#there has to be a universe out there where they do taxes and laundry together

[beanghostprincess]

the asl brothers are really:

"in another life, i think i would have really  liked just doing laundry and taxes with you."

because i think, in another universe, they would've ended sharing an apartment that both sabo and ace pay with their jobs (shitty jobs, they don't even like them much, but it's enough to pay rent and to take care of their brother) while luffy and sabo go to college (they told luffy to go even though he didn't really want to. they want him to have a solid future, somehow. besides, he has friends there too! sabo only studies politics to laugh at his teachers and go on rants about why college is a scam) and they would consider the domestic feeling of coming back home after a long day the best sensation ever. they would have their separate rooms but would end up sleeping on the same beds almost every night. neither of them would know how to cook very well but sabo knows how to handle a few easy things so they can at least live properly whenever sanji or koala aren't hanging out with them (they always end up making them food for a week at least). they would steal each other's clothes. sabo would have to do taxes with ace and trying to explain numbers to luffy would be a mess, but he has to learn somehow. they would have movie nights together and luffy's crew would come over a lot to hang out. law would too, to help luffy study, and sabo would be extremely overprotective of his brother with every person he meets. zoro's the one that comes over the most, but they're used to him already practically living in their place. ace would be the first to wake up (he has to go to work) despite struggling to do so, so sabo would actually be the first one (because he has to wake up ace and then go back to sleep until he has to go to class). luffy would hate to do chores, but he finds it more fun whenever he's with his brothers.

i like to think of a world where the three of them are happy and can be domestic together without the weight of the world on their shoulders. without having to carry that much and, even if they still do, at least they have forever to live together with it.

[thenarddogmeister]

Everything Everywhere All At Once. The Daniels. 2022.

I love this film and have watched it three times so far so it’s about time I wrote this review.

First of all, I think the main themes I see being explored in this film are the different outlooks/ philosophies a person can use to live in a world like this. Everything Everywhere is a daunting film to write about because it’s postmodern to the maximum, there’s so much to talk about. Firstly, the absolute hybrid of genres and intertextual references (ranging from Disney’s Ratatouille to Wong kar-wai’s In The Mood For Love) makes this a staple of post-modernism and reflects the chaos of the world we live in today. We have access to everything and we can see so many things (especially with the rise of social media) and just like this film proves, it can provide beauty but it can also cause chaos and destruction. The movie is beautiful in its variety of colours, creative costumes, and allowing Evelyn (Joy’s mother) to understand her daughter’s sexuality better by jumping to a universe where she is in a relationship with Jamie Lee Curtis’s Deadre. However, it is also immensely destructive as by having a surplus of meanings and universes, Joy finds that she feels now, nothing has any meaning and she can’t trust anything she sees because she has seen everything. To use a perfect quote from the film, “She no longer believes in an objective truth.”

The Daniels like to draw contradictions in the film to highlight this distrust we feel in our modern culture due to having access to so many juxtaposing “truths.” For example, they comically use phallic and yonic imagery to reinforce the binary opposite drawn between nihilism (nothing matters) and absurdism (represented by Waymond’s whimsy throughout the film). This imagery is funny when we see Joy fighting with large dildos but it also allows us fresh perspectives when Evelyn and Joy put their hands together to create a vaginal-like shape, allowing Evelyn to see what Joy sees. This juxtaposition of humour and deep understanding supports the theme throughout the film that in this culture of media oversaturation, we cannot find an objective truth or an objective way of living anymore. It’s all about choice. This is also inferred as Evelyn is seen at the beginning of the film choosing to either stick to her laundry and taxes or go into the mysterious janitor’s closet - at one point, the screen even explicitly cracks into two perspectives to anchor this idea of choice. 

Another part of the film that I love, is the soundtrack/score, which also expertly contributes to the point of the film, that we are all confused and scared in this overstimulating postmodern world. Clair de Lune is used as a musical motif throughout the film, which perfectly sums up the point the Daniels are trying to make. This is an old, classical song used in possibly the least classical movie ever, showing how we have access to content spanning over literal centuries (due to streaming platforms like spotify I can listen to the 1905’s Clair de Lune and seconds later listen to the 80’s She Goes Down by Motley Crue). This overwhelming level of choice can be beautiful as we can watch Everything Everywhere All At Once and hear the magnetic and majestic Clair de Lune but it can also create so much disillusionment and confusion as how do we decide what is true and how we should live when there are million and millions of contradicting answers to those questions out there. 

The last thing that needs to be mentioned is the motif of the Bagel. The bagel represents Joy’s nihilism. It sucks everything in and leaves nothing in its wake. Moreover, it is black which is what you get when you mix all the colours together, surplus resulting in nothingness. However, the room we see the bagel in is overwhelmingly white, which is what you get when all the colours of light are added  together. White has happier connotations like heaven and purity, adding to this idea that the same situation (all the colours added together) can be interpreted positively by us or negatively. Will we see the black-hole bagel or the googly eyes that Waymond leaves around the house? 

Lastly, I love the match cut at the end where Joy and Evelyn share a mother-daughter hug, which then transitions ,through this match cut, into planets colliding. It really anchors this point that we can either focus on the massive destruction in this world (planets colliding) or the intimate moments of love (the hug). And each is powerful. 

The theme of this movie is so masterfully explored in the film’s editing, sound, cinematography, genres, imagery etc and so in my opinion it might be a perfect film.

[aloysiavirgata]

Henry Compilation

@perplexistan is an outstanding human who compiled all my little Henry ficlets into one document for me. So here it is, for your perusal. It all began with this:

Anonymous asked: Would scully consider remarrying if she wouldn't work it out with mulder in season 11? ;)

@kateyes224

As long as Mulder is around, I don’t know that she’d be willing to start from scratch. But that makes me very sad for Scully. If she and Mulder did decide that they couldn’t be together, I would want for her to find someone who loved and appreciated her and made her feel completed, even if that person wasn’t Mulder. I just think the ways that she and Mulder have been rent apart by this life mean that their torn edges fit together in a way that makes them as whole as they can possibly be.

AV: 

She gets the younger two out the door in time for the bus, backpacks bouncing as they run down the block. Their sister had left well over an hour ago, driving herself to school for early lacrosse practice. Scully shuts the door once Alice and Simon join the cluster of children trooping along the sidewalk. Everyone knows there is safety in numbers.

The dog, a half-grown keeshond, trots over in response to the breakfast noises. “Here, Wicket,” Scully says. “It’ll make your coat shiny.” She scrapes leftover eggs into his dish before fitting the greasy plates into the dishwasher.

Footsteps on the stairs, and Scully smooths her hair back.

“Morning,” Henry says, grabbing a nectarine from the bowl. He wears only striped pajama pants. “Thanks for getting them out the door.”

“Mmm, not a problem. You almost never get to sleep in.” She smiles, tips her face up to his.

He kisses her, and Scully tastes toothpaste and Listerine. “You’re an angel,” Henry claims.

Not me, she thinks. But Joan is. Henry’s first wife, the mother of his children, the lover of keeshonds, the gardener of exotic bulbs, is dead and beyond reproach. Scully finds her harmless, though occasionally irritating. The children find her flawless.

Henry pours them each a cup of coffee, fixes hers exactly how she likes. Scully settles onto a bar stool to savor it.

“Good?” he asks.

“Perfect.”

Henry beams.

She watches her husband as he putters around the kitchen, dumping coffee grounds into the composter, putting frozen fruit into the Vitamix. His back is broad and muscular in the buttery morning light, his silver-flecked hair gleaming.

“You eat?” he asks, after his smoothie has been whirred to perfection.

“Eggs with the kids.”

“They love you,” he says happily, if not accurately. “Can you believe we’re coming up on a year, Dana?”

She cannot. The wedding had been small. Quiet. Family attended, some of their friends from work. Joan’s parents, uncomfortably.

Mulder had sent flowers for her, gifts for the children.

Scully takes another swallow of coffee. “Paper anniversary, Henry. Hot date at Barnes and Noble?”

He walks over, wraps his arms around her from behind. Scully leans into the heat of his chest, her head on his bicep. She sighs with contentment as he noses her hair.

“I was thinking plane tickets,” Henry murmurs, nuzzling her neck. “Paris. Rome. Somewhere decadent. Between work and the kids you’re running yourself absolutely ragged, Dana. Joan’s parents can take the younger two, and Vivian can stay home by herself if she wants.”

Paris. All she has seen of Paris is the airport, eating overpriced pain au chocolat while Mulder argued with the ticket agent in his lousy French. They barely made their flight.

“Paris,” Scully muses. “I could do Paris.”

“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?” Henry asks, purring in her ear.

She rolls her eyes. “So predictable.”

“I’m a tax attorney, Dana. I’m supposed to be predictable.”

She laughs a little. Predictable. Solid, predictable Henry with his beautiful children and his beautiful house and his beautiful wives. She has never heard him say a truly unkind thing about anyone. He is a charter Rotarian and a sucker for the wounded animals Simon brings home. He’s been unfailingly gracious to Mulder on the few occasions they’ve met. He’s a wonderful dancer.

“Predictable is good,” she assures him. Henry would never ditch her in strange motels or mix her up in a global conspiracy. Henry calls when he’s running late.

“You have time for a run before work?” he asks.

“I wish I did. I’ve got a consult with a family in about an hour.” Scully turns the bar stool, looking up at Henry’s green eyes. She takes his face in her hands, thumbing his jaw. “Paris sounds lovely. I’ll talk to Gwen about my schedule today.”

He kisses her palm. “You deserve Paris.”

Scully holds him close and doesn’t tell him how rarely anyone gets what they deserve.

***

From @mangokiwitropicalswirl

[I could NOT stop thinking about your short brilliant painful take on Scully’s marriage to Henry, and I woke up needing to write this. If you think it fits your vision of things in that universe, feel free to share!]

***

Note from AV: There are not WORDS to describe what a compliment this is, my goodness.  <3 Thank you, @mangokiwitropicalswirl

***

On the morning Scully marries him, she takes a long look in the mirror as she smooths her hair and touches up her makeup. It goes without saying, without thinking, that she wishes her mother were here. Maggie would have cried to see her in the ivory dress, would have coddled the step-grandchildren, would have joined her elbows-deep in topsoil in his garden.

Everyone believes the day that you get married you’ll feel uniquely whole, blissfully free from uncertainties. Happy.

And she is. She catches her own gaze in the mirror and knows that she’s the only one who’d see the wistful mote of resignation in her eyes. But not a resignation of defeat, it’s one of understanding. She better understands at fifty now than she did at thirty that there are choices. Always choices.

Someone told her once that love flows through us like water, softening our edges the way water wears down sandstone, or even granite. It carves out space for itself inside of us, making us larger, widening the heart.

Mulder’s love had been a tumult, a raging river, a flood. It had opened her like a canyon, revealed a grandscape of dizzying heights and crevices inside her. It had split over into corners she herself had not explored. Together, their love had flowed and thrashed and roiled, until she was hollowed out like a deepend cavern, like a riverbank destroyed by sudden flood.

And then it had receded, slowly, like the bitter end of a geologic age.

The thin ribbon that still trickles through her even now was not enough to fill the newly-barren spaces. As years went on, the heart crumbled like loose rock, eroding like a monument to a long forgotten era.

Contrary to popular belief, love is not all you need. Sometimes you need therapy. And meds. And sometimes you need to let it go.

On the little card that came along with flowers there was just one word, “Always.– M”.

There were years she would have bristled at the word, hearing in it all the codependency and desperate possession that were the hallmarks of their bond. But she hears it now the way she knows he means it, with the openness of someone who will always be her friend. Before all of it, at the very heart of it, he had been her dearest friend.

When Henry came into her life, it crept up on her like the warm waters of a bending river. His love curled and soothed and nourished until she felt green and young.

In the mirror, she smiles the half-smile of a woman blessed to find there’s more of her to give. And more to know. She dabs perfume on each wrist and behind her ears, between the shadowed valley of her breasts. Beneath them in the hollow of her chest, she’s wider now and knowing, surprised and grateful she is able to bloom again.

***

Anonymous asked: So even though Scully and Henry have this perfect life, which I love, what kind of things do they fight about? Is Scully relieved it's not about conspiracy or monsters in the dark? How do they handle arguments and disagreements? Also, I love Mulder dearly but Henry is kind of perfect....which is a little scary but awesome at the same time.

They really don’t fight much. They disagree (Henry’s a bit more liberal than Scully)  they annoy each other on occasion (he constantly fails to put his laundry in the hamper and she moves all the papers he leaves on the kitchen island) but fights? No, no fights.

N.B. Before anyone messages me to say how boring that sounds, let me explain that I have been with my husband for upwards of 17 years. In that time, we have had 2 fights. Like, ugly unpleasant ones. Lots of arguments and disagreements, but two fights. Our relationship isn’t boring, and I refuse to even entertain the validity of the notion that relationships need drama to be exciting.

One of the things I love best about Iolokus is that Rivka and Sally show Mulder and Scully figuring that out, that conflict isn’t necessary for intellectual stimulation.

***

Anonymous asked: So I know Mulder and Henry aren't hanging out playing poker together every Thursday night, but are there any occasions where they do find themselves in the same room? What was that first size-up like from either guy's perspective?

Scully has scheduled the dinner at a restaurant so it isn’t on anyone’s turf. Besides, Mulder’s house would be torture and she finds Henry’s elaborate kitchen somewhat daunting. She agonizes over reviews and menus, trying to eliminate as many variables as possible. Henry had tried to help, but her snippiness drove him off in short order. She is nauseous for a week beforehand, asking Henry if she had lost her mind and should cancel, asking Mulder the same.

“I want to meet him,” Henry says, passing her a glass of wine. “He’s part of you, so he’s important to me.”

“If this is to get my blessing, Scully,” Mulder says over the phone, “you already have it. But yeah, I’d like to meet the guy wonderful enough for you to ignore the fact that his job title contains the words tax and attorney.”

***

She puts on a black sheath dress, then decides it looks too much like the one from their movie premiere. My god, the movie…has Henry seen it? Or Viv? She is afraid to ask, and afraid not to know. She pushes the thought from her mind for now, pushes her and Mulder and that limo away. Scully rummages through her closet with increasing anxiety, finally settling on a burgundy pencil skirt and fitted navy sweater. Her hair is being impossible, and after half an hour with the curling iron, she opts for a French twist. She keeps her makeup light and tosses back a handful of Tums to quell the acid tide in her stomach.

Henry’s in jeans and a blazer, drinking coffee with Viv and her girlfriend. There’s a heated argument about Iron Man taking place. “You look great,” Henry says. “Ready?”

“No. But let’s do it anyway.” She plucks at invisible fuzz on her skirt.

He takes her arm and they head to the garage.

“Have fun at the circus, kids!” Viv calls after them.

***

They are seated at a table for four, Henry and Mulder facing one another, herself between. She holds a multigrain roll from the breadbasket in her lap, using her nails to pull out every tiny piece of millet, extract every last pumpkin seed. She drops them to the floor like daisy petals.

“I read your book,” Henry says. “Really impressive research. I recommended it to some colleagues.”

Mulder stirs his drink. “Thanks. Spend a lot of time on the dark web between billable hours, Henry?”

Scully kicks him lightly under the table, nostrils flared.

Henry chuckles. “No, I’m just a dilettante.”

The silence is thick and heavy as they peruse their menus, and Scully curses herself for this egregious decision. The back of her neck prickles, her face is hot and itchy. Moments stretch like saltwater taffy on a summer day.

“So, uh, Henry,” Mulder says at last, rubbing the side of his face.

Henry looks up. “Yep?”

“My, uh, my finances are pretty complicated due to some trusts and inheritances, plus my pension. The accountant I’ve been using is retiring. You think you could recommend anybody trustworthy?”

“Oh, absolutely. I’ve got a great guy in Alexandria,” Henry says. “He’ll save you a fortune.”

Mulder nods thoughtfully. “”I’ll put it towards my post-apocalyptic underground bunker. To which, of course, you’re all invited when the end times come upon us.”

Henry’s eyes crinkle at the corners, Scully sees, and her chest loosens. “We’ll bring a pie,” Henry says.

Mulder smiles. “Don’t let Scully make it. Great cook, lousy baker.”

The waitress comes for their orders, and they are chatting easily by the time the food arrives.

***

Henry sits outside on the porch, staring up at the sky. He names the constellations to himself as he sips a tumbler of Macallan. Dana perches on the arm of his Adirondack chair, knees drawn up to her chest.

“I like him,” Henry says at length. “Very funny guy.”

Dana nods slowly. “He is.”

Henry crunches an ice cube. “He’s still in love with you.”

“Does it bother you?’

He looks at her, ethereal in the moonlight. He is afraid at times that he will awake to find she has disappeared, burned off like the mist. “I want everyone to love you.”

She shakes her head, smiling. “Henry.”                                                             

“You love him too,” Henry says.

She hunches her shoulders, glances down. “Does that bother you?”

It might, he’s not sure. He felt the ineffable thing between them, but he understands the weight of history. “Love doesn’t have to be a zero sum game. Is there space in you for both of us?”

“It is impossible for more than one object to occupy the same space at the same time,” she says. “There are different spaces for each of you.”

Henry considers this. “Why’d you leave, Dana?”

She cants her face to the sky, eyes wide. “There’s a…a recklessness in me, Henry. A self destructiveness you haven’t seen.”

Is this where his gentle doctor ends and Mulder’s sure-shot partner begins? “Scully,” he says, trying it out.

Her eyes slide closed. “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t…please keep going.”

“That part of me blooms with him. It thrives. And I knew, I know, I couldn’t live like that. I couldn’t survive it another year. And I…I ripped it away and left it behind. That’s the place in me for you, Henry. That wound. You and Viv and Alice and Simon; you heal me there.”

He hears the thickness in her voice, feels it rising in his own. “Dana,” he says roughly. He knows about wounds and empty spaces. A piece of him went into the dark earth with Joan.

She turns her head to look at him, a slice of her lovely profile. “If that’s too much, I understand. I do. It’s a lot to ask.”

He shakes his head. “I’d rather share you than lose you,” he breathes. “If I….if I can make you feel whole, that’s a privilege.”

She makes a small noise, a hiccup or a sob, and crawls into his lap.

“It’s okay,” he says, arms wrapping around her. He kisses her temples, her eyelids.

She curls tight against his beating heart.

***

They don’t bother with the superfluity of hellos. She calls, he answers, they talk.

“I liked him,” Mulder says, bouncing a basketball. “I didn’t particularly want to, but he seems like the kind of person people just like.” Mulder finds this a kind of character flaw of its own, but does not mention as much.

“Yes,” Scully says, her voice soft. “He is.”

“A tax attorney though, Scully. Ouch.”

“Mulder, please.” The note of actual pleading in her voice startles him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sincere. “I know this isn’t easy.”

“It’s okay.”

He shoots the ball into the hoop at the end of the driveway. “Three-pointer,” he tells Scully.

“The crowd goes wild.”

There’s a long silence, just one another’s breathing.

“Listen, I don’t know if you know this, but I have a bit of a background in psychology and behavioral science.” He makes a foul shot.

“You don’t say.” There’s a smile in her voice.

“Truth. So I want you to know that my impression of Henry is that he, um, he knows the value of what he has. With you.” It hurts to admit this to her. To himself.

“Oh,” she breathes. “Mulder, I didn’t exp-“

“No, I just, let me finish. And he, um. He’s really a good guy. His life is, you know, well. Your life, really, I guess. It’s good. It’s what I wanted for you and I’m just, you know. I’m sorry I couldn’t give it to you.” His eyes sting.

Silence.

“Scully?”

“I’m here.”

He hears tears in her voice. “Okay. Okay, good. This is hard, but we, um. We’re always friends, aren’t we?”

“Of course. Always.” She sniffles.

“I feel like Henry, he understands that. He seems like he really wants you to be happy, that he’s not the jealous type.” Shit, shit why did he say that? “Not that he should be jealous, I don’t mean to imp-“

“It’s okay. And you’re right. He knows that I’m…that we…he knows how we are.”

Mulder swallows hard. “How we are,” he repeats.

They never say goodbye, either. The silence grows and drifts, then she finally disconnects the call.

***

Anonymous asked: What would you do if Henry rocked up in season 11 (other than sue)?

Wait for him to die, I guess. That’s Chris’s MO.

***

Anonymous asked: I love Henry. I know it's sad that in this fictional world she's not with Mulder, but as much as they deeply loved each other, I must admit it's lovely to read a world where Scully is appreciated in the day to day. I'm sure that perhaps Mulder did, but we didn't see too much of that. It felt like it was only when she was kidnapped or in hospital with cancer that he realised how much she meant to him. Henry is what she deserves, and it seems to make Mulder step up too. I'm on board for this.

I feel this way too. Listen, I am diehard MSR and was a shipper before fandom had even settled on the term! I am here for Mulder and Scully hobbling across that bridge like everybody else. 94% of what I write is MSR, either set within canon, or trying to give them a happier AU. Even in this story, their love is still palpable. I don’t think it works otherwise.

But the challenge of trying to create this unconventional AU in a way that is relatable to people is really enjoyable to me as a writer. MSR is inherently easy. It exists. It’s fun and satisfying as a fan, but it’s not a hard sell. This is really pushing me to approach the characters in a new way. I’m just immensely surprised it has gone over so well, and endlessly grateful to everyone who has been willing to engage in the narrative. Especially to @kateyes224 for the idea and @mangokiwitropicalswirl and my 10/13 anon for fleshing it out. 

(10/13 anon, got your message. Just developing an answer in my head.)

—

Anonymous asked: How would Henry cope if Scully's cancer returned? And how would Mulder? OR... how would Scully cope if something happened to Mulder, but she isn't free to drop everything and go to him? Would she want to, or would she have closed the door on that reaction? How would Henry deal with that? #TeamHenlly

Henry paces the hallway outside her room, one hand to his forehead, the other holding his phone. “Pick up, pick up,” he mutters.

Mulder does, finally. “Henry?”

“Yes. Yeah. Listen, this isn’t easy, but I’m at the hospital with Dana and I’ve got some, uh, some bad news.” He is proud of his steady voice, his steady hands.

“Is she hurt? Is she sick?” Mulder sounds almost accusatory, as though Henry has been derelict in a simple task.

“She’s sick. They…” he runs his hand through his hair, circles around the vending machine again. “They found a mass in her sinuses, Mulder.”

The silence on the other end goes on too long. “Mulder, are you there?”

“Do you know her medical history?” The words are clipped.

“She told me, told the doctors this isn’t new. But she said something about a chip, about that scar on her neck. What the hell is going on here, Mulder? I’ve never pushed her about her past, but I’m seriously in the dark here.”

There’s a heavy sigh on the other end. “It’s not my story to tell you.”

Henry, his frustration peaking after hours of obfuscation and obliqueness from Dana, slams a fist into the wall. “She’s my wife, goddammit! Whatever you two have, Mulder, whatever it is, I never pried. I trust her and I trust you and I accept it. But you need to tell me, right fucking now, what I don’t know.”

People are staring, but he doesn’t care, he feels righteous and productive.

“Henry, I-”

“You tell me,” he growls, “or I will drive over right now and beat the living shit out of you. I have a lot of impotent rage I’d like to direct somewhere.” He’s not entirely sure he can make good on this, but he thinks adrenaline will give him an advantage.

Nothing.

“Mulder.”

Breathing.

“It’s medicine,” Mulder says slowly. “The chip in her neck is some kind of medicine that stops her cancer.”

Henry is appalled, “That’s it? That’s the secret you couldn’t share? Am I losing my goddamned mind? Call the fucking manufacturer right now and get another one, for Christ’s sake!”

“It’s not that simple,” Mulder says, his voice soft. “It’s, ah, not on the market.”

“You’re telling me you know of a medicine that treats cancer effectively and you can’t get it? Is it foreign? Illegal?”

“It was a sort of custom design,” Mulder says.

“Give me an answer, a real answer. You two and your doublespeak, I swear to god…” He’s gripping his hair by the roots.

“Fine, Henry. Here it is.” There is anger in Mulder’s voice now, and Henry finds it satisfying. “Her cancer was specifically engineered to manifest if she ever took the chip out. The chip is a tracking device. I don’t know why it stopped working, but before you come over and kick my ass, you have a lot of fucking questions to ask your wife.”

Henry’s mind is reeling. He leans against the wall. “A tracking device?” he repeats. “Engineered cancer? How do you engineer cancer? Why do you engineer cancer?” He can’t process this, not this and Dana asleep in the hospital bed with a demon behind her eyes.

“Shit,” Mulder breathes. “Goddammit, Henry. How bad is she?”

“She’s weak, very thin. She kept saying it was the flu, you know how she is. But she had a few nosebleeds and went in. And here we are.”

“Yeah, I know how she is,” Mulder says, and Henry hears the pain in his words.

“There’s a man,” Mulder says. “Who knows about the chip. He might, uh, he might arrange a deal.”

Henry is baffled, but tries to swim with the current. “A deal? Why would an- never mind. Call him. I’ll pay whatever he wants, no questions asked.”

“Oh, I don’t think you can pay what he’ll want,” Mulder says. The words are measured, heavy. “But I can.”

The line goes dead.

***

Anonymous asked: In the Henry universe, how does Scully react when Mulder finds someone else?

She’s sorting lunch components for the twins into plastic bins in the refrigerator; bags of chips and carrot sticks and foil-wrapped triangles of pizza. Her phone rings as she picks up a webbed bag of clementines.

“Hey,” Mulder says, his voice a warm pulse.

Scully lets the oranges slump back onto the counter. “Hey.”

“I’m, uh, I’m headed up to New York to talk to my publisher this afternoon,” he tells her.

She can hear the noisy old dishwasher going in the background, imagines Mulder fidgeting at the kitchen table. There’s a chair with a wobbly leg he likes to rock in. “They still talking about the miniseries?”

“Yep.”

Scully chews her lip, considering. She tucks the phone against her shoulder. “That’s not why you called, though.”

A long pause. “No.”

“Okay.” She shuts the fridge and begins assembling sandwiches on the counter. Teasing information from Mulder can take a quiet, steady patience.

“I met someone,” he says at last.

Scully sets the knife down, knuckling the cool granite. “Did you?”

“I just, you know, I wanted to call you. You were very open about Henry so I thought I should extend you the same courtesy.” In the background, the squeak of the chair leg.

“Mulder, that’s great. I’m happy to hear it.” She is, she is, she doesn’t want him alone.

He coughs. “Thanks. Um, well, I guess that’s it, really. I should go pack.”

“No!” she exclaims. “Mulder, I need some detail.” As a friend. As a concerned friend who is wary of his general taste for women who will betray him.

“Oh, Scully, you don’t have t-“

“Really, I do. Let’s have the 411.” She hopes she sounds casually interested, and begins spreading peanut butter on a slice of bread.

Mulder guffaws. “The 411? Scully, let me tell you about the internet.”

She blushes, waves her hand. “Whatever. Details, something.”

“Ummmm…”

Scully imagines him pacing now, tossing and catching an invisible baseball. “You know, it’s okay, I don’t want to pressure you.”

“No, hey, I’m sorry. Just trying to generate a quick dossier. Uh, well, her name is Elizabeth. She works for the EPA, coastal ecology.”

“Science nerd, huh?” she says, and immediately wishes she hadn’t. She swallows, stabs a spoon into the jam jar.

“Yeah,” Mulder says. “She does something with zebra mussels and ship ballast water that I need to brush up on.”

“Probably invasive species in coastal communities. I’ll give you a crash course if you like.” She picks up the sandwich to tuck into a plastic bag.

‘It’s okay. I’ll Google it; you remember that internet thing I mentioned before. It’s got lots of stuff on it.”

She is stung, and words sticks in her throat like lumpy oatmeal. “Oh,” she manages. “Okay, then.”

Mulder coughs again. “I just figured you’re pretty busy, with work and the kids and everything.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.” She toys with the jam jar, rolling it in her hands. It is cool against her palms “Well, you know, enjoy your research. Look up copepods too.”

“I will.”

Seconds tick by on the kitchen clock.

“When’s the second book out?” Scully asks. She picks up the sandwich, zipping and unzipping the plastic bag.

“Around Thanksgiving, I think. You want an advance copy? I’ll sign it for you.”

She laughs. “No, don’t give them away. I want to buy it, boost your sales.”

“In that case, stock up and send them out with the Christmas cards. Even mine.”

“I’ll pre-order on the….what did you call it? The in-ter-net?”

Mulder chuckles. “Have them shipped right to your house, or take your velocipede down to the book-seller to fetch them.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

A lengthy pause, but they don’t hang up.

Scully finds that the sandwich in her hand has been wadded into a dense ball, peanut butter and jam squeezed all over the inside of the bag. She hastily shoves it into the trash can. “Mulder, um, when you get back in town, why don’t you give me a call? We’d love to have dinner with you and Elizabeth.” She says it so smoothly she believes it.

“Oh,” he says. “That sounds nice, that sounds really good. Yeah.”

“Okay.” She squeezes her eyes closed, her stomach sour.

Mulder breathes for a long moment. Then he says, “Well, hey. I’ve got to get going, but thanks for listening. I know how busy you are.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Sure.” She holds back this time, doesn’t say she always has time for him.

An empty silence now, the call disconnected.

Scully sits on a bar stool, hands clasped beneath her chin, elbows on the breakfast bar. She sees the absurd expectation she’s held onto, the cruelty of it. Mulder like a sundial in the garden of her life, static and reliable as she moves through the seasons around him. Ticking off her hours as she spends them.

Scully goes to the sink and slaps cold water on her face. She sees Elizabeth in her mind’s eye. Lanky and brunette, of course. Long legs and khaki shorts, probably lots of trips to REI. She assigns her a sporty dog too. Maybe with a bandanna.

She says a prayer for his happiness, and leaves it to God to sort out what exactly she means by the idea.

***

Anonymous asked: 10/13 Henry anon here, dearest Mrs. Virgata and mangokiwimagicswirl, either or both of you please feel free to flesh it out. It delights me my little something could turn into a bigger something. I'm not above begging. *begs*. Look what you all did, my MSR heart really does belong to MSR, but I can carve a little spot out for Henry/Scully/Mulder. Mulder is earth, Henry is the stick, Scully is Archimede's point bc we all know she makes the choices and drives the consequences.

A Saturday in late September, and Henry and Scully sit on the back porch watching the twins lob lacrosse balls at Viv. She catches them expertly, flicking her wrist to send them flying back at her younger siblings. They dodge them, squealing and chasing one another and Wicket, who makes off with one on occasion. He exposes his preposterously fluffy belly in hope of scratches.

Scully pours herself a glass of sangria, pours Henry another two inches of Macallan. She is pleasantly buzzed, work blurring out of her mind’s eye. Henry is somewhat more than buzzed, she suspects. Joan’s parents had been over, which exhausts him.

“There’s, ah, there’s something I want to discuss with you,” Henry says. “And with a bit of liquid courage, there’s no time like the present.”

Anxiety rises in her like a barometer. “That’s quite a lead-in,” she says, keeping her tone light while her stomach churns.

“Sorry,” Henry replies. “It’s not, it’s nothing bad.”

“Let’s have it, then.”

“Mulder’s birthday dinner,” Henry begins. “I know what he…I know that you two are…dammit.“ He trails off in frustration.

The anxiety is now constricting her throat. “Henry?”

He shakes his head, still watching his children. “What I’m mangling here is that if you, um, if you ever felt a need to, you know, take a night off from all this-“ here he nods at the yard, “I’d not hold it against you.”

Comprehension begins to dawn, and Scully is aghast.  “You’re not suggesting that I….no. Henry, no.”

Henry shrugs. “It’s not a moral failing, okay? I asked you once if there was a place for both of us in you and you said there were two places. And I said I’d rather share you than lose you. I know a marriage is a compromise, and I’m, you know, I’m trying to figure out what that looks like here. You took on three kids and a guy with some heavy emotional baggage.”

Scully’s cheeks burn. “So your solution is that I offer myself up to him as a birthday gift? Is this some kind of magnanimous man-to-man gesture, sharing your woman as a show of friendship?”

Henry turns to her now, mouth open. “Oh god, oh….shit. I had no idea it sounded that way. I’m sorry.”

Scully drains half her glass in one gulp. “This is the life I committed myself to, Henry. It’s not a job I need a sick day from, and you and the kids aren’t baggage, for heaven’s sake.”

Henry stares into the yard, watches Wicket play tug of war with Viv’s lacrosse stick. “I’m terrified of losing you,” he says. “Partially because of Joan but partially because…” he shakes his head.

“Because what?”

He swallows the rest of his Scotch. “Because there are these dark places in you I can’t see, places that have been redacted. And I told you I wouldn’t pry, and I won’t, but I have this fear of them. That they’ll swallow you one day, and you’ll just disappear. I guess I hoped that if I offered you a night to visit, so to speak, you might not feel tempted to run away to them.”

Her sinuses burn. “Henry…”

“I wasn’t trying to offer you to Mulder as a birthday gift, Dana, that’s really fucking sick. But I was trying to offer you a night in the parts of yourself you haven’t let me go to yet.”

She reaches for his hand and grips it hard. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“A vacation home,” he says, smiling weakly at his own joke. He squeezes her hand back.

“I don’t need a vacation,” she assures him.  She tugs Henry closer, pulls him down so that his head is resting on her lap. His legs dangle over the armrest of the wicker settee.

“I just want you to know I meant it,” he says.

She nods. “I do. But you can’t keep me by giving me away.” She traces his face with her fingertip, his eyelashes and tragus and philtrum. She etches him deeper into her heart.

***

Anonymous asked: Original 10/13 anon here, I suppose i'm down for consummation of free pass too. Heck, you can do both versions for all I care!

aloysiavirgata:

Oh @perplexistan and @kateyes224…

A continuation of this

***

It’s sticky outside, a mid-Atlantic fall day not fully committed to the reality of October. A late season hurricane has been stirring up the ghosts of summer off the Carolinas, the air close and heavy. Scully steals hairpins from Viv’s vanity to help tame her bun, and is reasonably pleased with the results.

It’s just Mulder, she tells herself, zipping up her navy dress. It has a boatneck that shows her clavicles to good advantage, cap sleeves that feel feminine but not frilly.

It’s just Mulder, she thinks, choosing beige kitten heels that lengthen her legs, swiping Lancome’s Perfect Fig across her mouth. She skips perfume.

The sky is thick with shaggy clouds, the sun slipping away nearly undetected. Scully slides behind the wheel of her car, and leaves tire tracks on the grass when she swerves backwards down the driveway.

***

The restaurant is new and well reviewed, with nothing served in Mason jars or on slate tiles. She asked when she made the reservation, as these things leave Mulder snarky and cross.

Mulder arrives at the table a few minutes after her, wind-whipped, mud on one of his loafers. They embrace, a quick kiss on each cheek, and she breathes shallowly. It would not be good to inhale the scent of him.

“Happy birthday,” she says, settling into her chair, napkin spread across her silken lap. “I’m sorry the weather’s so ominous.”

“I blame you entirely.”

She smiles. “I should have e-mailed Holman Hart, called in a favor.”

Mulder peruses his menu. “Next time. I’m just glad you got to come out and play for an evening.”

Scully frowns. “This isn’t the fifties, Mulder, and I’m not a kept woman. Don’t make it sound like that.”

He is taken aback, but nods. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

Scully sighs. She doesn’t want to begin like this. “It’s fine. I’ve had a long week and I’m a bit snappish. I just don’t want things to be strained between us because of….well. It’s your birthday, Mulder.”

A waitress comes by with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. She sets it on the table, handing them each a flute.

Scully looks at her in confusion. “I didn’t order this,” she says.

The waitress nods her head towards Mulder. “The gentleman called earlier, ma’am.”

The gentleman denies this, and the waitress furrows her brow. “Sir? Someone called earlier and ordered this for Dana Scully’s table. For a birthday celebration.”

Scully blushes, twists her wedding ring around her finger. “It’s fine, thank you,” she tells the waitress. “Just a misunderstanding on my part. Sorry for the confusion.”

“Shall I open it?”

“Please.”

The cork makes a wonderful popping sound, the champagne golden and sparkling as it flows into their glasses. The waitress tucks the bottle back into the ice before she leaves.

Scully stares at the silver bucket, the frost of condensation on it, the mounds of crystal ice. She runs a fingertip along the rim of her flute, making it squeak.

Mulder raises his glass in a toast. “Many thanks to Henry,” he says, without a trace of irony.

***

Mulder is clacking his empty mussel shells like castanets. The champagne is gone and so is half a bottle of Sancerre. The candle on their table has burned low.

Scully is laughing helplessly, her napkin pressed to her mouth.

“I can’t believe you never told me this,” she manages. “The Spanish ambassador, how could you?”

He drops the shells back into the bowl, grinning. “It’s was university and I was an asshole. Plus my girlfriend was semi-psychotic. Phoebe,” he clarifies.

Scully groans. “Oh, God. Phoebe. She was a mess, Mulder.”

He laughs. “Gorgeous though. My main requirement at the time.”

She wipes her eyes. “I’ll grant you that, yes. I was a little intimidated, I won’t lie.”

“You were looking pretty good too.”

Scully wrinkles her nose in reply.

A boom of thunder comes suddenly, making the chandeliers rattle. Seconds later, a jagged fork of lightning splits the sky. Gasps come from the other diners when the lights go out.

Mulder dribbles wine onto the candle,  extinguishing it. “Pouring one out for my homie Zeus.”

***

They make a mad dash to their cars in the rain, Scully nearly diving into her SUV. She slides on the wet leather, blasting the air to dry herself off.

Across the lot she spots Mulder’s car, his battered old two-tone Land Cruiser 70. It has not been started. Worried, Scully drives over, hydroplaning on the slick asphalt. She parks parallel to him, oriented nose to tail.

She sees him through the downpour, scowling at his phone. She waves to get his attention and he frowns at her, shrugs. A round of hurried texting reveals that the car won’t start and he’s got at least a 2 hour wait per the AAA app.

Scully reaches behind her seat for the huge wood-frame golf umbrella she keeps there. Opening the door, she unfurls it into the storm. The wind nearly drags it from her hands. She makes it to her trunk before Mulder sees what she’s doing and leaps from his car.

“Are you out of your fucking MIND?” he yells into the wind.

“JUMPER CABLES,” she shouts back. “YOU CAN’T STAY HERE FOR TWO HOURS!” Scully rummages around, then hoists them victoriously.

Thunder crashes, and the hail begins.

Mulder shoves her into his open driver’s door and she clambers into the passenger seat so he can get in. Hail the size of quail eggs bounces in with him.

He slams the door, panting. “You have a degree. In physics.”

She twines the cables around her hands, shamefaced. “I know.”

Mulder starts to laugh. He rests his head on the steering wheel, shaking with laughter while hail rattles around them.

Scully glares at him. “Let’s agree it wasn’t my finest moment, okay?”

He catches his breath. “No, it’s fine. It’s good. I appreciate the laugh. But we picked the wrong car for this little adventure.” He clicks the useless ignition to demonstrate.

Scully groans. “My phone’s in mine too.”

Mulder peels his jacket off, his shirt mostly dry underneath. “Scully, you’re soaked. I’d offer you my jacket, but…” He holds it up, letting it drip water onto the floor.

“I’m good,” she says. “Just turn on the - oh.”

“Yeah.”

She folds down the visor, inspecting herself in the mirror. She looks like the undead prom queen from a slasher flick, straggling hair coming loose, smudged rings of waterproof mascara.

She snaps the visor back up.

Mulder brightens. “I think there’s a blanket in the foot locker. I’ll climb back and get it.”

She waves him off. “I’ll get it, I’m smaller.”  Scully turns, her silk dress clinging like wet paper as she wriggles. She and Mulder studiously ignore her hip against his shoulder. Her shoes drop beside him to the floor.

She squelches into the back, feeling clammy and uncomfortable. There is loose grit on the floor, which hurts her knees. She tugs a quilted moving blanket from a folded-up seat onto the floor, then opens the foot locker. Inside is his old Navajo blanket. She touches it, smiling.

“You find it?” Mulder asks.

“Yeah, thanks,” she says. Scully unfolds the blanket and wraps it around herself. It smells of dry wood and motor oil, GoJo hand cleanser. “I forgot how much room there is back here with the side seats up.”

He adjusts the rearview mirror to see her, and they hold one another’s eyes for a beat. Scully looks away, watches the storm shred leaves off the trees. She twists her wedding ring.

Mulder climbs through the seats, grunting, then sits next to her on the moving blanket. “I texted Henry,” he says. “Let’s him know you’re safe, just waiting out the storm. Thanked him for the champagne.”

“I appreciate that,” she says, touched

“I’d want him to.”

Scully pulls the blanket tighter.“I’m sorry your birthday is going like this,” she says.

He looks at her, surprised. “Good dinner, great company, spooky storm. You wanna tell ghost stories and creep each other out?” He bumps her shoulder.

Scully smiles. “I’m don’t think we can surprise each other anymore,” she says softly. “We’re like two magicians trying to show each other card tricks.”

“You can always surprise me,” he says.

She holds her left hand out for his inspection. The diamonds reflect scraps of yellow streetlight. “This?” she asks.

Mulder shrugs, looks away.

Scully touches the rings. “He told me to go home with you tonight if I wanted. He said he would understand, like shore leave. That it wouldn’t change anything.”

Mulder swallows, closes his eyes. The air is becoming steamy with evaporate, the windows fogged. The smell of damp silk, damp wool hangs about them.

“I told him I couldn’t, that I didn’t need it anyway. And that I certainly wasn’t going to offer myself to you like a gift from the lord of one manor to another.” She reaches out to touch his face, to turn it towards her.

“Don’t,” he rasps.

“Mulder, look at me.”

He shoves her hand away, stares at her. “I’m getting in your car,” he says. “Before we do something really stupid.”

Scully drops the Navajo blanket to the floor. She unpins her hair, lets it fall down her sticky neck to just past her shoulders. She sits back on her heels, wet dress like seaweed. “Mulder.”

“One of us needs to get the fuck out of this car,” he whispers, his voice ragged. He doesn’t move.

She unzips her dress, but it doesn’t fall away like she’d planned. It clings to the tops of her arms, the tops of her breasts, the back gaping open. Gooseflesh rises.

“I thought I could get out of the car,” she says. “ But maybe a joyride every so often isn’t such a bad idea. Henry says it’s not a moral failing, Mulder. And I’m quoting directly.”

They stare at one another, her face tipped up, her mouth swollen. Mulder gazes down at the shadow between her breasts.

Scully runs her tongue across her top lip.

He reaches forward, slides his hands down her shoulders, scraping the ruined silk away. His breath, his heart, are louder than the thunder.

She is bare to the waist now, her chest heaving, her dress a puddle between her hips and the quilted grey blanket. Her nipples ache.

Hail smashes against the windshield, and the wind howls.

She unbuttons his shirt, her fingers trembling, and his chest is deeper, broader than she remembered it. His scars are just as she left them.

Scully moves closer, her breasts grazing his skin when she kisses his neck, bites at it. He shudders, fingers tangling in her hair.

She cups his erection through his trousers.

“I thought you said…” he gasps, hands sliding down to plane her back.

“I thought I meant it,” she mumbles, unbuckling his belt, unfastening his fly.

“I wish you had,” he groans when she pulls his boxers to his knees.

Scully lays back on the blanket, her dress still rucked around her abdomen like a painting of Venus. She reaches beneath it to pull her underwear down, kicks them away.

Mulder is on top of her then, his hands on either side of her head, his shirt tenting her torso. He moves one hand against the hot skin between her thighs, comes away slick from even so little contact.

She whimpers as the storm roars, and he presses his wet fingers to her mouth.

“Scully,” he says, his eyes searching hers. “We can’t undo this, you know that.”

She knows, she knows, she saw what happened to Daniel’s family, what she had done.

“Please,” she says, raking her manicured nails down his back, her pelvis arched against his.  “Please.”

Mulder is not her conscience, and enters her in one thrust.

He cries out to her god.

***

It’s past one when she stumbles into the kitchen, past one by the little clock above the sink.

Henry jumps up from the ladderback chair. “Dana, thank God,” he says. “Mulder called about 45 minutes ago, said you’d left, but I couldn’t reach you.”

Scully holds up her phone, the screen black. “Ruined in the rain,” she says. She slumps into a chair, drained. “And the hail cracked my windshield.”

Henry watches her, concerned, then takes his robe off. “Look at you, you’re soaked.” He tucks the thick cotton around her, smoothing her hair out of her eyes. “Dana?”

She leans up, kisses him. “I’m sorry, the roads were awful and I’m exhausted. I don’t remember a storm like that since Sandy.”

He runs his thumb over her cheekbone, smiling at her freckles. ”I’m just glad you’re safe.”

Scully nods, pressing his palm to her face, to her lips. She’d stood outside in the rain, after the storm burned itself out, to wash the yeasty scent of sex from her pores. She’s afraid, somehow, that it has lingered. That she is marked, tainted forever.

“Probably too much wine, too,” she admits ruefully. “I drank more than my fair share and my head hurts.”

“I got his text,” Henry tells her. “I’m glad he liked it.”

Scully looks back at him, her heart aching with how much she loves him, how much she despises herself. “Oh, yes,” she replies. “He loved your gift.”

 —

For everyone who asked.

***

He rattles up the driveway, the rattling a function of his automobile rather than the O'Keefes’ smooth asphalt. He parks under the basketball hoop, blocking the garage.

Fallen branches litter the yard. A shutter is down from one of the dormer windows, and the landscaping looks threadbare in places. A Japanese maple is split down the center.

Henry is gathering this debris from the storm, hauling it into a large pile in front of the house. He wears a Princeton sweatshirt and jeans, a Nationals cap pulled over his hair. He pauses in his work to greet Mulder. There are wet leaves on his hands.

“Didn’t expect to see you,” Mulder says, stepping over a rake to shake hands. “I was planning a drop-and-dash.” He holds out Scully’s wooden umbrella, her jumper cables.

“Well, you can just, um, set that stuff on the bench I suppose. Dana’s in surgery all day, but I can put it in her car when she gets home.” Henry jams his hands in his pockets, rocks back on his heels.

“Okay,” Mulder says. He lays the items on the bench, then surveys the yard with a kind of awe at the destruction. “Hell of a mess.”

Henry sighs. “I know they were calling for it, but I guess I wasn’t prepared for what we got. You know Dana has a big crack in her windshield.”

Mulder’s eyebrows go up, as this is news to him. “She okay?”

“Oh, she’s fine, but she was pretty shaken when she got home last night.” He studies Mulder carefully. “Must have been a rough drive home, huh?”

“Must have been.”

They are silent for a time.

“You need any help cleaning up?” Mulder asks. “It’s the least I could do after you were nice enough to buy me birthday champagne.”

Henry shakes his head. “No, thank you for the offer though. Glad you had a good night despite the weather. You’re hard to shop for, though Dana said you wouldn’t want a gift.”

Mulder looks away. “I don’t need much.“

Henry picks the rake up, leans on the handle as he presses the tines into the soft earth. “I love my wife,” he says. “And so do you. Some people might say that puts us at odds, Mulder.”

Mulder meets Henry’s gaze. “It would be an understandable, if incorrect assumption.”

Henry shifts. “I don’t want to be at odds with you. You….you’re her friend. You represent a part of her life I can never fully understand. When I lost Joan I thought I’d…well. I know we all have our ghosts.”

“Nothing happened last night, Henry.”

Henry stiffens. “Pardon?”

Mulder holds his hands out, open. “I feel like I need to just say it, okay? Nothing inappropriate happened. My battery was dead and we realized we both had too much to drink, so we waited the storm out in my car. Her phone got wet and ruined so she couldn’t call. She adores you and your kids and that Ewok of a dog.”

Henry closes his eyes for a long moment, then opens them. “Thanks for bringing her things back. I’ll tell her you came by.”

Mulder nods. He gets into his car and backs down the driveway, navigating fallen limbs as he does. On the radio, Tom Petty’s singing about his last dance with Mary Jane. Mulder turns the volume up and sings along.

***

Anonymous asked: We can just blame love for the Henry saga. Loved fucked all of them over. In Victorian times, after the free pass, Scully would've killed herself, Henry would remain unmarried for the rest of his life and refuse to talk about Dana, and Mulder would go on some stupid quest as penance and probably get himself killed.

I think I saw this movie and Gillian was very good in it.

***

Anonymous asked: I beginning to feel like eventually Henry is going to realize Scully's connection runs so deep emotionally that he's just not going to want to deal with it anymore. He says he's fine with how things are, how Scully doesn't tell him much about her past, that she is still very close to Mulder and gives her a free pass, but eventually he'll want more for himself in a relationship and leave her. In my mind, Scully want want that life and deserves it, but she unintentinally sabotages it.

I think you’re right. Scully has a deep self-destructive streak that rears its head on occasion. I think there’s a part of her that doesn’t feel like she deserves familial happiness after William, and that she doesn’t deserve Mulder or Henry. She’s almost created a perfect storm for herself where she can lose them both by capitalizing on their feelings for her.

***

Anonymous asked: How did Henry and Scully meet?

She wore navy peau de soie and nude stilettos, a beaded bag on her wrist. Her hair hung in sculpted waves just covering her collarbones.

She chatted, she mingled, and she ducked into the kitchen with unnecessary frequency to check the flow of the food.

“Everything’s fine, Dr. Scully,” the staff assured her each time. She pursed her lips, scanning the bison tartare and vol au vents. She sampled a grilled shrimp, nodding tersely.

Scully calmed herself with a third vodka tonic, a poor decision, she knew, but the bar was open and her nerves jangled.

“It’s perfect, Dana,” her intern said, a glass of white wine in her manicured hand. She was a child, scarcely old enough to legally consume her drink. Her father was Someone.

Scully smiled, thanked her. The crowd was too dense, the room too warm, and the talk too loud. There was drunken laughter, cloying perfume. She longed for home, for the reliability of solitude.

Next to her, a man in a grey suit ordered a 15 year Macallan, neat. Scully appraised him out of habit, saw the fine tailoring and coordinating pocket square. The haircut was good, the shoes excellent. She sensed funds for her pet project.

“Dana Scully,” she said, holding out her free hand.

He took it with his left. There was no ring. “Henry O'Keefe,” he said. “You’re on the committee, aren’t you?”

Scully blinked in surprise. “I am,” she said. “Have we met?”

He shook his head. “My firm’s the title sponsor and I recognized your name.”

She smiled in the way she knew people liked, all her teeth on display. “Impressive. Have you checked out the auction items yet?”

He nodded. “There’re a few things I’d like for my kids, I put in some bids. Quite a variety this year.”

“It’s much appreciated. I hope you win them.” She left a tip for the bartender, turning to go.

Fingers at her back, and she sucked in her breath at the ghost of a memory.

“Dr. Scully?”

She turned back to Henry O'Keefe. “Yes?”

He looked into his drink, then at her. “It’s a very good cause.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps…perhaps you could tell me more about it. About how you got involved. It would be nice to hear from someone with passion rather than just a calculation for client endearment.” He offered her a hopeful smile.

Scully set her empty glass on the bar. “I’d love to,” she said. She rested her hand on his offered forearm, and waded back into the fray.

***

Anonymous asked: Henry story: if Mulder and Scully were asked to consult the FBI on a strange case (and a once only basis), what would happen?

She’s got a stack of patient files next to her, dog-eared, the corners grubby. Scully dutifully logs their contents into her computer, wishing the hospital would spring for software upgrades. Her phone rings, startling her from the mind-numbing task.

“Mulder?”

“There’s a case.”

She pecks at the keyboard. “I’m sorry, but the person you’re trying to reach is no longer available. Please hang up and try your call again.”

“I’m not kidding. You’ve gotta make arrangements, you’ve gotta-”

“Mulder, slow down. What the hell is going on? What case, why are you freaking out like this?”

A pause. “It’s Skinner.”

***

“I realize the government is slow with the red tape, but they are aware that they no longer employ you, correct?” Henry’s fingers tap his forehead as he paces the kitchen.

She traces her nail along the grain of the kitchen table. “Strictly consulting,” she says. “All behind the scenes. Probably no longer than a week.”

“Forgive me, but why you two? Why now?”

She looks down. “It’s classified.”

“Of course. And where will you be going? Can I know that at least?”

“Classified,“ she whispers, still not meeting his eyes.

Henry throws his hands in the air. “Of course. Of. Fucking. Course. Your whole life is classified, why shouldn’t this be too?”

Scully squeezes her eyes shut. Any other case and she would have said no. Anything else and she would have hung up on Mulder, gone back to her filing, eaten Viv’s outstanding lasagna, and gone to bed.

“Are you allowed to say no, even? I mean, you’re a civilian, right? They can’t force you to do anything.”

“I have to,” she says, heartsick. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But I have to.” Her throat is tight.

Henry knuckles the counter, his back to her. “I have never asked you anything, Dana. Not a single goddamned thing. I agreed to leave the past behind and move forward, but it seems to keep popping up. Flying off with your ex husband to your ex job? I’m supposed to be fine with that when I know…” He shakes his head.

“When you know what?” she breathes, nauseous. She is afraid he will say it, even though she knows he knows.

Henry turns, his eyes hard. “Enough, okay? I know enough.” He considers her. “What would you do if I said no?”

She is taken aback, this possibility not having occurred to her. “I didn’t think we forbade each other things, Henry,” she says slowly.

“The requests are getting pretty one-sided. So what would you do?”

She presses her trembling hands flat to the table, palms cool against the lacquered wood. “I’d go anyway,” she says. “Not for anyone else, but for Ski-” she bites off the end of her sentence, furious with herself.

Henry sits across from her at the table. “For whom?”

 She remains silent, shaken.

“Classified,” he says, with faint contempt. “Right.”

Scully chews her lip until the inside of it bleeds. Experience has taught her that there are reckonings, crossroads past which a life can take on an entirely new direction. She does not want this to be one of them.

They look at each other for what seems like a very long time.

“Henry,” she says carefully. “What I’m about to do is completely illegal, all right? I’m putting your life and my life in danger by telling you this. But you’re right; I owe it to you. To us.” She reaches across the table for his hand.

Henry nods. “I understand.”

He doesn’t; he can’t possibly, but she plows ahead before she loses her nerve. “FBI Director Walter Skinner has been taken by a militia group called the New Spartans. We believe he’s being held inside their compound, located near Casper Mountain, Wyoming.”

Henry gapes. “The Director. Of the FBI. Has been kidnapped?”

“So it would seem.”

Henry shakes his head, appalled. He withdraws his hand from hers to run through his hair.“Why isn’t this national news, why isn’t the, uh…who? The SEALS or the Army Rangers all over this? Why are they pulling two agents out of retirement to deal with a huge fucking disaster? Were you hostage negotiators, what?”

“No. But we….um. We, along with Director Skinner, have dealt with this group before. Mulder infiltrated them undercover at one point. August Bremer, their former leader, spared Mulder’s life at one point.” She looks at him sadly, reminding herself of all that he doesn’t know.

“Shouldn’t they be making demands, on TV or something, I don’t know…. Bragging?” Sweat beads on Henry’s brow, and he wipes at it with a paper napkin.

Scully shakes her head. “Maybe in a Bond flick. These are not people who want attention. They see themselves as the last true patriots and this is symbolic for them, for their followers. They don’t want to cut a deal with the federal government. They’re anarchists, and see no difference between the FBI and the KGB, Henry. This is a power move.”

Henry, dazed, shreds the paper napkin into minuscule fragments. “How the hell did they get him, anyway?”

In for a penny, in for a pound, she figures. What’s a little more treason between husband and wife? “A member of the group had been leaking plans to the Director for about eighteen months, all of it credible. The source claimed that the New Spartans had been working with anti-federal groups overseas to plan an attack that would take down power grids in 20 major US cities. Based on our prior dealings with the group, the Director found this consistent with their MO. He agreed to meet with the source to obtain satellite footage of the other groups’ headquarters. But it turned out to be a setup, an ambush. Four agents were killed and the Director was badly injured.”

Her husband looks ill. “My god,” he mumbles. “And you’re wading back into this? And I’m supposed to just nod and wave like it’s fine?”

“Just consulting, Henry, I promise.” She speaks softly, like she does when the twins wake up from nightmares they can’t remember. “I’m past fifty, and hardly in peak form. Intel only.”

“But why, Dana? Can’t someone else do this?” His voice is pleading.

“I owe him my life, Mulder’s life,” she says. “He risked himself to save us. And when I had no one, nothing, he was there.” She shrugs. “It’s a debt I never thought I could repay.”

Henry frowns. “No one and nothing? Dana, what happened to you?”

And now, Scully knows, now is the crossroad. She gulps air, takes her husband’s hands again in her own.

“I have a son,” she says.

***

@perplexistan asked: I need something from the Henry-verse. Something happy, though. Maybe Scully finally divorcing Henry and going back to Mulder. I know that's not the point of this AU, which I truly do love, but I just want it. Sue me.

You are asking a lot of our friendship. Can’t I just send you cookies?

***

Anonymous asked: Who is being eaten up by the repercussions of free pass more Mulder or scully?

Scully for sure. I think that, particularly post IWTB, he’s stopped taking responsibility for her decisions. I have a line in there where I say that Mulder is not her conscience, and I think he really feels that way now. She’s a grown woman capable of making her own choices. I think he knows what they did was wrong, but Scully isn’t some wide-eyed innocent anymore.

***

Anonymous asked: Does Viv know about Emily and William? Has she met/seen Mulder?

Henry doesn’t know about Emily and William. Viv has met Mulder twice. She thinks he’s a compelling, charming weirdo but, given her stepmother’s tendency to organize closets by color and make spreadsheets for every conceivable topic, she’s baffled that they were together as long as she’s heard they were.

***

For all the anons who have so sweetly asked after Henry, here’s a little intersection with Ghouli.

***

Simon and Alice run squealing from the living room, slamming into Scully when she comes around the corner from the kitchen.

She staggers back under their combined weight, bumping into the dog. “What’s wrong?” she asks, steadying herself against the counter.

Viv stalks in behind them, waving her phone. “I told them it was too scary,” she says. “But they hid behind the couch to read over my shoulder, and now they’re all freaked out.” She punches Simon in the arm. “Serves you right.”

“We’re never sleeping again,” Alice asserts, cuddling against Scully.

“Ever,” Simon adds, punching Viv back.

Scully rubs Alice’s small back, running her fingers through her thick hair. The irrational squabbles of children are still hard for her to follow, but she tries. “What was too scary?”

“Ghouli,” Viv says, crunching into an apple.

***

Scully is curled up on the chaise longue in her bedroom, lost in reading, when Henry comes in. He’s shed his suit for pajama pants and a Georgetown sweatshirt. Scully smiles at his mussed hair, an untidy silver haystack from wrestling with the twins. The nails of his left hand are painted with purple glitter polish.

“You get them settled?” she asks.

He rubs his face. “Yeah, finally. Alice is good, but Simon’s still pretty sure this Ghouli thing is coming to eat our family.” He sits at the edge of the chaise, reaching out to massage Scully’s neck. His hands cover her shoulders, thumbs meeting at the base of her cervical spine.

“Mmmmmm,” she says, rolling her head forward. “You’re going to distract me.”

“That’s the plan,” he says, trailing butterfly kisses along her jaw, then stops when he notices what’s on the screen. “What the hell is that?”

“Ghouli, apparently. Viv showed me the site. it’s pretty well done, actually. I can see why they’re freaked out.” The drawing of the monster has the clean, architectural lines of a scientific sketch.

Henry stretches out on the chaise, wrapping himself around her. Scully tucks herself into the solid warmth of his body and adjusts her laptop so that they can both see. Late night cuddling over images of cryptids brings back memories that she shakes off.

As though reading her mind, Henry says, “So whatcha thinking, Agent Scully? This is your former wheelhouse, right?”

She shrugs. “Not exactly It’s fascinating from a cultural standpoint, I suppose. I was talking to Viv about it. There’s an internet phenomenon called ‘creepypasta,’ kind of like urban legends with a paranormal bent. Some of them have taken on a sort of folk-tale quality.”

Henry tucks her head beneath his chin. “Is this that Slenderman thing? Those two girls in Wyoming?”

“Wisconsin,” Scully corrects. “Yes, like Slenderman.” She switches tabs, pulling up a new post. “Ceci n'est ce pas une pipe,” she reads, in her bad French.

“This is not a pipe,” Henry translates, musing. “What the hell does that mean?”

Scully taps her lips. “It’s a reference to a painting by Rene Magritte. He did, um, a painting of a pipe with this phrase below it, as a reminder that the symbol of the thing is not the thing itself. The map is not the territory. It’s a semiotic concept addressed by Alfred Korzybski.”

Henry kisses her temple. “You didn’t even have to Google that, did you?”

She, grins, admits that she did not.

“So hot,” Henry says. “Anyway, so what? Some emo kid who’s read too much Sartre decided to make some of this, uh, creepypasta stuff.”

Scully scrolls around some more. “Probably. It’s just impressively complex. Like, here. Look at this. It’s got a Baconian cypher, it references atomic bomb tests,it’s got sketches of RNA…which. That’s odd, actually.”

“Hmmm?”

“Well, the post with the RNA base is by a user named K/OMouse. I’m guessing it refers to knockout mice. Those are mice whose DNA has been altered, so why include RNA nucleotides instead of DNA? And an RNA nucleotide shouldn’t contain a diphosphate, but there are two phosphate groups here, plus that terminal oxygen should be double bonded to this carbon, or be a hydroxyl, or at least have a negative sign.” She doesn’t notice that her voice has grown agitated.

Henry has. “Uh, Dana? I think maybe you should avoid this site with Simon and Alice. Go play Neko Atsume for a while, hmmm?”

Scully takes a deep breath. He’s right, of course he’s right.

It’s nothing.

She closes her laptop, laughing a little. “I guess I’m Rever’s target audience.”

Henry grins. “I’ll try to distract you again.”

She ignores the little itch in her amygdala, in her entorhinal cortex, and follows him to bed.

***

It’s two AM and Henry is sleeping, bare-chested and peaceful on the other side of the room. Wicket, dense and furry, is sprawled like a wolf pelt over his feet. Their breathing is even and steady, a lulling hum in the back of her head. It steadies her like a heartbeat. Like the sea.

Her eyes flit back and forth between tabs, her face bathed in the blue glow. She looks at the post by K/OMouse again. The alien head, the RNA.

Alien head, RNA

RNA, virus.

Viral replication occurs via mRNA.

Something tickles her brain again, that little itch.

A virus.

An alien virus.

Purity control.

She grabs a notepad to organize her thoughts.

Baltimore classification?

Two phosphate groups = diphosphate nucleoside? Or non-terrestrial?

It is not the pipe - it is not the territory - what does Ghouli represent?

She looks at KO/Mouse’s post again, copies down the code he’s written. She begins working on it before seeing that user Elizabeth has helpfully done this work for her.

weseeyouwilliamvandekampweknowwhoyouare

andifweknowthentheyknowwhichyoushouldknow

crossroadswasonceanatombombandnowitisyou

WilliamWilliamWilliam pounds in her head.

Her vision is black, suddenly. And just as suddenly she sees a farm, idyllic and flat beneath an Ansel Adams sky.

Back to her room in a flash, gasping for air. Back to Henry dreaming in the safe warmth of their bed.

It’s 2:37 by her watch, but time is only a human construct. She pads out to the hall and down the stairs. She dials, and he answers on the third ring.

“Mulder, it’s me.”

[honeymoonjin]

Chapter Two

Summary: When you hear that your recently deceased grandmother left you her property in her will, at first you think that a dinky old cottage in the middle of nowhere isn’t going to mean much for you. But after spending a night there, you discover something far more valuable than the house itself: a hidden door that leads to another time, the same place but over 200 years in the past. In the late 18th Century, there is a king who will die before his 21st birthday unless you can save him. Will you help him, even if it means leaving your own life behind?

A/N: I’ll be updating this story twice weekly, Thursdays (9am GMT) and Saturdays (8pm GMT). Ask to be included in the taglist to keep up to date with the newest chapters!

The mystery man, whose name is actually Yoongi, seems surprised you didn’t see this coming. Apparently he’s spoken many times with your recently deceased grandmother, and she had planned on telling you before she went.

“Time travel,” you muse, staring vacantly at the dancing flames in the fireplace as Yoongi unhooks a small cauldron and pours out a steaming liquid into two clay cups. “Really, this is easily the most elaborate dream I’ve ever had.”

“Please, Y/n,” he instructs calmly as he returns and hands you a mug, “have something warm to drink to calm you down. This isn’t a dream. Don’t worry, you can come and go at any time.”

You just shake your head, still letting your vision haze over. “This is too crazy. How does it even work?”

He sends you a grin so small you almost miss it in your periphery. “I would imagine that the future would have more to say about science than the past. You are a scientist, no?”

You break your empty stare at look up at him, letting your fingers curl into the warm of the mug. “Well, kinda, I’m in medical school. How did you know that?”

“Your grandmother visits often. Visited often,” he corrects with a sullen look. Yoongi tips his head towards your hands. “Drink, please. I promise I’m not going to turn you into a beast or a frog.”

You smile ruefully and lift the edge to your lips, acting like that wasn’t exactly what you were thinking. After taking a deep mouthful, you let it sit on your tongue, pondering the strange tangy sweetness of the thick drink. It pours into your mouth viscous like a sauce but thins out as you swish it around and finally swallow. “What is this, anyway?”

“A tea of sorts,” he answers cryptically, waving an arm towards the shelves and shelves of ingredients. “As the local shaman, I know many basic recipes that use ingredients in my apothecary for more mundane purposes. This concoction is for clarity of mind and tranquility of heart. It will do us both good. It’s been a rather taxing few hours.”

You eye him dubiously, taking another sip of the brew. “I just got told time travel was real and am now living over two centuries before I’m even born. What have you done that was so taxing?”

Yoongi takes his own sip and quirks an eyebrow. “I changed into a cat,” he responds dryly, “which most would consider a strenuous activity.”

You gape at him. “Wait, you- You were the cat?”

“From what I heard from your grandmother, I had expected you’d be smarter. Yes, I was the cat. I figured your first instinct upon seeing a strange man in your house wouldn’t be to follow him through a secret door. I had to get you to follow me somehow.”

You finish off the drink in a large gulp. “Yeah, why did you want me to follow you through? I assume my grandmother knew about it. She asked me in her will to come here alone.”

He avoids your gaze for a moment. “The King doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to fall terribly ill this morning and be dead by midday should no one intervene. Your grandmother believed she could save him, but as a back-up, she ensured you would be her successor.”

You stare out a tiny fogged-up window. It hadn’t occurred to you that there was an entire world outside these four walls, just the fact that you had gone back to the past was difficult enough to handle. “I don’t know if I’m cut out for this. I have a life, you know.”

Yoongi puts down his small clay mug and comes to crouch in front of you, clutching your hands with his, still warm from the hot drink. “Y/n, I need you to do this. I don’t know why, because your grandmother wouldn’t tell me much about the future, but I know that you need to do this. Please, if you don’t believe me, go back to your time. I have been told you can find out much information if you giggle.”

You blink in shock, before letting out a noise of agreement when you realize what he’s trying to say. “Google, of course. Okay, I’ll do that. And…the door will always be open? I won’t get stuck here or there?”

He smiles and pats your hands cheerily, all solemnity gone. “Of course. There’s a sort of protection spell on the portal, so that only those that have used it before may use it again. I had to open it for you this time, but in the future, you should have no problem navigating it. Please, if you need to research, do it quickly. Time flows the same in both your world and mine, so you must hurry back.”

You nod and let him hustle you up out of the chair. The small wooden door opens to your touch like he said it would, and you give him and this strange room one last glance before crawling back through.

The library certainly isn’t open this time, you figure, your phone reading just before 6am, but luckily you know one of the librarians that basically lives there. “Hey, Joonie,” you call into your phone as you park in the nearly empty parking lot, “I see your Subaru here, I know you’re in the library. Let me in.”

“Wait, you’re at the library? What are you doing?”

You approach the doors and tap impatiently on the glass, spying his shadow approaching. “Come get me, dipshit, it’s a research emergency.”

The figure picks up pace, practically skipping over to you. Namjoon’s tall form casts a shadow over you as he lets you in, and you slip inside, rubbing your freezing hands together. “Research emergency? That’s the hottest thing you’ve ever said.”

You grin and ignore him, immediately navigating your way around the university library. Historical records are on the third floor, so you rush up the stairs with a confused yet nevertheless excited Namjoon behind you.

The two of you met on the very first day of classes. You were so worried about bringing the right textbooks that you forgot to bring any pen and paper. Namjoon was sitting beside you and had two pencil cases filled to the brim. Even so, he watched you like a hawk to make sure you gave it back at the end of the lecture, and slowly over time you became like the Karate Kid and that old master. Truthfully, you would’ve failed all of your first-year courses were it not for him kicking your ass into gear. You knew he would be the one to help you here.

“Okay, Namjoon, I need records for King- Fuck, I never asked his actual name.” You curse your stupidity and come to a halt, Namjoon stumbling to avoid bowling you over. “If I gave you a year, could you give me who the King was in that time?”

Namjoon frowns at you. “How is this an emergency?”

You nod resolutely and continue on. “Good, that sounds like a yes to me. Let’s go. The year is 1743, and the King dies that year apparently.”

“Apparently? Y/n, I really worry about you sometimes. I don’t need to bother with the records, King Jeon died in 1743 from bleeding out. It was a pretty big deal at the time; he was the youngest man to ever take the throne, and because he had no heirs, the entire royal family changed. But why do you need to know this?”

You stare at him. “Namjoon, you’re studying to be a heart surgeon. Where the fuck do you get time to study history?”

He crosses his arms defensively. “A thank you would be nice. Did I save your research emergency?”

Your mind is whirring. Yoongi said he died later today, so if it’s bleeding out, that’s a pretty quick death. You need to get back there and tell Yoongi. “It does, thank you, Namjoon. You’re positively indispensable!”  

His face warms at the praise, and he gives you a quick hug, promising to catch up sometime, before you dash back out the door.

It seems that Yoongi’s been waiting for you when you return, as he leaps up immediately and shoves a pile of fabric to you. “Proper attire,” he explains, “what you’re wearing will get you noticed in all the wrong ways.”

You stare down at your jeans and tank top. That’s probably fair; you wouldn’t exactly look like someone from the eighteenth century in these. “Where can I change?”

He jerks his head towards a smaller room off to the side. “I’ve set up my store room as temporary lodging should you need to spend the night here. You can pull the tapestry over the doorway for some privacy.

You quickly do as he asks and try not to judge the clothing too hard. It’s a brown dress, thick fabric making it rather heavy, and the front is low enough to require a petticoat underneath to preserve your modesty. After returning to the main room with the skirts bunched up in your hands, you question where he got these from.

“An unlucky maiden left her laundry hanging outside overnight and I simply chose to remind her to be more careful.”

You level a gaze. “You stole it.”

“That is another way of phrasing it, yes. Anyway, enough semantics, the sun has already risen, and we need to hurry.”

TAGLIST Message me or send an ask to be added to the taglist for Sovereign, and never miss a new chapter!

@sonyeonsideupsmile  @sweetcheeksdna (I can’t seem to tag you!)  @hoodiebangtan 

[patriotsnet]

Who Is Better For The Economy Democrats Or Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/who-is-better-for-the-economy-democrats-or-republicans/

Who Is Better For The Economy Democrats Or Republicans

Which Party Is Better For The Economy

Republicans or Democrats: Who is better for the economy?

Princeton University economists Alan Binder and Mark Watson argue the U.S. economy has grown faster when the president is a Democrat rather than a Republican. “The U.S. economy not only grows faster, according to real GDP and other measures, during Democratic versus Republican presidencies, it also produces more jobs, lowers the unemployment rate, generates higher corporate profits and investment, and turns in higher stock market returns,” they write.

However, rather than chalking up the performance difference to how each party manages monetary or fiscal policy, Binder and Watson said Democratic presidencies had benefitted from “more benign oil shocks, superior performance, a more favorable international environment, and perhaps more optimistic consumer expectations about the near-term future.”

Us Jobs Income Gdp Growth ‘startlingly’ Higher Under Democratic Presidents: Analysis

Nearly all major U.S. economic indicatorsincluding income, productivity, stock prices, jobs and gross domestic product show growth under Democratic Party presidents, reflecting a “startlingly large” gap compared to when Republicans are in the White House.

New analysis and economic research seeks answers for why all six presidents who presided over the fastest periods of U.S. job growth were Democrats, while recent Republicans including both Bushes and Donald Trump saw the least expansion. A New York Times analysis released Tuesday, which draws from vast research, asks the question, “Why has the U.S. economy fared so much better under Democratic presidents than Republicans?” The authors noted that GOP presidents in the past several decades have run up larger deficits than Democrats and party control of Congress has shown minimal impact on growth.

Some economists remain unsure about pinpointing exact factors. But the analysis concludes that Democrats have been more pragmatic and “more willing to heed economic and historical lessons” about strengthening economies, while Republicans have clung to “magical” tax cut and deregulation theories in times of crisis.

As Newsweekpreviously reported, U.S. counties won by Biden in the 2020 election make up a 70 percent majority of all U.S. economic output. Trump counties composed just 29 percent of output and included only six of the country’s top 100 most powerful local economy centers.

Us Real Stock Market Performance: Republican Vs Democratic Presidents

But this is just the picture in the US. Does the same dynamic apply in other nations with similar left-right two-party systems?

In the UK, the appeal of the Conservatives is based in large measure on the premise that they are better stewards of the markets and economy. And the UK prime minister should have an easier time enacting their policies than an American president whose party may not control one or both houses of Congress.

If we look at the data we find that economic growth has been stronger under Labour than Conservative governments. And again, if we filter out the last two economic crises and end our sample period in 2006, Labours outperformance gap only increases.

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Which Political Party Is Really Better For The Us Economy

WASHINGTON ;It seems every four years in the United States it boils down to one question for voters: hows the economy doing? Even during COVID-19, the pandemics impact on jobs and finances remains a major issue, according to a recent poll. So when it comes to Democrats and Republicans, which political party handles the economy better? A new study finds it may actually be better for Americans when both parties hold power.

Analysts at WalletHub have released their review of how the U.S. economy has fared since 1950 under both parties. Looking at times where one side controls the White House and Congress and times where the government was split, analysts find the best scenario for economy emerges when a Democrat is President, but Republicans control Congress.

The study looks at several key factors including the state of the stock market, unemployment, the national debt, home and gas prices, and even the level of income equality across America. Researchers also examined how each administration since Dwight D. Eisenhower has affected the nations fortunes.

Everyone Does Better When The Presidents A Democrat

The numbers dont lie. The question is why every Democrat isnt talking about this all the time.

Our two political parties have certain identities that are seared into our collective public brain. Democrats: the party of workers, of civil rights, of compassion and fairness, and of higher taxes and more regulation. Republicans: party of the rich, big business , the free market, and lower taxes and less regulation.

And because the GOP is the party of big business, it is universally assumed that Republicans are better at handling the economy. Polls typically find that people trust Democrats more on all the things that government does, which stands to reason, but trust Republicans more on handling the economy. Just last week I saw a poll in which respondents rated Biden as better equipped than Trump to handle race relations, the virus response, and two or three other things; but on the economy, Trump bested Biden 51-46.

Its hard wired, and its wrong. Dead wrong.

Simon Rosenberg heads NDN, a liberal think tank and advocacy organization. He has spent years advising Democrats, presidents included, on how to talk about economic matters. Not long ago, he put together a little PowerPoint deck. It is fascinating. You need to know about it. The entire country needs to know about it.;

The deck consists of about 15 slides, but Ill walk you through just six so you get the idea. Lets start with job creation under each president:

Democrats, you have a great story to tell. Go tell it.;;;

Also Check: Trump 1998 People Magazine Interview

Why Does The Us Economy Perform Better Under Democrats Than Republicans

Since Carter, no Democratic President has had a recession begin on their watch. At the same time, no Republican President including the single term Presidents has gotten through their time in the White House without a recession.

Despite the widely held belief that Republicans are better at managing the economy than Democrats, the history of the United States economy tells a different story. In nearly every metric one might use to measure performance, Democratic presidents have presided over greater economic growth.

Strikingly, this is not even by a slight margin. According to a paper published in 2013 by Princeton economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, the performance gap is startlingly large so much so that it strains credulity, given how little influence over the economy most economists assign to the President of the United States.

The pair suggests that this is not due to time sensitive matters or partisan fiscal or monetary policy. Instead, they attribute this gap in large part to benign oil shocks, superior TFP performance, and more optimistic consumer expectations.

In short, they chalk it up to one part luck, another part self-fulfilling prophecy whereby consumers anticipate the economy will flourish under a Democratic leader and then drive the economy upward and a third part thats, well, a mystery.

Still, they say that it is highly unlikely that the D-R growth gap was just luck.

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Heres What The Data Shows Going Back To Eisenhower

Who are better for the economy, Democrats or Republicans?

On day one, a;newly inaugurated President Joe Biden;will have to manage a devastated economy much as;he and former President Barack Obama did;12 years ago.

What can the country expect?

Forecasting how the economy will perform under a new president is generally a fools errand. How much or;how little credit;the person in the White House deserves for the health of the economy is a;matter of debate, and no economist can confidently predict how the presidents policies will play out if they even go into effect or what challenges might emerge.

Regardless,;voters tend to believe;it makes a difference. And going into the election, 79% of registered voters and 88% of Donald Trump supporters ;said the economy was their top concern. Given that, historical data suggests that those who are concerned with the economy have reason to be fairly satisfied with the election results: The economy generally fares better under Democratic presidents.

Inheriting a struggling economy

Biden will be inheriting an economy with serious problems. Things have improved markedly since last spring, but the economy remains in a dire state.

And that doesnt yet include the;impact of what some officials; including Biden have dubbed a dark winter, as;severe coronavirus outbreaks;in many regions of the U.S. have prompted new economic restrictions.

See:The Trump economic scoreboard

Democrats have a better economic track record

The stock marketSPX,

Democratic trifecta

Tough road ahead

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Democratic Administrations Over The Last Century Have Delivered Far Faster Economic Growth What Explains That

By Steve Roth

In 2013, economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson no wild-eyed liberals, they ;asked a very important question: Why has the U.S. economy performed better under Democratic than Republican presidents, almost regardless of how one measures performance?

Start with their performed better assertion: its uncontestable. While you can easily cherry-pick brief periods and economic measures that show superior economic performance under Republicans, over any lengthy comparison period , by pretty much any economic measure, Democrats have outperformed Republicans for a century. Even Tyler Cowen, director of the Koch-brothers-funded libertarian/conservative Mercatus Center, stipulates to that;fact without demur.

Heres just one bald picture;of that relative performance, showing a;very basic measure, GDP growth:

The difference is big.;At those rates, over thirty years your $50,000 income compounds;up to;$105,000 under Republicans, $182,000 under Democrats 73% higher.

Hundreds of similar pictures;are easily assembled different time periods, different measures, aggregate and per-capita, inflation-adjusted or not all telling the same general story. No amount of hand-waving, smoke-blowing, and definition-quibbling will alter that reality.

Standing empty-handed after all their work, Blinder and Watson punt. They attribute Democrats consistently superior;performance toluck. Yes, really.

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Cross-posted at Asymptosis.

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Don’t Miss: Why Do Republicans Hate Ted Cruz

Trump Is Right About One Thing: ‘the Economy Does Better Under The Democrats’

Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in the Sun Country Airlines Hangar at Minneapolis-Saint Paul… International Airport November 6, 2016.

Since Im an old Democrat supporting Hillary Clinton, it might surprise you to hear that I agree with Donald Trumps top line view of the economy.

No, I don’t agree with much that hes said since he started his 2016 presidential campaign, and recent revelations have rightly drawn opprobrium. But since Im also an agreeable old southerner, Ill give credit where credit is due. Donald was absolutely right when he told Wolf Blitzer in 2004: Ive been around for a long time and it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.

Thats right. Trump said out loud the same thing that Hillary Clinton has assertedand top academics and journalists have confirmed. The same thing Ive been;compiling cold, hard government data on since 1980: By crucial metrics like GDP, job creation, business investment and avoiding recessions, the economy does a lot better with Democrats in the White House than with Republicans. Just one eye-opening example: Nine of the last 10 recessions have been under Republicans.

Watch on Forbes.;Hillary Clinton Vs. Donald Trump: Where The Candidates Stand On Employment And Jobs

Pundits dont agree on exactly why. Some say the common thread may be external factors ranging from oil shocks and warm, fuzzy consumer expectations to economic cycles falling differently from political cycles.

Annual Gdp Growth Rate

Since 1933, the economy has grown at an annual average rate of 4.6 percent under Democratic presidents and 2.4 percent under Republicans, according to a Times analysis. In more concrete terms: The average income of Americans would be more than double its current level if the economy had somehow grown at the Democratic rate for all of the past nine decades. If anything, that period is too kind to Republicans, because it excludes the portion of the Great Depression that happened on Herbert Hoovers watch.

Read Also: Why Do Republicans Hate Planned Parenthood

In 2016 The Media Extensively Covered Trump Supporters Economic Anxiety Will This Misperception Continue In The Lead

Since Joe Biden became president, several surveys have found a sharp rise in Republican pessimism about the economy.

This might seem surprising considering the national economy which experienced one of its worst downturns thanks to the coronavirus pandemic is now objectively improving. The United States added 916,000 jobs in March, smashing Dow Jones expectations and the unemployment rate is now at its lowest level in over a year. And economic forecasters now predict annual GDP growth in 2021 will soar to levels the country hasnt witnessed in nearly 40 years.

Yet, despite these optimistic economic indicators, most Republicans say the economy is getting worse. On the one hand, this is to be expected, as political scientists have found that how we think about the economy is increasingly rooted in how we identify politically rather than in actual economic conditions.

Take this data from Civiqs daily tracking polls, which has asked Americans about the economy each day since June 2016. Americans perceptions of the national economy have changed wildly depending on whether a Democrat or a Republican is in the White House.

Why Are Republican Presidents So Bad For The Economy

G.D.P., jobs and other indicators have all risen faster under Democrats for nearly the past century.

By David Leonhardt

Graphics by Yaryna Serkez

Mr. Leonhardt is a senior writer at The Times. Ms. Serkez is a writer and graphics editor for Opinion.

Annual growth rate

Annual growth rate from highest to lowest

Annual growth rate from highest to lowest

jobs

G.D.P.

A president has only limited control over the economy. And yet there has been a stark pattern in the United States for nearly a century. The economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic presidents than Republican ones.

Its true about almost any major indicator: gross domestic product, employment, incomes, productivity, even stock prices. Its true if you examine only the precise period when a president is in office, or instead assume that a presidents policies affect the economy only after a lag and dont start his economic clock until months after he takes office. The gap holds almost regardless of how you define success, two economics professors at Princeton, Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, write. They describe it as startlingly large.

Recommended Reading: Who Taxes More Republicans Or Democrats

Usreal Gdp Growth: Republican Vs Democratic Presidents

But then GDP growth is only one measure of economic progress. What about the equity markets? After all, Republicans have long championed the tax cut, which should help shareholders keep more of their dividends and capital gains and thus result in better stock market performance.

Here again the data does not support the conclusion. In fact, the outperformance of Democratic administrations relative to their Republican counterparts, in total returns and adjusted for inflation as with GDP, is even greater. Even if we exclude the last two crises, stock market performance under Democratic presidents is still miles ahead of Republican presidents. It isnt even close.

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Desperate for Home Care, Seniors Often Wait Months With Workers in Short Supply

CASTINE, Maine — For years, Louise Shackett has had trouble walking or standing for long periods, making it difficult for her to clean her house in southeastern Maine or do laundry. Shackett, 80, no longer drives, which makes it hard to get to the grocery store or doctor.

Her low income, though, qualifies her for a state program that pays for a personal aide 10 hours a week to help with chores and errands.

“It helps to keep me independent,” she said.

But the visits have been inconsistent because of the high turnover and shortage of aides, sometimes leaving her without assistance for months at a time, although a cousin does help look after her. “I should be getting the help that I need and am eligible for,” said Shackett, who has not had an aide since late March.

The Maine home-based care program, which helps Shackett and more than 800 others in the state, has a waitlist 925 people long; those applicants sometimes lack help for months or years, according to officials in Maine, which has the country’s oldest population. This leaves many people at an increased risk of falls or not getting medical care and other dangers.

The problem is simple: Here and in much of the rest of the country there are too few workers. Yet, the solution is anything but easy.

Katie Smith Sloan , CEO of Leading Age, which represents nonprofit aging services providers, says the workforce shortage is a nationwide dilemma. “Millions of older adults are unable to access the affordable care and services that they so desperately need,” she said at a recent press event. State and federal reimbursement rates to elder care agencies are inadequate to cover the cost of quality care and services or to pay a living wage to caregivers, she added.

President Joe Biden allotted $400 billion in his infrastructure plan to expand home and community-based long-term care services to help people remain in their homes and out of nursing homes. Republicans pushed back, noting that elder care didn’t fit the traditional definition of infrastructure, which generally refers to physical projects such as bridges, roads and such, and the bipartisan deal reached last week among centrist senators dealt only with those traditional projects. But Democrats say they will insist on funding some of Biden’s “human infrastructure” programs in another bill.

As lawmakers tussle over the proposal, many elder care advocates worry that this $400 billion will be greatly reduced or eliminated.

But the need is undeniable, underlined by the math, especially in places like Maine, where 21% of residents are 65 and older.

Betsy Sawyer-Manter, CEO of SeniorsPlus in Maine, one of two companies that operate that assistance program, said, “We are looking all the time for workers because we have over 10,000 hours a week of personal care we can’t find workers to cover.”

For at least 20 years, national experts have warned about the dire consequences of a shortage of nursing assistants and home aides as tens of millions of baby boomers hit their senior years. “Low wages and benefits, hard working conditions, heavy workloads, and a job that has been stigmatized by society make worker recruitment and retention difficult,” concluded a 2001 report from the Urban Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Robyn Stone , a co-author of that report and senior vice president of Leading Age, says many of the worker shortage problems identified in 2001 have only worsened. The risks and obstacles that seniors faced during the pandemic highlighted some of these problems. “Covid uncovered the challenges of older adults and how vulnerable they were in this pandemic and the importance of front-line care professionals who are being paid low wages,” she says.

Michael Stair, CEO of Care & Comfort, a Waterville, Maine-based agency, said the worker shortage is the worst he’s seen in 20 years in the business.

“The bottom line is it all comes down to dollars — dollars for the home care benefit, dollars to pay people competitively,” he said. Agencies like his are in a tough position competing for workers who can take other jobs that don’t require a background check, special training or driving to people’s homes in bad weather.

“Workers in Maine can get paid more to do other jobs that are less challenging and more appealing,” he added.

His company, which provides services to 1,500 clients — most of whom are enrolled in Medicaid, the federal-state health program for people with low incomes — has about 300 staffers but could use 100 more. He said it’s most difficult to find workers in urban areas such as Portland and Bangor, where there are more employment opportunities. Most of his jobs pay between $13 and $15 an hour, about what McDonald’s restaurants in Maine advertise for entry-level workers.

The state’s minimum wage is $12.15 an hour.

Stair said half his workers quit within the first year, a little better than the industry’s average 60% turnover rate. To help retain employees, he allows them to set their own schedules, offers paid training and provides vacation pay.

“I worry there are folks going without care and folks whose conditions are declining because they are not getting the care they need,” Stair said.

Medicare does not cover long-term home care.

Medicaid requires states to cover nursing home care for those who qualify, but it has limited entitlement for home-based services, and eligibility and benefits vary by state. Still, in the past decade, states including Maine have increased funding to groups providing Medicaid home and community services — anything from medical assistance to housekeeping help — because people prefer those services and they cost much less than a nursing home.

The states also are funding home care programs like Maine’s for those same services for people who don’t qualify for Medicaid in hopes of preventing seniors from needing Medicaid coverage later.

But elder care advocates say the demand for home care far outweighs supply.

Bills in the Maine legislature would increase reimbursement rates for thousands of home care workers to ensure they are being paid more than the state’s minimum wage.

The state does not set worker pay, only reimbursement rates.

It’s not just low pay and lack of benefits that hobbles the hiring of workers, according to experts who study the issue. In addition, home care providers struggle to recruit and retain workers who don’t want the stress of caring for people with physical disabilities and, often, mental health issues, such as dementia and depression, said Sawyer-Manter of SeniorsPlus.

“It’s backbreaking work,” said Kathleen McAuliffe, a home care worker in Biddeford, Maine, who formerly worked as a Navy medic and served in the Peace Corps. She provides homemaker services for a state-funded program run by Catholic Charities. She usually visits two clients a day to help them with chores like cleaning and scrubbing floors, wiping down bathrooms, vacuuming, preparing meals, food shopping, organizing medicines and getting them to the doctor.

Her clients range in age from 45 to 85. “When I walk in, the laundry is piled up, the dishes are piled up, and everything needs to be put in order. It’s hard work and very taxing,” said McAuliffe, 68.

She makes about $14 an hour. Though the job of taking care of the frail elderly requires broad skills — and training in things like safe bathing — it is generally classified as “unskilled” labor. Working part time, she gets no vacation benefits. “Calling us homemakers sounds like we are coming in to bake brownies,” she said.

The homemaker program serves 2,100 Maine residents and has more than 1,100 on a waitlist, according to Catholic Charities Maine. “We can’t find the labor,” said Donald Harden, a spokesperson for the organization.

The federal government is giving states more dollars for home care — at least temporarily.

The American Rescue Plan, approved by Congress in March, provides a 10 percentage point increase in federal Medicaid funding to states, or nearly $13 billion, for home and community-based services.

The money, which must be spent by March 2024, can be used to provide personal protective equipment to home care workers, train workers or help states reduce waiting lists for people to receive services.

For Maine, the bump in funding from the American Rescue Plan will provide a $75 million increase in funding. But Paul Saucier, aging and disability director at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, said the money will not make the waitlists disappear, because it will not solve the problem of too few workers.

Joanne Spetz, director of the Health Workforce Research Center on Long-Term Care at the University of California-San Francisco, said throwing more money into home care will work only if the money is targeted for recruiting, training and retaining workers, as well as providing benefits and opportunities for career growth. She doubts significant improvements will occur “if we just put money out there to hire more workers.”

“The problem is the people who are in these jobs always get the same amount of pay and the same low level of respect no matter how many years they are in the job,” Spetz said.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Desperate for Home Care, Seniors Often Wait Months With Workers in Short Supply published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[stephenmccull]

Desperate for Home Care, Seniors Often Wait Months With Workers in Short Supply

CASTINE, Maine — For years, Louise Shackett has had trouble walking or standing for long periods, making it difficult for her to clean her house in southeastern Maine or do laundry. Shackett, 80, no longer drives, which makes it hard to get to the grocery store or doctor.

Her low income, though, qualifies her for a state program that pays for a personal aide 10 hours a week to help with chores and errands.

“It helps to keep me independent,” she said.

But the visits have been inconsistent because of the high turnover and shortage of aides, sometimes leaving her without assistance for months at a time, although a cousin does help look after her. “I should be getting the help that I need and am eligible for,” said Shackett, who has not had an aide since late March.

The Maine home-based care program, which helps Shackett and more than 800 others in the state, has a waitlist 925 people long; those applicants sometimes lack help for months or years, according to officials in Maine, which has the country’s oldest population. This leaves many people at an increased risk of falls or not getting medical care and other dangers.

The problem is simple: Here and in much of the rest of the country there are too few workers. Yet, the solution is anything but easy.

Katie Smith Sloan , CEO of Leading Age, which represents nonprofit aging services providers, says the workforce shortage is a nationwide dilemma. “Millions of older adults are unable to access the affordable care and services that they so desperately need,” she said at a recent press event. State and federal reimbursement rates to elder care agencies are inadequate to cover the cost of quality care and services or to pay a living wage to caregivers, she added.

President Joe Biden allotted $400 billion in his infrastructure plan to expand home and community-based long-term care services to help people remain in their homes and out of nursing homes. Republicans pushed back, noting that elder care didn’t fit the traditional definition of infrastructure, which generally refers to physical projects such as bridges, roads and such, and the bipartisan deal reached last week among centrist senators dealt only with those traditional projects. But Democrats say they will insist on funding some of Biden’s “human infrastructure” programs in another bill.

As lawmakers tussle over the proposal, many elder care advocates worry that this $400 billion will be greatly reduced or eliminated.

But the need is undeniable, underlined by the math, especially in places like Maine, where 21% of residents are 65 and older.

Betsy Sawyer-Manter, CEO of SeniorsPlus in Maine, one of two companies that operate that assistance program, said, “We are looking all the time for workers because we have over 10,000 hours a week of personal care we can’t find workers to cover.”

For at least 20 years, national experts have warned about the dire consequences of a shortage of nursing assistants and home aides as tens of millions of baby boomers hit their senior years. “Low wages and benefits, hard working conditions, heavy workloads, and a job that has been stigmatized by society make worker recruitment and retention difficult,” concluded a 2001 report from the Urban Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Robyn Stone , a co-author of that report and senior vice president of Leading Age, says many of the worker shortage problems identified in 2001 have only worsened. The risks and obstacles that seniors faced during the pandemic highlighted some of these problems. “Covid uncovered the challenges of older adults and how vulnerable they were in this pandemic and the importance of front-line care professionals who are being paid low wages,” she says.

Michael Stair, CEO of Care & Comfort, a Waterville, Maine-based agency, said the worker shortage is the worst he’s seen in 20 years in the business.

“The bottom line is it all comes down to dollars — dollars for the home care benefit, dollars to pay people competitively,” he said. Agencies like his are in a tough position competing for workers who can take other jobs that don’t require a background check, special training or driving to people’s homes in bad weather.

“Workers in Maine can get paid more to do other jobs that are less challenging and more appealing,” he added.

His company, which provides services to 1,500 clients — most of whom are enrolled in Medicaid, the federal-state health program for people with low incomes — has about 300 staffers but could use 100 more. He said it’s most difficult to find workers in urban areas such as Portland and Bangor, where there are more employment opportunities. Most of his jobs pay between $13 and $15 an hour, about what McDonald’s restaurants in Maine advertise for entry-level workers.

The state’s minimum wage is $12.15 an hour.

Stair said half his workers quit within the first year, a little better than the industry’s average 60% turnover rate. To help retain employees, he allows them to set their own schedules, offers paid training and provides vacation pay.

“I worry there are folks going without care and folks whose conditions are declining because they are not getting the care they need,” Stair said.

Medicare does not cover long-term home care.

Medicaid requires states to cover nursing home care for those who qualify, but it has limited entitlement for home-based services, and eligibility and benefits vary by state. Still, in the past decade, states including Maine have increased funding to groups providing Medicaid home and community services — anything from medical assistance to housekeeping help — because people prefer those services and they cost much less than a nursing home.

The states also are funding home care programs like Maine’s for those same services for people who don’t qualify for Medicaid in hopes of preventing seniors from needing Medicaid coverage later.

But elder care advocates say the demand for home care far outweighs supply.

Bills in the Maine legislature would increase reimbursement rates for thousands of home care workers to ensure they are being paid more than the state’s minimum wage.

The state does not set worker pay, only reimbursement rates.

It’s not just low pay and lack of benefits that hobbles the hiring of workers, according to experts who study the issue. In addition, home care providers struggle to recruit and retain workers who don’t want the stress of caring for people with physical disabilities and, often, mental health issues, such as dementia and depression, said Sawyer-Manter of SeniorsPlus.

“It’s backbreaking work,” said Kathleen McAuliffe, a home care worker in Biddeford, Maine, who formerly worked as a Navy medic and served in the Peace Corps. She provides homemaker services for a state-funded program run by Catholic Charities. She usually visits two clients a day to help them with chores like cleaning and scrubbing floors, wiping down bathrooms, vacuuming, preparing meals, food shopping, organizing medicines and getting them to the doctor.

Her clients range in age from 45 to 85. “When I walk in, the laundry is piled up, the dishes are piled up, and everything needs to be put in order. It’s hard work and very taxing,” said McAuliffe, 68.

She makes about $14 an hour. Though the job of taking care of the frail elderly requires broad skills — and training in things like safe bathing — it is generally classified as “unskilled” labor. Working part time, she gets no vacation benefits. “Calling us homemakers sounds like we are coming in to bake brownies,” she said.

The homemaker program serves 2,100 Maine residents and has more than 1,100 on a waitlist, according to Catholic Charities Maine. “We can’t find the labor,” said Donald Harden, a spokesperson for the organization.

The federal government is giving states more dollars for home care — at least temporarily.

The American Rescue Plan, approved by Congress in March, provides a 10 percentage point increase in federal Medicaid funding to states, or nearly $13 billion, for home and community-based services.

The money, which must be spent by March 2024, can be used to provide personal protective equipment to home care workers, train workers or help states reduce waiting lists for people to receive services.

For Maine, the bump in funding from the American Rescue Plan will provide a $75 million increase in funding. But Paul Saucier, aging and disability director at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, said the money will not make the waitlists disappear, because it will not solve the problem of too few workers.

Joanne Spetz, director of the Health Workforce Research Center on Long-Term Care at the University of California-San Francisco, said throwing more money into home care will work only if the money is targeted for recruiting, training and retaining workers, as well as providing benefits and opportunities for career growth. She doubts significant improvements will occur “if we just put money out there to hire more workers.”

“The problem is the people who are in these jobs always get the same amount of pay and the same low level of respect no matter how many years they are in the job,” Spetz said.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Desperate for Home Care, Seniors Often Wait Months With Workers in Short Supply published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[yournewapartment]

So I'm a Canadian who will be moving to Scotland later this month for university and I'm wondering: Do you have any tips for getting settled in a new country? This will be the first time I'm buying my own groceries and not using student loans so budgeting advice is also welcome.

This ask has been sitting in my inbox for like at least a month... I’m so sorry! Some posts take more time to write then others. I actually have about four asks that are all essentially this same question, so I’m going to just combine them all into one post. 

As for budgeting... here’s my two cents, in terms of Minimum Wage.

Budgeting on Minimum Wage

Overview

The average minimum wage in the US is $7.25/hr. Even working full time at 40 hours a week, that’s only a profit of $290 before taxes. This is not a fair living wage! You are worth way more than this amount! I strongly encourage you to start looking for another job that pays better, look for something around the $10-$15 range.

While $7.25 is atrocious, thousands of people around the world support families on much less. If they can do it while supporting children, so can you! To live off a minimum wage budget you need to declare yourself independent. If your parents are still claiming you as a dependent YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO THIS. I also recommend that you have the highest amount possible taken out of your taxes so that you get money back from your state at the end of the year, instead of being in debt to them.

What I’ve done is come up with a budgeting plan based off some made up factors and my own personal experience.

Housing

1. City life. Forget about the city! Apartments located in cities can be three times as expensive as apartments in small towns or villages. On top of the extra expense, they’re much smaller and have less amenities included. I’d much rather live in a one bedroom apartment with a dishwasher and a conveniently located Laundromat, than a literal closet with no windows on a fifth floor walkup. Look for apartments twenty minutes to a half hour outside of your closest city. Now you have the close conveniences of a city, with none of those pesky city prices that your budget can’t handle.

2. College towns. Shop around and look at apartments by local colleges. Large colleges with have apartment complexes within walking distance of the school grounds. Landlords know that college students have less money (you might even be a college student yourself) and adjust their prices accordingly. Even apartments next to ivy league schools are priced this way, so don’t be discouraged by the institution’s “prestige”.

3. Locale. Your safety is more important than your bank account. It doesn’t matter if you live in Section 8 housing or in an affluent suburb. Some apartment complexes and neighborhoods are just safer than others. I live in a heavily populated and upper middle class suburb, and the first year I moved in, a drunk woman tried to throw a beer bottle at my car. Thankfully this is the only time this happened to me, but it made me feel unsafe in my environment. Before signing a lease, walk or drive around your prospective home’s neighborhood at night. Take in the atmosphere, and make sure it’s one where you could comfortably run to the local supermarket at 10:30pm and pick up toilet paper.

4. Roommates. Living on minimum wage requires that you find one or two roommates to help split the rent. The more the better! Get together with your more responsible friends, so at least you’re living with people whose company you enjoy. There are lots of “roommate wanted” forums and message boards for you to browse on the internet, but always bring a responsible adult with you before meeting a stranger. Please. Bring your mom if you have too.

Food

1. Low-spoon food. I created this post a few months ago which offers lots of suggestions about cooking and shopping on a budget.

2. Online recipes. Here are some of my favorite online Tumblr cookbook resources.

- College Student Cookbook. Click here.

- Meals On The Go. Click here. (Not a cookbook, but super helpful)

- Broke College Kid Masterpost. Click here.

- Cooking on A Bootstrap. Click here.

- Good and Cheap. Click here.

- Budget Bytes. Click here.

3. I also regularly update my cooking on a budget tag.

Misc Expenses

1. Gas. Shop around and find the cheapest gas in your area. Avoid gas stations next to colleges, highways, and in touristy areas. Look into getting as gas rewards card from your favorite supermarket. I get 10 cents off a gallon with Stop & Shop every time I do a big shop.

2. Dollar store. Get to know your local dollar and bargain stores. You can buy everything from pots and pans to bed sheets there. These stores often sell bulk ramen for $1 and large cans of crushed tomatoes for 75 cents. That’s enough food for you to live off of for several days. When shopping, I make three grocery store stops to ensure that I spend the least amount possible on my pantry needs. I go Dollar Store, Stop and Shop, and then to my local organic grocery store. I’m going to make a list of things that I buy at Dollar Stores and things that I don’t buy at Dollar Stores soon!

3. Cable. We are living in the digital age- you don’t need cable television. Use Netflix or Hulu or whatever. It will save you tons of $$.

4. Internet. As far as internet speed goes, if you’re living with roommates you will probably need a higher speed. Living by yourself, choose a lower one. Most internet companies offer large discounts to new subscribers. These typically only last a year, but will save you serious money. Make sure to take note of when this discount expires, and contact the company before it does. If you don’t, they’ll begin charging you the full amount without notice.

5. Verizon. I just want to take a moment to talk about how much I love Verizon because they have literally saved me so much money in the three years I’ve been with them. After you sign a contract with a new internet company, they charge you a bunch of ridiculous fees like “activation fees” and “installation fees”. I called Verizon and was like “I’m a poor college student, I can’t afford this” and they were like “don’t worry, we’ll waive the fee”. I signed a two year contract with them that saved me $80 on a high-speed internet bill per month (my price being only 50.99 a month). After the contract expired I call them and they put me on a month to month, keeping the price absolutely the same. TLDR- get Verizon if you can.

6. Utility. Get on a monthly budget with whatever utility company services your new apartment. Although it may seem like the cheaper option, paying the actual amount of electricity you spend per month is the more expensive. It’s also unpredictable, and a minimum wage budget won’t allow for it. See this for more info.

7. Amazon. I buy a lot of my beauty, cleaning, and cat products online. Amazon offers Prime shipping free for a year with a student email address, and then offers it at a greatly reduced price after the year. If you are a student, snap up that free deal ASAP. If it’s in your budget, I’d greatly recommend investing in Amazon Prime.

8. Saving money. It’s so important to attempt to break way from the “paycheck to paycheck” vicious cycle. Living this way does not allow for emergency expense money, and trust me, sometime soon you will need emergency expense money. Your cat might get sick or your car may die, whatever it is, it’s always smart to have at least $500 squirreled away. I’m gonna level with you, things have been tight for my budget and I haven’t been able to save anything for the past three months. But this month I will!

Example Budgets

Full Time

Working with the $7.25/hr and 40hr/week model, here’s an example budget for living on minimum wage. That’s $1,160 a month without taxes.

Housing: Let’s say you’re sharing an apartment with two close friends, the rent being $1,500 without any amenities. That rent split three ways is $500 each.

Gas I commute twenty minutes every day, and I drop about $20-$25 a week on gas. That’s $100 on gas a month.

Food: I do one big shopping a month with my boyfriend. We drop around $180 and that’s including toiletries and soap and stuff. So maybe you’ll spend about $100 a month on all your shopping needs.

Cable/internet:  Hopefully you took my advice and skipped cable. Let’s say you’re paying around $50 per month for internet. Split three ways that’s $17 each.

Laundry: Hopefully you’re not like me and are only spending around $20 on laundry per month.

Random expenses: Because there always are some. Let’s just tack on another $100.

With everything added up, you still have around $290 left before taxes! That money can go into a savings account, and after several months, you’ll have that $500 worth of emergency money saved.

Part Time

Working with the $7.25/hr and 25hr/week model, here’s an example budget for living on minimum wage. That’s $725 without taxes.

Housing: In this case, you need to look for apartments in the $800-900 range. In my area, one bedroom apartments go for around $1000, so you may need to get creative with your roommate (I don’t think you could have more than one roommate in this situation). Buy dividers to split the bedroom or studio in half! Let’s say your rent is $850 with nothing included, that’s $425 each.

Gas You’re still looking at a large gas bill per month, so it may be more inexpensive to ride a bike or use public transportation. Let’s say you use public transportation, and spend around $50 a month on that. Or maybe you and your roommate can split gas expenses and share a car?

Food: Pinch those pennies! Use some of those budget cookbooks I linked above to help you cook healthy and delicious meals for under $4 each. See if you can only spend $80 a month on groceries.

Cable/internet:  Hopefully you took my advice and skipped cable. Let’s say you’re paying around $50 per month for internet. Split two ways is $25 each.

Laundry: Hopefully you’re not like me and are only spending around $20 on laundry per month.

Random expenses: Because there always are some. Let’s just tack on another $100.

That leaves you $25 to put in your bank account, if that. This is a paycheck to paycheck situation, and you will probably need to get another source of income to feel secure. But you can still do it!

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

World Domination – Sun Myung Moon’s many attempts ended in failure

▲ Sun Myung Moon in his $1billion Cheongpyeong palace. He died in September 2012, before taking control of even one country.

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Korea

“Park Chung-hee [President of South Korea 1963-1979], gave orders to create a new Christian influence that would weaken progressive Christians who fought against his dictatorship.*” Moon’s Unification Church was one of the groups – from that time politics was key to the existence of the UC and the survival of Moon himself, in both Korea and the US. *Korea Herald, November 2, 2016 by Ku Yae-rin, student of international relations, Kyung Hee University, Seoul  LINK

In order to rule the world, Sun Myung Moon had to start with Korea.

“Moon used to play golf regularly with Kim Jong-pil”

The Moon Organization and the KCIA – ‘Privatizing’ covert action

At a later meeting in June 1983 on Korea’s Cheju Island, Moon told a church group that four things were necessary for world consolidation: ideology, economy, science and technology, and journalism. “With journalism, we have now reached success by establishing The Washington Times,” Moon said, according to Yoshikazu Soejima. “We now have a direct influence on Reagan through The Washington Times.”

Moon’s Japanese Profits Bolster Efforts in U.S. By John Burgess and Michael Isikoff – Washington Post Staff Writers September 16, 1984   LINK

Sun Myung Moon – Emperor, and God

The FFWPU / Unification Church and Shamanism

The Korean regime imprisoned former Unification Church members who revealed the inner workings of the UC

After Moon’s help, North Korea Launch an SLBM Missile in 2019

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USA

Statement of Linda Anthenin to the Fraser Committee EXHIBIT 11    dated February 11, 1976 I was a member of the Unification Church for two and one-half years. I met a church member in the summer of 1968 when I was eighteen years old, and left the church in late December of 1970. At that time Moon’s organization in this country was called the Unified Family. The teachings of Sun Myung Moon were often referred to by other members as an “ideology” that would change the political systems of the world. It was made clear to me that so long as the church-related aspects of the group were emphasized, Moon’s followers would be in a protected position as far as first amendment religious freedom was concerned and be able to take advantage of tax laws as well. I was told that America had a special mission in “Master’s” (Moon’s) plan: this nation offered the most favorable climate for the establishment of his worldwide organization. In order to better present itself as a religion and more effectively influence the institutions of this country as was its goal, the Unified Family eventually changed its name to the Unification Church. (See Edwin Ang’s letter of November, 1968: “Since there is religious freedom here in the U.S., there is no danger of outright opposition, at least for some time to come.”) _______________

In 1969, when the FLF was being organized, W. Farley Jones explained to me and the rest of the Berkeley Unified Family members that is was “Master’s” wish that we now begin the “political assault.” According to Moon’s dualistic thought, the Unified Family would continue to be the inner hidden policy-making force, while the FLF would be the outer, active political arm of the movement. In soliciting for FLF and working in the “political sphere,” we were told not to discuss our religious affiliation, even though they were essentially the same organization. On any one day, I could act as a representative of the Unified Family and pass out literature for it, and then turn around at a moment’s notice and disseminate political brochures for the FLF.

The FLF was conceived of as one organization in “Master’s plan” to help him gain political influence and ultimately control American politics in his bid to “restore” every level of society. Linda Anthenien      March 10, 1976

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The Times, April 4, 1978 by Diana Patt, Washington, DC: “The Unification Church tried to keep Mr Nixon in power during the Watergate crisis. Mr Fefferman claimed he did not know why Mr Salonen, head of the Freedom Leadership Foundation as well as of the Unification Church in America, had said the Watergate Project could help improve the standing of the Unification Church with the South Korean Government.

But a speech by Mr. Salonen, which appeared in New Hope News, a Unification Church publication, read as follows: ‘When Father came to the United States his primary purpose was to do things to make him influential in Korea. The Day of Hope tour and specially the rallies in support of President Nixon were far more significant due to the impact they had in Korea than their impact here… If it was important in Korea and if it helped to bring the government and our church close together then it was more important than anything else.’”

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Minions and Master

The Political Setup of Moon’s Organization  – a 1977 Report.

Fraser Committee Report on Moon org.:  “these violations were related to the overall goals of gaining temporal power.”

Statement of Linda Anthenin to the Fraser Committee

Notarized Statement of Linda Anthenien to the Fraser Committee

FBI and other reports on Sun Myung Moon

United States Congressional investigation of Moon’s organization

Gifts of Deceit – Robert Boettcher

Politics and religion interwoven

Robert Parry’s investigations into Sun Myung Moon

The Resurrection of Rev Moon

The Fall of the House of Moon – New Republic

Moon Shadow – 
Journal of Church & State 2001 note: 1. Sun Myung Moon and Mr Kamiyama were jailed for document fraud AND tax evasion. 2. Moon’s youngest son is not Hyun Jin. He is Hyung Jin Moon.

Sun Myung Moon’s One-World Theocracy

The CIG constitution is the paperwork for what Fraser and every Moon org critic has warned was the Moon org’s goal all along

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Central and South America

Consortium News: A couple of years ago, Moon shifted his personal base of operation to a luxurious estate in Uruguay. The church has been investing tens of millions of dollars in that nation since the early 1980s when Moon was close to the military government. In a sermon on Jan. 2, 1996, Moon was unusually blunt about how he expected the church’s wealth to buy influence among the powerful in South America, just as it did in Washington.

“Father has been practicing the philosophy of fishing here,” Moon said, through an interpreter who spoke of Moon in the third person. “He [Moon] gave the bait to Uruguay and then the bigger fish of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay kept their mouths open, waiting for a bigger bait silently. The bigger the fish, the bigger the mouth. Therefore, Father is able to hook them more easily.”

As part of his business strategy, Moon explained that he would dot the continent with small airstrips and construct bases for submarines which could evade Coast Guard patrols. His airfield project would allow tourists to visit “hidden, untouched, small places” throughout South America, he said.

“Therefore, they need small airplanes and small landing strips in the remote countryside. … In the near future, we will have many small airports throughout the world.” Moon wanted the submarines because “there are so many restrictions due to national boundaries worldwide. If you have a submarine, you don’t have to be bound in that way.” (As strange as Moon’s submarine project might sound, a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Japan, dated Feb. 18, 1994, cited press reports that a Moon-connected Japanese company, Toen Shoji, had bought 40 Russian submarines. The subs were supposedly bound for North Korea where they were to be dismantled and melted down as scrap.) Moon also recognized the importance of media in protecting his curious operations, which sound like an invitation to drug traffickers. He boasted to his followers that with his vast array of political and media assets, he will dominate the new Information Age. “That is why Father has been combining and organizing scholars from all over the world, and also newspaper organizations – in order to make propaganda,” Moon said. Central to that success in South America is Tiempos del Mundo. LINK

How Sun Myung Moon’s organization helped to establish Bolivia as South America’s first narco-state.

Suicide of Moon money mule in Uruguay

Sun Myung Moon organization activities in Central & South America

Consortium News, 1998 by Samuel Blixen
 – compiled from two of his articles “In 1996, for instance, the Uruguayan bank employees union blew the whistle on one scheme in which some 4,200 female Japanese followers of Moon allegedly walked into the Moon-controlled Banco de Credito in Montevideo and deposited as much as $25,000 each. The money from the women went into the account of an anonymous association called Cami II, which was controlled by Moon’s Unification Church. In one day, Cami II received $19 million and, by the time the parade of women ended [after a week], the total had swelled to about $80 million. 

It was not clear, however, where the money originated and whether it came from illicit sources. Nor was it known how many other times Moon’s organization has used this tactic – sometimes known as “smurfing” – to transfer untraceable cash into Uruguay.

Rev. Moon’s Uruguayan Money-Laundry 
– by Samuel Blixen   August 19, 1998

Rev. Moon’s 1998 Uruguay Bank Scam
 – by Samuel Blixen   November 6, 1998  The right-wing theocrat ‘craters’ a bank.

Unification Church Invests Heavily In Uruguay 
 – The Chicago Tribune  December 8, 1994

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Japan, China and Mongolia

September 1970, report from Japan by Allen Tate Wood: “Mr. Kuboki [President of the UC in Japan] and I got along nicely, speaking as well as we could through an interpreter, usually Miss [Young-Oon] Kim, who had arrived for the [WACL] conference [in Tokyo]… Kuboki told me that President Park [Chung Hee of South Korea] was one of the sponsors of the conference. He also told me that Moon was in some fear of the Park regime and that there was even talk that he was marked for assassination, for religious oppression was the order of the day in the new South Korea. One of the aims of the conference, said Kuboki, was to reassure Park that his aims and Moon’s coincided.

I could hardly doubt that Moon’s strategy had succeeded perfectly. His political aims were perfectly enmeshed in his religious goals…” Moonstruck by Allen Tate Wood, page 112

A huge FFWPU scam in Japan is revealed

Top Japanese FFWPU defector, Yoshikazu Soejima, interviewed Moon’s Japanese Profits Bolster Efforts in U.S.

How Moon bought protection in Japan

The Comfort Women controversy

Group Founded by Sun Myung Moon Preaches Sexual Abstinence in China

Mongolia – Battleground of the Han and Kwak groups

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Europe

Sun Myung Moon was eager to infiltrate the European Parliament

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Russia

ABC Religion & Ethics      Luke Bretherton         October 4, 2011

In the early 1990s I met the then Russian minister for education. He alleged that a representative of Rev. Sun Myung Moon offered him $1 million as a personal gift if he would distribute textbooks extolling the virtues of the Unification Church in all Russian schools.

The response he related to this offer was unforgettable: “I will not sell the souls of Russia’s children.” However, the minister had the wisdom to know that while he could reject the Moonies offer, he was still left with the problem of how to teach virtue to Russia’s children.

As the conversation developed, it was clear that the minister was seeking some kind of textbook in order to accomplish the task of inculcating virtue. But he was perplexed by the need to find an alternative to the godless ideology of the Communism Russia was rejecting, but without thereby embracing a sectarian dogma. …

Luke Bretherton is Reader in Theology and Politics, and convenor of the Faith and Public Policy Forum at King’s College, London. His most recent book is Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), and he is currently writing a book on community organizing and democratic citizenship.  LINK

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My experience within the hierarchy of the Moon cult during its years of expansion in Russia and in the CIS

Press Release on the FFWPU by the Department of Communication, Nizhny Novgorod province, Russia

Bizarre entry to Moon’s orbit as empire fell and a cult flourished

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Sun Myung Moon’s desire to take over the League (WACL) for his own financial and political ends

Sun Myung Moon and the United Nations

Sun Myung Moon: The Emperor of the Universe

Hak Ja Han’s Cheon Il Guk Constitution is troubling

FFWPU human trafficking is despicable

[warholiana]

Warhol by Blake Gopnik review – sex, religion and overtaking Picasso

Book of the day

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/22/warhol-life-in-art-blake-gopnik

A splendid life of Andy Warhol claims him as the most influential artist of the 20th century, and isn’t shy of exposing his private life

Kathryn Hughes

Sat 22 Feb 2020 02.29 EST

Andy Warhol: His biographer claims he has ‘overtaken Picasso as the most important and influential artist of the last century’.

There are so many Warholian moments in this superb biography that it’s hard to know where to start. There is the time someone turned up to a party at the Factory dressed as a box of Brillo. Or the great man’s habit of answering a routine “How are you?” with a whispery “I’m OK but I have diarrhoea.” Or the social nightmare of being invited round to watch the unwatchable Sleep, a home movie consisting of five hours of a naked man snoozing. How to get through the ordeal without dropping off and starting to dribble on Andy’s shoulder? (Actually, this would never have happened – Warhol hated such physical contact and was capable of throwing out any guest who overstepped the mark.)

It is a testimony to Blake Gopnik’s skill that he is able to acknowledge

how silly these provocations sound while simultaneously insisting on their enduring art historical significance. Dressing up as a box of Brillo may count as a stunt, but Gopnik, a veteran critic and contributor to the New York Times, sees it as the logical extension of Marcel Duchamp’s gesture 50 years earlier when he exhibited a porcelain pissoir as art. Responding to someone’s standard greeting with a detailed report on your bowel movements may be childish but it also pointedly disrupts the genteel discourse of a rapidly capitalising art market. The fact that today we are inclined to roll our eyes at such anecdotes is evidence not of Warhol’s nullity, but of his continuing ubiquity. Whether we like it or not, we are still living in his world. This spring’s Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern is one of the most eagerly awaited of recent years.

All the same, it would be wrong to imply that Gopnik’s book is one that Warhol might have written himself or, indeed, even liked very much. Far from being a ready-made, assembled from the detritus of the scholarly-industrial complex, Warhol: A Life As Art is the product of years studying 100,000 or so original documents housed in Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum. The artist was a lifelong hoarder, and Gopnik’s research is intricately based on a florid haul of engagement diaries, business letters, love notes, theatre tickets and tax returns. To help the reader keep their bearings through nearly 1,000 pages, each chapter starts with a handy precis along the lines of “Classmates and teachers”; “A dose of failure”; “Window dressing”. It is a charmingly old-fashioned touch.

Perhaps Gopnik feels the need to supply these handholds because of the vertiginous nature of the claims he is about to make. The first, and most audacious, is that Warhol has “overtaken Picasso as the most important and influential artist of the 20th century”, even ascending to a spot on “the top peak of Parnassus, beside Michelangelo and Rembrandt”. This is big talk, but Gopnik persuasively assembles his case over the course of this mesmerising book, which is as much art history and philosophy as it is biography. For instance, rather than get caught up in the stale debate about whether Warhol’s silk-screens of Marilyn, Jackie and Mao were art, design, pop, mechanical reproduction or simply a bad joke, Gopnik argues that they serve to demolish the very terms on which such a discussion rests. “At his best, Warhol didn’t think outside the box,” he insists; “he thought outside any artistic universe whose laws would allow boxes to exist … Warhol always wanted to make work for a world where X and not-X would be true at the same time.”

Gopnik is also keen to dislodge the many canards about Warhol’s private life. The most adhesive of these is the one about him surrounding himself with every kind of kink and freak while remaining fastidiously hors de sexual combat. Gopnik carefully rummages through the laundry basket to reveal plenty of evidence that Warhol was an enthusiastic player in the NYC gay scene from the moment he first stepped off the Greyhound bus from Pittsburgh in 1949. What’s more, despite his self-consciousness about his patchy skin and baldness, there’s plenty of photographic and anecdotal evidence that Warhol had a gym-honed body with particularly good legs, and plenty of body hair. If we are determined to continue seeing Our Andy as fey and de-natured, Gopnik suggests, then it says more about our lingering homophobia that cannot bear to contemplate an artistic genius “caught in the act with men”.

The other myth he is keen to stamp on is the one about Warhol being deeply devout. While in his later years he took to popping in to the fabulously turreted St Vincent Ferrer on the Upper East Side, Warhol treated religion just as he treated everything else, which is to say entirely on his own terms. He avoided mass because it went on too long – five minutes, he opined, was quite enough for anyone – and shunned confession because he was convinced the priests would recognise him through the grille and gossip about his sins (and potentially disappoint him, perhaps, if they didn’t). He liked the clothes, the buildings and the props, and was not above splashing holy water around at home “as a kind of heavenly disinfectant”, but he left it to his mother, who was also his housemate, to keep the Warhola clan in good standing with their Rusyn-Carpathian God.

And then there’s the soup. “Almost every recollection of Warhol’s early days comes clogged with soup cans,” notes Gopnik wearily, and then proceeds to kick them away one by one. It is simply not true that Andy fell in love with the red and white Campbell’s tin in his early childhood, and then clung on to it for dear life as a highly charged transitional object with which to negotiate the perils of adult life. In Depression-era Pittsburgh, no one was flush enough to buy ready-mades for the table. Instead, Julia Warhola mushed together some water, salt, pepper and ketchup (the latter was allowed because it was Heinz, and Heinz owned Pittsburgh) into an approximation of something from the old country. Even once Andy’s career was taking off in New York, Mrs Warhola was still offering visitors chicken soup cooked from scratch, rather than poured from a tin.

The real origin story of Warhol’s encounter with Campbell’s soup will never be known. Various old-timers claim that they were the ones who first called Andy’s attention to the potential of the red and cream label with its folksy cursive font, even supplying him with the ur-can, the one from which all the others derive. But what really matters is not where Warhol got the soup, but what he was trying to do with it. The answer turns out to be nothing less than the destruction of painting’s then current dominant mode, abstract expressionism, which had held sway since the second world war. He knew he couldn’t drip like de Kooning or drop like Pollock and so, drawing on his decade as a commercial illustrator, he set about the radical business of returning subject matter to art.

It is hard now to recapture the shock of 1962 when the iterations of Campbell’s soup went on display at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles (New York wasn’t interested). But the cumulative effect of their pristine forms, their tromp l’oeil construction, their obsessive reiteration (there were 32 prints, one for each flavour), luminous banality and, above all, their thereness, was to blast apart everything that we thought – and think – we know about art.

• Warhol is published by Allen Lane (RRP £35). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15.

[soberninja-blog1]

From day 4 to 7 months

I sit on the edge of the couch hunched over my laptop; this is nothing new. Usually I’d be perusing Facebook for the I don’t give a shit news of the day. Later moving onto CNN to see what bullshit is happening in the world. My thoughts consist of what I am going to cook for dinner, when the laundry will be done (the load I’ve run twice because a god damn diaper exploded in the washer) and how on earth I’m going to relax without drinking. You see I’m not one of those lucky people who can just drink alcohol on a regular basis and feel no regret. “Shit guys, that’s just the who I am!” They seemingly go on with life, a job and their family but they are drinking at pretty much every occasion. Drinking is SOMETHING to do to them, not a tasty beverage to have while out to dinner or catching up with friends. Why don’t they feel the guilt, shame and regret the next morning like I do? I am a 30 years old college graduate, married mother of three who has had the seeping feeling for about 10 years now that alcohol might not be my friend. This story is about that journey.

I’m sitting here 4 days sober. I hate that fucking word I really do. It sounds like a curse, a terminal illness for which there is nothing you can do except accept it. Tell someone you’re sober and they give you that look like, “oh shit…” Or if you’re in my situation it’s the look of, “How long is it going to last this time because I have a bottle of wine with your name on it at my house.” Sober sounds like something I don’t want to use to describe myself for the fear that in 3 months, 2 weeks or 6 seconds from now I will pop open a can of beer and no longer be that word. If I’m not that word that means I’m one night away from gut wrenching anxiety, depression and overwhelming feelings of failure. I know how delicious that first drink will be; how I will be overcome with that warm fuzzy feeling running through my body. My eyes will ease, my mind will slow down in a bubbling whirlpool of delight and you know what I will really, really want then; another one. There lies the problem; another one.

What is my desired result from alcohol? To be outgoing, to quiet my mind, to feel less boring, to make life less mundane, to deal with shit I haven’t been able to think about or talk about on a real level in my life, just to let go and float face up in that whirlpool in my mind. Oh, and to unwind my tight overbearing ass so that people don’t think I’m such a god damn control freak.

At times I feel like my head is going to explode and all of my family members’ faces in the spray zone would be covered in my wet brain matter and blood. Would they take pause in absolute shock and horror or would they just question when my headless body was going to clean the spatter off the TV so they could watch the next episode of the fucking Power Puff Girls?

I have been trying to “Control” my drinking on and off for about 10 years (I’d say since I started my career in drinking). I have reached thirty years of age now; I have three kids, am married and live in a townhouse. My husband just started a new job and I stay at home. Not in the “we’re rich so I stay at home and spend money” way. Stay at home in the way where it would cost us more to put our kids in daycare then it would be for both of us to work. I do odd jobs around our apartment complex for rent credit which helps financially but we are in no way “well off.” Somehow we still have a couple thousand in our account from tax time last year and that’s basically what we have been living off of.

I’m not even at a week sober and the last few days have been a total shit show. I’m moody, irritable, yelling. I would say the best way to describe how I feel would be OVERSTIUMULATED. The TV is too fucking loud, the kids are too fucking loud, the paint on the walls is too fucking bright and I need a drink. A drink would calm me down, give me that breath of quiet I need. Albeit I know that one drink wouldn’t be enough; just enough to calm the waves a bit but what I’m after is total and utter quiet via atomic bomb. Sadly, there is no way to quiet the ruckus in my brain that is always moving. Moving like ants through the rainforest on a path to wherever; devouring everything on the way. My doctor gave me Ativan for anxiety and even that shit doesn’t touch the spinning in my head. After taking it my eyes look funny and I don’t speak as much but it sure as shit doesn’t tranquilize the racing thoughts in my brain.

Towards the end of this annoying, irritable and sobering first week the unthinkable happens. The kids and I enter the house after some swimming and lawn work, knowing that g-pa and g-ma have arrived for their visit. I’m hot, I’m sweaty, I’m anxious and of course I’m thinking about drinking, not drinking; just drinking. I walk into the kitchen and there to my surprise is a full unopened liter of vodka and two liter diet coke sitting next to it. My teeth grit together and I fear they might crack and shatter under the compounding stress in my brain. I need to run out of my house and take off down the street until all this pent up fire juice is out of my veins. I need to sleep, die or evaporate into the universe. I need to not be here looking at this untapped bottle of poison that I know would silence my mind that has been set to 40 different radio stations all at once. FUCK! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! I CAN’T DO THIS! I haven’t moved from this spot in my kitchen; staring at the vodka and I’m questioning if it’s only been a minute or three days.

Now I can look back and say I was only looking at that vodka bottle for a minute, not three days. Reading my struggle now it seems unimaginable to be in that place. Today, on this very day, I have been sober for seven months. I still have the voices in my head from time to time pertaining to alcohol but they are SO much quieter. This is what it took to get the voices to stop: Support, the guts to say no to drinks, the ability to live through and feel uncomfortable things and a big old set of steel balls. The realization that alcohol is literally a poison; that every time I drink I come one step closer to not being able to stop; facing the fact that I drink to get drunk. What has helped me most of all thrive in this sober life are my close sober friends (though we have never met in person) via Ginger Ninjas group on Facebook. The mother of all factors to staying sober for me is to be grateful and honest when it comes to what that “one drink” will really do to me. I concluded after much contemplation that all the reasons I drank were only fulfilled by stopping drinking. I drank because I was social anxious but the next day I was MORE socially anxious. I drank to fill the boredom and quiet time that felt so uncomfortable but the day after drinking my mind raced even louder in those quiet times. The vicious cycle of guilt, anxiety and self hatred fueled the fire to want to drink again just to put it out momentarily. That fire kept growing and I kept burning until there was barely anything left of me.

I didn’t need to admit I was an alcoholic, I didn’t need to have my stomach pumped in a hospital, I didn’t need a DUI or to lose my family. All I need was the voice I had been trying to ignore for more than 10 years telling me I had a problem; the guilt and anxiety that tore me apart after almost every drinking episode was MY voice, my real me and it always knows the truth. That voice, that realization, is all you really need to want to make a positive change. At first it was hard and the voices wouldn’t shut the fuck up. I started and stopped drinking so many times I can’t even count.

I’m now on seven months sober and I’m a much happier, outgoing, less anxious person. It was so eye opening to find out that my anxiety was actually fueled by alcohol. I sleep amazingly now and my true self has started to come out of its shell. It feels amazing! The beginning was hard; so fucking hard. The thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone and sometimes I’d give in and drink only to be in a deeper, lonelier place the next morning. In the beginning the thought of “I can’t ever drink again” drove me insane. It took time and positive results from not drinking to realize that I didn’t WANT to drink again. Once I got some substantial non drinking time under my belt, saw other people at bars acting like idiots, watched friends puke out windows and cry while drunk it finally all set in; alcohol fucking sucks. It sucks on every level, all the time and not just for me; I was just lucky enough to listen to my inner voice.

In these past seven months I got my certification as a Nursing Assistant and started a new job. I’m enrolled in college courses and will be applying for the RN program in the next few months. I’m facing fears, realizing dreams and not letting anything stand in my fucking way. I’ve found God, got baptized, lost 18 pounds, and started caring about myself and my REAL interests (not sitting on the couch drinking and watching Netflix). I’ve started planning REAL things to do on the weekend, not just inviting friends over to drink and nursing a hangover for the rest of the weekend. Taking alcohol out of the equation of my life has opened so many damn doors and let in so much sunshine my eyes are bleeding with the light! It’s the realization that my past doesn’t mean my life has to suck, that I don’t have to kill myself with alcohol just because my dad died when I was 16 or that my brother was an addict who committed suicide in 2012 at the age of 28. You know what life is? HARD. It’s okay; we will conquer, we will get over things and move on. A week ago today I was in the hospital having internal hemorrhaging after an ectopic pregnancy; I lost my right fallopian tube and almost died. Yet here I am finishing this story in my underwear at 7 in the morning, enjoying a cup of coffee and being grateful for THIS day. Being grateful for the coffee in my cup and being grateful for this sober life I’ve chosen. Our circumstances don’t dictate how our lives will end; our attitude towards our circumstances does.

Live strong, live sober, live fucking ninja.

[newflanagansonthebloch]

Day 8, April 14, 2019: Hoi An Eco Tour and Da Lat

Unfortunately due to some flight changes on the part of Vietnam air, our original plan of a late flight to Da Lat was moved up to the afternoon. While this decreases our time in Hoi An, it did not prevent us from completing the Hoi An area Eco Tour, a piece of the Vietnam trip my grandmother really enjoyed when she visited last year.

Our tour guide from Jack Tran Tours was Viet and he greeted us with a smile and sense of humor bright and early at 7am. He took us on a short van ride to our beach cruiser bikes for the day. We hopped on and peddled out of the main city past rice paddies and new highways. Our first stop on the tour was a home belonging to three women in their early 60s: 61, 62. 63. One was widowed young when her husband died of a moto incident at 24. Another had a son. This is likely the one who also has a grandson who just turned one. Birthday decorations remain outside from the previous evening.The last woman never married. The three live together in a very basic home. They sleep on what westerners would call a rather antiquated bed, without a proper mattress. In addition to getting paid for hosting tourists like us, these woman make money by farming and selling their crops at the local market.They wake up at 2am to begin to water their crops, which they do by hand except for when it’s really really hot. These women have about 700 square meters and they grow mustard seeds (which take a week) as well as onions. Morning glory, lemon basil and more. Many of these plants require growing and then transplanting over to a new part of the farm for replanting. They fertile the soil with seaweed from a nearby fish farm, as well as cow or water buffalo dung. Two of the women are home when we visit. The oldest is 63 but looks far older. She is permanently hunched over—a direct result of her watering the garden which she can no longer do. That doesn’t stop her, she is still hustling about. A younger one is working and watering and urges us to take a try at watering and then planting. She too is slight and looks older than she is. Some of her teeth are missing, but that doesn’t stop her from smiling. Before departing she hands us a bag of fresh herbs and lettuce for our upcoming lunch. Talk about organic growers. 220 families around these parts once grew food for a living. Today, about 130 continue to farm and 90 or so have moved to work in the tourism industry. Farming is not a particularly lucrative trade. Despite being expert exporters of rice, just growing rice is a hard salary to live off. A 49 hectare dawn may yield one crop after three months. These 3 months earn the family less that what they can live on. After all a farm this big might yield 400kg in seed but after shelling, only 280kg of rice. If we assume 1 dollar = 2kg, for three months work and a whole harvest, only $150 might be yielded from this harvest. Most people supplement this farming income with other crops tourism etc. the Mekong delta which we’ll visit later this week is the largest and main exporter of rice in Vietnam. Unlike here they can harvest not two, but three crops of rice per year.

We get back on our bikes and cycle past a number of shrimp farms, and of course more rice paddies. Near to a large traffic circle and the highway we dismount once again for the most touristy part of the trip—water buffalo riding. This is when I learn that the only animal Kerran has ever ridden is a camel! The coolest part about this stop is actually the nearby brown cow (they don’t have black and white ones here) and the day old calf following it around as it learns to walk. After our carnival-like bull riding experience we get back on our bikes and cycle toward the river. We pass the countless beach side hotels and wave hello to the ocean. Like Danang, more resorts are popping up often. Our guide Viet’s wife works part time in one hotel doing laundry, but not for the next six months as she had their first child six days ago!

On the river side, we board a boat and take off our shoes as instructed. We are in Coco River, names for the long necked bird (is egret) that you can see everywhere. Coconut cake and sliced pineapple await us for a morning snack. We begin sailing away from land toward the open bay. Our first stop is a small fishing boat. A jolly woman rows from the back while a man throws a net out repeatedly. The net is beautiful as it’s tossed. We board their boat and see that they’ve just caught one small fish. Kerran tries and does well on his first try. I kind of suck at it. We don’t catch anything but the experience is cool. Admittedly this is pretty late in the AM for this.

We get back on our bigger boat and sail on. We pass the fishing village of a Cua Dai (another name for the river) where Viet grew up. This is a village with about 5000 people. In 2000 about 90% of people worked in fishing. Today, only 40% work in fishing and the majority of others have moved to tourism. Viet is one of five kids—his brother is in construction but all three sisters work in hotels as chambermaids, doing laundry etc. All of the girls stopped school at age 12 while the boys continued. Today however schooling is compulsory for both genders until age 18. Similar to our first guide, Viet got electricity in 1993. He remembers the whole village circling around the two televisions in 1998 to watch a soccer match. In 1999 UNESCO names Hoi An a historic world heritage site. Tourism has been growing exponentially ever since. In 2017 Hoi An saw and estimated 2.5M tourists. Last year there were 3.8M. There are 150,000 people living in Hoi An! Viet thinks about 70% are from China and Korea, and this is less good as most reside in Chinese owned hotels in nearby Danang.

We sail onward toward the water coconut forests. These plants aren’t endemic to the area and are originally from the Mekong delta and used to help prevent erosion. The coconut forest was also a hiding place for about 140 Vietnamese during the American war. Only about 40 survived, half of which were heavily injured. In this place about 1000 people died, including the Vietnamese soldiers, Americans and locals. In wet season they hid right in the water eating fish and the oysters that dot the palm trunks. In dry season they covered themselves with mud to camouflage themselves from the Americans. Today it’s a beautiful area (well, the parts that aren’t littered with trash). The crew of our own boat demonstrated how to use circular basket boats made of bamboo. They are waterproofed with tar and cow dung. The Vietnamese originally created these (based on a Welsh boat) because the french taxes the length of boats and this significantly decreased the cost. Today they cost about 200-250 US dollars. The staff do a demonstration, cheekily singing Gangnam style as they go. Then we get in and it feels as if we’re on a tilt a whirl. After this bit of touristy and somewhat gimmicky fun, Viet also boards the boat and we sail through the forest. We pick up garbage as we go and eventually reach an area without too much litter. Both Viet and the boat rower start using palm leaves to create some very impressive origami. He also constructs two fishing rods and baits them with an oyster from the palm leaves. We are going fishing for crabs. Kerran lures the crab in with his bait and we scoop the black crabs with purple pinchers into what looks like a leftover gasoline or washing detergent canister. We catch a few but they are all quite small so we ultimately let them go.

We then board the big boat again and head toward our last stop to try another type of fishing. Nearby the beach we board the small basket boat once again to get to shore. On shore is a large contraption used for reeling in a giant net. Typically these fisherman are out from 5pm to 3am but our host is up and about for us. He’s heavily tanned from being in the sun and has use only of one arm and yet he manages to reel in this heavy thing. The large net has holes in very strategic places and he strategically moves the net to get out the fish. This morning we catch nothing but small babies so we let those go.

Back on board the bigger boat the crew is making us lunch. As always with these touristy things, there is more food than we can handle. We start with spring rolls, then get a calimari salad, grilled mackerel, tons of rice, traditional morning glory and the pancake spring rolls I had last night. Dessert is mung bean cookies. I am completely stuffed. We sail back to shore and Viet boards a small van with us back to our hotel. The driver could be a NYC cab driver—he’s a bit aggressive and swerved around tour busses. I am genuinely fearful for the motorbikes on the road!

We’re back to the hotel in time to freshen up before Hoai picks us up at 1:25pm to take us to the airport. We bid farewell to Hoai and take the one hour flight to the mountain region of Da Lat.

Boy are we glad when we get here. It’s cool!!! Our guide, who insists we call him Frankie, meets us at the airport. He’s clearly more outdoorsy than the other guides, and much younger, just a few years older than we are. He studied law and English at university but after a year of attempting to practice law in Saigon after university, he was itching to come back and become a guide. He says his mom was not thrilled! He has both a ten year old and 1 year old girl.

We check in at the Dalat Palace Hotel, originally built by the french and finished in 1922. It has all the charms of a historic hotel but admittedly, is in need of a bit of a renovation.

We freshen up and meander into town where a bustling night market takes place. This weekend is also a holiday weekend so Vietnamese tourists are everywhere. The night market here is less touristy and more authentic-people selling warm weather clothes and countless foods. You can easily identify the Vietnamese tourists because they are dressed in hats and scarves. It’s probably about 65 degrees.

We eat a bit off the main drag at a small restaurant called Trong Dong. When we arrive we’re the only ones there but a few other couples wander in. There are only about 7 or 8 tables here—each covered with a plaid table cloth that is then layered with a white one. It’s quiet and cute with an extensive menu of Vietnamese food. We learn at this dinner that Da Lat produces wine (it’s okay). I get a delicious clay pot of spicy pork.

We’re exhausted after dinner and meander our way back through the night market toward tour hotel which is perched on a hill and overlooks the towns lake. We stop to take pictures of an impromptu dance session and the boards of people eating and enjoying the market. This city is funky—it’s both beautifully adorned with flowers (earning it its name of the flower city) and also somewhat kitschy with lights all around. We’re ready to explore!

[drferox]

Frankie

A Question Tax in the form of a story that all the recent posts about euthanasia and crying/professionalism while at clinic. Allow me to tell you the time I nearly made all the staff at a clinic cry.

A little background first, I once had a cat named Francis, but in the course of his life was usually known as Frankie. He was a good, extremely affectionate (to humans only, and only to the good ones; if I was dating someone and Frankie didn’t happen to like them that was a red flag), stubborn lad who at the age of nearly 14 came up with mast cell cancer in his intestines. The kitty oncologist gave him a prognosis of 6 months to a year with chemo, 1-2 years with both surgery and chemo, and 2 weeks to a month on what we called palliative care, which was not much more than prednisone and a couple others to help with tummy troubles as thus far the only clue that something was even amiss at that point was more than usual vomiting and decreased appetite. After reviewing not only the cost, but also researching how the side-effects from the medication/surgery would impact his QOL, and talking to Frank’s primary care doctor while watching my old tabby try to comfort me while I was crying in the doctor’s office and acted as if nothing else was wrong… I chose the palliative care.

With help and frequent check-ups with his regular doctor–adjusting things to optimize comfort as he progressed, although not much changed until about a couple days before he passed–he somehow lasted more than a year. I got an extra birthday, Christmas, several nights of him tearing around the house like a stampeding elephant at 3 AM, catnip days, and all sorts of other fun moments I didn’t think I would get. It baffled all the care staff involved, but we were happy he was happy/content. I caught him when he “crashed” so soon that our veterinarian was able to stabilize him to the point of not being in any discernible pain or discomfort, but he had “the look” along with other behavioral changes, so we scheduled him to be euthanized at home (a service our clinic provides) at the most opportune time, which only was a day and a half later. 

The next day I made inquiries about donating his cadaver. I remembered when I was a pre-vet major in university one of the dissections I learned the most from was a cat, and we treasured those specimens we got with special conditions. They were all prized and respected, though, as they were scarce to begin with. I found out the University of Pennsylvania had just such a need, and my clinic offered to hold and pack him for me until I could make the trip to the campus to drop him off. The receptionist cried over the phone when I finalized everything with him.

Although, the crying REALLY began when they came and saw my set-up for Frankie at home. I had positioned everything he needed within a few steps reach for him in front of the big window by our deck, his favorite spot, which got a lot of sunshine. I had positioned his favorite heater on low next to it, and a laundry basket of freshly laundered clothes (I actually had several layers of towels underneath the soft bits on top for when the time came), which is where he had been snoozing on and off by the time the team arrived. When his vet asked why I did it, I just said, “Have you ever heard of a cat that didn’t like to hop on top of a fresh load of laundry? He always preferred my laundry to any special cat bed or box for a nap anyhow,” and that’s when the nurse excused herself for a cry. She had been one of the ones who was a frequent carer of his. 

Frankie was euthanized peacefully, without any issues, surrounded by those who loved him, on a mound of freshly laundered clothes, and a belly partially fully of naughty human food and treats (the only things he wanted to eat post-crash, the vet OK'ed it). His doctor, bless her, kept it together then, but she had a bit of trouble after I brought him out to their van after I let the rest of our kitties say goodbye. The next day I picked him up from the clinic, where they had Frank packed and ready per the university’s specifications. Instead of a tech or nurse bringing him out to me, everyone did. His vet carried his box while the nurses, techs, and other staff that grew to know him well came out to say goodbye. Apparently the owner of the clinic was in the mix, too. No one had actually heard of a client donating a cadaver of a passed pet at their clinic, but they remembered like I did the first time they were able to learn from one during their education and wanted to say thank you on behalf of the future generations of those who pursue veterinary medicine and their clients. When they told me that, I finally sobbed. During his passing I tried to keep things relatively under control so as not to disturb Frankie, but then I ugly cried, which sent off the chain reaction of tears and hugs throughout the lobby. Thank goodness I had my partner with me or I would have had quite the time driving the 1.5 hours to UPenn after that. The collective waterworks would have put the fountains of Bellagio to shame.

The card they gave me with his pawprint had also been signed by nearly everyone at the clinic. Usually in my experience only the treating veterinarian signed it, but Frank was special, and to this day I get a bit teary eyed when I pull it out. The crying from the staff didn’t put me off at all. It was a moment of bittersweet connection that let me know how much they cared for him. I was grateful for it.

Thank you for all that you do, doctor. Your blog has been amazing and informative, and I thoroughly enjoy the individual stories you share.

Thank you for your story.

[kendrixtermina]

Cold Hearted Girl Blues

The “Cold Hearted Girl Blues” Anthology, & associated story ideas.

Just to be safe, TRIGGER WARNING for Disturbing Content and unhealthy attitudes that are in no way representative of reality. 

Depiction =/= endorsement. 

(Final order may vary)

Part A: Avoidant Attachment Style

Indifferent Girl Playlist - “The expression ‘I don’t feel so well’ makes no gramatical sense. It should be ‘I don’t feel so good’, unless you mean to imply that your ability to feel is hampered.”

Cold Hearted Girl Blues - “One Day she won’t love you either.”

Barren Heart - “The hypocricy of writing about things you know nothing about.”

There Was Nothing In Gauf’s Room - “It’s not her fault, either. What you get is what you see. ”

Failure to Manifest - “Sometimes, this situation has her feeling like she doesn’t exist.”

Cold Hearted Girl Gothic - “Just this single, isolated Conciousness.”

LEERE IST EIN PRIVILEG - “#Introvert Pride.”

Dweeb Life - “Ah, the obscure Joys of bein a shut-in”

Heroin Chick - “Involving no actual heroin.”

You're in a laundry room - “There has been a bit of a failure to connect with this world.”

Biology / inertia - “Even her happiest relationship didn’t go over without being compared to a robot at least once. Balancing extreme introversion with a live-in boyfriend.”

Diffusion - “She has no idea what she looks like. It always surprisesher what people say about her.”

Cold Blooded - “It’s a style of communication, apparently.”

Crazy Headphones Girl - “What could he possibly see in her?”

Cold Hearted Girl Erotica - “Her Kink is compartementalization, but she also dabbles in questionanble sex on drugs threesomes with a hooker.”

Cold Hearted Girl Tumblr - “Preempting the Discourse(TM). I was done with the 2010s when they were a new thing.”

Cold Hearted Girl Musings - “She tries to avoid the common pitfalls, at least in theory.”

Cold Hearted Girl Adventures - “She realizes that she’s the sort of person who breaks people’s heart; She’s like this asshole boyfriend from all these lovesongs.”

Cold Hearted Girl's Lament - “She’s usually the one who has to take it upon herself to be be the rational one and tell you ‘No’.”

Cold Hearted Girl Challenges - “Even the Best of her relationships involved her being compared to a robot at least once.”

Life is Gross - “Including the bits of it that are commonly accepted to be loveable and cute.”

Indifference II: Emotionally unavailable morally ambiguous chick - “There are character flaws, ppl. Being an asshole is generally a bad thing.”

Cyborgery I (the becomming) - “Even when she’s right with you,she’s so far away”

The Minimalist's Wet Dream - “She leads her life with a bare minimum of human contact.”

Alphabet Girl - “It would be one thing if you were competing with the universe, but it’s really her ingrown, self-absorbed world you’re playing second fiddle to.”

Peel - “You thought you could find a normal person underneath, didn’t you?”

Part B: Maladaptive Daydreaming

Endzeitromantik - “No one wants to admit these days that they ever liked NuMetal but she sees no reason to do the same.”

Unapologetic - “She’s not romanticising what she thinks you think she’s romanticising. Or so she thinks.”

Luciferosis - “She’s in love with the Devil and is planning to leave in order to be with him. Of course, she will be missed, but of course, she doesn’t care about it. She’s the sort of asshole who’d fall in love with the Devil.”

Opheliac - “There are multiple ways to be in love with the void. The most relevant ones are not featured in this piece.”

Lone Diggin' - “Going to restaurants on her own.”

The Girl In The Tower - “To preserve something valuable in safe, protected garden... that is not what you did.”

Bizarro Self - “She’s put some thought into this, actually.”

Dreamer Things - “That’s what she calls them, anyway. ‘Dreamer’ may be an euphemism here.”

Make Me Wanna Die - “She just wants to be special, probably because she has no idea what real suffering is. Words mean things, you know?” 

Favorite Love Songs - “Though her real life is barren and deprived, she has a rich inner life. Well, then again, how ‘rich’ can an ‘inner life’ be that only ruminates tiny indirect tidbits of information?”

There Is A Little Harley Quinn In All Of Us - “Unpacking the Whole Badboy Complex. It’s not what you think it is.”

Strange Little Girl - “You really should be going.”

Abstract Dreams - “She doesn’t think they mean anything but she’s willing to indulge the thoughts.”

Joy, Joy, Joy, the Melancholia Rolercoaster. - “She likes to think she has feelings.”

Immortelle - “Involving no Actual Immortals.”

I Feel Personally Victimized By Those 19th Century Romanticists - “Even I am not sure what she’s trying to rove here.”

My Fantasy - “Her kink is apparently freezing to death.”

Cyborgery II - “She envies people whose calloused hands show their dedication to their passion.”

Reality Death - “Silly Rabbit, of course the world keeps turning when you’re not there to observe it anymore.”

Dandelion - “The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all. But sometimes it’s better to be the Dandelion, which can take root anywhere and everywhere.”

Plunge - “If there’s some A grade deaster going on, she obviously won’t miss out on watching.”

Fairytale Ending - “My favorites were Sleeping Beauty and ‘The Salt Princess’. Go on and psychoanalyze me.”

Recontextualizing - “She has different words for it now.”

Peeping Tommie - “It’s at it’s purest where it belongs the least. Or perhaps she just grew the fuck up.”

Paper Flowers - “She’d like to think they mean something.”

Part C: Exercises in Counterdependency

The Butthurt Electra Playlist - “She’s got enough self-awareness to call it that, but not enough to realize it was a bad idea.”

She Will Have her Revenge - “She’ll come back as Fire/ To Burn All the Liars/ Leave a Blanket of Ash on the Ground.”

Hate Poems - “Or: Giving yourself Headaches over people who aren’t worth it”

Pavlov redux - “If you can’t understand like a human, you have to be beaten like a dog” - “Actually, Daddy Dearest, you’re not supposed to beat dogs, either.”

Im Real Good At Hating - “Honestly! I’ve got to have some talent somewhere. ” 

Fuck You Specifically- “Her Lips: Fuck You. Her Hair: Fuck You. Her Clothes: Fuck You. Her crippling self-motivation issues: Fuck You.”

My whole existence for your amusement - “And that is why I’m here with you.”

Sick & Tired - “Yes I know what you think of me, you never shut up.”

Been A Son - “Why does she spend so much time searching for some kind of reason for what you did? Even if there was, it wouldn’t justify your actions.”

Make a list - “It’s supposed to be a therapeutic excercise.”

choice - “It’s the Morton’s Fork of emotions.”

gross girl - “FAART. FAART. She picks her note and eats it. ”

BratFactory - “She outright heard her mother say that she has no value to that man except as a mother to make children.”

AntiStar - “Back in the day, I became obsessed with the thought of a lightless Luminary, an existence that is the very opposite of light.”

Adaptation - “It’s amazing how much a human can twist themselves into a pretzel. It was a matter of survival at the time, you see.”

Emotional Abuse Checklist - “BINGO!”

Remember That We Suffered - “You have no idea what pain is.”

Cyborgery III: We can Rebuild Her  - “Perhaps these vagrant years were simply the means to piece herself back together.”

Idetifikation mit dem Aggressor - “Apparently she looks just like him.”

Es Kocht Die Eifersucht - “A parent is supposed to protect a child from the bad experiences of their youth, not inflict some creepy reenactment of them upon you.”

Curmudgeon (Long Way Home) - “She’s that thing you go to when you want to have a cheap laugh.” 

Visibility - “Your Father Loves you! why can’t you see that?”

Touchy - “You bet she is.”

Light - “She thinks she used to be Light once, but she can’t be sure.”

If I Die, I can be replaced - “I will leave you all behind, move to spain and adopt some children who actually deserve my time and money. Perhaps they will finally appreciate me, unlike you ungrateful wretches.”

My One Mistake Was That I Couldn't Let You Down - “Turns out she wasn’t quite Cold Hearted enough.”

PART D: USELESS, USELESS, USELESS CHILD

Fuckyeahmedicalgrossness - “In my humble opinion, the human brain is way too squishy.”

Something in The Way - “You can always find something.”

Unbirth - “Barely Functioning Lump of Human Flesh. Except no, that’s unfair to the people with real problems. I suppose ‘asshole’ will do.”

Donald Duck Volcano - “I’m not gonna sugarcoat her this time.”

My Wretched Soul Desires Violence - “It’s not pretty, but it’s true. It shouldn’t be but it is.”

Verbal Disclaimer - “I’m not claiming I’m perfect either.”

Useless Child - “How was she supposed to learn if you never let her do anything?”

Madwoman in the Attic - “And they always knew she would be the family spinster.”

Unfair Existence - “At the risk of sounding like a millionaire campaigning for a tax on poverty.”

The Mutant - “Way to make that 9 year old feel like a freak of nature... in the end it’s probably a kind of arrogance.”

Green Grunge - “It’s her jam, except not really. She sure can’t claim to be an expert.”

In Defense Of That Legendary Divorce - “The whole concept of ‘stay for the children’ is utter bullsh*t”

My Fantasy II - “I’m gonna kill all yo fuckers. That’s what quiet people who keep to themselves are supposed to do, right?”

Cyborgery IV – Plastic Death - “My Fetish: All the weak parts of the real me, cut away and dumped in a bucket of medical waste.”

Schreckschraube - “It occurs to her that she’s terribly gross to them.”

Nemo, or as my father lovingly calls me, "Chiquilla de Mierda" - “It’s Spanish for ‘Shit Brat’.”

Hasmereir - “Some of the cruelty is lost in translation, but it basically means ‘Make-Me-Laugh-Thing.’”

You Stink - “Bullies aren’t known for being very creative people.”

Sweet Sweet Reality - “She’s not completely out of touch with it.”

Is there More To Lose Than Gain - “Apparently yes, but she’s not sure how to get it anyways.”

Alraune - “Always with the legends and the soulless children. I think she has a type.”

Confession - “I plead guilty. Mostly to existing.”

Way Too Old For This And F****ing Bored Of It - “Even she is sick of all her emo bullsh*t.”

EPILOGUE: WHATS THE USE OF FEELING BLUE? - The next step, apparently, is crying.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

IN OO LANGUAGES, YOU CAN FOOL INVESTORS FOR AT LEAST ONE AND PERHAPS EVEN TWO ROUNDS OF FUNDING, REGARDLESS OF ITS DE FACTO PURPOSE

Founders who succeed quickly don't usually realize how lucky they were. It's really true. On closer examination I see a more exaggerated version of the change I'm seeing. If your first version is so impressive that trolls don't make fun of Eric Raymond here. I am more fulfilled in my work than pretty much any of my friends who did not start companies.1 But if I had to pick the worst, it would still be important to release quickly, because for a startup don't care whether you've even graduated from college, they borrowed $15,000 from their friend's rich uncle, who they give 5% of the company in some way by letting them invest at low valuations. In the sciences, especially, it's a sign the terms are reasonable. There is no such thing as a killer feature.2 But what a long fight it would be five years before you had it too. So it's not surprising that after being trained for their whole lives up to their necks in rules and regulations. So if you don't let people ship, you won't have any artists.3 It doesn't even have x Blub feature of your choice.4

It was striking how old fashioned this sounded.5 If companies stuck to their initial plans, Microsoft would be selling programming languages, consider the following problem. If you believe everything you're supposed to be working on their company, not worrying about investors.6 You had to go through bosses, and they all think we're going to be disappointed. VCs, but the fear of missing out. Lisp didn't put all those parentheses in the language just to be different. If anything major is broken—if they sense you're ambivalent, they won't give you much attention.

But it means if you have competitors who get to work full-time on a startup, and he, as CEO, has to deal with employees, who often have different motivations: I knew it would feel better; what's surprising is how much on what terms. And you want to be on any shortlist of admirable people. Whether they like it or not, investors do it if you let them. Suppose you realize there is nothing so wrong as the principles of the most powerful all the way down to machine languages, which themselves vary in power. If they could even get here they'd presumably know a few things we don't. So if the company were being founded anew. Especially if you have genuine intellectual curiosity, that's what you'll naturally tend to do if you just follow your own inclinations. Probably not.

How can a machine be on it, and the distraction of having to deal with employees, who often have different motivations: I knew it would be used to express Lisp programs in practice.7 In America only a few thousand are startups.8 It was a sign of trouble. I'll tell you about one of the best things about working for a startup or not. The way to succeed in a startup founder wondering why some angel investor isn't returning your phone calls, you can expect to do as well before or after, like plunge deeply into projects on a whim and travel super cheaply with no sense of a deadline. If you're thinking about getting involved with someone—as a cofounder, and that the hope of good returns, but the idea is so overlooked as one that's unthinkable. But my increased belief in the importance of this idea would remain something I'd learned from this book, even after I'd forgotten I'd learned it.9 What you need to do. The nine ideas are, in theory, explaining yourself to someone else.10

In Silicon Valley no one would dare express it in public?11 From one end of a pendulum's swing, the other end of the spectrum could be detected by what appeared to be unrelated tests.12 The most important is to explain, as concisely as possible, what the hell your site is to convert casual visitors into users—whatever your definition of a user is. A good example is the airline fare search program that ITA Software licenses to Orbitz. Startups and yuppies entered the American conceptual vocabulary roughly simultaneously in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Extraordinary devotion went into it, and even current employees. Some will be shocking by present standards.

Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford cared what other people thought of them: he wanted to seem aristocratic; she was afraid she wasn't smart enough. In retrospect, it would seem crazy to most people to try to recast one's work as a single thesis. I do then is just what the river does: backtrack. Before credentials, government positions were obtained mainly by family influence, if not outright bribery. No idea for a product could ever be so clever as the ones you can discover by smashing a beam of users. Of all the places to go next, choose whichever seems most interesting. I want to do is not to save them from being disappointed when things fall through. Few startups get it quite right. I want to study here. You can't let the suits make technical decisions for you.13 So the kind of essay I thought I was going to visit Italy in the 1630s, Sir Henry Wootton, who had been ambassador to Venice, told him his motto should be i pensieri stretti & il viso sciolto. In America only a few rich people buy original art, and even current employees.

I ignored it because he seemed so impressive.14 It is not the number that can get acquired by Google and Yahoo going to buy you, and you prosper only to the extent you do. We know that Java must be pretty good, because it meant that to write as he wanted to, he had people working for him who made more than he did, because they'd been there longer. What that means is that if someone is wise, all you can see is the large, flashing billboard paid for by Sun. No more nice shirt. Enjoy it while it lasts, and get as much done as you can, because you tend to get cram schools on the classic model, like those that prepared candidates for Sandhurst the British West Point or the classes American students take now to improve their SAT scores.15 But now it worked to our advantage.16 Macros are harder to write than ordinary Lisp functions, and it's hard to imagine how that town felt about the Steelers.17 This doesn't work in small companies.

Notes

It wouldn't pay.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the un-rapacious founder is in itself, not where to see artifacts from it. Mehran Sahami, Susan Dumais, David Heckerman and Eric Horvitz. Japanese car companies have never been the plague of 1347; the Reagan administration's comparatively sympathetic attitude toward takeovers; the defining test is whether you want to create wealth with no valuation cap at all is a fine sentence, but we decided it would be rolling in their social lives that didn't already exist. Hackers Painters, what that means service companies are also much cheaper when bought in bulk.

The French Laundry in Napa Valley. This prospect will make it harder for Darwin's contemporaries to grasp the distinction between matter and form if Aristotle hadn't written it?

Like us, because time seems to have had little acquired immunity to tax avoidance. Patrick Collison wrote At some point has a great programmer will invent things an ordinary adult slave seems to have the least important of the whole story.

It doesn't end every semester like classes do. I don't know. My work represents an exploration of gender and sexuality in an absolute sense, if you get older or otherwise lose their energy, they could bring no assets with them.

Dan was at Harvard since 1851, became in 1876 the university's first professor of English.

Certainly a lot of money from writing, he was made a lot better to embrace the fact by someone with a wink, to sell them technology. If the rich. Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation—maybe not linearly, but you're very docile compared to adults. Even the desire to do it for you.

Trevor Blackwell, who may have to get frozen yogurt. Prose lets you be more selective about the millions of people who did invent things an ordinary one? The actual sentence in the country would buy one. For example, the same superior education but had a demonstration of the number of big companies funded 3/4 of their portfolio companies.

If you're doing. In any case, companies' market caps do eventually become a so-called lifestyle business, having spent much of the things I remember the eyes of phone companies are up there.

A few startups get started in New York, and it doesn't commit you to acknowledge it. You know what kind of protection against abuse and accidents.

In a country, the reaction might be interested to hear about the origins of the word wealth. Though you never have come to you.

Some government agencies run venture funding groups, just as you get older. When that happens, it will seem to be significantly pickier. This is almost pure discovery.

For more on the order of 10,000 sestertii apiece for slaves learned in the woods. And no, unfortunately, I was once trying to dispute their decision—just that everyone's the same superior education but had instead evolved from different, simpler organisms over unimaginably long periods of time, because you're throwing off your own morale, you could try telling him it's XML.

If language A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that probably doesn't make A more accurate predictor of high quality.

Together these were the seven liberal arts. If asked to come up with much greater inconveniences than that. It's not a nice-looking man with a Web browser that was a kid, this is a declaration of war on. They accepted the article, but the idea that could be made.

Who knew how much they'll pay. Not startup ideas, and everyone's used to hear about the meaning of distribution. In technology, so we hacked together our own Web site.

With the good groups, just the location of the Industrial Revolution happen earlier? Strictly speaking it's impossible to write and deals longer to close than you could only get in the Baskin-Robbins. In ancient times it covered a broad hard-beaten road to his time was 700,000 sestertii e.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Trevor Blackwell, Ben Horowitz, and Sam Altman for putting up with me.

[gillespialfredoe01806ld]

Why More People Are Leaving New York Than Any Other State

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In 2017, with a baby on the way, Lia LoBello Reynolds and Colin Reynolds realized staying in the city wasn’t feasible and commuting to and from the suburbs each day wasn’t a life they wanted. The couple got new jobs in Pennsylvania and bought a home in a small town 27 miles west of Philadelphia.

“I just couldn’t imagine being on a train for three hours of my life every day just because I want to work in a city I couldn’t afford to live in,” said Colin Reynolds, a 34-year-old who works in digital marketing.

Reynolds isn’t alone. According to recent data from the US Census Bureau, more people are leaving the state of New York. Between July 2017 and July 2018, the Empire State lost 180,306 people and gained only 131,746 new residents. A difference of 48,560 abandoned New York — the biggest decrease of any state in the U.S.

The problem is especially acute upstate where 42 out of 50 counties have seen a population decrease since 2010.

“Much more needs to be done to improve the basic climate for economic growth” upstate, said E.J. McMahon, the Research Director for the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank based in Albany. “It’s just not dynamic enough to hold more of its people.”

In New York City, the population is still growing, with the number of people living in the city increasing by nearly half a million from 2010 to 2017, but more and more people are moving away. In 2017, roughly 131 people left the metropolitan area each day, compared with 43 in 2014.

“The thought is, ‘I like it but I can’t afford it here and it’s hard,’” McMahon said of the driving force behind people leaving.

Here, former and soon-to-be former New Yorkers reveal why …

‘We were burnt out by New York City’

After moving to the city from Ohio in her early 20s, Victoria Libertore, 43, always thought she was a lifelong New Yorker. But her wife, Jennifer Koltun, had been wanting to leave for years.

“I was so burnt out on New York, it seems to have gotten noisier and dirty,” said Koltun, 57, also a native New Yorker. “I needed a lifestyle change, warmer climate and a more laid-back environment.”

In 2015, the couple, who lived in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, took a trip to Los Angeles, where they have many friends, and Libertore was surprised by how charmed she was by the palm trees, the friendly people and the old Hollywood history. She wasn’t quite ready to leave New York, but they started to plan for it.

In 2017, Koltun, who oversees operations for an IT leasing company based in Manhattan, told her boss she wanted to move to California. He was surprisingly receptive to it, and she spent a year automating the business so that she’d be able to relocate and work from home.

They finally made the move a few weeks ago, renting a three-bedroom, two-bath bungalow in Monrovia, a small city in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, about a half-hour’s drive from downtown LA.

Before they started house-hunting, they made a list of everything they wanted, from a back yard and a soaking tub to central air and a sliding barn door somewhere in the home. They found a luxuriously renovated 1922 bungalow that had 21 out of the 23 things they wanted, everything — even the barn door — except a pool and a refrigerator, which they had to purchase. They pay $3,000 a month for the 1,500-square-foot home, $170 more than they paid for a 1,067-square-foot loft near the Brooklyn Navy Yards with coin laundry in the basement and window units for A/C.

“It was loud, it was noisy, we lived by the BQE,” said Koltun, who loves that she now lives by a beautiful public course for golfing, a passion she wasn’t able to pursue in Kings County.

“I will say [our old] building was full of a lot of amazing people,” said Libertore. “Tattoo artists, film people, painters … that vibrancy was wonderful.”

The couple estimated that their expenses will be roughly the same as those they had in New York, but their quality of life already seems much higher.

“New York is like no other place. That boldness, that intensity, the grittiness,” said Libertore. But “life doesn’t have to be so hard.”

‘I can’t find any jobs upstate’

Upstate’s population is especially dwindling, and some of the most severe losses have occurred in Broome County, situated on the border with Pennsylvania.

Mike Gehm, 38, was born and raised in the county and currently lives in Binghamton, but he said it’s time to get out. He and his fiancée, 26, an overnight stocker at Walmart, and 5-year-old daughter are planning to move south in about a month’s time.

“We finally made the decision to just say, ‘the heck with it’ and go,” said Gehm, who plans to move to Lexington, Kentucky, or a smaller town in West Virginia — areas he has selected based on school ratings, cost of living, jobs and landscape.

He previously worked in construction but has been a stay-at-home dad for the past year, in part because he’s lacked opportunities to work outside the home.

“Jobs are limited around here … It’s hard for me to find [one],” said Gehm, who plans on working in construction or retail once he moves. The minimum wage will be lower down south — $7.25 an hour in Kentucky and $8.75 in West Virginia, compared with $11.10 in New York state — but Gehm thinks the lower cost of living will more than make up for potentially lower earnings.

“I’m dropping $250 a month on electric,” he said. “Everything is an outrageous price for us [up here].”

They currently pay about $750 per month rent on a two-bedroom trailer. Down south, Gehm estimated that they’ll be able to get a four-bedroom house for $400 to $500 per month.

Ultimately, the move is about providing a better life for his young daughter. A milder climate will allow her more time outdoors, and Gehm worries about the levels of radon — a naturally occurring gas that can cause lung cancer — in the area. He also hasn’t been thrilled with the local kindergarten and says schools are rated better where they’re headed.

“The biggest thing to me is school systems up here. They need to do better,” he said.

While moving will mean being a nine-plus hour drive from family, Gehm said part of the appeal is making a fresh start somewhere new.

He said: “We want to make it on our own.”

‘We didn’t want to have kids in the city’

Colin and his wife Lia LoBello Reynolds, 38, knew they didn’t want to raise a family in the city, so when they found out she was pregnant in July 2017, moving was on their mind.

Conveniently, that same month they were both offered jobs by a multinational Malvern, Pennsylvania.-based manufacturing company that was a client of Lia’s, who works in communications and was at an agency at the time.

“That was sort of like the universe aligning for us,” said Colin.

They moved to Pennsylvania in December 2017, first renting an apartment in Phoenixville and then buying a four-bedroom home in Glen Mills, a town about 27 miles west of Philadelphia with a population just under 20,000. Their mortgage is $4,000 a month, just $200 more than they were paying for their apartment in the Financial District, which had one bedroom that lacked a door.

They both took roughly 30 percent pay cuts with the move but say with a lower cost of living, lower taxes and potential bonuses, they are still coming out ahead.

They love having a big backyard for their dog and plenty of space to play indoors and out for their 9-month-old son, but living in a relatively sleepy town has been an adjustment.

“It’s quiet,” they both said with a chuckle.

“Our last apartment, if you craned your neck a little bit, you could see the World Trade Center right out our window,” Lia continued. “Now you make two rights out of our development and you see an Arabian horse farm. It could not be more different.”

After living in New York City for 14 years, Lia finds the single-lane country roads and unlit streets a bit unnerving and insisted they get an alarm system, though the area is quite safe.

“Lia could walk around Alphabet City at 3 in the morning and not blink an eye, but we are in a house and it’s dark out and we are alone and she’s, like, freaking out,” said Colin.

Their commute is relatively easy, a 25-minute drive they make together, and their office is all about work-life balance. Everyone tends to commute and leave around 4 p.m. to avoid traffic, which is nice, though Colin misses grabbing drinks after work with colleagues. They both lament how easy it was to socialize when they lived in Manhattan.

“We’re still kind of working on making friends,” said Colin.

Lia noted that she has to make more of a conscious effort to stay up on what’s in and out, something that seemed to occur naturally riding the subway and walking around New York City.

“You don’t pick up as much,” she said. “Whatever the next trend is, I’m going to be reading about it instead of seeing it.”

But overall, they are happy with the move and their new life.

“In New York, people live to work. Out here, it’s really work to live,” said Lia. “There’s something really nice about it.”

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