#this was before i made my daily edith account

[kindest-little-fella-in-town]

22

OH, MY BROTHER…. YOU STRUCK GOLD!!!!!

[antiquatedsimmer]

With the completion of the farmhouse and the settling into their new home, Helena found herself gradually easing into a state of calmness and tranquility. The chaos and anxiety that had plagued her during the earlier stages of their journey began to subside, making room for a newfound sense of peace. She embraced her pregnancy with open arms, finding joy and contentment in the growing life within her.

Each morning when she traveled out to the backhouse, Helena would stand before the mirror and admire her blossoming baby bump.

One sunny afternoon, there was a knock on the door. Helena, curious to see who it was, opened it to find a warm smile from a woman holding a beautifully wrapped fruit cake. Introducing herself as Edith Coombes, the wife of one of the builders Eddy had hired, she extended her hand in a gesture of friendship. Edith explained that they lived just up the hill, not far from their new home.

Helena's face lit up with delight as she welcomed Edith inside. As they sat in the cozy living room, savoring slices of the homemade fruit cake, they began to share stories and experiences. It was a breath of fresh air for Helena to have another woman to speak to, someone who understood the intricacies of daily life and the joys and challenges that came with it.

Eddy's tired footsteps echoed through the hallway as he made his way toward the living room, As he entered the room, Helena's smile widened, ready to introduce him to Edith and share her excitement. But before she could utter a word, a sudden and unexpected rush of water overcame her, soaking the new couch beneath them.

Helena's eyes widened in shock, and a mixture of panic, embarrassment, and exhilaration flooded the room.

Eddy stood frozen in the archway of the living room, his eyes widening with a mixture of confusion and panic. The sight before him was both unexpected and overwhelming.

But Edith, displaying remarkable composure and understanding, quickly sprang into action. She didn't hesitate to take charge, providing reassurance to Helena and issuing clear instructions to Eddy.

With a commanding tone, Edith swiftly took charge of the situation. She recognized the urgency and knew that Helena needed the assistance of a midwife. Turning her attention to Eddy, she issued clear instructions, her voice firm and determined.

"She'll need a midwife! Run to the infirmary in Finchwick," Edith commanded, her words leaving no room for hesitation. "I'll take good care of her."

As Eddy hurriedly made his way to Finchwick, inside the farmhouse, Edith sprang into action. Determined to provide the best possible care for Helena, she swiftly prepared the bed, ensuring it was clean and comfortable for the impending delivery.

With practiced ease, Edith smoothed the sheets and then quickly tended to the furnace. She added wood and stoked the fire, watching as the flames danced and flickered. Aware of the need for warm water, she fetched a bucket and poured cold water into a pot, placing it atop the furnace.

As Helena was carefully settled onto the bed by Edith, a tinge of embarrassment colored her cheeks.

"I do apologize, Edith. This is certainly not how I envisioned our meeting unfolding. I'm certain Eddy will arrive soon. Please, don't trouble yourself any further on my account."

Edith's gentle voice enveloped the room as she offered words of reassurance to Helena.

"Hush now, dear, and concentrate on your breathing. It seems fate has smiled upon us today with my timely visit. No need to apologize, but I daresay your husband may not have anticipated this moment."

[dwellordream]

“Contemporary readers might find themselves almost suspicious of how little there is in Victorian lifewriting to shock or surprise; can their lives really have been this dull? Deficient in arresting details and blandly uniform, Victorian lifewriting does not foster any illusions that it accurately records the historical past. But lifewriting was not pure fiction, and its very adherence to rules and commitment to typical daily life makes it a far more valuable source than conduct literature, medical writings, or police records for understanding how conventions shaped lived behavior. Consider the example of transvestism. Cross-dressing could lead to scandal and arrests, but lifewriting attests that many youths who adopted the clothes of the other sex were treated as amusing pranksters. 

In her 1857 autobiography Elizabeth Davis recalled “enjoying” herself “extremely” when she dressed as a man to accompany a fellow housemaid to a party and noted that her employers simply “laughed” when they caught her. In the 1840s a young woman living in London wrote to a cousin in the country about putting on a play with other girls for their fathers and mothers: “I have two parts, the good Fairy and the Lord Chamberlain because he sings a song, and he wears a turban and baggy trousers and I wear a beard and moustache.” Other accounts described boys dressing as girls and sallying forth in public to the amusement of all in the know. 

Victorian lifewriting exposes other gaps between myth and reality. Conduct books confined women to the private sphere, but in fact, many informally participated in politics. Amanda Vickery has pointed out the dearth of research on women’s consumption of newspapers, an increasingly political medium after 1750; lifewriting shows that many ordinary middle-class women who complied with gender norms actively read newspapers and discussed political events with their fathers and husbands. Katharine Harris’s journal documents how a middle-class teenage girl tracked the revolutions and cholera epidemics of 1848 as carefully as she followed changes in fashion and the dramas of her social circle.

Women’s diaries and correspondence also modify our image of Victorian feminism as a powerful but marginal movement; though suffrage was a divisive issue, an otherwise silent majority supported female higher education, with many writers asserting that “women have brains, and given equal opportunities, can do as good work as men.” Mary, Lady Monkswell (1849–1930) never formally participated in politics except as the wife of a man who held several government positions, but in 1890 she recorded her pride that a woman had attained the highest score on the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos: “Every woman feels 2 inches taller for this success of Miss Fawcett.”

Female friendship emerges in Victorian lifewriting as a fundamental component of middle-class femininity and women’s life stories. Because the letters women exchanged with male suitors were often deemed too private or compromising for publication, and because wives had few occasions to write to husbands whom they lived with, letters between female friends and kin were the most common and copious source for documenting women’s lives. Anna Bower’s correspondence with three women who had been her friends since school days made up the bulk of a 1903 edition of her diaries and letters.

The Memoir of Mrs. Mary Lundie Duncan (1842) drew heavily on the communication between Mary Duncan and a lifelong friend. The many letters included in the published version of Mary Gladstone Drew’s diaries and correspondence were addressed to her cousin and friend Lavinia. The editor of Lady Louise Knightley’s journals identified the central figure of the early volumes as Louise’s cousin and “inseparable companion” Edith, with whom Louise exchanged daily letters when they were separated between 1856 and 1864 (12). The emphasis on female friendship in Victorian women’s lifewriting mirrored the ways in which didactic literature defined it as an expression of women’s essential femininity. 

In The Women of England and The Daughters of England, Sarah Ellis articulated the tenets of a domestic ideology based on strict divisions between men and women. She counseled women to accept their inferiority to men and to cultivate moral virtues such as selflessness and empathy as counterweights to the male virtues of competitiveness and self-determination. Ellis praised female friendship for several reasons. It trained women not to compete with men by requiring them not to compete with one another; it fostered feminine vulnerability by developing bonds based on a shared “capability of receiving pain”; and it reinforced married love by cultivating the sexual differences that fostered men’s desire for women (Women, 75, 224). 

In The Daughters of England, Ellis explicitly argued that friendship trained women to be good wives by teaching them particularly feminine ways of loving: “In the circle of her private friends . . . [woman] learns to comprehend the deep mystery of that electric chain of feeling which ever vibrates through the heart of woman, and which man, with all his philosophy, can never understand” (337). Ellis argued that female friendship produced marriageable women by intensifying the opposition between the sexes, but she then undid gender differences by positing similarities between friendship and marriage. The emotions fostered by friendship were also those required for marriage, leading Ellis to call marriage a species of friendship, and friendship “the basis of all true love” (Daughters, 388). 

Far from compromising friendship, family and marriage provided models for sustaining it; female friends exchanged the same tokens as spouses and emulated female elders who also prized their friendships with women. Marriage rarely ended friendships and many women organized part of their lives around their friends. Louise Creighton (1850–1936), married to an Anglican vicar and eventually the mother of six children, wrote letters to her mother in the 1870s that often mentioned extended visits from her childhood friend Bunnie and other married and unmarried female friends. 

Just before she acceded to the throne, Princess Victoria wrote of her governess Lehzen as “my ‘best and truest friend’ I have had for nearly 17 years and I trust I shall have for 30 or 40 and many more.” On the day Victoria married Albert, Lehzen gave the queen a ring, and their pledges of an enduring bond held true, with Lehzen ensconced at court long after the queen’s wedding. Like any monarch, Queen Victoria practiced a politics of display, but what she performed most vigorously was her adherence to domestic middle-class ideals.

It is therefore not surprising to find her commitment to lifelong friendship echoed in the aspirations of Annie Hill, a middle-class girl who in 1877 wrote to her friend Anna Richmond, “I do not see why we should not keep up writing to one another all our lives like Aunt Maria and her great friend have done.” The friendships that created bonds between individual women also forged a sense of connection between generations. Friendship and marriage could be overlapping and mutually reinforcing. While engaged to her husband-to-be, Mary Duncan sent him poems and the gift of a hair brooch, and at the same time wrote a poem for her best friend, whom she addressed as “loved one” and “dear one” (163, 179–80, 147). 

Just as Duncan experienced no conflict in loving her fiancé and her friend, other women expressed affection for friends by hoping they would happily marry. Writing in 1865 of the friend who came “to bless my life,” twenty-three-year-old Louisa Knightley fantasized about her eventual wedding with a sense of pleasure rather than incipient loss: “I have grown to love Edie very dearly—the Sleeping Beauty, whom life and the world are slowly awakening. May the enchanted Prince soon come and touch the chord that will rouse her from the dreams of childhood and make of her the perfect woman!” (105–6). 

….Lifewriting confirms the links conduct literature made between female friendship and conventional femininity, for only women invested in portraying themselves as atypical failed to write of their friendships. Women who succeeded in masculine arenas and advertised their exceptional achievements in published autobiographies often accentuated their distance from standard femininity by downplaying the role that female friends played in their lives. Battle painter Elizabeth Butler (1846–1933), pedagogue and professional author Elizabeth Sewell (1815–1906), and radical activist Annie Besant (1847–1933) all omitted the rhapsodic descriptions of friendship that characterized lifewriting by women eager to demonstrate how well they had fulfilled the dictates of their gender.

Outright disdain for female friendship was rare. One of the few extant examples of a woman mocking female friendship is an exception that proves the rule. A sophisticated transplant raised in Paris by parents from the Anglo-Irish gentry who returned to England in 1868, Alice Miles was eager to distinguish herself from her earnest English relatives. In a diary that remained unpublished until the late twentieth century, she wrote that women were obligated to marry for money, not love. Her contempt for British domestic sentiment led her to dismiss the earnest devotion between female friends she encountered in England as hypocrisy or stupidity. She believed instead in “the natural aversion women always seem to entertain towards each other and the still more decided preference they habitually evince towards mankind!”

 Nevertheless, Miles enjoyed forming a friendships with a young woman “perfectly acquainted” with every “naughty story . . . making the tour of London,” whom she praised as “a regular little rose bud . . . looking perfectly bewitching.” Even the cynical Miles, who believed that affection between woman was merely a “sign . . . that a man is at the bottom of the emotion,” could not resist the pleasure she took in a woman pretty and wicked enough to be a potential rival. Successful women who represented themselves as proper ladies defined their lives in terms of their friendships with women as well as their devotion to family and church.”

- Sharon Marcus, “Friendship and Play of the System.” in Between Women:  Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England

[treksickfic]

The City on the Edge of Forever

I’m so excited to share this with you, anonymous requester! After you sent in your prompt, I had another anonymous reader get in touch with me to let me know they’d already written a story that matched your wishes exactly. 

The author of this story is French, not a native English speaker, and they’ve written a beautifully touching story that expands on the TOS episode, City on the Edge of Forever.  I am posting it here on my blog, with their permission, because they do not wish to have an account nor have their identity attached to the story. This writer has already become dear to me and I’m honored that they trusted me with their writing. I hope you enjoy it!

It’s a long story, nearly 3,000 words, so RIP to your dash if you’re on mobile.  I didn’t want to post it on AO3 or anywhere else except my blog, which feels safer.

Trigger warning for panic attack and trigger warning for some mild emeto, if you’re sensitive to that. It’s not very graphic.

“James Kirk, I demand an explanation!”

Scotty, Uhura, the teleportation technicians, and the security guards were completely dumbfounded by the doctor's explosion. They watched the captain stagger off, livid, as if he had been punched in the stomach. He disappeared without a word, with long stiff steps, from the room.

“Jim!” yelled McCoy.

 “Not now, doctor.” Spock's cold, dry voice stopped him.

Spock squeezed McCoy’s arm firmly and Scott was sure to read in his black eyes a burst of fury. McCoy noticed it too, because despite the storm of his own eyes, he remained silent.

“Everyone, at your posts,” declared the Vulcan. “Scott, you are in charge for now.”

“Yes, sir.” Scotty nodded, refraining from asking any questions.

As soon as they had come through the Time Gate, seconds after they left, it seemed, but many weeks later for them, he had seen that they were not fine at all. The captain was pale, deaf to their questions, obviously struggling with the tears that filled his eyes. The doctor was just as white, his face contracted with a terrible anger. As for Spock, he kept his eyes fixed on Jim, his usual indifference altered by deep and obvious concern.

What the hell had happened?

This is precisely the question McCoy yelled at Spock, pulling himself brutally out of his grip as they entered his office, safe from prying ears:

“Damn it, Spock!”

 “If you calm down, doctor, maybe I could explain.”

 “Calm down? CALM DOWN? Shit, Spock! How do you want me to calm down?”

 “Breathing. Deep, and slowly. Start by sitting down.”

 “Don't fuck with me!”

 “The Vulcans don't fuck with people. Now, please calm down.”

 Jim killed someone without thought. There's no way I can calm down. Shit!”

Spock gritted his teeth and an aura of icy disappointment emanated from him:

“Jim killed someone without thought...do you get along, doctor? You've been aboard this ship for over a year. You even pretend to be the captain's friend. How can you accuse him of this without thinking for two seconds?”

 “I saw it ! He prevented me from—"

“--and your poor little mind preferred to give in to this abject emotion rather than try to find a logical explanation. Jim, the most compassionate man we know…would he have acted like this for no reason?”

These words had the effect of a cold shower on McCoy. He shook his head, gradually coming to himself. He hadn't actually thought for a single moment, mired in a nauseating fury that he hadn't even tried to control. Shame replaced anger and he sagged in his seat and closed his eyes for a moment.

The past few weeks had been a total blur. He had woken up in a room with antique furniture, with an adorable woman at his bedside: Edith Keeler. It had taken him some time to realize that she was neither a hallucination nor a very good actress, but that he was indeed in a different era. Back in the 1930s. And he had barely had time to figure it out and come out of the bedroom to find answers before Jim and Spock, overjoyed, fell on him.

The next second Edith was dead. And it was Kirk's fault., He had kept him from coming to her aid. It had been too much emotion, too quickly and too soon. He had not managed to digest it, even less to understand anything other than what he had seen:

Jim had killed Edith.

But now that Spock had brought him back to reality, it all seemed absurd. And he noticed certain details: His friend's trembling when he held him; the tears in his green eyes when he leaned against the wall; Spock's unusually soft words when he had defended Jim, "he knows doctor, he knows."

How could he have seen nothing? Holding back a moan, he confronted Spock's stern face again:

“Explain it to me.”

“I'll do it quickly. In the timeline of our current story, Edith Keeler dies in 1930. In the one you walked through, paranoid after the cordrazine syringe accident, her ideals of peace and openness reach Roosevelt's ears and America becomes a peaceful country. That prevents its involvement in the second world war. Germany wins and dominates the world. Our time, therefore, does not exist.”

“Oh.”

“By the time you got there, after roughly locating your destination, we got to know Edith. A very charming woman, particularly intelligent.”

“And, Jim—"

“Was deeply in love with her. But for the good of a whole world and not solely himself, he let her die and prevented you from committing irreparable damage.”

“My god.”

McCoy put his head in his hands, overcome with excruciating guilt. Spock watched him, suppressing the harsh words that itched on his lips. The man had realized his mistake. It was useless to add more in the current state. He sighed for a long time, feeling unpleasantly empathetic towards Jim. He admired the way the man had managed to silence all of his instincts to save everyone:

“You should go see him, doctor. I think leaving him alone right now is not the best solution. Especially since he slept and ate very little while we were on earth, and even less after he realized that Edith had to die. He was ill several times during the night. He needs help.”

“Perhaps it is better ... Chapel—”

“No, Leonard,” Spock said, as kindly as he could. “He needs you.”

McCoy let out a deep sigh. He felt silly, and unforgivable. But for the sake of his friend, and indirectly, the sake of the crew, he knew Spock was right. Grabbing his medical equipment, he left in the direction of the captain's quarters.

 *****

Jim rested his forehead against the cool edge of the toilet. The doctor's words were circling in his mind, adding further weight to his overwhelming grief. He felt sick, his stomach as tight as his chest. A discomfort that had become familiar over the past few days. The intense nausea that rolled and rolled, threatening at every moment to overflow was a most unpleasant physical manifestation of his stress.

Despite his efforts to conserve food that was already scarce in their daily life in 1930, there were times when he couldn't do anything about it. Nightmares woke him in an agonizing sweat, on the verge of ruining the atrocious coarse cover of their flop.

He managed each time to sneak into the bathroom before returning the meager pittance with spasms he tried to silence. He also appreciated the discretion of Spock, who had the delicacy of pretending to sleep when Jim returned to his bed several minutes later, breathless and exhausted. But now that he was alone, aboard the Enterprise, he had no reason to contain himself, and did not fight the gagging that came out violently, like revenge for being held back so long. His stomach, however empty, kept revolting, replacing his sobs with endless contractions.

He had barely activated the door to his quarters when they had started, and he had yielded to the spasms with some relief. As unpleasant as vomiting was, his whole body tense and sore as he curled up over the toilet, at least it kept him from thinking about it. Being sick kept his mind on constant alert, focusing his attention on the spasms, gasps, bile, burning and kept the fear away. Unbearable, interminable, but ... secondary.

He coughed cautiously, catching his breath, feeling even sicker from the pungent smell that hung around him…the smell as horrible as the way he felt. This place of suffering and abandonment suited him.

He leaned over awkwardly when the bile passed his throat for the umpteenth time and spilled out in a long convulsion. He grabbed his stomach and closed his eyes so he couldn’t see the mess coloring the water again. The dizziness began to build, the light becoming unbearable as a migraine took hold of his temples, seeping through to his sinuses. He shivered, trying to reach for the chase to vent some of his weakness, when a hand rested on his forehead. Incredibly cool, it brought such comfort that he could not suppress a fragile sigh.

Tenderly the hand placed a damp cloth on the back of his neck and then finally came to cover his eyes. There was the terribly aggressive sound of the toilet flushing, then a voice whispering for the light to drop to 20%.

That voice ...

His comfort immediately ceased, replaced by anguish. He coughed sharply, spitting out more bile in an effort to shake off the impending grief. He could do nothing against the intense tremors that made him gasp, nor the panicked sob that burst through the vomiting.

“Shhh, Jim.” The voice was a broken whisper. “Shhh, everything is fine.”

Kirk wanted to yell at him to go away, to leave him, not to hurt him anymore. Irrationally afraid of the anger that had rained over him earlier at the prospect of having to face reality. Instead he could only moan, shaken by a horrible, nauseating cough.

Feeling Jim shake and panic under his fingers, McCoy was crushed by an intense wave of guilt. He had seen Jim gripped with grief, stress, drunkenness, anger... but never so completely. It was the first time he seemed ... broken ... and it was largely his fault.

The abnormal heat radiating from his skin indicated a high fever and explained his lack of self control. McCoy took a syringe out of his bag and spoke in a very soft voice so as not to hurt his friend's headaches.

“Jim, I'm going to inject you with a painkiller, it'll help you relax.”

He had no other answer than a small hiccup and a burst of bile.

Nervous vomiting, McCoy noticed. It was serious. He was going to have to play it safe to get the captain to calm down enough to free himself from his sadness and he hoped the hypo would act quickly. He thrust the syringe into his biceps and took advantage of the slight respite that followed to quickly run the medical tricorder over Jim’s upper body.

The latter told him what he already knew: extreme stress, high fever, deficiencies in iron and magnesium, low blood pressure...nothing to indicate a gastric bug apart from weakness due to deficiencies, which reinforced his theory of psychogenic nausea.

McCoy was relieved to find that the sedative had done its work: Jim was shaking less and seemed more lucid.

“Bones...what--?”

Bones. So he didn't blame him. This man's empathy would kill him eventually, the doctor thought. He put a protective arm around the Jim’s shoulders and another under his chest to support him. He could feel the angry stomach muscles that continued to struggle and tighten. He gave a sad little smile.

“We are going to talk about all this. But first, we are going to get out of this horrible room. You need to lie down.”

“Um, that's not safe,” Jim grimaced with a little hiccup.

“I'll take a bucket, but I want you to lie down. Doctor's orders.”

 “If it's an o-order,” he stammered, in a slight attempt at humor.

Jim allowed himself to be helped without opening his eyes, too ill to protest, and too weak to fend for himself. Bones almost carried him to his bed.

Once lying down, McCoy carefully removed Jim’s boots and socks, pulled up a wonderfully warm blanket and put a cloth on his forehead. Then Jim heard the familiar whirr of the tricorder passing once more over his body and finally the sound of several mixes. Careful fingers rested on his right temple.

“Can you open your eyes?”

“Urgh, Bones, I'll throw up if I open them.”

“There is a bucket, don't hold back. I need you to look at me.”

Jim groaned but obeyed. The light, even though very dim, made him moan in pain. It penetrated his head like a blade and triggered, as announced, a violent nausea.

McCoy held him very gently as he threw up a thin trickle of bilious saliva. He fell completely exhausted on the pillow once the attack was over. The doctor muttered something unintelligible and wiped his face.

“I should send you to the infirmary, Jim. You have serious deficiencies and that added to the stress...this is a perfect combination for a migraine in due form. I'll put you on an IV to regulate your sugar levels and give you a strong pain reliever. It should help you feel better.”

Once everything was in place, a tactical, hesitant silence settled between them. Jim could feel his presence, sitting on the edge of the bed rather than a chair, and the warm, warm hand pressed to his shoulder. The exhaustion and sadness rose in power now that the disease could no longer build its walls around his mind. He saw Edith again. Edith and her sweetness, her love, her joy, her magnificent ideas.

"She's fair ... but not at the right time," Spock had said, trying to make her listen to reason when he...he told her that she had to...die. He had desperately looked for another way but...but—

He clenched his teeth, overtaken by the intensity of the pain. By the gesture. He had even been unable to look at her body. He had not turned around, refusing to see what he had just done, struck head-on by the horror and disgust emanating from the doctor.

He swallowed, feeling the tremors start again, the despair skyrocketing. McCoy, hearing the gasps in his friend's tight breath, tightened his grip on his shoulder.

“I ... I loved her...Bones—"

A tear gathered in the corner of his eye and he sniffled, trying to pull himself together:

“Jim,” McCoy whispered, his own emotions rising. “I ... I don't even know how to apologize.”

“You have nothing to excuse. You are right. I ... killed her.”

“No. You saved our world. You did what you had to.”

“Oh, you spoke to Spock,” Jim whispered with a bitter smile.

“Yes.”

Despite the darkness, McCoy could see the paleness growing and the captain's face tightening with the effort to hold back the sobs. He searched for a moment for words he could say to alleviate the pain. Not finding them, he shook his head.

Jim tried to speak, with difficulty. “I shouldn't—”

“You have the right to be sad. You just lost the one you love in an act of unimaginable courage. Jim, I'm an overly impulsive old fool, I can't even imagine what you've been through and I sincerely ask forgiveness for this unjustified anger.”

“Please, Bones—"

“No, let me finish. Thank you for your understanding, but you don't have to. I acted like an idiot.”

“You couldn't have known.”

“That's no excuse. I know you and should have taken a step back.”

“What is done is done.”

“Jim, what I'm trying to say is that you must not let my emotionally spoken words get to you. You didn't deserve it.”

“I...I searched and searched...and searched again. I couldn't get away from her even when I knew that—”

“You were in love.”

“No, Bones. I'm in love. A selfish person who regrets choices that he shouldn't regret.”

“You are human, and you are suffering. Let it go.”

Another tear rolled down, then another, and finally it was a torrent that poured into the pillow. The captain put a hand over his mouth to silence the gasps of despair and the overwhelming agony of loss. Bones gripped his shoulder, patting it in a comforting gesture. He watched Jim sob like a child, breathing laboriously through exhaustion and mourning. Then he gradually calmed down until he fell into a deep sleep.

The doctor sighed and wiped away his own tears that had started at the same time as his friend's, and that he had not tried to stop. He readjusted the IVs and scanned Jim’s body for the third time. His fever was still high from a mild viral infection after several weeks in the cold and fatigue undernourishment. Jim would be off for a few days and stay in bed.

When he left the room, the doctor was not surprised to find Spock standing and waiting with arched eyebrows.

“How is he?”

 “Exhausted and cold, but fine.”

 “Has he been able to express his sorrow?”

 “I guess, yes.” McCoy smiled, thinking of his friend's relaxed face as he left the room.

“And were you able to express yours?”

The doctor jumped slightly, not at all prepared for this question, much less for Spock to say it. He was sometimes pleasantly surprised by the well-hidden sensitivity of his Vulcan friend. A lump formed in his throat and he swallowed it.

“You are about to cry.”

“Damned be your insight, Mister Spock,” the doctor growled, a little annoyed.

“Humans all must cry at one time or another to get better, doctor. I do not understand why you put a manly bulwark in front of this natural mechanism.”

Bones laughed. “Wouldn't you find it embarrassing for me to break down in tears right now in your arms?”

He expected Spock to answer him, "Vulcans don't know the gene, doctor." Instead he replied, in his usual relaxed and serene tone, “If that makes you feel better, no.”

Such compassion was so strange that it almost seemed out of place. Leonard burst out into a frank laugh that turned without realizing it into a flood of tears. Tears of his own sadness this time, not empathy or guilt. Sadness he didn't think he had. Maybe he was also a little in love with Edith after all. And that the Vulcan understood it well before him.

Spock, moreover, did not pretend to leave, contenting himself to stay by his side until McCoy’s tears turned back into laughter.

“Why are you laughing?” the first officer asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, Mister Spock, because I’m thinking of the absurd spectacle we would have made if someone had been there. The ship's doctor weeping like a baby in front of a motionless Vulcan and their captain's closed door.”

Spock coughed and McCoy would swear to anyone who wanted to hear it that he was blushing.

“Well, you're not a hopeless case,” he said with a smirk, patting him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Spock.”

Then he turned on his heel towards the infirmary without hearing the relieved sigh of his alien friend.

[historystrainwrecks]

John D. Rockefeller’s Favorite Cheese

The richest man in the world was on the run.

President Theodore Roosevelt’s Justice Department was planning to file an antitrust suit against Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company in 1906, and the states wanted to get into the action before the Attorney General did. Multiple lawsuits were filed against the directors of the company that controlled over ninety percent of oil production in the United States and had, by prevailing accounts, used unfair practices to gain its monopoly in the market. 

John D. Rockefeller, a Cleveland produce merchant during the Civil War, had diversified into the nascent oil business in 1870, taking huge risks in a new industry that no one believed would endure. He took advantage of this lack of confidence, buying up failing refineries. In one six-week period between February and March of 1872, he bought 22 of the 26 refineries in the city in what was later called “The Cleveland Massacre.” In his telling of the story, Rockefeller paid a fair price for refineries that were failing, poorly run, or had inferior equipment. He could have simply waited for them to go under and then picked up the pieces, but he believed he was doing a good thing by buying them out. Some of the later gripes about his tactics derived from the refiners he bought out for cash (most refusing shares of Standard Oil stock instead) who later saw him build a massive fortune from the bones of their endeavors. A lot of them were peeved they hadn’t taken the stock, which paid out over half a billion dollars in dividends between 1882 and 1906. 

Ida Tarbell, one of America’s first and best-known investigative journalists called “muckrakers,” grew up in the oil fields of Pennsylvania during the early years of the oil boom. She saw what the oil business was like from the side of the original drillers and producers—fluctuating prices, deadly accidents, and the gradual squeezing out of small producers and refiners by Standard Oil. Her father’s refinery was put out of business by Rockefeller, she believed, because of the company’s unfair business practices, which included favorable transport rates achieved through secret collusion with the railroads. 

In 1904, Tarbell wrote the bestselling “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” which laid bare the worst of Standard Oil’s monopolistic practices. She found evidence of strong-arm tactics, price manipulation that drove the sale price of oil below the costs of production, and collusion with the railroads that gave Standard a significant competitive advantage. And this was not merely history; at the time of her investigation, she was able to procure documents from Standard’s headquarters at 26 Broadway in New York that showed the company was still up to its usual monopolistic shenanigans.

John D. Rockefeller was portrayed as the evil mastermind behind the “Octopus,” as Standard Oil was derisively known, even though he had been retired from the business since 1895. Management of the company had been left in the hands of his mercurial and combative successor John D. Archbold, but Rockefeller remained its largest shareholder. His income from dividends in 1902 alone was $58 million. This massive fortune already made him a target, but once Standard Oil’s shady practices became known, Rockefeller became the poster child for everything that was wrong with big business in America. 

President Roosevelt, having established a reputation as a trust-buster, could not ignore Standard Oil after Tarbell’s expose. He did believe that large and efficient companies were essentially good for the country, creating jobs and lowering the cost of items that most Americans had to buy or use on a regular basis like kerosene and oil byproducts, meat, sugar, and railway transportation. But Roosevelt owed a large part of his political success to mastering the press and its capacity to influence public opinion. Once Tarbell’s scathing indictment of the Octopus came out and outraged the country, the President was hoist with his own petard. The Standard Oil antitrust suit offered a shot at both the world’s largest oil monopoly and the unfair practices of American railroads. 

He could not let this one get away. 

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Once the floodgates of lawsuits against Standard Oil opened, the focus landed on the company’s origins and rise to power, which meant the testimony of the company’s founder was essential. And of course, having the richest man in the world dragged into your courtroom was a pretty big deal. 

Process servers with court orders and subpoenas (along with legions of reporters) went on the hunt for Rockefeller, whose testimony was sought in cases in Missouri, Indiana, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and others. He went on the lam, moving furtively between his estates, living the life of a fugitive. Rumors spread that he was hiding on a yacht off the coast of Puerto Rico, or at his business partner Henry Flagler’s estate in Key West. Rockefeller asked his wife not to call him on the telephone, believing the line was tapped. He didn’t put return addresses on his letters. He hired detectives to guard his estates and turn away process servers. He told Standard Oil headquarters to send his correspondence in plain white envelopes, so that no one would get any sense that he was involved in the operations of the company (which he wasn’t). 

Rockefeller went by boat from Tarrytown, New York to a fortress he had set up in Lakewood, New Jersey, complete with guards, floodlights, and thorough inspections of all incoming vehicles. Newspapers reported that Rockefeller was unable to visit his first grandson, born in 1906, because the process servers would get him. The New York World put out a headline, “Grandson Born to John D. Rockefeller and He, Mewed Up in His Lakewood Fort, Could Only Rejoice by Phone.” Rockefeller cut his correspondence by seventy percent and asked relatives to keep his location a secret: “Confidentially,” he told his brother-in-law, “I prefer not to have it known where I am. It often saves me much annoyance.”

Rockefeller was fond of understatement. 

Long retired from the company, he dictated a letter in 1906 resigning as president of Standard Oil and asking the board of directors to approve it quickly. With the directors facing their own subpoenas, they stalled. John Archbold and Henry Rogers, who were running Standard Oil, “told him he had to keep the title of president.” They said, “these cases against us were pending in the courts; and we told him that if any of us had to go to jail, he would have to go with us!”Despite all these many precautions, John D. Rockefeller was ultimately undone by cheese.

A modest and plain Baptist for most of his life, Rockefeller studiously avoided vice and ostentation. He made his children (and his business partners) pledge to abstain from alcohol (on one memorable occasion asking his daughter Edith to promise to never serve alcohol in her house on the day before her wedding) and metered out small allowances to them in exchange for household chores. He and his wife lived plainly, often using the furniture that was left behind in the houses they bought instead of buying new. His wife Cettie was horrified when she learned one of her daughters wanted to buy silk underwear. John, beset with digestive ailments, ate plain and simple food.

Cheese was both his luxury and his weakness. To teach his children restraint when they were young, Rockefeller restricted them to one piece of cheese each day. His daughter Alta one day tattled on her sister Edith for having two pieces of cheese. “Rockefeller professed shock at this indulgence,” and for the rest of the day, whenever the offender was within earshot, he would say, “Edith was greedy” and “Edith was selfish.”

Rockefeller’s chickens came home to roost, as it were, while he was on the run from various state governments. He had his favorite cheese shipped to him daily. While holed up in his Pocantico estate in New York, the New York Central railroad delivered his cheese to the station, where hack drivers would take it the rest of the way. One of these drivers, Henry Cooge, told the press (with ominous gravity) that “suspicious cheeses were again entering Pocantico.” This was irrefutable evidence of Rockefeller’s current whereabouts. “Them cheeses,” Cooge said. “I would recognize anywhere, no matter whether it is day or night…Rockefeller, in my opinion, is somewhere on his estate.”

Rockefeller and his family had to leave the country, sailing for France in the spring of 1906. His name was discreetly left off the ship’s passenger list, and the rest of the family traveled under assumed names. 

The heat was on back in the States. A court in Ohio brought an antitrust action against Standard Oil and issued a warrant for Rockefeller’s arrest. John Archbold sent a message that Rockefeller should extend his European vacation: “There seems to be a perfect wave of attacks all along the line.” A sheriff vowed to meet Rockefeller’s ship when it came back and arrest him right there on the dock. 

Standard Oil had never taken lawsuits like this seriously, and there had been many over the years. It was able to fend them off with high-priced lawyers (and the fact that most of its rapacious practices weren’t illegal until the 1890’s). The company and Rockefeller remained silent in the face of public criticism, which was a tactical error; it made the company and its founder out to be as privileged and arrogant as everyone said they were. And as guilty.

In the new age of muckraking journalism and widespread attacks on the super-rich, this approach wasn’t going to work anymore. Standard Oil’s legal team arranged for Rockefeller’s voluntary testimony, and he was able to safely return to America. 

Rockefeller was served and did testify in court in 1907, and the government’s case against the company was filed in 1909. In May, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Standard Oil was “an unreasonable monopoly under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.” The company was broken up into 34 independent companies with different boards of directors. 

Rockefeller ended up owning a quarter of the shares in all the smaller companies. With the advent of gasoline-powered automobiles, the value of those stocks “mostly doubled.” His fortune reached as high as 900 million dollars. 

John D. Rockefeller, now even richer after the breakup of Standard Oil, was finally able to move freely about the land.

And wherever he went, his favorite cheese followed.

[coachnikkig]

Another Transformation Tuesday Focusing on my mental health and recognizing the physical transformation of my Coach Amy ! I will say it once and I will say it again . Physical fitness can and will have a huge impact on your mental Heath ! I feel a lot more happy days than before I made exercise a part of my daily routine. Is every day happy “ no” but it’s easier getting through those days knowing I have a toolbox 🧰 to go to full of solutions. Holocaust survivor Dr Edith quoted “ Expression beats depression “ Beachbody coaching has given me more than fitness , it has given me a reason for expression of my passion . Helping others with health and fitness. This has transformed my life to a place of purpose. Now let’s talk about how this can work for you ! 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼 Start to transform your life in as a little as 20 mins a day 5 days a week . Swipe 👉🏻👉🏼👉🏽👉🏾 to see my coach Amy’s and a few others physical transformation in just 3 weeks on the Job 1 program that launches in Dec ! Drop your email 📧 if you want a no obligation sample workout #selflove #love #loveyourself #motivation #mentalhealth #beauty #life #happiness #positivevibes #inspiration #positivity #wellness #instagood #fitness #health #happy #quotes #instagram #mindfulness #healing #mindset #lifestyle #believe #bettertogether #accountability #friendship #loveyou #notalone #inthistogether #mentorshipmatters https://www.instagram.com/p/CWWtuEmJukV/?utm_medium=tumblr

[peaceful-serenade]

1-100 ❤️❤️❤️

Thank you, dear! ❤️❤️❤️

Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora? Spotify

is your room messy or clean? It’s actually clean right now.

what color are your eyes? Brown

do you like your name? why? Not really. Like, it sounds pretty and fitting when I meet other people with it, but for me personally it always just sounds kind of “meh” and boring compared to other names that I love.

what is your relationship status? Single for life.

describe your personality in 3 words or less: caring, introspective, loyal

what color hair do you have? Red

what kind of car do you drive? color? It’s blue and has two doors. That’s literally all I can tell you about it because I honestly don’t pay much attention.

where do you shop? Nowhere in particular.

how would you describe your style? Ideally, classic and comfortable

favorite social media account? Tumblr

what size bed do you have? Twin

any siblings? Yes, one younger sister

if you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why? Paris, because I’ve visited twice and absolutely adore it.

favorite snapchat filter? There was a black and white one ages ago that made me look like I was in a film noir, so that one.

favorite makeup brand(s): I don’t really wear makeup anymore and never had a favorite anyways, so I don’t know.

how many times a week do you shower? It kind of varies.

favorite tv show? Brooklyn 99!! I also love Graham Norton, Broadchurch, Good Behavior, Victoria, and Trial & Error

shoe size? I honestly have no idea.

how tall are you? 5′5″

sandals or sneakers? Sneakers

do you go to the gym? No

describe your dream date: I don’t know about specifics, but my dream date would go well and we would laugh a lot. Maybe over coffee or while doing some fun activity.

how much money do you have in your wallet at the moment? I think I have like $80 right now?

what color socks are you wearing? I’m not wearing socks.

how many pillows do you sleep with? One, usually. Sometimes two.

do you have a job? what do you do? Not currently.

how many friends do you have? I have Laurel and maybe 3 or 4 other people who would talk to me if I texted them. I don’t really have any friends right now, though.

whats the worst thing you have ever done? I’ve done a lot of horrible things that I still cringe over and regret, but I can’t think of what the worst is.

whats your favorite candle scent? There was an apple pie candle that I used around Christmas that I really loved, but I don’t really have a favorite.

3 favorite boy names: Daniel, William, Damon

3 favorite girl names: Katherine, Elizabeth, Charlotte

favorite actor? Cary Grant, William Powell, David Tennant

favorite actress? Myrna Loy, Audrey Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Jenna Coleman, Keira Knightley, Viola Davis

who is your celebrity crush? Andy Samberg. I specifically put off watching B99 for years because he’s so my type™ that I just knew it would happen but I finally gave in a few months ago and there’s no going back now.

favorite movie? The Thin Man, Roman Holiday, Hidden Figures, Hannibal, The Big Sleep, Angels & Demons, Libeled Lady

do you read a lot? whats your favorite book? I’m trying to read more often but my favorite is still “The Sky is Everywhere” by Jandy Nelson followed by anything by the Brontë sisters.

money or brains? Brains

do you have a nickname? what is it? Nic

how many times have you been to the hospital? For myself, zero. To see other people, only two or three times.

top 10 favorite songs: La vie en rose - Edith Piaf, Moon River - Audrey Hepburn/Henry Mancini, In the Grey - The Good Mad, Volare - Dean Martin, Me & the Rhythm - Selena Gomez, Cheek to Cheek, The Lady is a Tramp - Frank Sinatra, White Coats - Foxes, Leaving the City - Joanna Newsom, Into You - Ariana Grande

do you take any medications daily? No

what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc) Depends on the weather, but it’s mostly oily.

what is your biggest fear? Being unhappy forever.

how many kids do you want? Zero

whats your go to hair style? Lately, a braid or bun.

what type of house do you live in? (big, small, etc) Big? It’s two stories and we don’t use half of it, hence why my mom wants to move.

who is your role model? Selena Gomez

what was the last compliment you received? No idea

what was the last text you sent? I’m too lazy to check, idk

how old were you when you found out santa wasn’t real? I can’t even remember. Probably around second grade?

what is your dream car? I literally could not care less.

opinion on smoking? I personally have no interest but you do you.

do you go to college? I did for a quarter and a half before dropping out because I was miserable.

what is your dream job? No idea

would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs? Either is fine

do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels? It depends on where the hotel is (cool city, etc), usually, but yes.

do you have freckles? Yes

do you smile for pictures? Yes

how many pictures do you have on your phone? Thousands. Way, way, waaaaay too many.

have you ever peed in the woods? Maybe on a roadtrip as a kid?

do you still watch cartoons? No

do you prefer chicken nuggets from Wendy’s or McDonalds? Neither

Favorite dipping sauce? Honey mustard

what do you wear to bed? Sweatpants or pajama bottoms and whatever top I feel like wearing

have you ever won a spelling bee? I’ve never participated in one

what are your hobbies? Baking, watching TV? I want to take up painting.

can you draw? Somewhat

do you play an instrument? I played flute in middle school band, but no.

what was the last concert you saw? Selena Gomez last May

tea or coffee? Coffee

Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts? Starbucks

do you want to get married? Maybe

what is your crush’s first and last initial? I don’t have one

are you going to change your last name when you get married? Maybe? My last name is weird so if it sounds cooler then definitely.

what color looks best on you? Blue or purple usually? I don’t know

do you miss anyone right now? Yeah

do you sleep with your door open or closed? Closed

do you believe in ghosts? Not really

what is your biggest pet peeve? People who are rude, especially to waiters and customer service-type people.

last person you called: My grandparents.

favorite ice cream flavor? Vanilla, red velvet cake, or salted caramel

regular oreos or golden oreos? Regular

chocolate or rainbow sprinkles? I don’t really have a preference.

what shirt are you wearing? A white t-shirt with Audrey Hepburn on it.

what is your phone background? A painting of some flowers.

are you outgoing or shy? Usually shy.

do you like it when people play with your hair? Yeah

do you like your neighbors? I like one of them, but I don’t really know any of the others. The one I like and know has lived two doors down almost as long as we’ve been in our house, but everyone else that we used to be friends with has moved.

do you wash your face? at night? in the morning? Yes, but infrequently just because I’m super lazy. My skin definitely pays the price for that.

have you ever been high?  No

have you ever been drunk? No

last thing you ate? A donut.

favorite lyrics right now: The entirety of Moon River, probably. I rewatched Breakfast at Tiffany’s again last night so it’s been stuck in my head all day.

summer or winter? Summer

day or night? Night

dark, milk, or white chocolate? Dark or milk

favorite month? June/July or December, I think.

what is your zodiac sign? Aries

who was the last person you cried in front of? My mom and sister, but it was laugh-crying.

[topinforma]

New Post has been published on Mortgage News

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Equifax has offered free credit monitoring after its epic data breach. Here’s what happened when some people tried to sign up.

Equifax has promised free credit monitoring, but it’s been hard for customers to access it. (Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency/EFE)

People are in a panic.

Like the back-to-back hurricanes this year, the theft of our personal data is increasingly catastrophic. The latest breach is courtesy of the credit bureau Equifax. The company reported that 143 million consumers’ personal data was stolen. Hackers got key information — consumer addresses, Social Security, driver’s license and credit card numbers.

Equifax is offering complimentary identity theft protection and a credit file monitoring product, called TrustedID Premier.

“Regardless of whether your information may have been impacted, we will provide you the option to enroll,” the company said.

People have tried to take Equifax up on its offer. But many have had trouble enrolling.

Read more: Equifax says it’s overwhelmed. Its customers say they are getting the runaround.

Here are some experiences:

Carol and her husband weren’t successful, She writes: “What in the world can we do? I’m a senior citizen and not computer savvy so this has really been enormously frustrating to me and my husband. Help.”

From Consumer Reports: How to protect yourself from Identity Theft: ID theft is real but overhyped by companies selling pricey services. These eight steps can secure your identity for less.

Tom wrote: “I am one of those who cannot seem to connect with Equifax concerning its loss of my financial information. Your column reports that the company will provide customers with ‘automated alerts of key changes to … account files with (all three bureaus).’ I might have been interested if a) I could get through to them, or b) I didn’t already get the same from Discover credit card in its service, which is free and took less than a minute to subscribe to.”

James and Sandra couldn’t enroll.

“You can add me and my husband to the list.” Sandra wrote. “I followed the instructions diligently, and after enrolling online I also called them. I was told I would get an email instructing me how and when to ‘finalize my enrollment.’ We are still waiting and not sure what to do as we, like millions of others, were informed that our personal financial information might have been compromised in the company’s recent data breach.”

Edith wrote, “I, too experienced a week of mounting frustrations with Equifax’s horrendous ‘response’ to the breech. I also went through all the processes you and your readers described, including waiting for a nonexistent email that never came. My response was to keep trying to enroll. After being told multiple times that I needed to mail my request, etc., one day it worked.”

“After talking to a person (hard to understand) about my application for TrustedID, he gave me another number to call,” wrote M. Trussell from Maryland. “That gentleman, Paul, ran my email through and said there was no record of my applying on 9-10-17. He suggested I go through process again in about two weeks. He admitted they were crazy overwhelmed. This after checking daily email, spam and junk folders.”

Here’s what happened to Gordon when he tried to enroll. — “I was told my details were likely compromised — not a big surprise since it affected 143 million.” — “I had my date to enroll in TrustedID, which made no sense to me. I had to be given a date? All this sort of thing is done through computer systems so why did I have to wait five days before I could enroll? That is just 5 more days I am exposed.” — “I enrolled dutifully ‘on my date’ and was told I would receive it in a few days, check my spam if I didn’t get it. It hasn’t come to my email inbox or spam.” — “Tried to freeze my credit with them and got the ‘we are unable to process your request right now, our systems are busy.’ No kidding.” “I am getting so sick of these events that I could scream, whether it’s Bernie Madoff, Enron, or a credit bureau who decides not to patch their servers from known vulnerabilities while a few executives make several million off ‘coincidentally’ timed stock sales,” Gordon writes. “The little guys/gals always are the ones that get it in these situations.”

Read more: Equifax had patch 2 months before hack and didn’t install it, security group says

What about putting a credit freeze on your file? Many security experts are advising people to put a credit freeze on their files. It’s not an easy process but one that could give you some peace of mind.

“I tried to put a security freeze on my credit report about a week ago,” one reader wrote. “After inputting all my information, it said the system wasn’t working and couldn’t complete the freeze. I received no personal identification number. Then, this weekend, I tried again. After inputting my information, it only gave me options to lift a freeze, which suggested I’d been successful at placing the freeze. But, I didn’t have a PIN. I called their help line, and the representative said Equifax hadn’t given them access to the database (I assume he meant the database of customer info.) and couldn’t give me a PIN and all he could do was to refer me to the Updates section of their website. This section said nothing of any help. So, I have no idea if the freeze was placed and I don’t have a PIN if I want to lift it. I know Sen. Sherrod Brown from my state of Ohio and some other Democrats have tried to make Equifax better, but no Republicans seem to be helping this effort and nothing is happening. Overall, this situation is very frustrating. These credit bureaus gather information on our private lives, lose that information to thieves and then charge us so the thieves can’t use it. But, even if we pay them, their systems are so crappy, we can’t implement the security freeze. It’s like a mafia protection scheme.”

Read this from Brian Krebs of krebsonsecurity.com: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Security Freeze

Paul thinks we in the media are too hard on Equifax.

“I successfully place a credit freeze with Equifax and successfully obtained the free monitoring service,” he wrote. “No one reports on this. Moreover, no one reports that there has been not a single consumer complaining that their data has been improperly used. I am not a shill for Equinox [Michelle: The misspelling of the credit bureau proves his point]. These are simply the facts that you guys do not report because it’s not sexy.”

In response to Paul, I pointed out that hackers might not strike right away while the breach is still a hot topic. Many people may be victimized weeks, months if not years from now.

Read more: If you’re not worried about the Equifax hack, you should be.

Not worried? Read this from the Federal Trade Commission: How fast will identity thieves use stolen info?

As Adam Shell writes for USA Today, “Once hackers gain access to these key pieces of personal data — which is akin to the DNA of a person’s online digital self — it is at the cyber thieves’ disposal forever to cause harm.”

Read more: Equifax data breach could create lifelong identity theft threat

Evelyn Soler-Hamilton of Maryland and her husband were able to get freezes on their reports.

“We both were able to get our Equifax accounts locked after several tries. We went online very late at night and early morning.”

But she has a suggestion: “Would it be feasible for Equifax to just lock all Equifax accounts and whoever didn’t want that could opt out. Account holders would still have access to their ongoing credit accounts. I would much prefer that if I were still trying to lock up our accounts.”

Despite Equifax hack, GOP lawmakers want to deregulate credit agencies

Don’t expect consumer friendly help from Equifax Last week I asked: What’s been your experience with Equifax and the data breach or for that matter getting any help with credit report issues?

Chris Bowker from Maryland had an interesting perspective of what can happen after getting a credit freeze.

Bowker wrote: “I have had security freezes on all three credit bureaus for the past few years, long before this recent breach. I was completing an online application for a checking account, forgetting initially that a freeze would affect my application. The final section of the app had security questions with multiple-choice answers that contained information from my credit history. After completing the questions, I was then declined from opening an account. I was sure it must have been due to my freezes. So the freeze worked, but why was there any information from my credit history there at all? When I called Equifax, and selected the response to speak to a representative, I just got a busy signal. When I asked the company I was attempting to do business with why I was declined, and which credit bureau they work with, they could not tell me. I should not have to pay to temporarily lift freezes with all three bureaus simply to open this new account.”

Color of Money question of the week If you have a credit freeze on your files, have you had any trouble locking and unlocking it? And I still want to hear what you’ve been experiencing when enrolling for the free credit monitoring service from Equifax. Send your comments to colorofmoney@washpost.com. In the subject line put “Equifax” in the subject line. Given the nature of this issue, I’m happy to just include first initial, last name, city and state.

Live chat today I’m live every Thursday from noon (ET) to 1 p.m. to take your personal finance questions.

Join the discussion to ask your money question or share your financial testimony.

Color of Money columns this week Knowledge isn’t power. The right knowledge is power.

Stay informed about your money.

In addition to this newsletter, read and share my weekly personal finance columns.

— Equifax says it’s overwhelmed. Its customers say they are getting the runaround.

— In the wake of Hurricane Irma, will Florida remain a retirement haven?

Have a question about your finances? Michelle Singletary has a weekly live chat every Thursday at noon where she discusses financial dilemmas with readers. You can also write to Michelle directly by sending an email to colorofmoney@washpost.com. Personal responses may not be possible, and comments or questions may be used in a future column, with the writer’s name, unless otherwise requested. To read more Color of Money columns, go here.

Follow Michelle Singletary on Twitter @SingletaryM and Facebook.