medicine and rehabilitation department at the University Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who was not involved in the new study. “We can either let people get worse and the situation gets more complicated, or we can really realize that we have a crisis.”Dr. Bell and Dr. Koralnik said many of the symptoms resembled those of people who had concussions or traumatic brain injuries or who had mental fogginess after chemotherapy.In the case of Covid, Dr. Bell said, experts believe that the symptoms are caused by “an inflammatory reaction to the virus” that can affect the brain as well as the rest of the body. And it makes sense that some people experience multiple neurological symptoms simultaneously or in clusters, Dr. Bell said, because “there’s only so much real estate in the brain, and there’s a lot of overlap” in regions responsible for different brain functions.“If you have inflammation disturbances,” she said, “you can very well have cognitive effects and things like emotional effects. It’s really hard to have one neurological problem without having multiple.”In the Northwestern study, many experienced symptoms that fluctuated or persisted for months. Most improved over time, but there was wide variation. “Some people after two months are 95 percent recovered, while some people after nine months are only 10 percent recovered,” said Dr. Koralnik. Five months after contracting the virus, patients estimated, they felt on average only 64 percent recovered.The study of 100 patients from 21 states, published on Tuesday in The Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, found that 85 percent of them experienced four or more neurological issues like brain fog, headaches, tingling, muscle pain and dizziness.“We are seeing people who are really highly, highly functional individuals, used to multitasking all the time and being on top of their game, but, all of a sudden, it’s really a struggle for them,” said Dr. Igor J. Koralnik, the chief of neuro-infectious diseases and global neurology at Northwestern Medicine, who oversees the clinic and is the senior author of the study.The report, in which the average patient age was 43, underscores the emerging understanding that for many people, long Covid can be worse than their initial bouts with the infection, with a stubborn and complex array of symptoms.This month, a study that analyzed electronic medical records in California found that nearly a third of the people struggling with long Covid symptoms — like shortness of breath, cough and abdominal pain — did not have any signs of illness in the first 10 days after they tested positive for the coronavirus. Surveys by patient-led groups have also found that many Covid survivors with long-term symptoms were never hospitalized for the disease.A new study illuminates the complex array of neurological issues experienced by people months after their coronavirus infections.

In the fall, after Samar Khan came down with a mild case of Covid-19, she expected to recover and return to her previous energetic life in Chicago. After all, she was just 25, and healthy.

But weeks later, she said, “this weird constellation of symptoms began to set in.”

She had blurred vision encircled with strange halos. She had ringing in her ears, and everything began to smell like cigarettes or Lysol. One leg started to tingle, and her hands would tremble while putting on eyeliner.

She also developed “really intense brain fog,” she said. Trying to concentrate on a call for her job in financial services, she felt as if she had just come out of anesthesia. And during a debate about politics with her husband, Zayd Hayani, “I didn’t remember what I was trying to say or what my stance was,” she said.

By the end of the year, Ms. Khan was referred to a special clinic for Covid-related neurological symptoms at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, which has been evaluating and counseling hundreds of people from across the country who are experiencing similar problems.

Now, the clinic, which sees about 60 new patients a month, in-person and via telemedicine, has published the first study focused on long-term neurological symptoms in people who were never physically sick enough from Covid-19 to need hospitalization, including Ms. Khan.

[ogmosis]

PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER INTERVIEW: ALLIE REYNOLDS

2021 is a weird time for everyone right now with debut authors hit by the lack of a traditional marketing window for their precious first book out the gate. Despite that, Allie Reynolds and her Headline publishing team managed to get her big publisher auction debut Shiver widespread coverage leading into its UK release two weeks ago. High-profile author blurbs and Waterstones promotion, amongst other activity, has given this fresh take on the psychological thriller genre a good chance of emerging from the pack which it deserves for its finely paced story and atmospheric snowy setting. I spoke with Allie at the back end of 2020 from her Gold Coast home in Australia to find out more about the former British snowboarder's career switch, inspirations and what the future holds.

Are you still pinching yourself with how the last couple of years has gone?

It has been an absolute dream. I suppose when I was writing it, I never knew if I would find a publisher. I kind of thought it was a niche book that might just be of interest to snowboarders and there weren’t that many thrillers set in ski resorts. I have heard from a lot of readers so far, who enjoy the insight into this world that they didn't know about.

How much tweaking did you have to do in order to bring the snowboarding side of it to life?

I had to add in about 20,000 words, partly because my US editor had never been to a ski resort and wanted explanation and clarification of what a halfpipe and tow lift was, in case readers couldn't visualise them.

Where have your biggest writing style influences come from?

Lee Child is a big influence. I am a massive fan. There is something really addictive about his thrillers. He tends to write in very short, sharp sentences. He writes in very simple language, there's no fancy bits or frilly bits or pretentious bits - it is just all about the story and I love that as I don't want to be pretentious in my language. You can absorb his words easily and that is the writing style that I try to emulate. I seem to mainly read female psychological thriller authors like Jane Harper, Erica Ferencik, Ruth Ware and Clare Mackintosh, a lot of the British authors. I love debut thrillers as they often have high concepts that are different to anything that you have seen before. Clare's books seem to have characters that feel things quite deeply and you care about them. I am trying hard to do that, because that is what I like reading.

The emotional depth of the characters in Shiver is one of the things that I picked up on, so where did the light-bulb moment come for that?

I never read any craft books until the last few years. I was a foreign languages nerd, and I didn't study English literature past the age of 15. I was just trying to write novels without knowing anything about the theory and struggling massively. Some of the craft books contradict the others, so I don't follow them rigorously, but I take the bits that I like from each one and form my own little note file of what I want to use. The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface by Donald Maass is one I really love and looks at emotion separately and the psychology of what readers might feel, even though it is challenging to understand. Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham is a little bit dated, but he talks about the scene and the sequel when the characters are processing what has happened and formulating a new path. Everything is about pace in thrillers these days and this part often gets cut out. He explains about writing in scenes, not chapters. Get in late to a scene and finish early on a cliffhanger. It is quite strange the process of how I came up with the characters. When I started out, I was researching snowboarders by watching YouTube videos of current top athletes, their mannerisms, the way they speak and just trying to get inspiration. Two of them started out as real, pro snowboarders but then they morphed as I wrote into something completely different. With Milla, there is a lot of me in there but hopefully not as competitive. I wanted to overhype that flaw of hers as it kind of drives the whole story in the end. I am a massive fan of John Truby and he always talks about how your main character must be an underdog. Another of his big focuses is how the character's flaw should drive the story. Almost every event that happens in the book happens because Milla is competitive. I liked the idea of Curtis being a hero with strong morals. Robert McKee talks about having characters that you would like to be or admire and look up to. Having a pull for the reader. I guess Saskia is the shadow side of Milla. The villain should have some aspects of the heroine, but then they take something too far.

Were you worried some readers might get put off by the snowboard circuit romance part of it?

I did wonder how the romance would go down as I had heard that UK readers do not especially like romance with their thrillers unlike Australia and the USA, where romantic suspense is a bigger genre. I was trying to get the fact that everybody knows everybody in that winter resort scene. Relationships might make or break and the following year somebody is seeing somebody else.

Did you also have it in the back of your mind that the women's psychological thriller genre boom might fade before your book even got out there?

I did worry that the psychological thriller boom would finish while I was writing it, but it seems to be going on longer than anyone anticipated. You always wonder when a dark situation like COVID-19 happens that people might look for something uplifting instead, but I see Shiver at the lighter end of that spectrum. I shy away from anything really dark or violent. It has been called a locked room mystery because the characters at the reunion play an icebreaker game, and whoever created the game clearly knows the dark secrets of their past. They are stranded in a closed environment. And Then There Were None was a big inspiration. The way they are invited by false pretences and realise early on they are not sure who it was.

It felt very cinematic reading it, so I assume screen rights have been snapped up?

The TV option was sold to Firebird Pictures straight after the publisher auction and, fingers crossed, it gets made. Julian, at my agency Blake Friedmann, really took care of rights. I got really lucky with my agent Kate Burke too.

What can we expect next now you have your foot firmly in the door?

I need silence at the starting phase of the book and time to think, so it was impossible trying to write the second book during lockdown homeschooling with my kids, but I am trying hard to finish it soon. It is quite a strange process compared to Shiver as I didn't know if anyone would read it. I was unselfconscious and sort of feeling my way along. This time it is very different as I have constant promotion work going on for Shiver. My next book is set here in Australia on a beach in a totally different environment with a fresh set of characters, so it is quite hard switching back and forth. You hear about second book syndrome. It is terrifying writing to a contract full stop, where you have to write the same but different. You are trying to capture everything they liked about your first book but trying to make it different enough. It has a sports focus in this second book a little bit as well, as athletes interest me, and we haven't seen them much in fiction.

Find out more about Allie and buy Shiver HERE.

[ellymackay]

Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine Reflects on a Year Plagued by Sleeplessness

Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine Reflects on a Year Plagued by Sleeplessness is courtesy of Elly Mackay's Sleep Blog

Psychologists add perspective to 2020 and share tips for better sleep in 2021.

By Earl C. Crew, PhD, Kelly Baron, PhD, DBSM, Michael V. DeSanctis, PhD, LP, ABPP, DBSM, Christina McCrae, PhD, CBSM, and Skye O. Margolies, PhD, DBSM

Having used the past few months to ponder it in full, the conclusion about 2020 remains the same: the year was a bit of a nightmare for sleep.

Between the COVID-19 pandemic, racial violence, pervasive wildfires, a contentious election season, and an economic collapse, it’s hardly surprising that people with insomnia, nightmares, and other concerns about poor sleep have flooded sleep medicine clinics.

At a time when our immune systems and mental health need as much support as they can get, sleep is like a frontline worker—essential. But how can we possibly sleep well when the future has been so uncertain? Especially since COVID-19 robbed many of their routines, social connection, and coping resources.

Early into the pandemic, we at the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine (SBSM) created a task force to help the public better understand how sleep might change in response to the pandemic, and how best to protect sleep even amidst the chaos. We published our top recommendations for keeping sleep on track.

Now that 2020 is behind us, but with the pandemic still raging, we share some additional thoughts about evolving challenges for sleep, as well as provide tips for getting through them.

[RELATED: After 4-year Gap, Behavioral Sleep Medicine Has a New Credential]

Why Sleep Has Suffered

For our ancestors, sleep was a high-risk activity, leaving them vulnerable to predation. When danger—like a saber-toothed tiger—lurked nearby, the fight-or-flight system provided a life-saving switch to override sleep and get to safety.

In 2020, our primary predator has been COVID-19. This invisible menace has kept us recurrently on-edge—constantly in fight-or-flight—making sleep difficult for many.

Understandably, some have turned to medications, alcohol, or other substances to help get to sleep. This often backfires by worsening sleep quality or creating dependence. For many, what may have started as a few nights of stress-induced sleeplessness back in March has morphed into chronic insomnia.

[RELATED: CBT-I Works in Young Drinkers to Reduce Insomnia Symptoms & May Help Lessen Alcohol Use Too]

Some Have Suffered More Than Others

But not everyone has had the same success navigating stress and the threats to sleep in 2020. COVID-19 has disproportionately affected communities of color, with minority Americans more likely to be out of work, hospitalized, or dead die due to COVID-19.

Similar disparities are also found for sleep. Black, Hispanic/Latinx, Native American/Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander citizens are more likely to get fewer hours of sleep and experience more sleep interruptions compared to non-Hispanic Whites.

The burdens of systemic racism and discrimination, as well as having fewer opportunities to get enough sleep due to competing responsibilities, may explain some of these racial/ethnic disparities in sleep. This gap likely widened in 2020—due to added stress from the pandemic, as well as from the incidents of racial violence, police brutality, and resulting protests that occurred during the summer.

Children and Teens’ Sleep

Another casualty of the pandemic began in March and April, when schools closed and 57+ million kids in the United States started attending school virtually. Almost immediately, Zoom classrooms were flooded with hordes of sleep-deprived zombies.

Kids lost much of their structured activities, social interactions, and time outside under the sun. All of the things that kept their biological rhythms on track became wobbly. The loss of a consistent sleep-wake routine set them up for increased stress and fewer ways to cope. That’s why your child is having more nightmares or why your teen may be even crankier than usual.

What’s more, school closures took a toll on the nation’s parents, now forced to become impromptu educators while juggling everything else. Fall arrived and some schools returned to in-person instruction, only for surges of virus cases in “hotspots” to trigger a sudden return to virtual learning. Parents must now prepare to immediately react to whatever new protocol is needed for tomorrow.

There are no perfect solutions for how to teach our nations’ children during a global pandemic, but any parent is likely to tell you that this pattern is simply unsustainable. How can healthy sleep occur under these conditions?

Here’s How to Cope

Even though things may often feel apocalyptic and chaotic, we are not totally powerless and there are things we can do to protect our sleep health.

Get up at the same time each day.

“Sleep is a core human health behavior,” explains Christina McCrae, PhD, president of the SBSM. “When things seem overwhelming, commit to small behavior changes rather than taking on radical shifts in routine. The best way to start is through consistency.”

Getting up at the same time will help to reset your biological rhythms. The more predictable those are, the more easily your brain can help you to sleep well at night and function well during the day.

Make the bedroom all about sleep and only get in bed when sleepy.

This protects your bedroom for sleep. It also helps your brain to lose that habit of turning “on” as soon as you get into bed, because it will learn that the bed is place for sleep, a sleepy place, not a get-stuff-done place.

Limit screen time before bed.

The stimulation from your TV show or videogame might artificially override your brain’s sleepy cues.

Say “no” to work in the late evening. Unwind before bedtime.

Stretching, journaling, yoga, family time, or meditation can be great for unwinding before bed so the day’s stressors don’t follow you to it.

Increase daylight exposure and get outside early.

Believe it or not, sunlight is sleep’s best friend. More light exposure during the day helps to make your circadian rhythms robust, which helps you sleep better at night.

Put on pants. Go outside. Stay physically and socially active.

Not only will this give you a much-needed mood boost, it will also help to boost your circadian rhythms and give you more restful sleep at night.

This can be easier said than done. And sometimes, even following these recommendations may not be enough to solve your sleep concerns.

“If you are not good with self-management, or you have more severe sleep problems, see a behavioral sleep medicine specialist,” McCrae recommends.

These healthcare providers with specific expertise in sleep can conduct a more thorough assessment of your sleep problems and create a personalized treatment plan to improve your sleep and quality of life.

McCrae also stresses that seeking out professional help is crucial if you’re also experiencing serious mood issues, such as depression or suicidal thoughts. Awareness for when we’ve reached our personal limit is critical and seeking out professional help is a key next-step.

There Is Hope

Just like wearing a mask in public or getting vaccinated, we all benefit when ourselves and those around us are well-rested. Healthy sleep gives rise to safer workers, more effective educators, healthier children, and happier communities.

Promoting healthy sleep starts with the individual. That’s why we at the SBSM want to help you sleep well. Our website provides scientifically sound resources for many types of sleep problems, as well as an international directory of expert sleep therapists who are ready to help.

Together, let’s sleep our way to a healthier and more equitable 2021.

Earl C. Crew, PhD, is part of the behavioral health program, mental health care line at Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, and assistant professor at Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Kelly Baron, PhD, DBSM, is an associate professor in the Division of Public Health, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of Utah, Salt Lake, Utah. She is a clinical psychologist with specialty training in behavioral sleep medicine. In the clinic, she provides cognitive and behavioral treatment for insomnia, plus other sleep disorders including circadian disorders, problems using CPAP treatment in sleep apnea, nightmares, sleepwalking, and coping with disorders of excessive sleepiness such as narcolepsy. Christina McCrae, PhD, CBSM, is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of Missouri where she directs the Mizzou Sleep Research Lab. She is a licensed psychologist who is board certified in behavioral sleep medicine through the American Board of Sleep Medicine. McCrae has been continuously funded by NIH since 2003. McCrae is currently serving) on various review panels (i.e., NIH, American Sleep Medicine Foundation). She is an associate editor for two journals, Behavioral Sleep Medicine and Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. Skye Ochsner Margolies, PhD, DBSM, is clinical psychologist/assistant professor at UNC School of Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology in Chapel Hill, NC. Michael deSanctis, PhD, LP, ABPP, DBSM, is a clinical psychologist, in the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin, a published author, owner of Positive Sleep Journeys, PLLC, and has decades of experience teaching, offering community seminars on sleep, winter SAD and body clocks, and providing clinical service in the public and private sectors.

Photo 205063799 © Somwut Kamalastboocha – Dreamstime.com

from Sleep Review https://www.sleepreviewmag.com/sleep-treatments/behavioral-sleep-medicine/sbsm-year-plagued-by-sleeplessness/

from Elly Mackay - Feed https://www.ellymackay.com/2021/02/17/society-of-behavioral-sleep-medicine-reflects-on-a-year-plagued-by-sleeplessness/