#the streets of New York City during the pandemic

[igotfatter]

Sorry to hear that your ex was so rude to you. But I have to admit, hearing about how in denial he was about his weight sounds super sexy. Do you know how heavy he got in the end? How did his weight effect the things you could/couldn’t do on a day to day basis?

The last I know his heaviest was 530 pounds. At 6’4”, he carried it relatively well, but it still impacted daily life. During the pandemic we lived full-time together and after I would spend two weeks in New York City, and two weeks with him At our place outside the city. When he visited me in New York, he went from being able to walk down the block with me to getting completely winded just reaching the street. He was in denial, blaming my fast walking, but even in the low 400s, he could outpace me. (Hot story about this) By the end, he barely left the house except for work and almost outgrew his car, exactly like Rasputia in Norbit blaming the weather one time. Physical intimacy became nonexistent, and he started needing extra help at work after breaking chairs. He outgrew our furniture and couldn’t manage hygiene or clean up after himself, often leaving plates and wrappers around. It was hard to watch him struggle, especially since he refused to acknowledge how much his weight was affecting him.

We traveled a lot and of course he could only travel if I was next to him, we would get business class or first class seats on long-haul flights and he wouldn’t be able to do the tray table and I would have to hold both of our plates of food on the plane. I’m sure there’s more. I know he couldn’t use the plane bathroom and had to pee in the sink. at a relatives house he physically was too big to use the toilet so I would have to like assist him in going pee in secret. this might be TMI for tumblr but when he would pee towards the end the floor would have a mess (he sat to pee) and  he physically like could not find his junk to pee in the right spot. But all of this was complete denial. I don’t know how else to explain it but I just never understood how people got to 800 pounds without wanting to be 800 pounds until I met him.

(He’s around mid to low 400’s here)

[more-sonorous]

sun, moon, stars part 1— jatherid blurb

I adore this ship and I decided to write the hypothetical beginning of a fic loosely based on a post I saw by @blurglesmurfklaine about these three being roomies during the 2020 quarantine

Please lmk if you’d consider reading more! Also TW for mentions of the Covid pandemic!

…

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not as bad as it seems.” 

Katherine Pulitzer watched as her best friend, David Jacobs, anxiously traced his thumb over the grooves in the table beneath them. He always had a lot of nervous energy, but this was another level.

Those round, green eyes of his were flitting about behind the lenses of his thick-framed glasses, flicking between his laptop and her. She frowned and reached across the table to gently pat his hand. 

“Maybe you’re right, David.” She said, doing her best to reassure him with a calm smile. “You might enjoy some time back at home…”

“Trapped in my parents’ house for an undisclosed amount of time without Sarah? Yeah.” He let out a dry laugh and buried his face in his hands.

She glanced over the familiar pattern of freckles on the backs of his pale hands as her mind raced to try and come up with a solution. 

Katherine and David grew up side-by-side in a small town in upstate New York. They went to the same synagogue and attended the same schools, and had been virtually inseparable since first grade. They’d even gone to the same college and purposefully lived in the same dormitories each year, because they couldn’t be roommates due to their genders. Post-college they were just as close. Kath knew David like the back of her own hand, and knew his family very well by extension. The Jacobs’s were incredibly nice. Esther and Mayer were loving parents that cared deeply for their children, Sarah, David, and Les, which often led to David feeling burdened when he visited. 

Unlike his younger brother and elder sister, David was an introvert with narcolepsy. That led to his parents smothering him when he stayed with them, something that he didn’t necessarily appreciate in large dosages. Now that an imminent quarantine in New York City had been announced, Katherine could tell he wasn’t excited to drive one-and-a-half hours upstate and out of the city just to sequester himself away with two fretting parents and a teenage younger brother. 

“Where’s Sarah staying? I still don’t think I get why you two can’t hole up in your apartment together.” She took a brief sip of her latte and closed the keyboard of her iPad, fully immersing herself in the conversation.

David shrugged as he glanced out the window adjacent to him. The streets looked deceptively normal, despite the warning the city’d just received. “She’s going to stay with her fianceé and her family. They have a vacation house in Massachusetts.”

“Right…” Katherine winced sympathetically as she tried to read him for his opinion. He had a telltale furrow in his brow that showed how disappointed he was. “I forgot Sarah’s been gold digging.”

“Yeah. Sometimes I wish I could live alone.” He lamented, glancing up at her with a sad little smile tugging on the corners of his lips. “Narcolepsy and autism aren’t a good combination.” 

Katherine rolled her eyes fondly, reaching across their little cafe table to fix his glasses. “You make it work, though.”

“Barely.” He shrugged, and as he glanced down at the string he was spinning between his fingers, probably picked off of his sweatshirt. She saw just how bothered David was about all of this. There was a rigid hunch to his shoulders and his normally smiling face had been twisted into an unhappy resting frown. “Like— I love my parents and I like visiting home, but I moved out for a reason, you know? They make me feel like I’m incapable of functioning without constant supervision, which just isn’t true.” 

“Of course.” She nodded, sympathy tugging at her heartstrings.

David was brilliant. He was one of the smartest people she knew. They’d been neck-to-neck for valedictorian in school and he’d ended up stealing the spot with his straight A’s, 4.0 GPA and 34 on the ACT. Hell, he was working through a master’s degree in Juridical Science, and still managed to tack on both a history minor and a literature minor during undergrad. She’d gladly tell anyone she knew that he was a genius. Kath didn’t know exactly why David couldn’t live alone, but she knew that narcolepsy made it dangerous. He couldn’t drive because of his condition and she knew that sometimes he needed help waking up and sleeping. She also knew that because of his autism, he tended to lose himself in reading or school projects, because she’d had to remind him herself to eat or take breaks multiple times throughout their friendship. 

He didn’t deserve to feel babied. The thought of David holed up in his house and miserable while she spent her quarantine happy with her boyfriend made her feel uncomfortable. 

Yes, Kath moved in with her boyfriend of three months, Jack Kelly, and despite what her parents said, she regretted nothing so far. Jack had a nice studio apartment in Upper Manhattan and she’d rather die than spend quarantine in the Pulitzer mansion with her asshole father and suburbanite mother. Not to mention at least one of her six other siblings would be home, and Katherine didn’t get along well with most of them.

She was sort of the black sheep in her family. A bisexual, unmarried journalist in her late twenties, moving in with her Hispanic boyfriend after only knowing him for a few months? Her family was constantly having conniption fits over her life, and she was too happy to care. 

Jack brought so much joy to her life. She didn’t care that her parents hated the fact he was a full-time artist. She ignored the snide remarks her father made about his ethnicity and illegal immigrants. Her mother liked to gossip about his ‘street style’ because he had one of his ears pierced and he liked to wear ripped jeans. They warned her about a potential ‘seedy past’ just because he had scars on his arms and face— just two little ones splitting his eyebrow and left jaw. They were wrong about Jack, though. He was sweet and funny and passionate and talented, and Katherine liked that in men.

So she’d moved in three weeks ago, and things were going swimmingly. Part of her wanted David to be that happy, and part of her didn’t even know if she could handle being away from him indefinitely.

“There’s got to be something we can do.” She stated firmly, watching him miserably pick at his untouched croissant. “Someone you can stay with…”

“I’m not burdening anyone but my family with my health issues.” He responded just as stubbornly. 

“Don’t even. You’re not a burden. What about���“ The idea struck her like some sort of cartoonish eureka moment. She felt her own grin and wondered why she hadn’t had the thought to do this before. “What about me and Jack? Jack’s brother Tony’s moving in with his boyfriend for quarantine so his room’ll be open…”

David’s cheeks began to splotch pink beneath his freckles. “I— I haven’t even met Jack.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. He’ll like you. He has to like you. You’re my best friend, and you’re part of the Katherine Pulitzer Package.”

A sheepish grin took over his face and he dropped eye contact again, that pinkish color tinging the tip of his nose and his endearingly wide ears. “Kath…”

“It’s true. And the thought of you spending all of this quarantine an hour and a half away from me during a pandemic is making me nervous.” She crossed her arms, starting to like the idea more with every word she said. “Listen, David, I’ll run it by Jack and you could probably move in right after! You’re already packed, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but—“

“Then you can take the spare room and we’ll split rent three ways. It’ll be better for all of us. David, this is going to be so fun! Think of all the shows we’ll be able to binge!” She was practically near the point of squealing as she took his hands in her own. Visions of younger Kath and Davey filled her mind, composed of all of the times they’d sworn to live together or start up businesses or run libraries side by side. This was going to be fun. She’d get to spend time with her two favorite people.

Unconvinced, David’s frown deepened. “Kathy, I… I don’t know. Does he— does Jack know I’m autistic? And my narcolepsy, I don’t… I don’t wanna make him uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?” Katherine scoffed, offended by the thought. “If he’s uncomfortable then that’s a huge red flag. You and I can just pack our stuff and move into your place. But Jack won’t be weird, I promise. He’s incredibly sweet. And David— you don’t make people uncomfortable.”

“I sleep all of the time and I have incredibly strange habits—“

“Everybody has weird habits.” She insisted, dead-set on the idea. “And sleeping all the time is better than leaving out dirty dishes or never closing the toilet seat, or something. Plus, you’re incredibly tidy which’ll fit right in with Jack and I. He cooks, I do laundry, and you can help us clean up.”

“I don’t want you to have to do my laundry…”

“Specifics~” In a sing-song voice, she tried to subdue his overthinking. 

He tilted his head with a slight smile, obviously confused by her. They were at the point where he didn’t have to voice his troubles reading her emotions. She found the expression adorable, anyways. “You really are determined to see this through, aren’t you?” 

“Yep.” She grinned wildly, “You know how I get when I’m determined.”

“I know.” David conceded, and Kath noticed that he already looked just a bit brighter as he carefully brushed one of his chocolate-brown curls off of his brow. “I guess I… I’ll tell my parents if your boyfriend says yes. Will you— you’re not gonna— I won’t be interrupting anything, will I?” 

Kath was confused for just a split second, until she noticed the pinkish color of his cheeks. She couldn’t suppress her own soft giggle. “Oh, no, David. You won’t be.”

“Okay… if you say so.” He shook his head at her as his attention returned to his laptop. She could see the reflection of a Quizlet in his lenses.

Now she was practically itching to leap out of her chair in the tiny café. The news outlet she worked for had already transferred them to online work, since they only went into the offices three days a week. She was going to go home to Jack and have an easy, quick conversation, and then David wouldn’t have to be miserable. Plus, she’d finally get to live with her best friend.

“You almost done studying, hon?” Kath asked, carefully bumping their ankles together. She polished off her drink, vibrating with the happy energy of a plan coming together. 

He glanced up through long, dark lashes, wearing a little smile at the nickname. “Almost. You rushing me, Kathy?”

“No. I want this future lawyer to pass his test tomorrow.” Despite her practiced tone, she could tell he was seeing right through her. She acquiesced. “But I’m also excited to get home and talk to Jack. I’ll call you right after he says yes.”

“You can’t be sure.” He murmured, and she watched a flashcard flip. 

Katherine was going to quell his nerves, because she was actually 100% positive. “We’ll see about that.” 

David only chuckled softly and returned to his studying. Katherine had long abandoned her half-finished article in favor of conversation with him, so now she just watched his elegant fingers fly across the keys at breakneck speeds. This was going to be good.

…

Katherine was rarely ever wrong, and she hadn’t been wrong about Jack. When she inquired about David, he gave her an easygoing smile and agreed to the living arrangement without much further questioning. Maybe it had been her obvious excitement, or the spiel she’d given in David’s favor before asking the question, but he seemed perfectly alright with a total stranger moving into his spare room. 

She was tossing a throw blanket over the couch when Jack exited the bedroom wearing a tank top and an unbuttoned flannel, the sleeves rolled up to display muscular forearms. He looked so goddamn pretty that it took her brain a moment to reset before she could continue her couch dressing. It wasn’t wise to get Katherine started on his excellent choice in jeans, either. She could go on for days about the way he cuffed his acid-washed pants.

Jack sent her one of his bright smiles as he crossed the room to wrap his arms around her, dropping his chin onto her shoulder since they were nearly the same height. “Is your friend gonna be here soon?”

“Yes.” She placed a soft kiss on his cheek and twisted within his arms, slinging her own around his shoulders. “David’s incredibly kind and smart, but he can be sort of awkward at first. It’s not because he doesn’t like you. And remember, he’s got narcolepsy so—“

“I remember.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, his touch slow and sure. It still stole her breath, even after three months. “I even looked up some of that narcolepsy stuff, just to make sure I was ready.”

Kath’s heart squeezed at this man’s sweetness, and she felt herself smiling dopily as she cupped his cheek in one hand. “You’re incredible. Have I told you that?”

“Maybe. But I don’t mind hearin’ it again.” Jack grinned the type of smile that made Kath want to kiss him senseless. “But uh— does he do any of that sleep attack stuff? Where their muscles stop working.”

“What, cataplexy?”

He nodded, looking like a mixture between uneasy and determined. 

“David doesn’t have it as bad as some people but sometimes you might see his eyelids start to droop against his will. He gets upset about it. Normally he doesn’t have severe attacks but… he was really stressed senior year of high school and he did go limp a couple of times. I’m not saying that’ll happen, because it’s been a while, but if it does and I’m not here for some reason, just sit with him and let him ride it out. Make sure he’s breathing.” 

He gave a firm nod, a lot less nervous than she expected. Then Kath remembered his youngest brother Charlie, who had a birth defect in one leg that required him to use crutches or a wheelchair on high pain days. Jack was used to taking care of the people he loved. The thought of him doing research for David, whom he didn’t even know, made her feel ridiculously giddy. 

“Gotcha.” Jack pressed a kiss to her forehead and trailed a line of similar, sweeter little kisses down to her lips.

When his hands slipped down to press against her lower back, she knew exactly what he was getting at and laughed as she carefully pushed a hand against his firm chest. “Down, boy. He’ll be here within the hour.” 

Jack’s only protest was a childlike whine, which caused her to push him away by the forehead. Both laughed as Jack made his way into the kitchen to start on dinner. She busied herself with tidying the living room, slight nerves building within her as she hoped and prayed that David and Jack would get along. 

Eventually the intercom buzzed and Kath practically sprinted across the room to call David up. She was rife with anticipation, exactly how she felt before submitting a big article. Jack could obviously tell and chuckled softly as he kissed her forehead on the way to the living room.

Moments later came a knock on the door, and Kath excitedly opened it to reveal David in all of his nervous glory.

He wore an overstuffed backpack and a duffle bag was slung over the crook of one elbow. He was clutching two cardboard boxes to his chest, both reading ‘books’ in his neat scrawl. 

“David!” Kath exclaimed, immediately taking the boxes from him. “Did Saz drive you?”

“She’s bringing up the rest of my stuff.” David confirmed, and Kath almost offered to go down and help until she remembered the multiple powerlifting championships his older brother Sarah won in highschool. She figured Sarah would be alright.  

“Come on in, then.” Katherine smiled at him from over the heavy boxes, full of David’s extensive collection of books. His prized possessions.

They wandered into the space, David’s eyes glancing over the kitchen and their little entrance area, complete with a welcome mat and a rack for their coats and bags. Kath had never lived with a significant other, and she was finding the domesticity of it all very lovely. But she wasn’t worried about his reaction to the place itself. 

The big moment came when David stepped into the living room, Kath trailing behind. Jack quickly stood and she watched as both boys took each other in.

Inwardly, she was proud of David for making an excellent first impression. He wore a nice pair of khakis and an olive green sweater that made his eyes look almost vibrant in their green hue. His curls were tamed and he didn’t look too much like a deer in headlights, though she could already see him struggling to maintain eye contact with a smiling Jack, who gravitated towards him and offered a hand. “I’m Jack. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“I hope that’s a good thing. I’m David… it’s nice to meet you.” He took Jack’s hand, which only reminded Kath how tall he was.

Jack was a bit on the shorter side at 5”9, but David towered above just about everyone at a clean 6”2. 

“Well, it’s nice to meet ya’ too, Davey.” 

“Oh, it’s— um—“

They shook hands and David didn’t even wipe his palm off on his thigh as he normally did, staring at Jack with wide, green eyes. It had to be the nickname that had spooked him, Kath knew, and felt her anxiety peak. Last time someone had attempted to give him a nickname he’d nearly shut down, but instead his eyes just roamed over Jack’s easy expression.

He cleared his throat. “Right. So… uh… my room?”

“Right this way, sir.” Jack, goofball that he was, pretended to tip an invisible cap. A little smile split across David’s face as he followed Jack further into their space, to the spare bedroom Tony had recently vacated. The tension seemed to disappear immediately as Jack took David’s duffel from him and led the way.

That went surprisingly well. Kath wasn’t sure she’d ever seen David take to someone so easily. Except for herself, of course. But they were six years old and she’d asked him to play pirates with her since he was crying, so she wasn’t sure if that counted. Usually it took him about a month to get past prolonged, stony silences and awkward refusal of eye contact, but here he was smiling and relaxing his tense posture already. 

Snapping out of her stupor, Kath joined the boys in the bedroom, and set David’s boxes on his desk. She finally pulled him into a hug. He responded gratefully, pressing his cheek into her auburn hair. She felt the tension seep out of him like it always did when they hugged. “Thank you so much for this, Kathy.” 

“You don’t have to thank me. I think we’re too codependent to survive a quarantine apart.” 

David laughed softly and stepped back, tucking his hands into his pockets as he examined the room. He was drawn towards the window, which is sort of what Kath expected from him. His childhood bedroom had a bay window and a reading nook. They’d spend countless hours curled up there. “This place is really lovely.” 

“Thanks.” Jack leaned against the closet, eyes lingering on David. Kath could understand— sometimes it was difficult to look away. He was incredibly pretty. “My Ma’s friend used to own it and she pulled some strings to get it for me and my brother Racer.”

When she was younger, there’d been multiple years in which she was convinced she’d marry David one day. He was handsome and smart and really witty and sarcastic once you got to know him— but that dream had sort of fallen through when David never showed any interest in dating. His life revolved around his grades, his intense hyperfixation keeping him from any sort of romance. He’d never dated, to Katherine’s knowledge, and as they got closer to thirty, she wondered if he might be asexual or something.

He was a compelling person. She was glad to call him her best friend. “Have you called your parents yet, David?”

“Yeah. I think they’re disappointed, but, uh…” He grinned sheepishly. “I’m not.”

“Good.” Kath smiled and started to carefully unpack the boxes. 

They heard the intercom buzz again, and Jack politely excused himself to go help Sarah in. David slid up to stand side by side with Kath as they carefully removed his books from the boxes. He broke the comfortable silence, voice tight with nerves. “I… I’m really not interrupting anything, right?”

“No.” She answered as emphatically as possible, leaving no room for doubt. “You’re not interrupting, and you’re not a burden, so don’t even think it. I’m glad to have you here, David.”

“Okay.” He exhaled, and some more of that rigid tension seemed to slip from his slim shoulders. “Just checking.”

“I know.” She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “What do you think of Jack?”

Green eyes grew wide and he glanced comically between Kath and the bedroom door. “Kath, he could come back any second!”

“Just tell me now!” She couldn’t stop her own giggle at the sight of David’s tiny smile, resting an eager hand on his arm. 

He tilted his head and leaned in, still glancing at the door. David’s volume dropped to an intimate sort of whisper, a tone that sounded nice in his soft voice. “He… he seems really charismatic. And handsome.”

“Isn’t he?” Kath gushed, excited to have David’s approval so quickly. “I think you two will really get along well.” 

Moments later, Jack re-entered the room with Sarah in tow. As promised, she had the bulk of David’s things and carried them with ease, impressive biceps flexed as she set the bags and boxes on the floor. Sarah, embarrassingly enough, had been Katherine’s bisexual awakening. Two years older and positively gorgeous, she’d crushed on David’s big sister for the first two years of highschool.

Privately, Kath couldn’t think of anyone that wouldn’t find Sarah stunning. She was tall and built and she had the prettiest dark hair. It was funny- David was like a string bean compared to her as he hugged her tightly. They were close. Sarah might’ve been the only person closer to David than Kath herself.

They exchanged greetings as everyone helped David unpack, setting up the room and slowly making it his own.  

Jack took a liking to Sarah as well, but to Kath’s utter delight, he really seemed to click with David. David laughed at Jack’s ridiculous little jokes and seemed to enjoy his passionate ranting about art. He even let Jack call him Davey for the entirety of the night, which both Sarah and Kath were floored about.  

On the other hand, Jack seemed to like David’s dry humor and found his awkwardness just as endearing as Kath did. He listened to David talk about his rigorous law courses with rapt interest, and Kath decided then and there that they’d be fast friends.

She knew change was hard for David, and that was evident in the way he clung to Sarah once his room was set up. She rocked him back and forth in the hug and gently ruffled his hair as they said their goodbyes. 

Soon Sarah was gone, and Kath could see actual tears in David’s eyes as she left. The only logical thing to do was tug him into a hug, which he melted into. “You’re both gonna be okay, David.”

“I know.” He sniffled, fists gently curling into the material of Kath’s shirt. “I’ve just— I’ve never not lived with Saz.”

“It’s a big change.” Kath agreed, and gently ran her fingers through his curls. 

Jack was wearing a familiar look of sympathy as he stepped closer, gently placing a hand on David’s back. His love language was physical affection above anything else, and thankfully David didn’t flinch away as Jack spoke. “How’d you feel about a movie tonight, Davey?”

Davey hiccuped, “Sounds good.” 

Carefully, Jack patted him on the back and slipped out into the living room. Once they were in private, David’s chest started to shake with little sobs and Kath hugged him even tighter. She’d expected this, but it didn’t make seeing her best friend cry any easier. 

“Shh, David. I’ve got you.” She assured, continuing to card her fingers through his hair. The poor thing was bent at an awkward angle, glasses smushed against his cheek. “This is gonna be fun, right? Longest sleepover ever.”

He laughed wetly and nodded,  pushing his hands beneath his glasses to dry his eyes. “Okay. I think it’s out of my system.”

“Even if it’s not, I’m always right here.” She gave his arm a gentle squeeze, remembering the countless times he’d held her while she cried over her frustrating parents. Tears weren’t a foreign thing between the two. “Change into something comfortable and I’ll put on Dead Poets Society.”

“Thanks, Kathy.” He whispered, fingers gently trailing down to wrap around her wrist.

Stupidly, her heart skipped a beat. Sometimes he looked at her like she was the most precious thing in the world, and the sheer sincerity in his green eyes made her feel some type of way.

The strangest thing was that Jack made her feel the exact same. She tried to push that down and gave him another reassuring squeeze before exiting the room.

David with tear-streaked cheeks was an unfairly pretty sight. 

The smell of popcorn filled the living area as Kath reclined on the couch, pulling up the movie of choice just in time for Jack to join her with a bowl full of popcorn. He glanced at the bedroom door David had since shut, concern lining his features. “Is he okay?” 

“He will be.” She leaned into Jack’s side, balancing the popcorn on her lap. When he still looked uneasy, she laughed softly and nudged his knee. “I promise. It’s tough for him to regulate his emotions when he’s tired, and I’m sure he’s had a long day. Plus, he and Sarah are super close so he might have sister withdrawals.” 

“Okay. That was just sort of heartbreaking.” Jack muttered like the human teddy bear he was, one arm tightening around Katherine. 

“You’re too nice for your own good, did you know that?” She teased, running her fingertips down his cheek. “David will be fine. I promise.” 

Jack smiled and nudged their noses together. “I’ve never seen this movie.” 

“It’s his favorite.” She explained simply, smoothing down the collar of Jack’s flannel. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”

They shared a little laugh as David emerged from his bedroom, looking a little more put together despite his puffy eyes. He wore a Columbia t-shirt and a pair of soft gray sweatpants that Kath knew he adored. He curled up on the opposite end of the couch, about a foot away, and Kath felt like it wouldn’t be proper to call him over and close the gap. Instead she balanced the popcorn on the cushion between them, wishing he would just sit next to her like he normally did.

His little smile at the sight of the title on the screen was enough. “Have you seen this, Jack?”

Jack and Kath exchanged a look before Jack grinned at David, wide and blinding. “Nope.” 

David’s jaw dropped, and when laughter filled the room, Katherine was sure everything would be alright.

Like most movie nights with her best friend went, he was curled up asleep by the end of the film, using the armrest of the couch as a pillow with his knees drawn up to his chest. She didn’t know how someone so tall could make themselves so tiny in sleep. They liked to joke that he’d never seen the end of a movie before. Jack was crying incoherently behind her as the credits rolled and she decided that this spontaneous quarantine was going to be a bit less terrifying with these boys around.

[aft3rglow]

Alexandra Grace Carver, best known as Lexie, grew up in the heart of London with her siblings and her mom. She never met her dad, but that’s where the supernatural part of her comes from. Half-god, though she never gave it much thought until recently.

Music was always in her blood. Even as a kid, she filled the house with her voice, belting out songs at the top of her lungs. Instead of writing diary entries, she scribbled down lyrics, filling pages with words that meant something to her. And when she got her first guitar? That was it. The moment everything clicked into place. From then on, she wrote songs with a passion that only grew stronger. Performing them for her family. For anyone who’d listen.

The day she turned eighteen, she packed her bags and moved to New York City, a place that had always felt like it was calling her home. She studied art history, spent her days working as a museum guide, and her nights performing in bars. Little by little, New Yorkers started to recognize her name. And when the pandemic hit, she took a leap—started posting her music online. More people listened. More people connected with the songs she poured her soul into.

That’s when Gracie Abrams was born. A name pulled from her middle name and her favorite bookstore back in London. Her little corner of the indie music scene grew, one song at a time. She released her first EP during the lockdown, an experience that felt both surreal and electric. That's when she met her manager and close friend Claire, who believed in her from the start. And when the world opened back up, she stepped onto a stage for the first time in front of the people who had been listening to her music for years. A small tour. A dream becoming real, one city at a time.

Then came Good Riddance, her first album, which blew up way more than she expected. Then came Taylor Swift, calling with an offer she never saw coming—opening for the Eras Tour. Suddenly, everything shifted. The attention, the crowds, the way people started recognizing her on the street. She pressed pause on her art history degree. Quit her museum job. Music had always been her dream, and now it was her life.

Now, her new album The Secret of Us has been out since July 2024, and she’s spending her days exactly where she’s always meant to be—on the road, playing her songs for the people who love them as much as she does.

[fearlessword]

I’ll meet you in my dreams - Chapter 1

Summary: You dreamed of the boy who played piano before you knew who he was. Humming the melodies you heard in your sleep brought BTS into your life and you thought it was just meant to be.When you finally have the chance to see him perform live, you realize that the dreams you have are more than a coincidence. You hope he dreams of you too.

Masterlist

Chapter 1

Wake up. Teach. Eat. Plan. Overthink. Cry. Sleep.

Repeat.

You didn’t know how your life turned out to be like this. You hated it. You hated the city streets were empty. You hated that the principal kept watching each lesson just to criticize your teaching.You hated teaching online and how burned out you were because of it. You hated not being able to see your friends, or what’s left of them. You hated that fucking virus that postponed all of your plans. You hated how much you missed your cheating ex and that traitor you once called best friend.

Everything sucks in 2020.

At first, it seemed like it was just for a while, which also meant a good break before the craziness that came with Spring and the end of the school year. Two months after the government announced the quarantine, you were burned out, rethinking life choices, crying yourself to sleep because of a break up you thought you had moved on from. Your roommate and coworker Camila was the only good thing. She became a nice friend who could relate to you. Both of you were just two tired teachers trying to survive in New York City during a pandemic. The growing friendship you had made it bearable. When nights were especially hard for you and you’d sob and cry at 3 am, your friend wouldn’t say a thing, only to greet you with open arms, a mug of hot coffee, and a silent promise of ice cream and movies after dinner. You didn’t deserve it, considering you were the reason she’d wake up in the middle of the night, but she didn’t hold it against you, and you were grateful for that.

If you were being honest with yourself, you knew you shouldn’t be crying for a relationship that finished two years ago. It was hard not to, especially now that there wasn’t much, besides work, to keep you busy. It was the last week of May, Summer was just around the corner and you yearned for the joy the season brings. At the same time, shaking off the feelings that came with the isolation was not an easy feat. He cheated on you with your best friend, after all! You tell yourself he doesn’t deserve your tears, but it takes time to erase things like that.

You are lonely and confused, angry to feel the way you felt. Grieving the youth you’re giving away while staying at home. So, on that night of May, you did what you should’ve done 2 years ago. You got your blue journal, a pencil, bursted your earbuds with the saddest songs you could find, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, you wrote.

The words spilled from your mind to the paper, a letter addressed to the one who made you feel like this. How you met, how you became friends, the moment you realized you loved him. The memories you wanted to erase flowing so easily through your hands. The story was kept in your head for so long, suffocating you a little bit every day, it was like you could exhale for the first time. How you missed this!

You were so focused on revisiting all of the moments to write, that you didn’t check the time. It was late, so late. And you needed to sleep now if you wanted to have energy for the long day of teaching you had ahead of you.

You checked the amount of words you’ve written. Seven pages. It was still just the beginning. Your eyes were red and wet and you got yourself a headache. As cathartic as it was to write like this, it had left you with zero to no energy to keep going. As you were embraced by your sleep, you wished the part of your brain that processed traumatic experiences just did its job.

That night, you dream of a man and a piano.

Not exactly a piano, it was more like a keyboard.

All you could see was that he was making music.

The room was compact, so much it didn’t look like a room. “Maybe he’s camping”, you thought. There was a bunk bed and a tiny table underneath it, which was where he was working with a yellow notepad and pencil positioned close to the laptop. His pale skin was in contrast with the black straight hair covering part of his face. Still, you were able to see some of his facial expressions. He was so concentrated in his craft, long fingers testing notes in the mini keyboard connected to his laptop.

You wish you could listen to the melody he is so focused on, he was clearly showing signs of conflict, while listening to it on his headphones. He throws his head back and breathes loudly, like he needs a break, the hair moves out of his face and you can see his eyes now. Deep, dark, catlike eyes.

Oh God. He 's beautiful.

You could feel a pull, an inexplicable warmth inside of you… You were curious about him. You were curious about the circumstances. Why were you consciously dreaming about a man you have never seen in your life? Why aren’t you in this dream? How could he fascinate you so much in minutes?

A door opens and there’s light in the room. You hear a voice speaking a language you don’t understand. You hear a deep voice, his voice, replying in the same language. Then, everything goes black.

You were pulled out of the dream, eyes open, back in your room, but with remains of the comforting warmth inside of you.

It stayed with you the whole day, just like the memory of the boy making music.

That night, the crying is not that loud, your writing process still hard, but not unbearable.

You were still tired, still heartbroken. The routine was the same.

But there was that warm feeling in your chest. And as your head touches the pillow in the middle of the night, you hope to dream of him again.

>>> Next Chapter

[mariacallous]

There have been twice as many homicides in New York’s transit system so far this year as during the same time period in 2023 – even though overall violence in the system is slightly down, according to police data.

The figures have come into focus in the wake of a particularly grisly killing over the weekend — when authorities said a man set a sleeping woman on fire on an F train at Brooklyn’s Coney Island station, burning her to death. Police charged 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta with murder and arson in that attack.

Immigration officials said Zapeta is an immigrant from Guatemala in the United States without authorization, having re-entered the country after being deported in 2018. But that incident was one of several violent acts on the subway over the weekend — including a stabbing death, a shooting and two punching attacks on elderly riders.

Including the latest homicides, 11 people have been killed in the city’s mass transit system so far this year, compared to five within the same period last year, according to police data. For some of the 4 million people who ride the subway every day, the weekend’s incidents have aggravated a persistent public anxiety.

“There's no way you can really feel safe. There's no way,” commuter Dashauna Jackson said after getting off the C train at Spring Street on Monday. “It really has gotten really bad over the last few years.”

Jackson and other subway riders who spoke to Gothamist said they’ve noticed an uptick in people acting erratically, fights and general disruption on the subways within the past few years.

Their comments come amid a continuing debate about public safety on the transit system, which crescendoed earlier this month when Daniel Penny, who was accused of causing the death of Jordan Neely when he held him in a chokehold on an uptown F train last year, was acquitted of manslaughter charges. Passengers on the train had said Neely was yelling threats when Penny grabbed him.

Paul Reeping, head of research at the nonprofit Vital City, said a broad uptick in incidents is not just a perception.

”If people are noticing that, it's because partially it is true,” he said, adding that an increase in subway crime during the pandemic mirrored the increase in crime elsewhere in the city and has yet to get back down to pre-pandemic levels.

Though homicides doubled in transit this year, they’re still exceedingly rare, he stressed. He said two murders occurring in the subway system on the same day is “huge” because it’s so uncommon.

“We think that the subways are maybe even safer than walking on the streets, just in terms of the amount of time spent and the amount of crime that happens,” he said.

Still, he said, the increase should be taken seriously.

“I think the way that most people feel about the subway, just because it feels like an intimate space, is that it must be like a plane – there shouldn't be any murders there,” he said. “The number should be zero.”

Politicians have taken note of the public concern. Gov. Kathy Hochul last week said she was deploying an additional 250 National Guard troops into the subway system, in addition to 750 troops the state sent into the subways in March after a string of high-profile subway crimes. On Sunday, she touted the installation of cameras in every subway car, a $5.5 million project.

Surveillance in the subway system – along with body camera footage and a viral bystander video – helped police swiftly take a person of interest into custody in the case of the burning woman. But that surveillance didn’t as quickly lead to arrests in four other incidents, including the other killing, that happened in subways across the city over the weekend.

On Friday morning, just after 6 a.m., an 83-year-old man riding a southbound 5 train near Manhattan’s Fulton Street station was punched in the face several times by a stranger after a verbal dispute, police said. He sustained lacerations to the face and head and was taken to Kings County Hospital Center for treatment.

Around 3 p.m. Saturday, a 21-year-old man and an 18-year-old man were shot by two unidentified individuals as they got off a southbound Q train at the Avenue U subway station in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, officials said. They were both taken to local hospitals in stable condition.

On Sunday at 12:30 a.m., a 37-year-old man was stabbed to death on a southbound 7 train at the 61st Street-Woodside Station in Queens. A 26-year-old man was also slashed multiple times and taken to Elmhurst Hospital in stable condition.

And on Sunday around 2:30 p.m., a 76-year-old woman was punched in the head by a stranger and knocked to the ground on the southbound 6 train platform at Manhattan’s 51st Street subway station, police said. She was taken to NY Presbyterian Hospital in stable condition.

In each of those cases except for the fatal stabbing, police sent out clear photos of the alleged assailants – just as they did in the case of the woman burned on the F train.

According to the NYPD’s CompStat database, crime in the transit system overall is down by 135 incidents, or 6%, in comparison to this time last year – with 2,095 incidents reported through Dec. 15 this year.

Grand larceny makes up a majority of those reported crimes, with more than 1,000 incidents both years. But felony assaults – the kinds of attacks that can leave victims with permanent injuries – are the next highest category. The police data shows 548 felony assaults have been reported in transit this year, compared to 557 in the same time frame last year.

Danny Pearlstein, policy director for the Riders Alliance, an organization that helps commuters advocate for better transit systems, said the answer to the problem is not necessarily more “scare tactics” that can further heighten anxieties for riders.

“We need our leaders to double down on housing solutions to housing problems, on health care solutions to health care problems,” he said. “To the extent we want to see a police presence on the subway, we need that to be on platforms and trains, even though we know that police can’t solve every problem in transit.”

John McCarthy, chief of policy and external relations at the MTA, said the transit agency has been employing the three-pronged “Cops, Cameras and Care” approach to bring down subway crime and make riders feel safer.

He said the agency has been working with the State and the NYPD to put more uniformed officers in the system, has met its goal of installing cameras in every subway car, and has established the SCOUT program, where outreach teams work together to get help for people who are homeless and struggling with mental illness.

McCarthy said the MTA has been looking into the context behind each homicide to see what circumstances caused the deaths and what could have possibly prevented them.

“There’s still work to be done,” he said. “We remain focused on driving that number down.”

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

A great argument to move to New Jersey: They just enshrined outdoor dining for restaurants.

By Michael McDowell

New York City's roadway dining dens must be removed by the end of the day on Friday, Nov. 29, per the Department of Transportation.

NEW YORK CITY – Have you noticed a change on Manhattan’s streets? The outdoor dining sheds that became a staple of pandemic-era life in the city are vanishing, and pretty soon, they’ll all be gone.

Restaurants must remove roadway outdoor dining setups by the end of Friday, Nov. 29, or risk fines of up to $1,000, according to the Department of Transportation (DOT).

The deadline marks the end of the 2024 outdoor dining season, which will resume on April 1, 2025. Sidewalk dining setups that meet program guidelines, however, can remain operational year-round.

The DOT is enforcing the Friday deadline as part of the city’s new Dining Out NYC program, which formalized outdoor dining as a permanent feature of the streetscape following its popularity during the pandemic.

Permanent street fixtures, however, had to go, city officials determined earlier this year.

According to legislation passed by the City Council, roadway outdoor dining is permitted annually from April 1 through Nov. 29. Sidewalk dining is allowed year-round, with specific guidelines aimed at addressing quality-of-life concerns aired by residents of neighborhoods like the West Village, where outdoor dining proliferated during the pandemic.

Dining Out NYC is currently the largest permanent outdoor dining program in the United States, according to DOT, and since the program's inception, nearly 3,000 restaurants have submitted license applications (2,994 to be exact).

There were about 1,000 sidewalk cafes before the COVID-19 pandemic, a number which skyrocketed to more than 12,000 following then Gov. Andrew Cuomo's prohibition of indoor dining in March 2020.

[darkmaga-returns]

Foreign concept but there are people who enjoy big government and welcome additional taxation. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) held a celebration to kickoff New York City’s new congestion toll fees. That’s right – people gathered around a sign announcing the “Congestion Relief Zone” at 60th Street and held a countdown as if it were New Year’s Eve.

Motorists entering Manhattan at 60th Street or below will be charged $9 if in a car or SUV, $14.40 for non-commuter buses, $21.60 for big rigs, and $4.50 for motorcycles. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority needs to cover a $33 billion budget deficit, and per usual, the people are on the hook for the bill. The MTA is seeking to generate $68 billion over the next five years, and this congestion tax is one of many new fees coming to NYC area as the new toll tax is expected to generate a mere $15 billion.

Governor Kathy Hochul is utterly clueless. She plans to bribe families with an “inflation refund” by shelling out $500 checks to households in a move that will cost the state $3 billion. We saw this fail during the pandemic when citizens earning beneath a certain threshold were bribed to stay complacent. Hochul said she would not raise the income tax in 2025, but nothing is ever off the table.

“Your tolls pay for: better transit, cleaner air, safer streets, a livable NYC. Thanks!” one resident shared on a sign that they brought to the opening ceremony. Seriously, these people have no idea what they are celebrating. Commuters who cannot afford the tax will be forced to take the trains which are notoriously unsafe. In fact, there was a stabbing on the Metro-North on the very day that the congestion relief zone was implemented.

[tomorrowusa]

Bad news for Republicans: violent crime is down across most of the US.

Donald Trump and far right media want people to believe there is a massive crime wave sparked by hordes of bloodthirsty migrants charging in waves across the southern border. In fact, the spike in crime which began with Trump's botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic is over.

To hear the latest version of Donald Trump’s “American carnage” narrative of a country lost without him, you would think law-abiding citizens are cowering in their homes or stockpiling weapons to deal with a massive crime wave that’s due to illegal border crossings caused by various nations emptying their prisons and by leftist “Soros-funded” prosecutors gleefully opening our own penitentiaries. The idea of an ongoing crime wave is incorporated into all sorts of MAGA rhetoric, including claims that prosecutors pursuing cases against Trump in New York, Atlanta, Florida, and Washington, D.C., should instead be frantically trying and jailing predators who are cavorting on the streets. The alleged threat of murderous “animals” who entered the country illegally has been crystalized by Republican agitprop about the tragic death of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, who was murdered while jogging, allegedly by an undocumented Venezuelan migrant. But graphic, horrifying anecdotal evidence does not an actual crime wave make. And the more we learn about what’s actually happening in our major cities, the clearer it is that the surge in violent crime that did occur during the COVID-19 pandemic continues to subside. The COVID crime surge largely ended in 2022. Then the incidence of murder and other violent crimes dropped significantly in 2023, according to preliminary federal data, as CNN recently reported:

Fact check: Trump falsely claims US crime stats are only going up. Most went down last year, including massive drop in murder

To the degree that migrants are involved in criminal activity can now be attributed to Trump's blockage of border security legislation in the House by his spineless minions on Capitol Hill.

Bipartisan border deal hits legislative wall as Republicans say they will block bill

Republicans are now officially the owners of border chaos – not the solution to it.

Back to the featured article...

[W]hen a long upward trend in crime during the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s — a true crime wave — finally came to an end, then dramatically reversed. The current numbers are beginning to show that we’re more than likely in a long period of stable (and, by past standards, relatively low) crime rates that were briefly interrupted by the many dislocations the pandemic caused in American life (and police effectiveness). So the myth of a deadly threat to Americans stemming from liberal policies on the border and in the justice system is mostly just that. Perceptions of public safety, of course, aren’t always in line with objective reality, and violent crime is horrifying even if it’s not as prevalent as law-and-order demagogues suggest. An October 2023 Gallup survey that coincided with growing evidence of dropping crime rates showed 77 percent of Americans agreed there was “more crime” in the country than in the previous year.

Spectacular crime stories are always going to grab headlines. If it bleeds, it leads has been one of the mainstays of American journalism for centuries. You'll never see a headline in the NY Post like Murder Rate Plummets!.

One thing that is often overlooked is that the "long upward trend in crime during the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s" mentioned in the article came to an end in the 1990s during the Clinton administration.

For ideological reasons, Democrats have been too restrained about publicizing their own law and order successes. As with the 1990s, another drop in crime is taking place under a Democratic administration – despite GOP attempts to exploit individual incidents of crime.

Donald Trump himself is a "one man crime wave".

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

In Donald J Trump's CPAC speech, the United States is a dark and menacing place: violent crime is rampant, the economy is in free fall, people are starving in the street, and our military has collapsed in corruption and mismanagement. We are ripe for conquest by Vladimir Putin, who does everything right. But every factual claim Trump made isn't a fact; indeed, the situation is the diametric opposite of the one that Trump claims.

Here are the facts on crime. Starting in the early 1990s, crime dropped rapidly in the United States. The causes were complex — owing much to improving economic conditions and innovations in policing strategy. Following a decades-long decline, violent crime rose during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, President Trump’s last year in office, murder rates climbed by nearly 30 percent and assault rates by more than 10 percent.

Here, too, the reasons are complex, but may have much to do with the pandemic. Covid-19 proved to be a generational disruptor in America, instigating social and economic hardships at all levels of society. For example, the country saw an economic decline and increases in unemployment due to businesses that were negatively impacted by shutdowns. We saw a surge in firearm ownership and shooting incidents, at least in the cities that track this data. It was also a period of tremendous isolation. After-school programs and other critical services and interventions that cities relied on to confront violence were shut down.

But since 2021, violent crime has started to fall. According to the FBI, as of 2022 violent crime rates had fallen by 4 percent and murder rates by roughly 7 percent since 2020. Preliminary data suggests those declines accelerated in 2023. In his Saturday speech to conservatives, Trump also spoke a good deal about an immigration crisis in America, making misleading statements about what he referred to as migrant crime and noting it will be “far more deadly than anyone thought.” Here, again, the former president was not truthful. There is no evidence of a migrant crime wave, including in New York City, which the former president referred to in his remarks today. To the contrary, statistics indicate that there has been no surge in crime since April 2022, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began bussing migrants to New York. Additionally, research reveals that undocumented immigration is associated with a decrease in property crime and additional research finds that Fentanyl is primarily trafficked by U.S. citizens.

Although violent crime appears to be receding across the nation, the American public is not fully aware of this trend. Most Americans believe that crime is rising, including 78 percent of independent voters. This gap between crime and perceptions of crime is not new — it’s a decades-long trend. Gallup routinely asks voters whether they believe crime is higher or lower than the previous year. Even in the midst of the decades-long decline in crime, between 1990 and the mid-2010s, Gallup records only two years when a majority of voters did not believe crime had risen. Although the reasons why crime increases and decreases are complicated, we know that various social, economic, and environmental factors, such as growth in income and an aging population, are significant drivers of crime rates. We also know that investing in our communities through funding after school programming, anti-violence initiatives, and safe “third places” — like parks and community centers — helps build long-term safety.

Creating thriving and safe communities are goals we can all embrace. But misleading the American public about the truth and distorting reality is not the way to deliver public safety.

[Brennan Center For Justice]

[resolutedoubt]

While monied industry groups merely affect the posture of grassroots action and woke language while advancing high level political and legal crusades, small landlords like Lincoln Eccles, uniquely affected both by the pandemic’s economic precarity and its emergency regulations, have taken to the streets and Twitter, where they trumpet slogans like “landlords are people too,” “justice for mom’n’pop housing providers,” and “small landlord lives matter.” Some have even rebranded themselves as “indentured landlords,” “carelords,” and “community-based landlords.” When the New York City Council mulled a bill to target discrimination against formerly incarcerated tenants, a state committee member and shareholder of a Bronx gated community, spun it as “The End of Black Landlords.”

This narrative—and the cash machine behind it—has proven effective in swaying politicians, blunting tenant progress. It was reportedly influential in stopping Good Cause Eviction for the fifth straight year. Discussing the bill, a central Brooklyn assembly member representing a district of nearly three quarters Black renters argued that regulating rent increases would actually lead to “Black grandmas out on the street.” New York Mayor Eric Adams, himself a landlord, said in February that it’s important to “remember that small property owner—who came from the Caribbean [and] was able to buy a ten-unit house—how their increases are going up, what they’re going through.” When pressed by a Holocaust survivor tenant about city-wide rent increases on stabilized units approved by the Rent Guidelines Board, the members of which he appoints, Adams accused her talking to him like a “plantation owner.”

This pernicious rhetoric has succeeded not only at moving liberals but at arming conservatives, offering them the guise of populism while muddying the waters of debate. It has allowed the real estate establishment to cannily exploit the contradictory commitment of Democrats to both wealth-building through private property and, nominally, social justice.

For landlords, the language of victimization, which both identity politics and right-wing grievance draw upon, proves a potent force, tying together a relatively economically and politically diverse movement. It is the central engine of real estate’s outrage machine. No matter how absurd some manifestations of the social justice-minded mom-and-pop trope are, they’re the face of a deadly serious campaign—one close to snuffing out rent control entirely.

The narrative of the “woke” mom-and-pop landlord has since been taken up across the country. During public hearings about a new rent control program in St. Paul, an opponent—on Zoom from a beach vacation, naturally—characterized the policy as a form of redlining. Small landlords seeking to roll back rent control in Portland, Maine, adopted progressive language to do so, with ​​some arguing that their willingness to rent to asylum seekers, those on federal housing vouchers, and other marginalized communities demonstrates notable liberal bonafides. In Seattle, opposition to a local measure was led by a mom-and-pop group called Seattle Grassroots Landpeople. A Democratic city councilwoman in Minneapolis who led the charge to scrap consideration of a rent control program derided tenant advocates as “wealthy beer drinking pants rolled up white men” who need to “get out of mommy’s basement.” In a landlord forum, she described her role as “getting ready, putting my lipstick on, curling my hair and selling our message. [Landlords] are the experts at giving me what I’m selling.”

…

Outside of New York, this dynamic has played out most notably in California. The successful fight against Los Angeles’s pandemic eviction moratorium was led in part by the ​​Coalition of Small Rental Property Owners, “a California-based advocacy group that mostly represents black and Latinx landlords.” This past February, one small landlord launched a hunger strike to push for the end of Alameda County’s eviction moratorium, calling himself and other immigrant landlords “victims of government abuse.” The moratorium was ended by April.

Across the country, small landlords wielding social justice language are on the march, but their efforts could prove unnecessary. At the time of writing, the Supreme Court is mulling whether or not to hear any combination of five separate challenges to New York’s rent control law. Rent control has previously been upheld by the court, but with a ultra-conservative majority unbothered by established precedent, there’s ample reason to think they may take the case on—and undermine, if not outright abolish, rent control. Amid a national housing crisis in which rent prices are up just over 30 percent from 2019, the average American tenant is rent-burdened, eviction filings are 50 percent higher than the pre-pandemic average in some cities, and homelessness has reached record highs, the few restrictions on rent hikes that exist could be made unconstitutional overnight. The effects would be catastrophic, especially on renters of color.

[ausetkmt]

Homeless population across U.S. on the rise Homeless population across U.S. on the rise: Wall Street Journal review 04:36

Two years after pandemic aid ended, homelessness in cities and states across the U.S. is on the rise.

Organizations that count homeless people have seen increases in the number of unsheltered individuals compared with 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

Roughly 421,400 people were homeless in the U.S. last year, and 127,750 of them were chronically homeless, meaning they didn't have a place to stay for a year or more, according to National Alliance to End Homelessness data. Homelessness rates have been climbing nationally by about 6% every year since 2017, the alliance said. 

The increase in the number of people without a place to live comes amid soaring housing costs and rising prices for essentials like food and transportation. The federal government sent $817 billion in stimulus payments to Americans, according to a New York Times estimate, but that lifeline ended in March 2021. 

"There's no cash coming in from the government anymore," Amy Quackenboss, executive director at the American Bankruptcy Institute, told CBS MoneyWatch in February. "There are several people who haven't been able to weather that storm." Evictions on the rise in several U.S. cities, new data shows 05:38

Difficult to count 

To be sure, the official 2023 homeless tally won't be exact because people who are homeless don't gather in one setting for an easy roll call, Wall Street Journal reporter Shannon Najmabadi told CBS News.

"It's very difficult to count the number of people who are unsheltered, living in cars or couch surfing, in the woods or on properties that's difficult to access," she said. 

Major cities avoided a tidal wave of homelessness during the pandemic because the federal government offered emergency rental relief, eviction moratoriums, stimulus checks and other pandemic-era aid. However, with those protections now vanished, financially challenged Americans face daunting housing prices, with the national median sales price at $441,000 and the median rental costing $2,000 a month as of May.  Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl barbecues for 24 hours at Los Angeles shelter 00:33

Homeless crisis in California

California has dominated most the national conversation about the rise in homelessness. An estimated 171,000 Californians — or 30% of all unsheltered people in the U.S. — are homeless. San Diego County alone saw its homeless count rise to 10,264 — a 22% increase from last year, the Journal reported.  

A University of California, San Francisco study released Tuesday found that high housing costs and low income are fueling the homeless crisis in the Golden State. California's homeless problem is so intense that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass this week announced plans to eliminate L.A. street homelessness by 2026, first by declaring a state of emergency and then by moving unsheltered individuals into hotels and motels. 

"My goal would be, really, to end street homelessness," she told CNN on Sunday. "There'll still be people in shelters and interim housing, but at least we'll not have people dying on our streets."

[denimbex1986]

'Killer con artist Tom Ripley knows how to reinvent himself.

First introduced in Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, the character has been adapted for the screen many times, most notably in the Oscar-nominated 1999 film starring Matt Damon and Jude Law. But 25 years later, Netflix’s Ripley starring Andrew Scott (Fleabag’s Hot Priest) once again reintroduces the complex criminal, this time in eight sweeping black-and-white episodes written and directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List).

"Yeah, that was foolish, right? It’s a good movie," the showrunner tells Entertainment Weekly of adapting the beloved story again. "But I'd read the book before that movie came out, and I think it's the kind of thing that can be made and remade. I could get into aspects of the story and characters in a different way in an eight-hour version."

Below, Zaillian and Scott dissect how they artfully reinvented the infamous conman.

The casting

Ripley begins with Tom living hand-to-mouth in New York City through small cons until he’s hired to convince wayward shipbuilding heir Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) to leave his extended Italian holiday painting mediocre still lifes and return home to his frustrated family. The lucrative assignment catapults Tom into a life of luxury, and he soon decides to steal Dickie’s privileged life and trust fund for himself through nefarious means. Finding an actor who can make viewers understand Tom’s murderous, self-serving choices even if they don’t totally empathize with him was not easy, but Zaillian knew exactly who could do it.

"Andrew was my first choice," the showrunner reveals. "I wanted somebody who could be charming and, at the same time, sinister and rather dangerous, and he had the range for Tom and the stamina in order to get through what turned out to be 170 days of shooting, in which every day he was working. It’s quite the challenge."

After an initial call with the actor, Zaillian sent him all eight scripts, "which is very, very unusual," Scott recalls. He read all of them on a long-haul flight and remembers being "completely gripped" by the story, but he never once asked Zaillian why he was the first choice for the part. "I thought it wise not to," Scott admits. "It's quite good not to ask, particularly when you're playing somebody as dark as this, 'What did you see in me?'"

The look

The noir tale is equal parts gorgeous and haunting as Tom takes on his new life of wealth and deceit, and Zaillian mirrors that by removing all color from the series. "Of course, I didn't experience it in black and white — I experienced it in full color," Scott says. "There was a question of, 'Will this work?' It was filmed with an idea of, 'This could go either way.'"

Zaillian confirms that the look of the series evolved as they were shooting because he wasn’t using anything as a template. "It was important to me that Italy was not some postcard or some kind of beautiful tourist destination, especially in wintertime," he says of how he eventually landed on the black-and-white visuals. "The story was more sinister than that. The look of emptiness, and overcast skies, wet streets, darkness — those were the kind of images that we were after."

The location

Finding the right places to film on location in Italy took many months — Zaillian and production designer David Gropen made a point of trying to avoid obvious tourist spots. "We were more interested in off-the-beaten-track locations, something grittier than some sort of sun-baked, Amalfi Coast beauty," Zaillian explains.

And filming in Italy during the height of the pandemic in 2021 wasn’t easy, but it actually provided an unexpected benefit. "There weren't reams of tourists around," Scott says. "I remember very clearly walking to work through San Marco square, and it's just completely empty, which is absolutely wild for Venice in January."

But Scott faced his own Italian obstacle long before filming began. "He didn't speak Italian when we started, and he has to act in Italian," Zaillian says. "He doesn't even speak English with an American accent — he's Irish — so there's a lot of things that Andrew isn't that he had to bring to it."

As if that wasn’t difficult enough, Scott wanted to add another layer to his performance. "I was, maybe stupidly, thinking, but I also had to imagine it's actually an Irishman playing an American speaking Italian, and then it's an Irishman playing an American imitating another American-speaking Italian," he says. "Dickie Greenleaf's Italian would be slightly different to Tom Ripley's Italian. I had so many Italian friends on the crew, and I was always asking them [for help]. And I had a great Italian teacher."

The psychology

Tom’s scariest attribute is not his body count or his ability to lie — although those are quite terrifying. It’s actually how you’re somehow still rooting for him to succeed, even when he’s violently killing innocent people. "It's a magic trick that Patricia Highsmith somehow pulled off to have this amoral, narcissistic character that we want to see get away with murder," Zaillian says. "So I didn't purposely try to get sympathy or empathy for him. I trusted that, just by telling the story, that same thing would happen as it did in the book."

That’s why Scott never tried to "diagnose" Tom with anything so he could just view him as the "unreliable hero" of the story. "I don't see him as a sociopath or a villain or a monster or any of those things," the actor says. "I just really understood the sense of loneliness. The extremism, of course, I don't relate to, but this is a man who's on the outskirts of society, and he's extremely gifted, he's talented, and he moves in the world completely unseen and unloved and unappreciated. And then he's exposed to these people who are just gifted with so many things with half the amount of talent that he has."

The kills

When Tom finally acts on his evil plans to steal Dickie’s life, Ripley spends over 20 minutes showing, in painstaking detail, how exhausting it is to get away with murder. And then another half hour is later dedicated to Tom’s second kill after Dickie’s friend Freddie (Eliot Sumner) begins to suspect foul play. "It's easy to murder someone — I'm not talking from my own personal experience — but [it's] difficult to dispose of a body," Scott says. "And that requires the audience’s time. And I think that's why by the end you go, 'I don't want him to get caught after all he’s been through.'"

Spending almost an eighth of the entire series detailing Tom's two "grueling" murders was what excited Zaillian the most about doing a TV version of this story. "There were a couple of sequences that you could never get away with in a two-hour movie because they would be half the movie," he says. "Those were quite dramatic in the book, and I felt I could do them in a very meticulous way that hadn't been done before. He’s not a professional killer, and he's not particularly good at it. It was important to show that he doesn't plan anything out."

That’s why he "leaves a whole trail of mistakes" in both murders, Scott adds — including bloody paw prints made by his neighbor's cat on the apartment stairs. "Sometimes I imagine the cat to be Patricia Highsmith herself," he says. "But that's just my crazy imagination."

The ending

The novel ends with Tom successfully taking over Dickie's life and riches, having convinced Marge (played by Dakota Fanning in the series) and the Greenleaf family that Dickie took his own life and left his inheritance to him. But Tom's paranoia continues to eat away at him even as he takes off to begin a new life of luxury and lies. The last episode of the Netflix series, however, ends on a different cliffhanger as Inspector Pietro Ravini (Maurizio Lombardi) discovers a photo of the real Dickie in Marge's book, finally getting the pivotal piece to the puzzle he couldn't figure out.

"I felt in the book, it almost was setting up another story somehow, with him going to Greece or something," Zaillian says of why he changed the ending. "I felt that seeing him having achieved what he wanted was the way to end the series, and we could always get into what happens next if there ever is a next."'

[namshyeee]

Lynn Yamada Davis, a TikTok creator who entertained millions of people with her zany style and cooking tips on her account, Cooking With Lynja, died on Jan. 1 in Red Bank, N.J. She was 67.

The cause of death, in Riverview Medical Center, was esophageal cancer, her daughter Hannah Mariko Shofet said. Ms. Davis lived in Holmdel, N.J.

Ms. Davis began creating the wholesome Cooking With Lynja videos in 2020 with her youngest child, Tim Davis, to help keep up his cinematography skills during the pandemic lockdown.

Her social media accounts have remained active after her death, because she had asked him to post videos that had already been edited. One such video shows the two of them looking for truffles in Italy.

“My mom was like my partner in crime,” Mr. Davis, 27, who edited the TikTok account, said in a phone interview.

Something else she requested, Mr. Davis said, was that he post a few older videos that they had made together about a decade ago.

Those early versions of what would later become an international TikTok sensation known for their lightheartedness were a way for Mr. Davis to learn how to make the food his mother cooked “as well as have a time capsule,” he said.

After the last Cooking With Lynja videos are uploaded the account will stop posting, he said.

Cooking With Lynja began in 2020 and gained wide attention with a video in which the 5-foot-tall Ms. Davis makes a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich while showing off some quirky dance moves. Soon, about one million people were following her offbeat content. (Today, the account has more than 17 million followers.) Potential sponsors noted the videos’ success and started contacting her.

More than three years later, the Cooking With Lynja YouTube account has nearly 10 million subscribers, and Ms. Davis’s Instagram account has more than two million followers.

In 2022, Forbes included Ms. Davis on its annual “50 over 50” list, which pays tribute to successful women over 50 years old. And she won Streamy Awards, honoring online videos, in the editing and food categories. In 2023, she attended the Forbes Women’s Summit in Abu Dhabi, where she spoke on a panel.

Lynn Yamada Davis was born on July 31, 1956, in New York City and lived most of her early life in Fort Lee, N.J. Her father, Tadao Yamada, was a businessman, and her mother, Mabel Fujisake Yamada, ran the household.

She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and earned a master’s degree in business administration as well as public health from the Columbia University Business School.

Ms. Davis worked for Bell Labs (now AT&T Labs) and had a long career in telecommunications before her unexpected TikTok fame, Ms. Shofet, her daughter, said.

“She had this whole chapter as a groundbreaking female engineer, and she was very proud of that,” she added.

As a TikTok star Ms. Davis would get recognized around the world, including in Japan and Italy, where she traveled with her youngest son, Tim. Sean Davis, her other son, is a professional soccer player who used to be a midfielder for the New York Red Bulls and now plays for the Nashville Soccer Club.

“She was my first coach,” he said. When she would visit him in Nashville, he said, she’d get recognized in the street, often by young people who use TikTok a lot.

“That’s how I realized how famous she was,” Sean Davis said. “People would ask for pictures, and I would take the picture.”

Most of all, Cooking With Lynja provided Ms. Davis with much fun, Tim Davis said. With special effects that have tiny versions of Ms. Davis flying across the screen and quotes like “Lynja’s got that dope!” her videos appealed to several generations of viewers. In her videos she is seen preparing all kinds of foods, heard sinking her teeth into crispy sandwiches or potatoes, and shown karate-chopping Ramen noodles and much more.

Ms. Davis was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2019, which affected her voice. Two years later she was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. In one video, Ms. Davis bakes cookies for the medical workers who treated her.

In addition to her daughter Hannah and her sons, Ms. Davis is survived by her second husband, Keith Davis; another daughter, Becky Steinberg; two siblings, Jay Yamada and Karen Dolce Yamada; and two grandchildren. Her first marriage, to Hank Steinberg, ended in divorce.

In her final years Ms. Davis got to travel around the world, meet people as well as cook and eat amazing food, Sean Davis said. He added, “I just think her final chapter was exactly how she would have wanted it to be written.”

A correction was made on Jan. 12, 2024: An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated the surname of Lynn Yamada Davis’s brother. He is Jay Yamada, not Jay Davis.

Article by: Claire Moses

Related link: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/dining/lynja-davis-cooking-tiktok-dead.html%23:~:text%3DLynn%2520Yamada%2520Davis%252C%2520a%2520TikTok,daughter%2520Hannah%2520Mariko%2520Shofet%2520said.&ved=2ahUKEwj54vHkmNmDAxUCwjgGHcmJD4IQFnoECBAQBQ&usg=AOvVaw3LVu4CRgXFfh9eWXrv6Yhy

Namo, Julius

Sarmiento, Jizel Chinnji

Salamanca, Amalia

[mariacallous]

Organized Crime Is Surging

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about lasting changes to the world of work for many of us. So too for transnational criminal gangs, whose activity surged during and after the lockdowns that confined millions to their homes around the world, said Interpol Secretary-General Jürgen Stock in an exclusive interview with SitRep.

“The world is confronted with a dramatic surge in international organized crime in a way that, definitely, I haven’t seen in my now long 45-year career,” said Stock, who is due to step down as the chief of the international policing organization next month after 10 years in the role.

Fraudsters were quick to adapt during the pandemic, when much of life shifted online as people sheltered at home to avoid contracting the virus. “Criminals were using the internet and new technologies to approach potential victims or victims on a kind of industrial scale,” Stock said.

Instead of competing, organized crime groups are increasingly cooperating, sharing elements of the global supply chains for drug and human trafficking, environmental crime, and illegal mining, Stock added.

While there have been major successes in the form of record drug seizures in the Americas and Europe in recent years, police around the world are still struggling to keep up. “These gangs, cartels all around the world are getting more and more dangerous, more powerful, more influential,” he said, noting that violence is “increasing dramatically” at both ends of the international drug supply chain.

Working Locally, Thinking Globally

When Stock began his career as a police officer in Germany in the late 1970s, most criminals were local, and crime scenes often held crucial physical evidence. These days, he estimates that much of the crime plaguing city streets has some kind of organized crime component to it, while the internet and modern technology—such as encrypted messaging and cryptocurrency—have also challenged classical policing methods.

The global problem of transnational crime needs a global solution, said Stock: “You cannot fight these crimes by just making your borders higher. You need information exchange at the national level, regional level, and global level.”

Red Notices

Despite the Hollywood portrayal, Interpol is not an international police force. Rather, it is a forum for cooperation and information sharing for its 196 member states. Founded in Vienna, Austria, in 1923, the organization is bound by its charter to remain neutral and is expressly prohibited from getting involved in politics or activities of a military, religious, or racial nature.

This has made Interpol a vanishingly rare global forum where member states come together on an equal footing in spite of conflicts and geopolitical tensions that have gripped the globe. “We are still bringing all 196 to the table,” said Stock of the body’s members.

But having such a wide membership has also exposed the organization to accusations that its systems have been abused by authoritarian states in pursuit of political foes by issuing spurious Red Notices to request global law enforcement to provisionally arrest a person.

One of the first things that Stock did upon becoming secretary-general was implement a compliance mechanism to screen notices for any suggestion of ill intent on the part of the issuing country. He estimated that some 95 percent of arrest requests made through the organization are noncontroversial, while 5 percent have demanded further scrutiny. “That has definitely brought a trust into the system,” he said.

Six countries, including Russia, have been subject to what Stock called “corrective measures” over their suspected abuse of Interpol systems.

A New York Times investigation earlier this year found that despite these improvements, the world’s strongmen have found other ways to use information sharing through the policing organization to pursue their critics abroad. A surge in the issuance of Blue Notices, requests for information about an individual, have raised concerns about potential abuse.

Interpol members will descend on Glasgow, Scotland, on Nov. 4 for the body’s 92nd General Assembly, where its governing body will vote to endorse Valdecy Urquiza from Brazil as its next secretary-general.

[covid-safer-hotties]

The air travel issue no one wants to talk about - Posted Aug 20, 2024

I’m sick of getting sick on planes.

I got another case of COVID-19 last month, on a domestic flight, sitting near a woman who was sneezing. I wore an N95 mask, but she was only wearing the loose surgical type. I suspect she knew she was infectious.

There was nothing I could do about it. There were no seats to move into and, besides, to do so seemed a bit hysterical at the time.

Two days later – bingo. I wasn’t very ill, but I was visiting immune-compromised people and I put them at risk.

Nowadays, talking about masks – and indeed the virus itself – is deeply unsexy. They’re a symbol of a past we’d rather not remember, even though that past is still our present and future while the disease keeps mutating.

But I still want to talk about masks because COVID-19 keeps happening to travellers, ruining holidays and causing potential long-term health issues, and yet airlines, government authorities and most passengers don’t want to know about it.

Just look around any flight. Or bus or train. Despite a few people clearly being sick, only a tiny percentage mask up. It’s not just as a precaution against COVID-19. There’s influenza, RSV and other infections of a weakened immune system which, perhaps unsurprisingly, can be caused by repeated COVID-19 infections.

Maybe COVID-19 is “just like a cold” and I shouldn’t fret. I certainly hope so because scientists are still learning about how each infection harms the body, with little idea what the consequences will be in three, 10 or 20 years.

I’m told I should “get over it”. But it’s not over with me.

Constant new variants mean we’re unlikely ever to be immune, even though the healthy among us won’t get terribly sick due to excellent boosters. COVID-19 cases have surged worldwide these past two or three months. Many Olympic athletes had their dreams shattered by catching it before their trials.

There’s massive public denial. Not many people bother to test these days. If you don’t test, you don’t know, so you’re free to assume you don’t have it. That’s certainly the skewed logic I’ve heard a lot lately.

So, if you’re masking on a flight, you’re in rare company.

During the pandemic, masks became a symbol of divisiveness, enraging sectors of our society who thought mask mandates took away personal freedoms. The freedom to get sick and infect others, I suppose.

I’m not quite sure what the humble, practical facemask did to deserve the controversy, despite being quietly worn for decades in Asian countries and by medical staff, but the culture war against it still rages.

It’s very possible, in certain societies, that if you wear a medical mask, you’ll have it ripped off your face or even get arrested.

Recently, Nassau County, New York, became the first county in the tri-state area (Connecticut, New York and New Jersey) to pass a ban on anyone over 16 wearing a face covering on public streets and property. It’s a criminal offence, and police have the authority to arrest people who refuse to take off their masks.

In New York city, mayor Kathy Hochul is considering a mask ban on subways, even as the city’s health department urges people to wear masks to combat an unprecedented rise in summer COVID-19 cases.

The laws are mostly directed at protesters who wear face coverings, and not people protecting themselves against disease. But the immunocompromised are angry that once again the mask has become the issue, not the behaviour.

Aerosol scientists conclude that N95 masks are 95 per cent efficient in blocking airborne particles. But over hours in a confined space, when you might have to lower your mask to drink, eat and sleep, they’re less effective, especially when the infected person isn’t masked properly too.

Currently, we rely on our fellow travellers being considerate. That’s a big ask. I suppose you could bring a few spare N95 respirators to distribute to passengers in your row as a precaution, but that might be misconstrued as rude.

But here’s the thing – I know if I get sick, my precautions haven’t worked. But it’s impossible to know how many other times I might have become ill if I hadn’t worn a mask to protect me.

So, even though the sight of me wearing a mask angers some people, and looks foolish to others, and even mentioning it drives people crazy, I’m sticking with the cover-up.

[darkmaga-returns]

What is being ignored by the mainstream media are the dangers facing the global economy

Dec 03, 2024

On the economic front, it is more of the same, but just a different day.

The U.S. equities keep riding high following the re-election of Donald Trump.

While there are fears that his tariff policies will have negative effects on the economy, at this point, it is a guessing game.

The same with his plans to cut taxes. Will the richest Americans reap the biggest rewards like his last cuts in 2017, or will We the People of Slavelandia get a cut?

What is being ignored by the mainstream media are the dangers facing the global economy.

Economies were artificially propped up with trillions of dollars in fake money backed by nothing and printed on nothing, plus negative and zero interest rate policies, are now suffering from the draconian COVID lockdown policies imposed by politicians that destroyed the lives and livelihoods of billions of people across the planet.

We continue to report on the looming Office Building Bust that will cause Banks to Go Bust.

Need more proof?

The recent four-week office occupancy rate of the largest 10 cities in the U.S. was, according to Kastle Systems, down to 40.6 percent. Much of the decline was a result of the Thanksgiving holiday, but overall, for the year, the average is around 50 percent, while the vacancy rate, meaning empty office buildings, is at around 20 percent.

As of last week, the delinquency rates on commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) was at 10.4 percent, up one percent in November, hitting its fastest spike in two years... the depth of the COVID War lockdowns.

According to Trepp data, the current CMBS delinquency rate is just .3 percent below the 10.7 percent spike during the Panic of ’08 Great Recession.

Illustrating the danger ahead, but again banned by the mainstream media, was the 31 October 2024 article in Wall Street on Parade, New York Fed Report: 27 Percent of Bank Capital Is “Extend and Pretend” Commercial Real Estate Loans... which in part states the dire office building crisis as a result of the vacancy rates and how it is being covered up.

They quote a paper written by Matteo Crosignani, financial research advisor at the New York Fed, and Saketh Prazad, a former research analyst at the New York Fed who is now a doctoral student in the Business Economics program at the Harvard Business School who wrote:

“In this paper, using detailed supervisory data, we document that banks have ‘extended-and-pretended’ their distressed CRE mortgages in the post-pandemic period to delay the recognition of losses. Banks with weaker marked-to-market capital—largely due to losses in their securities portfolio since 2022:Q1—have extended the maturity of their impaired CRE mortgages coming due and pretended that such credit provision was not as distressed to avoid further depleting their capital. The resulting limited number of loan defaults hindered the reallocation of capital, crowding out the origination of both CRE mortgages and loans to firms. The maturity extensions granted by banks also fueled the volume of CRE mortgages set to mature in the near term—a ‘maturity wall’ with the associated risk of large losses materializing in a short period of time.”

One of the scariest potential outcomes referenced by the authors is their so-called “maturity wall” when the debt bombs come due and losses pile up suddenly. The authors write this:

“…we document that banks’ extend-and-pretend has led to an ever-expanding ‘maturity wall’, namely a rapidly increasing volume of CRE loans set to mature in the near term. As of 2023:Q4, CRE mortgages coming due within three years represent 27% of bank marked-to-market capital, up 11 percentage points from 2020:Q4—and CRE mortgages coming due within five years represent 40% of bank marked-to-market capital. We show (i) that weakly capitalized banks drive this expansion, consistent with their extend-and-pretend behavior, and (ii) that the maturity wall represents a sizable 16% of the aggregate CRE debt held by the banking sector as of 2023:Q4.

“Taken together, our results highlight the costs of banks’ extend-and-pretend behavior. In the short term, the resulting credit misallocation might slow down the capital reallocation needed to sustain the transition of real estate markets to the post-pandemic equilibrium—for example supporting the conversion of office space into residential units and recreational spaces in large urban areas. In the medium term, the delayed recognition of losses exposes banks (and all other holders of CRE debt) to sudden large losses which can be exacerbated by fire sales dynamics and bankruptcy courts congestion.”

Further illustrating the reality of the looming CMBS debt bomb, today Wall Street on Parade noted that:

“Life insurers continued to allocate a substantial percentage of assets to risky and less liquid instruments, such as leveraged loans, collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), high-yield corporate bonds, privately placed corporate bonds, and alternative investments. Moreover, life insurance companies have material direct exposures to commercial mortgages and are large holders of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS). This exposure to illiquid and risky assets makes life insurers vulnerable to an array of adverse shocks, including that of an economic downturn or of a significant further deterioration of the CRE [commercial real estate] market.”

TREND FORECAST: Yes, the significant further deterioration of the CRE [commercial real estate] market,” that so few are talking about... a mega trend we warned about when we had forecast the Office Building Bust and its socioeconomic implications.