#walgreens new years holiday hours

[hypelens]

Walmart Christmas Eve Hours 2024: Everything You Need to Know

As the holiday season approaches, the excitement of Christmas shopping fills the air, and many shoppers are making last-minute plans to secure gifts and holiday essentials. For those relying on Walmart, knowing the store's hours on Christmas Eve is crucial. 

read more in google news

Walmart's Christmas Eve Schedule

This year, Walmart will be open on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2024, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. This extended timetable is designed to accommodate last-minute shoppers who need to grab gifts, food, or other holiday necessities before Christmas Day. Whether you’re looking for the perfect toy for a child, festive decorations, or ingredients for your holiday feast, Walmart’s extensive inventory makes it a one-stop shop for all your holiday needs.

What to Expect on Christmas Day

While Walmart offers extended hours on Christmas Eve, it’s important to remember that the store will be closed on Christmas Day (December 25). This closure is part of Walmart’s commitment to allowing its employees to spend the holiday with their families, a practice they have upheld for several years. If you find yourself in need of something on Christmas Day, it’s essential to plan ahead and ensure you have everything you need before the store closes on Christmas Eve.

Other Retailers' Holiday Hours

Walmart isn’t the only store that will be open on Christmas Eve. Many other retailers will also have extended hours to accommodate last-minute shoppers. According to reports from USA Today and CNN, several grocery stores will be open, albeit with reduced hours. For example, major chains like Kroger and Publix may operate on a limited schedule, allowing customers to purchase last-minute ingredients for their holiday meals.

Additionally, pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens will likely remain open on Christmas Eve, providing access to essential items, medications, and holiday gift options. However, hours can vary by location, so it’s advisable to check the specific hours of your local store before heading out.

read more in google news

Tips for Effective Holiday Shopping

To make the most of your shopping experience on Christmas Eve, consider the following tips:

Make a List: Before you head out, create a list of the items you need. This will help you stay focused and avoid impulse purchases in the busy holiday atmosphere.

Shop Early: If possible, try to arrive at Walmart early in the day. The store tends to get crowded as the day progresses, especially in the late afternoon and evening.

Utilize Online Shopping: If you want to avoid the crowded aisles, consider using Walmart’s online shopping option. You can order items for curbside pickup, saving you time and hassle.

Stay Informed: Keep an eye on any sales or promotions that Walmart may be running during the holiday season. Many retailers offer discounts on popular items, so you might score some great deals.

Be Patient: Given the large crowds expected on Christmas Eve, it’s essential to remain patient and understanding with staff and fellow shoppers. A little holiday cheer can go a long way! 

Final Thoughts

As we approach Christmas 2024, Walmart’s Christmas Eve hours are set to provide ample opportunity for holiday shoppers. With the store open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., there’s no need to worry about finding last-minute gifts or holiday essentials.

Remember that while Walmart will be closed on Christmas Day, taking advantage of Christmas Eve shopping can help ensure a smooth and enjoyable holiday. Whether you’re shopping for gifts, groceries, or holiday décor, Walmart has you covered. Happy holidays, and happy shopping!

[spaciousreasoning]

Getting Close to the Holidays

This morning’s blood sugar remained at 143. I took an 850mg of Metformin last night and one of the remaining 1000mg tablets this morning. I’ll keep that up until the 1000s are gone, then do just the 850s and see if they keep my sugars down. It might also depend on what my A1C test tomorrow tells me.

I scheduled my A1C test at the Quest lab in Springfield for Tuesday afternoon, after Nancy has her hair appointment at the Mothership Salon in the morning. Then we plan to visit Down to Earth in Eugene to do a little Christmas present shopping.

After our coffee and brain games, we showered and dressed and shortly after fixing a piece of cinnamon toast, we headed over to Costco for some more soups, butter, honey garlic chicken, and tikka masala. I grabbed a 2025 calendar of “Wild & Scenic Oregon” and Nancy found another winter jacket with a hood.

We stopped at Old Crow on the way home to get a Mocha, which is delicious. There’s cinnamon or nutmeg mixed in with it.

While putting away the groceries from Costco, we also had to empty a number of things from the refrigerator that had gone bad. We haven’t been adept at keeping track of our leftovers. The fridge that was here when we arrived is not as good as the one we bought before leaving Tucson. That is one of the issues we have to deal with in renting a place.

Then we cooked up some of the new broccoli and cheddar soup for lunch, which we ate with chips.

I got busy on my Eleventh Tradition work for this evening’s study group. I answered everything I could without having to do any “research.” Then I found the source of a lot of the questions and answers and finished the work before 2 p.m.

With plans for more spinach lentil curry in the next day or so, I ran back to Albertsons for a couple more grocery items. Then I stopped by Walgreens because the order of the Metformin 850mg was still listed in my account. I guess they did not make a note when I asked them to return the last batch, because the guy working the counter went ahead and refilled the script for me.

I got online and ordered my new calendar postcards for 2025. They will have a photo of Koosah Falls on the front. Then I posted an announcement about them on Facebook, noting that people who received them by hand last year will need to provide a mailing address. Almost immediately I started getting responses.

Right about 4 p.m. I got on the treadmill and walked a little more than 3 miles in just under an hour. I worked up a sweat because the temperature inside the house is a bit higher than it was outside at the time. But sweating was better than getting rained on.

I cleaned up in time to go to the Steps and Traditions study group. Tonight we went through our answers to the Eleventh Tradition questions. The Twelfth Tradition is next, at the beginning of January. Then we’re planning to go through the Steps, most like with a different set of questions than before. Of course, I did not do the steps with this group before, so any questions will be new to me.

When I made it back home, Nancy had warmed up the chicken Alfredo leftovers and fried up some more veggies for dinner. The we did some streaming, starting with the “Christmas special” episode of “The Chelsea Detective.” The rest of the third series will come in the next calendar year. We wrapped up the evening with another episode of “The Sticky.”

[mint-moon25]

Even Eggplant Haters Will Love This Korean Spicy Garlic Eggplant! 

AARON - AND - CLAIRE

DEAR - KOREAN - GIRLS - OF - SEOUL,

NEW - BROWSERS - HDG - HAPPY - DOING - GOOD

WILL - NOT - ALLOW - SHOPIFY - WEBSITES

NOT - ALLOWING - SHOPIFY - CANADA - AND THEIR

EMPLOYEES

MY - TOKYO - JAPAN - MALE - SCIENTISTS - WILL

HELP

BANKING

HDG - BANKS

24/7 - HOLIDAYS

FREE - BUFFETS - INSIDE - 24/7 - ALL - AGES

YOUR - SIGNATURES - 5 REQUESTED

ONLINE - 5 SIGNATURES - ASKED - SO

WE - CAN - REGISTER

MOBILE - TEL - APP

FINGERPRINTS

2ND - FINGER - REGISTERED

FOR - WITHDRAWALS - KIOSKS

NEAR - IT - INCREMENTS - REAL - PRETTY

$20 - $5 - $10 - $1 - $100

PUT - YOUR - SIGNATURES

PUT - IN - KIOSK - USE YOUR - 2ND FINGER

THEN - NAME - OR - NICKNAME - SHOWS

BRAND - NEW - CASH - ONLY - GIVEN

NON-FLAMMABLE - ONLY

THERE - CARDLESS

SO - THEY - TOLD - ME

CAPITAL ONE, N.A.

QR CODE - CARDLESS - WITHDRAW - ONLY

CARD - DEPOSIT - AND - WITHDRAWAL

YOU - USE - MAGNETIC - STRIPES OF - DEBIT

AND - CREDIT - CARDS - 2 - ENTER - DURING

AFTER - HOURS

CVS - PHARMACY - WALGREENS

2 - MAKE - DEPOSIT 

USE - MOBILE - APP - ENTER - AMOUNT - FOR

DEPOSIT - THEN - RECEIVE - BAR - CODE - AS

YOU - GO - 2 - CASH - REGISTER - GIVE - THE

BAR - CODE - THEN - CASH - AMOUNT - AS - IT

IS - CREDITED - RIGHT - AWAY

BY - EXIT - AND - LOGIN AGAIN

INSTANT - CREDIT

SO - HDG - BANKS

24/7 - NO - SUPERVISORS - ALL - WORKERS

HAVE - FULL - AUTHORITY

TONGUES - 2 - ENTER

AMENDMENT 1

FREE - EXERCISE - OF - RELIGION

APP - SPEAK - TONGUES - 500 BILLION - TAX

PAID - SING - TONGUES - ANOTHER - TAXES

PAID

SINGERS - AT - OUR - BRANCH - LOBBY - AT

ALL - TIMES - FREE - BUFFETS

HDG - BUSINESS

WE - WILL - PAY - ALL - YOUR - CREDIT - BILLS

END - YOUR - CREDIT - CARDS

PAY - ALL - YOUR - BILLS - OUR - SYSTEMS 

WILL - HELP - WHEN - YOU - NEED - 2 - SPEAK

2 A - PERSON

BUT - OUR - WEBSITE - APPS

ENTER - YOUR - DEBTS - WE - WILL - PAY ALL

HDG - BANKS

UNLIMITED - DEPOSITS

WE - WILL - B - LIKE - SWISS - BANKING

WRITE - ANY - CURRENCY

ALL - ACCOUNTS - WE - WILL - TRANSLATE

2 - HIGHEST - CURRENCY - THEN - EXCHANGE

2 - GIVE - YOU - MORE - MONEY - DAILY - TAX

PAID - ALSO - WE - WILL - GIVE - YOU - 100%

INTEREST - TAX - PAID - FREE - 24/7 - HOLIDAYS

THUS - $100 - YOU - GET - ANOTHER - $100 BUT

TAX - PAID - WILL - HAVE - RECORD - OF - ALL

THE - TAXES - PAID

PAY - YOUR - TAXES - WITH - US - IN - PERSON

OR - BY - WEBSITE - OR - BY - APP - VOICE

ACTIVATED - MANY - LANGUAGES

SO - UNTIL - THE - ABOVE

ILLEGAL - PROSTITUTION - 2 - GET - OUT - OF

YOUR - STATES - IN - AMERICA - UNTIL

DESERT - LAS VEGAS - NEVADA

PROSTITUTION - LEGAL

COMMUNITY - PROPERTY - STATE

AS - I - LOOK - AT - THE - GAY - MEN - BRICKELL

DOWNTOWN - MIAMI - AS - THEY’RE - SPANISH

SPEAKING - AS - MAJORITY - OVER - 400,000

PEOPLE - NOT - 2 - MANY - WHITE AMERICANS

IN - MIAMI - FLORIDA - I - WANTED - 2 - PUKE

ABOUT - PROSTITUTION

SO - I - MIGHT - BE - DOING - THAT - BUT - ME

WILL - GO - 4 - LESBIANISM - INSTEAD - WILL

BE - ILLEGAL - PROSTITUTES - WITH - YES

WOMEN - REMEMBER - GYNECOLOGISTS 4

ALL - THE - WAY - PAPS - SMEAR - CLEAR - 4

ENDING - POSSIBLE - CERVIC - CANCER

FOR - NYMPHOMANIACS - OVERDONE 2

INJECTION - NEEDED - PER - YEAR - ONE

SO - TOPIRAMATE - 50 MG

REMOVES - BLOOD FLOW

ESPECIALLY - THOSE - ON - BIRTH CONTROL

SO - MIGHT - B - ILLEGAL - PROSTITUTE - OR

LEGAL - PROSTITUTE - ONLY - 4 - FEMALES

I - JUST - WANT - 2 - VOMIT - ABOUT - MALE

PENETRATION - MAKES - ME - VOMIT - WILL

B - PROSTITUTE - WITH - LESBIANS - WITH

WOMEN - I - WILL - B - PROSTITUTE - AND

LEGAL - OR - ILLEGALLY

CAPITAL ONE, N.A.

NO - PHOTO - ID - YOU - CAN’T - ENTER

YOUR - ACCOUNTS - THEREFORE - YOU

WILL - NOT - B - ABLE - 2 - PAY - BILLS

ALSO - I’M - HUNGRY - RIGHT - NOW

SO - FASTING - 7 - 10 BUSINESS DAYS

EXLUDING - WEEKEND - NO - FOOD - 2

BECAUSE - HISPANIC - RETARDED SON

AND - PRUNE - BAG - WOMAN - SAID

THEY - WILL - KILL - ME - IF - I - EVER

GO - BACK - 2 - SW 2 ST - AND - NEAR

SW 2 AV - GETTING - FREE - FOOD AS

THEY - WENT - UNDER - THE - BRIDGE

WHERE - I - WAS - NEAR - BOX VAULT

STORAGE WEIRDOS - ON - SW NORTH

RIVER - DR - AND - SW 2 ST

SO - LEFT

GOING - 2 - GET - MY - FLIP - FLOPS AT

HOMEWOOD - SUITES - BY - HILTON

BLK - SIZE 7 - WAS - ON - SALE - ME

USE - BLK - ZIP - TIES - WHEN - MY

FLIP FLOP - THE - R ONE - TOP - CAME

OFF - SO - USE - ZIP - TIES - AND TIED

AND - TIED - BETTER - THAN - VELCRO

TAPE - SO - PRAY - I - CAN - MOVE YES

INSIDE - MY - APT - TODAY

MIDTOWN - MIAMI

I - CAN’T - PAY - ON - THE - FIRST - IF I

CAN’T - MOVE - THIS - SEPTEMBER - 4

HAD - MY - CARD - SENT - 2 - MY - NEW

APARTMENT - ADDRESS

JESSICA - 3P - 5P - MON - 2 - FRIDAY

FLAKEY - ALSO - BLACK - POWER 2

I - WASN’T - MUGGED - WHEN - ME

SLEPT - AGAIN - 101 W FLAGLER ST

MAIN LIBRARY - HUGE - WALL

LESS - MOSQUITO - BITES

BOUGHT - PINK - DUFFLE - WATER

PROOF - AND - PUT - BLK - TRASH

BAG - ON - FOR - RAIN - THAT WAS

LIKE - FOR - MY - BACK - USED THE

BLK - UMBRELLA - BECAUSE - LOTS

OF - LIGHTS - 4 - EASIER - 2 - SLEEP

USED - THE - TIE - WENT - AROUND

MY - SPRAYER - DOLLAR - TREE

SW 8 ST - LITTLE - HAVANA

CITY - OF - MIAMI - JOANA - BLK MOM

TWINS - NEVER - RETURNED - MY YES

BLK - PURSE - WALKING - STICKS - MY

BOILER AND - BEEF RAMEN NOODLES

GETTING - TOMORROW

CAMPBELL’s - CREAMY - CHICKEN AND

BACON - CARBONARA - NUTELLA - YES

COOKIES - TUNA - SALAD - CRACKERS

SOUP - TOMORROW - HUB - LOCKER

SO - TIRED - RIGHT - NOW - WILL USE

RESTROOM 

GOING - 2 - GET - UMBRELLA - 2ND FLR

THEN - HEADED - 2 - JESSICA - 3P - EDT

WILL - SEE - IF - TODAY 

MONDAY - 16 SEPT 24 - ALLOWED - TO

START - APARTMENT - 1 BEDROOM

SHE - SAID - WITHIN - 7 DAYS - AND

NOW - 16 DAYS - IN - SEPTEMBER?

JESUS - IS - LORD

‘ASK - AND - WE - SHALL - RECEIVE’

‘TODAY - MY - MOVIN’ DAY - HOPING

[customercares4u]

Michaels Arts & Crafts Hours | CustomerCares4u

The Michaels Companies is one of the largest providers of home decor merchandise like arts and craft materials, wall decor, floral, framing, etc. If you are finding Michaels Hours from your nearest location? For more info, visit us at CustomerCares4u.

[boopboopboopbadoop]

So I ended up stuck at Walgreens for over an hour today and was going to be late to an appointment that had a vague start time.

The family is really chill and also had an appointment beforehand, so we agreed that they would let me know when they were on their way to the meeting spot.

Student’s mom: We’re on our way! We’ll probably be there by 11:00

Me: Yeah well I won’t

[arse-crack-thistle]

gifts

rwrb and the five love languages | part two

in which june struggles to have a nice valentine’s date with nora

June never expected to care this much about a stupid holiday like Valentine’s Day, but here she is, practically renovating the apartment to give her girlfriend a perfect night. She strings LED lights around the entire living room ceiling and uses Command hooks to drape the sheer, white Ikea curtains she bought on sale months ago in preparation for this. The lights glow pink through the curtains, making the usually neutral-toned living room appear like Aphrodite’s palace. June’s moved the coffee table into her room and replaced it with a fluffy blanket and a picnic set-up to rival TikTok lesbians.  All she needs now is Nora, if only she weren’t stuck at school.

The texts say, Will be late! Data mining for the gods! [Monet X Change gif] I want to be home with you though. Will bring noodles! And chocolate! Scratch that, I ate the chocolate. Sorry.

June knows she shouldn’t be annoyed because Nora has no idea what she’s coming home to. She also knows who she got into a relationship with—a brilliant mind that’s constantly moving parsecs a minute and has a hard time communicating her feelings. June has to remind herself that Nora loves her even if she doesn’t always show it.

That’s what tonight is for. It’ll give them time to slow down and just be together. Break the routine. Talk or not talk. She doesn’t expect it to be mushy or obnoxious—June isn’t a super, flowery romantic herself—but she does want another sentimental moment to hold onto forever.

Like the night of the 2020 election over a year ago. After Alex and Henry slipped away and everyone else was celebrating in their own groups, Nora pulled June into a storage closet at the venue and kissed her point blank, leaving no questions in her mind that their dabbles the months before meant something more than spectacular.

Or like six months ago when Nora asked her if she wanted to move in with her. She didn’t do anything particularly special, but she slammed her laptop shut while June was throwing on one of her sweatshirts and asked her to stay—to take the second bedroom because Nora needs space sometimes—but to stay with her because she was her favorite person. June answered with a happy “yes,” and Nora got up and kissed her. They didn’t talk much more about it; June just packed up her room at the White House and let the world think they were very best friends.

June pours a glass of wine and waits on the couch, flipping through social media. A few hours ago, her brother posted a picture from the Valentine’s gala he and Henry threw for the London queer youth center. Alex, Henry, Bea, Catherine, and even Philip and Martha hold champagne flutes with cheeky smiles on their faces. The POTUS account has a sweet yet posed picture of her mother and Leo. She likes everything she sees, from the various celebrities she follows to the photos she’s tagged in by fans. The time on her phone reminds her Nora’s now over an hour late.

She texts her, Home soon?

Ten minutes later her phone dings. Need more time. Almost done!

You are aware it’s Valentine’s, yes? And that we had plans?

Yes!!!! But flexible plans, right? Not like we can’t eat noodles and make out later. Will leave soon though. Promise.

I got food covered. Just get home please.

June sighs. She thought she made it clear this morning that they deserved a night with no distractions. God, they need to talk; she’s afraid to, but nothing will get better if she doesn’t say anything and if they don’t try.

The charcuterie board spread she copied off of Pinterest has been sitting out for a while so she moves it from the floor to the fridge. “Soon” for Nora could mean an hour. Empty coffee mugs line the sink. An open pack of weed gummies sits on the counter, hardening. Binders of paperwork and schoolwork collect on the kitchen table. There’s so much Nora in here. June redecorated the living room and kitchen when she moved in, but Nora’s managed to touch everything.

She smiles. If this were Alex, she’d be pissed at the mess, but it’s Nora. The beautiful, erratic mess that is Nora. The girl who can have four different shows on at once and can still get shit done. The girl who always burns pancakes when she tries to cook breakfast for June. The girl who never fails to kiss her first.

June won’t lose her. So she sits down on the floor, runs her fingers over the fleece, and waits. And drinks more wine.

Sometime later, when a key turns in the lock, she downs the last sip in her glass and sets it down. Some old love songs play from her phone, the ones she and Nora love to make fun of. She hears her girlfriend curse when her key gets stuck, and then she bursts through the door and catches herself before she could slip on the hardwood.

“I know you said you got food covered, but I got noodles any—Whoa! You did all of this?” Nora walks into the living room with takeout bags in her hands and stares, mesmerized, at the ceiling. Her contacts must’ve been bothering her because she has on her back-up glasses.

“Hi. Happy Valentine’s Day,” June says and reaches for Nora’s hand to pull her down.

“I’m sorry, June. I had no idea. I thought we both hated this holiday, so tonight wasn’t that big of a deal. But this—this is beautiful,” Nora says, having a hard time meeting June’s eyes.

“Thanks.” June rubs Nora’s hand with her thumb. “And this isn’t really about the holiday. I just wanted to give something nice to you—to us—just us. With no distractions.”

The strings from “At Last” by Etta James play from the phone. The curtains billow from the air blowing out the vent. As much as she hates to ruin the moment, June has to start the conversation.

But Nora takes a deep breath and talks first. “I know I’m a bit all over the place but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I just have a lot going on.”

“I know, but sometimes it feels like you don’t care about us as much as I do. It feels like an afterthought to you,” June says.

“That’s not true, June! Come on! You know me.” She grabs June’s other hand and squeezes.

She squeezes back. “You don’t act with feelings in mind, but I know you have them. And I know it’s hard for you, but I need you to share them with me more. I need a reminder that you care every once in a while.”

Nora’s quiet. She uses her arm to wipe her eyes, knocking her glasses off.  “I—I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.”

June’s chest collapses. She wraps Nora up in her arms. “I’m sorry, Nor. I don’t mean you’re not enough for me. I love you so much. I—”

“No, I understand. I just—I need help with that. I need you to tell me when you need more—maybe not after the fact like now but—”

June laughs and pulls away. “You’re right. I have a stewing problem. I just assume you’ll eventually get it.”

“Yeah, don’t assume that.” Nora laughs too—the big kind that shows all of her teeth. “Reign me in when I’ve been off for too long. And know it’s not on purpose. I’m seriously spiraling in my own head the majority of the time.”

“Ha! And a hot head it is too.”

They both pause and look into each other’s eyes. And bust out into laughing fits. June makes a fart sound with her mouth, and Nora tackles her. They rumble around on the blanket for about forty seconds before June’s wine glass tips over and surprisingly bounces instead of shattering.

The girls take that as an opportunity to stop and pour some more glasses of wine. Nora preps the takeout while June brings the charcuterie board back to the indoor picnic. Nora changes the music to some weird techno shit, but June snatches the phone. They compromise with One Direction, which makes no sense since 1. June only knows their last album and 2. Nora definitely remembers the story of June turning down the advances of one Niall Horan when she did the daytime talk show circuit after her book deal was announced.

Either way, they stuff their faces and end up cuddled on the floor.

Nora interrupts the moment. “Before we get to sexy time—"

“Jesus Christ.”

“I just wanted to give you something. I would’ve saved it for your birthday, but I can get you something else.” She pops up from the floor and jogs to her bedroom. When she reemerges, she’s carrying a bunched-up blanket. “I didn’t have time to properly wrap it because—you know, you weren’t going to get it yet—although, it probably wouldn’t’ve been wrapped later either—but anyways, happy Valentine’s Day.”

She crouches down and hands over the present. She smiles and bops up and down in anticipation. June unwraps the blanket and sees a book.

It’s one of those photobooks you can get at Walgreens, and on the cover, it reads, “Catalina June Claremont-Diaz and Nora Elizabeth Holleran are NOT good friends…” June flips it over. “They’re fucking GIRLFRIENDS!” Inside is page after page of pictures as early as the day they first met and as recent as New Year’s Eve a month ago. A lot of candid pics they take of each other—Nora’s favorites. A lot of sleepy, cuddle pics—June’s favorites. It’s so perfect.

“Nora—this is—wow.” She feels the tears coming. No one has given her anything like this before.

“I’ll be better—”

“So will I.”

“No matter where my head’s at, I’m always thinking of you—just 50 million other things as well,” Nora says and cups her chin.

June leans in. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Nora kisses her, and everything wound up in June relaxes. Her body is so warm. “Best Song Ever” starts playing.

Cue sexy time.

check out the rest of my rwrb and the five love languages series: part one, part three, part four, and part five. (links to come as they’re released)

so this could be for quality time or gifts, but i decided to go with gifts since i had no other ideas for it! it’s definitely not my love language (quality time for the win!) but i had to write something lol. so i made it sapphic bc everything gay is better! <3

rwrb romance week | @rwrb-fests

[thekat15]

Batfam preparing for Halloween:

Bruce: trying to figure out who’s escaping Arkham to terrorize the holiday

Alfred: trying to stay sane while also enjoying that it’s finally the time of year where it’s socially acceptable to eat candy corn and drink apple cider, carving pumpkins with Cass

Dick: looking for family costumes starting in September, buying light hearted blow up Halloween decorations that won’t scare kids. Probably likes pumpkin spice everything.

Barbara: looking for subtle couples costumes and appreciating sweaters

Cassie: probably buying the giant bags of Halloween candy to stash, carving pumpkins with alfred

Jason: sets up elaborate fake graveyard as part of Wayne manor ™️ Halloween display. Says he’s the only one that can do it because of the whole death thing (LIKE ALL OF US HAVE DIED JASON-)

Steph: won’t stop talking about what Halloween horror movies are coming out. Or about what spirit Halloween just got in that’s new. Is also busy disowning people who like pumpkin spice.

Tim: found a Red Robin costume at spirit Halloween.

Bought it. It was $40 of shitty fabric but it was worth it

Damian: confused about why he has to go trick or treating and why he can’t bring a real sword to go with his costume

Bonus:

Duke shows up like three hours after everyone’s had a major fight about Halloween set up and plans with two bags of Walgreens pumpkin lights thoroughly confused about wtf happened.

[trylonandperisphere]

Text:

How The Antifa Fantasy Spread In Small Towns Across The U.S.

Rumors of roving bands of Antifa have followed small protests all over the United States. Why are people so ready to believe them?

By Anne Helen Petersen

Posted on June 9, 2020, at 4:55 p.m. ET

The rumor that shadowy leftists planned to start trouble in Great Falls, Montana, first appeared on the Facebook group of the Montana Liberty Coalition late last Wednesday afternoon.

“Heads up,” a man named Wayne Ebersole, who owns a local cover crop business, wrote. “Rumor has it that Antifa has scheduled a protest in Great Falls Friday evening at 5 p.m. in front of the Civic Center.” He asked the group if anyone had any more information, or if anyone was available to “protect businesses.”

“It has been confirmed through the police department,” one commenter replied. “They have a permit for tomorrow night and are in town now.”

They weren’t. Police later said they had been “working to quell the rumor.” But that didn’t stop it from sweeping across various right-wing groups. Within 24 hours, a screenshot of Ebersole’s post had been posted to the Facebook Group for the Montana Militia, whose members have recently dedicated themselves to tracking the perceived threat of antifa all over the state, including coordinating armed responses to “protect” their towns. (Ebersole did not respond to a request for comment.)

And by Friday at 5 p.m., as about 500 protesters gathered to protest systemic racism and police brutality, a handful of armed men had massed at the edge of the demonstration.“We heard that a little group called Antifa wanted to show up and not in our town,” one man, who declined to be named, told the Great Falls Tribune. “All it takes is a word and a whisper.”

As protests against police brutality and in support of Black Lives Matter continue to proliferate across the small towns and rural communities, so, too, have rumors of white vans of masked antifa driving from town to town, reportedly intent on destruction. In Hood River, Oregon, antifa were, according to screenshot of a fake Instagram story, calling on followers to “root loot do anything in your power.” In Spring Hill, Tennessee, there was a “busload” staying at the Holiday Inn, prepping to loot Walgreens at noon. In Wenatchee, Washington, bands of men dressed in black were surveilling potential targets. In Payette, Idaho, a plane full of protesters was circling overhead. In Honolulu, antifa had been flown in from the mainland. In Billings, Montana, some claimed agitators had been spotted by the National Guard. In Nebraska, they were creating Craigslist ads offering to pay people $25 a day to “cause as much chaos and destruction as possible.” In Sisters, Oregon, they were planning to show up at the local Bi-Mart.

To be clear: All of these rumors were false. They were all, as the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office put it, “fourth-hand information.” To combat them, police departments in dozens of towns are holding press conferences, posting announcements on social media, and telling anyone who calls the station that there has been no indication of a planned presence from antifa or any other outside agitators, whether “from Chicago” (code, in many parts of the Midwest, for black people) or “from Seattle” (code for liberals).

Yet these rumors continue to spread. That spread is facilitated by Facebook — where they thrive in groups whose previous focus was protesting pandemic-related shutdowns and circulating conspiracy theories about COVID-19 — and fanned by President Donald Trump, who recently declared his intention to label antifa a terrorist group. This morning, the president raised the antifa menace yet again, tweeting that the protester violently shoved by police in Buffalo, New York, “could be an ANTIFA.” (He was not.)

But the persistence of these rumors suggests a deeper fear of outside incursion, and the necessity of an ever-alert, armed response. As encapsulated in a Reddit thread out of Hood River, Oregon: “I’ll say this much: The people out here are armed to the teeth. If you want to bring mayhem to this area, the end result will likely have you beggingfor police protection.”

An antifa member passes a fountain during an alt-right rally on Aug. 17, 2019, in Portland, Oregon.

Antifa has become the right’s face of violent leftist protest in the United States, sloppily aligned with, as the president put it on June 1, “professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters.” In a tweet, Trump claimed the national guard had “shut down” the “ANTIFA led anarchists, among others.” (The DC field office of the FBI reported no antifa involvement in protests, according to the Nation.)

It’s difficult to talk about antifa with any sort of precision. It’s “leftist” insomuch as it’s against, well, fascism, authoritarianism, and white supremacists. There are some local groups, but there’s no national leadership structure. Many antifa dedicate themselves to finding white supremacists in their communities and outing them. Most people within those groups are for violent protest only as a last resort, but a handful are for more forceful displays and destruction. Here in Montana, I encountered a very small handful in January 2017, when they showed up in Whitefishto counter a planned march by the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website.

The most important thing to understand about antifa is that there are very, very few of them: According to the Washington Post, when the group tried to gather nationally, they topped out at a few hundred.

Nevertheless, Trump has been building up the menace of antifa for years. He first began evoking antifa following the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, when he famously claimed that there were “very good people, on both sides.” “Since then Trump has returned to the term often in speeches,” Ben Zimmer writes in the Atlantic, always “with an air of alien menace.”

Lifted by Trump’s rhetoric, that “alien menace” has accumulated around antifa in the public imagination, making it all the easier to believe posts in which fake antifa accounts promise to act in the exact ways Trump has described. On Sunday, May 31, a newly made Twitter account — since linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evorpa — posted: “Tonight’s the night, Comrades,” with a brown raised-fist emoji and “Tonight we say 'F--- The City' and we move into the residential areas... the white hoods.... and we take what's ours …”

The antifa threat has also been co-opted by QAnon, the nation’s most powerful and influential conspiracy theory and movement. At Concordia University, Marc-André Argentinoresearches the way extremist groups use social media as a tool to recruit, spread propaganda, and incite acts of violence. Last week, he began tracking the uptick in mentions of antifa within QAnon social media forums, which began to rise when “Q” (the anonymous poster who guides the site) began mentioning it on May 30. At least for the moment, QAnon is celebrating the protests (and antifa’s presence) for their potential to spark the apocalyptic “storm” central to the QAnon theology. “Antifa is a nebulous enemy, one that serves as a rallying cry for keyboard warriors and on-the-ground militiamen,” Argentino told me.

Argentino has been noticing something else, too: a growing cross-pollination between QAnon, which is often referred to simply as a conspiracy group, and more far-right extremist groups, from the so-called Boogaloo Bois and Proud Boysto more straightforward militias.

This intermingling was on display at the Reopen Michigan protests, where American flags waved alongside Confederate ones. And you can see it now all over the West, where the groups that advocated for reopening — often attracting a motley mix of constitutionalists, “patriots,” anti-vaxxers, Second Amendment advocates, anti-government advocates, and just straight up pissed off business people — have shifted their focus to “protection.” In the Tri-Cities area of Central Washington, the shift is so explicit that the Facebook group “Reopen Tri-Cities” has shifted, wholescale, to a second group called “Protect the Tri.”

Armed men gather on Main Street in the historic downtown of Klamath Falls, Oregon, on May 31.

In Montana, most of the rumors of antifa presence in the state can be traced back to state Sen. Jennifer Fielder, who warned her followers on June 1 of “multiple reports from credible witnesses” that five white panel vans of antifa were on their way to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and would then proceed to Missoula, Montana. Fielder, who lives in Northwest Montana, is known across the state for ultra-right, “liberty-minded” views on everything from public lands (they should be sold) to contact tracing (a form of governmental overreach).

But Fielder didn’t start the antifa rumor. She just brought it to Montana. On Sunday, June 1, over in Klamath Falls, Oregon, the rumors were so compelling that hundreds of armed people showed up to line the Main Street during a planned protest. The next night, in downtown Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a man with an AR-12, an AR-15, two 9 mm handguns, and a .38 special told reporter Bill Buley that he was there, along with hundreds of others, because he’d heard “there were some people who shouldn’t be here.”

In some cases, the people with guns showing up at these rallies are “supportive” of the groups protesting — at least in so far as they’re supportive of the right to freely assemble. They don’t actually believe the protesters, in many cases local high school students, would turn to violence. Instead, they believe antifa is plotting to infiltrate the otherwise peaceful protests and turn them violent — or, as was suspected in Lewiston, Idaho, use the protest as a decoy in order to ransack the business district.

Which is why, as over a thousand people gathered to march along the Snake River in Lewiston, dozens of others, many heavily armed, lined the streets downtown. One wore a Hawaiian shirt (the “uniform” of the Boogaloo Bois) and held a sign with the name of a III% militia member who had been shot by the police. Another wore a vest covered in Nazi paraphernalia. Others were decked out in flak jackets, in camo, and Clinton Conspiracy shirts. Similar scenes have played out this week in Bozeman, Kalispell, Billings, Sandpoint, and Coeur d’Alene.

Travis McAdam, who’s tracked anti-government and hate groups for 15 years with the Montana Human Rights Network, calls it the “Antifa Fantasy.” A version of this fantasy has long existed, in some form, in militia circles: “An outside, shadowy entity is going to come in,” McAdam recounted, “and whether it’s to disarm the community or attack it, these folks are going to mobilize and fight it off. Antifa is just the bogeyman that they’ve stuck in this narrative.”

Put differently: Militia members get to plan, anticipate, and enact the idea at the foundation of their existence. And they get to do it in a way that positions them as “the good guys,” fighting a cowardly bogeyman easily vanquished by show of force alone. As a popular meme circulating in North Idaho put it, “Remember that time when Antifa said they were coming to Coeur d’Alene / And everyone grabbed their guns and they didn’t come? That was awesome!” It doesn’t matter if antifa was never coming in the first place. They didn’t come, and that’s evidence of victory.

And that victory can then be leveraged into further action — and a means to extend the fantasy. On the Montana Militia page, a man named Tom Allen, whose home is listed on Facebook as Wibaux, Montana, posted that he’d spent the night in Dickenson, North Dakota, “protecting” the veterans monument during a planned protest. A group of bikers showed up to guard the nearby mall, protecting “all of Antifa’s usual targets.” There was no incident. (Allen did not respond to request for comment.)

Afterward, Allen wrote, a man who had helped coordinate the defense followed a group of perceived antifa to an Applebee’s, where he said he overheard them talking about “the waitress and how they wanted to rape her,” “killing cops” and “other violence,” and their future plans: “They’re saying there’s going to be a ‘firestorm’ in Billings this weekend.” The post was shared more than 1,800 times.

Like Argentino, the online researcher, McAdam sees this current “protect” movement as an extension and consolidation of anti-government movements that have been percolating for years. Back in 2008, when tea party rallies began sprouting up all over the United States, many of them were attended and organized by people authentically upset about economic policies. But those protests, like the reopen protests, also drew in anti-government agitators and militia members, who then began to influence and, in some cases, take over the leadership in the tea party groups.

“That dynamic is very similar to what’s happening now,” McAdam said. “A core group of people coming from the anti-government movement are always looking for a crisis, where you have a divisive issue in the community that they can tap into and exploit. The COVID pandemic was one thing, and now we’ve got another avenue.” And people who might not ever consider themselves “militia” or even anti-government, who might have joined a reopen group in frustration, are now exposed, and perhaps more receptive, to rumors of roaming antifa in need of rebuke.

Armed men and women show up in Klamath Falls, Oregon, after rumors of an outside antifa presence at a Black Lives Matter protest.

“You can really see that in the Facebook groups,” dozens of which McAdam monitors. “I would see people posting early on a Tuesday morning, saying, ‘I don’t know if this Antifa rumor is real,’ and then later in the day, they’d be like, ‘Well, I dunno if I believe this, but I’m going to go drive around Missoula and look for these Antifa vans.’”

When someone in your Facebook feed posts a warning to be on the lookout for antifa in your small town, it might seem like low-stakes nonsense. But beneath such a seemingly silly rumor lurks a larger ideological iceberg: the idea that radical leftists are out to defile and destroy, and the only recourse against them is an armed, unrestricted militia. QAnon theory builds on this, suggesting that all of it — the protests, the police reaction, the presence of antifa — has been preordained as part of a coming mass destruction

And QAnon isn’t just a niche conspiracy theory. Tweets from its proponents are regularly retweeted by the president. At least 50 current or former candidates for Congress, plus the Republican nominee for the US Senate in Oregon, are public QAnon supporters. And that doesn’t even include candidates running on the state or local level.

As Adrienne LaFrance argued in the Atlantic, QAnon has become a religion, with clearly defined sides of good and evil, hungry for converts. The antifa fantasy functions similarly. Whether you’re in Lewiston, Idaho, or Klamath Falls, Oregon, it’s so, so easy to believe.

And as QAnon continues to cross-pollinate ideas with violent, extremist groups, “keyboard warriors” may bring their conspiracies into the real world. As Argentino put it, “If you’re in QAnon, and you see your messianic leader, Trump, at risk of losing the election, and the mass arrests that Q has promised is not coming, at some point people are going to question: If the Q team and Q can’t do this themselves, maybe they need the digital patriots to become offline patriots.”

A member of the far-right militia Boogaloo Bois walks next to protesters demonstrating outside Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Metro Division 2 just outside of downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 29.

On June 2, Trump sent out a blast to his email list. The subject line: ANTIFA. “Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem,” the email said. “They are DESTROYING our cities and rioting — it’s absolute madness.”

That night, in Forks, Washington, a multiracial family from across the state in Spokane pulled up to a local outdoors store. They were in a decommissioned school bus and picking up supplies on their way to go camping. In the parking lot, a group of people from seven to eight cars surrounded them and accused them of being antifa. According to a statement from the sheriff’s office, the family then drove off to their camping site, trailed by a handful of cars. In two of the cars, people were holding semi-automatic weapons. As the family was setting up camp, they heard the sound of chainsaws and gunshots in the distance. When they attempted to leave, they found that trees had been felled onto the road, trapping them on site.

“For lots of folks, it’s much easier to accept the idea that the only people who could be protesting the local police would be from outside the area,” McAdam explained. “It couldn’t possibly be that people of color in our community could have bad experiences with local law enforcement.” Or, for that matter, with locals in general.

“The ‘outsiders’ part of this narrative is just so important,” McAdam said. “It allows people to say, and to believe: ‘We don’t have problems in our community.’” ●

[caffeineivore]

Commission #2

For @nelwynp. Based off a very very old ficverse from wayyyyyyy back in the day called “Freckles” which may or may not be found on LJ. Makoto/Nephrite.

Commissions are still open!! Check out the details here or all the other commissions currently available here!

Long distance relationships are statistically known to suck, and honestly, I wouldn’t have considered myself the rose-coloured glasses type. The real world doesn’t care that you’ve probably, maybe, already gotten your share of crap thrown at you, starting from the death of your parents, and think maybe it should cut you a break. I knew the chances of Nick and myself making it were slim. He would be busy, surrounded by strangers a whole two states away. Sure, we’d known each other since we were kids, and maybe by now, he had become the one constant in my life-- my North Star, perhaps-- that forever friend who’d seen me at my worst and didn’t care in the least. And maybe--- maybe, finally, I’d finally told him those three words that had been nagging at the back of my subconscious for the last year of our acquaintance. He’d said them back, and it was only then that I realized how much I’d needed to hear and say them.

Still, I saw him off on that cloudy morning with dry eyes and homemade eggs Benedict-- that is to say, that I fed him and double-checked to make sure that he had not misplaced anything important. The apartment that he’d been living in was stripped bare, and all of his worldly goods were in the trailer of the U-haul which would take him to his new home. I was plugging his phone into the car charger in the front console when his arms wrapped around me from behind, and turned me to face him. 

Nick has always been a good-looking guy, in that sort of rugged, All-American way, with broad shoulders and a great smile, and I’d learned at some point in our long acquaintance that he gave the best hugs-- the type that lifts you slightly off your feet and makes you feel like some type of dainty damsel even when you’re six feet tall in heeled boots. It’s no different now, and maybe I hung on for a moment too long, myself. He’s not much of a cologne guy, but his sweatshirt smells like laundry soap and I’m pretty sure he’d used my shampoo that morning again, because his hair’s super soft-- and the flowery scent is not nearly as girly on him as it is on me. 

“Call me when you get there.” I hope to Hell, of course, that the fact that my voice is muffled against his neck disguises the unsteadiness.

“I’ll call you every day.”

I wouldn’t hold him to it, of course, but I didn’t say anything to that effect, and I watched as he drove off, and then headed off to the gym for a punishing three-mile run on the treadmill followed by a full hour of kickboxing to a playlist of angry girl rock, and if I cried in the shower afterwards, no one needed to know that.

He did call that night, though. And the night after. And the night after that. And soon, it had become a routine, and maybe I should have given him more credit the whole time. Before I knew it, two months had passed, and he flew down for a long holiday weekend, and after we’d christened three separate rooms in my apartment, we got caught up in person. I’d heard so much about his new place and the people he’d met at his new school that I probably could’ve picked his favourite and least favourite professors out of a crowd. 

This became a thing, and so for two years, we did the long distance thing. He heard about the awful day when the stand mixer went rogue and how I was still picking bits of cake batter out of my hair two hours later. I heard so much about one particularly persnickety city inspector on a project he worked on that I learned to hate the guy as much as Nick did. Our reunions were sporadic, rapturous and never long enough, though half the time we eschewed actual dates in favour of staying in and just being ourselves together-- watching movies, working out, buying groceries and cooking meals, falling asleep so close together that it was hard to tell where one of us ended and the other one began. 

We spent that first Thanksgiving at my place-- Friendsgiving, really, cooking a huge meal in a too-small kitchen, inviting all of our old friends. I shooed Nick and James out of my kitchen and chatted with Raye as she snapped a bowl of green beans for me and sounds of the football game filtered in through the living room. She was a ball of nerves-- James would be meeting her very formidable, very rich, very conservative father when he went over to her home for Christmas. Said father would not be amused to find his only daughter not only dating, but actually fully living in sin with a mouthy city boy-- when Nick had moved out, James and Raye had gotten an apartment together. Amy and Zach had arrived a bit later, because he’d had to pick her up from the hospital where her shift had run over. Kevin and Mina, on the other hand, were at her parents’ house out of state. She’d texted me all types of sad face emojis about how the cranberry sauce had come out of a can and the mashed potatoes had come out of a box, but I had no sympathy. She had parents who cooked for her for Thanksgiving, didn’t she? Besides, if she really cared about food over time spent with them and Kevin, she would have told them that she had Ebola and came over to my place instead.

At any rate, against all the odds, we somehow managed to make it work, and two years, three months and six days after that first time that I told him I loved him, he was on his way down to visit again. I’d gone up to see him get his Master’s degree two months ago and he’d taken me out around the town to celebrate with his friends and classmates. Some of them had met me before, but to those who hadn’t, he introduced me as his girlfriend, and from the easy acceptance, I knew that everyone present had some idea of our history. It had been a wonderful weekend, but I was a bit nervous about seeing him again today. Something had come up, very recently, and I wasn’t sure how he would take it.

At first, I had thought nothing of the symptoms. Fatigue and a bit of nausea doesn’t tend to alarm anyone right off the get-go. Everyone knows restaurant hours are brutal, and as an apprentice chef, any task, no matter how mundane or unpleasant, might get assigned to me on any given day. Certainly, I might get to spend one day arranging delicate edible flowers and a compote of ripe berries around and on top of fancy panna cottas, but the very next, I might be doing nothing but washing dishes and running out garbage. The kitchen I work in specializes in a rotating seasonal menu, and at the time, calamari was in season. Certainly it is delicious deep-fried with casino butter and lemon wedges, sprinkled with sea salt and cracked black pepper, but it’s definitely not as appealing raw, slimy and fishy-smelling. It’s enough to make anyone lose their appetite doing prep early in the morning. But then I was late. And not to work, if you know what I mean. One week stretched into two, then three. The nausea didn’t go away, even when my day consisted of making large quantities of bourbon vanilla buttercream frosting for strawberry white chocolate cakes. It was a week ago that I picked up two different pregnancy tests from Walgreen’s. Both results had come back to tell me what I kind of already knew, deep down, and I was honestly terrified down to the bone.

I had always wanted to have that maybe-stereotypical home and family someday-- the cute house with gingerbread trim and the white picket fence and the garden full of old-fashioned flowers, a husband who loved me and our children and went to baseball games and dance recitals with equal enthusiasm. I wanted to be able to be the mom who baked cupcakes for the bake sale and cookies for the big jar on the kitchen counter, and volunteered to chaperone field trips to the science museum. That had been my own mother, from those distant reaches of old memories, and though I’d lost her, I knew that it was in me to keep her legacy alive. 

But I had not intended to do so when I had just started my career, unmarried and still living in a tiny college-campus apartment, with a boyfriend who lives two states away, who might not even want kids. God! That was a discussion we’d never even had. 

The door swings open, though, before I could think about it any more. Nick has a key to my place, of course, as I do to his. Sometimes he calls, but sometimes he just arrives, like today, a little ahead of schedule. I’m caught up in one of those long, tight hugs, a warm and familiar hand cupping the back of my neck, and maybe he feels a hint of desperation in my kiss. When he pulls back, his eyes are warm, but full of concern. “Everything okay, Freckles?”

“Ugh. Can you not call me that? We’ve talked about that.” Oh, Gods... A baby with his brown hair and my green eyes. His dimples and my freckles. I can almost picture a little girl, toddling on chubby legs, riding on his shoulders, picking dandelions in the yard and blowing the fluff away in the wind. I’d teach her to bake chocolate chip cookies and read her stories where the princess saved herself and buy her pretty dresses for picture day and sturdy jeans for playing outside in. I loved her already, but she wasn’t supposed to even exist. 

“Habit. And you scrunch your nose up when you’re mad, and I shouldn’t like it, but I do.” Nick presses another, shorter kiss to my mouth, then tips up my face. “But you seem a bit out of sorts. What’s wrong?”

“How could you tell if I’m out of sorts or not when you literally just walked in two minutes ago?” It’s an evasion, and I’m sure he can and will spot the bullshit and call me out on it. 

“Because I’ve known you since we were kids, and you don’t have to say or do anything for me to know when you’re out of sorts.” Nick pulls me gently over to the love seat, and sits me down, keeping one of my hands in his as though he expects me to bolt at any moment. “Everything’s okay, right? You didn’t have anything particularly horrible at work this week that I recall from our conversations.”

No, this week hadn’t been bad. Breaking down chickens is fairly mindless work once you get the hang of it. And the resulting bone broth is wonderful for someone who finds it difficult to keep food down some days. Nick deserves the truth, of course, and maybe the ripping-off-the-bandaid approach is best. I shut my eyes to his all-too-perceptive, all-too-loving gaze, and set my teeth.

“I’m pregnant.”

His hand tightens on mine and his next inhaled breath is sharp, but I plow on. “I know it’s not expected, and I know we were careful, but… it is what it is. You don’t have to worry, though. I’m not some delicate little miss who’s afraid of raising a child. The executive chef at work loves me, as he should, and I’m sure they’ll work with me when the time comes for maternity leave. And in this day and age, it’s not a big deal to be a single mom. I’m keeping this baby and she’s going to get the best life that I can give her, growing up.” I don’t know why I was so certain I was having a little girl. But she already existed, to me, and at that moment in time, she was probably only the size of my pinkie nail. “She will never doubt, for a moment, that she’s loved.”

“Of course not.” Nick finally speaks, and his voice is an awed, slightly choked-up whisper. I sense him moving, then one big, warm hand rests on my still-flat stomach, followed by the press of his lips. “We’re having a baby. Wow. Okay, so I guess I should get on with what I’d already planned to do, even though I’d planned for this to be a lot more romantic.” Belatedly, I realize that not only has he moved, but he is down on his knees in front of me, one hand on my stomach, the other one digging into a pocket, and then he pulls out a small black velvet box, flicks open the catch.

I’m not much of a jewelry type of girl-- I wear the same earrings, every single day, but working in a kitchen greatly limits the practicality of going around with bracelets and rings and do-dabs. Still, stereotypical though it might be, I’d always wanted that classic diamond solitaire engagement ring from my husband-to-be, and now, when it’s staring me in the face-- princess-cut and set in platinum, I find myself speechless. 

“Lita Oakley, love of my life, will you marry me?”

Of course he doesn’t mince words. In a lot of ways, I guess we’re past that point. But I draw my hand back a moment before he can slide that ring on. 

“I don’t want you to propose to me because I’m pregnant and you feel obligated. You’d end up regretting it, and that would kill me.” We didn’t live together now, but if we did someday, and then it all went south, and I had to walk into an empty house bereft of his presence and his things and even the way he’d always kick his shoes off any which way by the door rather than make sure they’re put up where no one can trip over them, I knew it would break me in a way that hadn’t been possible since my parents’ deaths.

Nick rolls his eyes, though, and huffs out a breath before digging deeper into that little velvet box, all the way underneath the white satin. He takes out a crinkled paper receipt, and unfolds it, and drops it on my lap. “You are so stubborn. Do you know that? Take a look at that receipt, will you? Just… humour me.”

I do. It’s from some jeweler in his state, and the price of the ring of course makes me wince a little. It’s definitely not cheap. But then I read it a little closer, and see the time stamp on the top. It was purchased at 4:26 PM on the sixth of December, two whole years ago. Perhaps six months after he’d moved away.

“I got it as soon as I could afford it, and I’d been saving up for a while. Probably not very well-thought-out of me, when everything was so up in the air. But I’d always known that we’d be here together, someday, and I’d be asking you to marry me. Anyway, it’s got nothing to do with the fact that you’re pregnant and everything to do with the fact that I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember, and there’s no one else in the world for me, and it’s too late to return this ring, anyway.” He pulls it out of the box, and I see something shining, trailing from it. “I know you can’t really wear rings, working in a kitchen. So I also got a necklace that you can wear this on, if you’ll just say yes. Please say yes.”

“How are we going to do this?” I blurt out, as that other infamous symptom of pregnancy-- emotional hormonal tears-- makes its appearance. I blink and try to sniffle them away, but Nick simply puts the ring on my finger, silvery necklace dangling from it, and gets up to his feet, pulls me gently to mine. “You live so freaking far away.”

“Not anymore I don’t.” He tugs me close, and kisses me again. “My lease is up in a month. I figure I can get another U-haul, and con the guys into helping out. I’m pretty sure that the people can put a good word in for me to get hired in somewhere local-- dumb jock notwithstanding, I worked my ass off these last few years and have the credentials and grades to prove it. Since my lease is up in a month anyway, might as well look for a new place to live. Some place that can be baby-proofed, and definitely not a top floor apartment with a janky elevator like here. Can’t have my pregnant fiancee struggling up five flights of stairs every day.”

He makes it seem so simple, really, as he pulls me in for what promised to be an extended cuddle session. 

But maybe-- maybe it would be. 

[talix18]

November 22

Today I learned what a Japanese tuxedo is (in terms of tattoos) and that David Lee Roth at 65 has more energy in one hour than I’ve had in my entire life put together. I started listening to his appearance on Marc Maron’s WTF? and spent most of that time laughing or with my jaw hanging open. I lost track of Diamond Dave after his stint as an EMT. Now he’s an entrepreneur with a line of skin products formulated for tattooed skin. Gods bless.

Listening to Dave describe his formal music education made me wonder if that’s not what I ought to go back to school for. Music is the thing I love the most but have little actual education in. I took a beginning theory class in college and some sort of classical music appreciation course in grad school; I even played viola for two years in junior high. I guess by the time I got to college I’d ruled music out as a thing one could start studying. One of my high school friends had been playing cello for her entire life and I remember her missing various activities because she was practicing. She’s now making a living with her cello and I guess her example made me assume it was already too late.

Katelyn and I were talking about going back to school the other night. She’s learning young just how hard it is to make new friends once you’re out of school and I think she’d enjoy it, but we’re both looking at our wallets wondering how to pay for it.

School is one of my happy places. I loved learning, I loved feeling my brain work, I hated studying for exams but loved the feeling of understanding the material. I loved explaining to the class what the teacher meant when they couldn’t parse it and I loved making outline after outline of my study notes until I’d whittled the course down to bullet points. I love having conversations with people who are smarter than I am.

I briefly considered pursuing a Certificate of Higher Learning from Oxford because how cool would it be to be able to say I’m an Oxford alum? The majority of classes can be attended virtually, which is where I admit that I don’t just want to be taking classes by myself. I have a wealth of Great Courses available anytime I want to go ahead and start taking them. I want to Go To School. I want to meet smart people. I want to be surrounded by that energy and excitement again.

Now I’m looking up Eddie Van Halen and learning that he’s been in radiation therapy for his cancer for five years and was just in the hospital after a bad reaction to the drugs. Getting older, as my Gram used to say, ain’t for sissies. Love died for me when Eddie and Val got divorced but I’m glad they’re still friends and I’m thrilled he’s been sober for eleven years. I’m not sure I would have survived a rock and roll lifestyle, but then again, I’d rarely be driving.

(Speaking of the brothers Van Halen, how did I never know their mom was Indonesian? Now I understand why Alex’s eyes have looked vaguely Asian to me for all these years. Apparently Valerie has a cooking show and shared Mama VH’s recipe for something that grabbed Mom’s fancy so I can look forward to that!) (Don’t tell her that I’m a little meh on ham for Thanksgiving. She’s finally cooking Brussels sprouts a new way and I am calling that a win.)

(Mom found a recipe YEARS ago that uses Guinness and had faithfully made her “Relapse Brussels sprouts” every year since. They are fine, but they are mushy, and having seen the way, truth, and light of fresh Brussels sprouts roasted with salt and olive oil, I don’t have the heart to tell her that the Relapse BS just aren’t my favorite.)

This is my fourth day in a row of feeling pretty good, and that’s on less sleep than I normally get. I really hope this is because the medication is working. It’s hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other when you feel like you’re doing it in three feet of water. But I’ve been productive at work and at home and actually considered taking on a work training challenge today. I even started my Christmas shopping! (I hate much of what Jeff Bezos stands for, but goddamn if Amazon doesn’t alleviate most of the Christmas crazy.)

The increased meds are not helping the words come out! I have rare free time in front of a keyboard and nothing to say? Maybe that *is* a sign of increased mental health.

December is flat out insane in my family. Thank goodness my aunt moved away with her 12/4 birthday! There were birthday dinners with Mom (12/2), my aunt, me (12/20), and my dad (12/26). My brother’s birthday is also on the 20th and he’s continued the tradition in the latest generation – my niece will be five on 12/1. Her Aunt Lindsay has decided it’s time we start taking her out for birthday dinners. Basically, the fulcrum of the year tips at Thanksgiving and is just a steep slide into New Year’s. (Which I actually have plans for!)

Christmas shopping is so anxiety-laden for me that I have bad dreams about it all year long. (It’s always the same: December 23rd, I’ve purchased nothing, and the only place open in Walgreen’s.) I can’t enjoy the holiday season until I’m relatively sure what everyone’s getting and honestly, I don’t need any more stuff. Just being together and enjoying yummy food is enough for me. The holidays also mean the Hebert Christmas punch tradition from which I’ve been excluded for this will be the 24th time (I can drink anything I want! I choose not to!). My family are all wine and spirit drinkers and most of the time I look around it, but the holidays really make me miss that fuzzy festive feeling.

So how does one achieve that without using? I need to get back on a meditation routine and I need to make upside-down yoga part of my weekly life. Upside-down yoga always made me a little giddy and we rarely invert in the class I take now. I also need to try on my New Year’s Dress and assess how vigilant I have to be between now and then to make it work. I was having some success with an intermediate fasting routine where I’d restrict my calories for two (non-consecutive) days per week. The beauty of that schedule is that I can maintain it through the holidays. I should have just started this week after the colonoscopy.

But I also had a pretty severe mood crash last year and fasting is not for the unstable. Yes, I’m an emotional eater but you know, I’d rather eat my feelings than wish I could opt out of life. I know how to lose weight; necromancy is above my spell level.

Did I ever mention I was a witch and practiced in a coven for a decade? I’ve just gotten to the 20K word mark and it’s likely I’ll start repeating myself any time now. The coven was made of some amazing people but the actual business of witching just felt too much like work. I went in looking for a spiritual experience and what I got was a delightful social experience. That required a lot of time and 40-mile drives and the stagnation of my 12-Step recovery in that decade was not a coincidence.

Yesterday I got to whip out one of my favorite recovery slogans on a friend: “Religion is for people trying to stay out of hell. Spirituality is for people who’ve already been there.” It doesn’t hold up once you consider religions that don’t have conceptions of hell, but it’s catchy.

(The NaNoWriMo website helpfully breaks down how many words one has to produce per day to get to 50K by next Sunday and it is a little overwhelming. I only need 2235 more today to stay on target! [I am not staying on target.])

Somebody give me a topic! (Give me a beat!) Oh! Yesterday I emptied out one of my spare room dressers, which is something that’s been on my project list for, oh, a long time. All I have to do is patch the hole and that room will be ready to paint, which will let me do the floors in that room and the front. With that done I’ll have my closet annex and yoga station all set up and I will finally live in my entire house. And it should inspire me to do the last three rooms.

I’m excited to set up these last two rooms as functional spaces. I can’t tell you what’s taken me so long to surrender to the idea that I need a room-sized closet extension but look…I have to grab joy wherever I can find it. Waiting for the big stuff to fall into place just takes too long and this bizarre timeline provides plenty of reasons to despair. I don’t understand how people can spend eight hours a day in cubes that aren’t decorated and I am not going to limit myself to one of my life’s compulsions if I have room to store it all. (Vanessa is in Tennessee shouting “You’ll never have room for another person in your house that way!” and I’m shouting back “You and your person bought a new house!”)

I do love my house, though, and getting me out of it is going to take some extraordinary conditions. With any luck I’ll meet a life partner who also loves their house and we can commute and share. I still won’t have enough wall space to hang everything I want to; perhaps a rotating gallery space is required. Says the girl who can’t manage to swap the screens out for storm windows and vice versa every year.

[ladywithoutababy]

Some Things I Bought to Prepare for IVF (and also, how my day was today)

I’ve been collecting blogs, social media accounts, and podcasts that talk about IVF in a way that is encouraging and not depressing (there aren’t many - big surprise!!) and one of my favorites is this Build a Baby Instagram account that’s run by a friend of a friend. I like it because it’s a totally contained (and pretty concise) start-to-finish success story that documents every single step of the process, in a way that actually prepares you for what to expect and doesn’t gloss over the messy details (or messy feelings).

I also like it because she includes lots of product recommendations! Here’s some things I bought to prepare for what will surely be the longest and most uncomfortable month of my life (or at least the first in a series of many long and uncomfortable months):

An IVF coloring book and some nice colored pencils that you don’t have to resharpen, because I am starting to understand what it will be like to be sober, hormonal, and alternately in either physical or emotional pain throughout this process and I am allowed to COLOR sometimes if I FEEL LIKE IT.

A book about infertility that was actually written by someone who had infertility, and after a quick flip through the pages seems like exactly the kind of pissed off, no-bullshit take I’m looking for. I think I will read this over the holidays. You know, for a nice stress-free break from the raging emotions of a week spent out of town with family. Yeah. That’ll be good.

A cute little piglet to live in my freezer and reduce the pain during and after the many injections I will be giving myself and/or receiving. Apparently one of the IVF injections a) is made from the urine of post-menopausal women, maybe nuns, accounts differ on that, and b) stings and is horribly painful. The piglet might help slightly!

A new heating pad, because my period is suddenly debilitatingly painful when it shows up these days, and god dammit I’ve earned an upgrade from my generic Walgreens heating pad to Wirecutter’s top choice.

So yeah, I feel prepared. I guess it also might be worth mentioning that as part of my accepting-that-IVF-is-coming tour, I had an appointment with my Ob/Gyn this morning. I haven’t seen her since she first recommended I pursue fertility treatment, almost a year ago. She’s the best doctor ever, and when she walked in she asked me how everything is going given where we left things off the last time I came in. I immediately started crying (which is becoming My Brand, so maybe I should just embrace it) and told her how this year has gone. I also told her some weird things that have been happening recently which made me worried that maybe I have endometriosis, including:

those pesky cramps, which used to be minor for me and now require laying down for 2 hours with a heating pad before I can move

my period used to be 5 days long and now is 4 days long

last week I had exactly 3 days of light bleeding, exactly when implantation bleeding would normally occur if you’re pregnant, but then I got my period, so clearly not pregnant

She's pretty sure I don’t have endometriosis (interestingly, she thinks those first two changes are related to some relatively, uh, disruptive life changes I’ve had this year). But more importantly, she’s pretty sure I was pregnant last week. And when I thought about it, I realized that I don’t think this is the first time this has happened. So now our theory is that I actually have probably gotten “a little pregnant”, maybe more than once, in the last 3 years. She said there’s all kinds of things that can go wrong at the implantation step and cause a super early miscarriage, usually related to genetic problems. I googled this, and holy shit here’s an article that claims that 80% of pregnancies are lost in the first trimester??? Which I guess tracks, because she said that 30-50% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage (which certainly sounds right given all the miscarriages I’ve heard about in the past couple of years), and that’s just pregnancies that get far enough along for people to acknowledge. Anyway, that article also includes a bunch of genetic problems, one of which I assume I have.

It’s reassuring in a way because I feel like this validates what I’ve been saying for the past three years, which is that THE PROBLEM ISN’T THAT I’M JUST BAD AT TIMING SEX (and hey, fuck you to everyone who implied that was the problem despite my extremely valiant efforts). But also, it’s not great to have the (unconfirmed, of course, because none of this is ever confirmed!!!) knowledge that there’s probably something wrong. And if there’s something wrong, yeah, IVF might be able to help, but what if it doesn’t?

And that’s how my day was today.

[lafiametta]

(for Day 4 of the 12 Days of Carnivale: “an unexpected gift”)

It was just a silly office Secret Santa. It wasn’t supposed to be that big a deal.

The rules were always the same every year: nothing inappropriate, nothing dangerous, and there was a price limit – nothing over twenty dollars. (Although this year, thanks to Irving in HR, there were a number of added restrictions in line with their new anti-discrimination and food-borne allergy policies.)

Edward didn’t mind the whole thing that much, but that might just have been because for the last two years he had gotten Fitzjames and felt pretty safe with getting him coffee table books of travel photography. (He always pitied whoever ended up with Helpman; the guy was a cipher who nobody really knew at all. Last year, his Secret Santa had clearly just given up and gone with a twenty-dollar Walgreens gift card.)

All in all, Edward wasn’t particularly worried about it. Until he saw the name of the person he had drawn.

Tom Jopson.

It wasn’t that being Tom’s Secret Santa was a problem. Although it kind of was a problem. He was unarguably the cutest guy in the office and Edward had certainly noticed him. Well, more than noticed, if he was being honest. And there were those days when he wore a particular pair of gray slim-cut trousers, and if Edward happened to linger a little longer around Crozier’s office on those days, maybe just to appreciate those trousers from a slightly closer angle, whose business was it, really?

And it wasn’t just that Tom was cute – although he really was, and god, those light blue eyes were killer – but he seemed really nice too, and not in that fake corporate way where you could tell the person only saw you as an opportunity to network. On his desk, he actually kept pictures of his family, what looked like his mom and his brother, all of them looking relaxed and happy to be in each other’s presence, which was more than Edward could necessarily say about pictures of his family. He worked hard, already in the office when Edward got in and still busy at his desk when Edward left. (Not that Crozier actually kept those kind of hours, but maybe the rules were different for his executive assistant.) They had talked a couple of times, not about anything important, mostly just weekend plans and whatever new TV shows they were into. One time, Edward caught a glimpse of the Spotify playlist open on his computer and they got a borderline flirtatious debate over disco versus prog rock, leading Edward to have to make a spirited defense of Rush over the merits of Donna Summer. He was seconds away from offering to continue their argument over drinks after work when Crozier yelled out for Tom from inside his office. And that was that – Tom flashed him a sympathetic grin and Edward just went back to his desk, thinking about what might have happened had his timing just been a little bit better.

So, yeah, a Secret Santa gift. No pressure.

It had to be something good, of course. Something thoughtful, charming, displaying just the right amount of interest. And it couldn’t cost more than twenty dollars.

It took him a while to finally figure it out, and when he did, he felt pretty good about what he had come up with, although there was always the chance it could go horribly wrong. You never really knew with the office Secret Santa.

The exchange always took place on the Friday before the Christmas holiday, and over the course of the day everyone would secretly leave their gifts on the table in the conference room – that way it stayed anonymous – and then at 3 before they all headed out, there would be a little party where they would go around and each open up the gift with their own name attached.

So there they all were, standing around the conference room as they attempted to mix casually, holding plastic cups of sparkling cider and small plates filled with overly-dry holiday cookies. Someone – Irving, no doubt – had attempted to decorate, with a single strand of white streamers, probably because it was the most inoffensively non-denominational color he could find. Edward mingled as best he could, making small talk with some of the other project managers like Hodgson and Fairholme, even though occasionally he would look around and try to catch a glimpse of Tom.

It felt like forever, but they finally got to the Secret Santa exchange, with Irving picking up gifts at random and handing them out to their intended recipient. Fitzjames, of course, ended up with another book of travel photography (this one on the historic architecture of Brazil) and someone had actually gone to the real trouble of making Blanky a hand-knit winter hat. Hilariously (or maybe it was just hilarious to Edward), when Irving opened up his own gift, it turned out to be a plain white mug with the words “WORLD’S BEST HR MANAGER” written across the side in black capital letters.

Eventually, there were only two gifts left, one of which was Edward’s gift for Tom, which Irving then picked up and handed over to him. For a moment, Edward just watched, breath held tight in his chest, wondering if he had actually chosen the right thing or if it had all just been a terrible idea and Tom would spend the rest of the holiday wondering what weirdo in the office had ended up with his name.

Tom slowly pulled back the wrapping paper, revealing the flat square shape to be a vinyl record, a very specific one, in fact: Donna Summer’s Bad Girls, which Edward had bought at a downtown music shop in nearly mint condition. He had scrounged around and made some calls, finally finding the best copy he could get for under twenty dollars, and now he was hoping that it hadn’t all been for nothing. Tom would get the reference, right? And he would know that Edward remembered their conversation, that he had thought about it enough – and thought about Tom enough – to get him this special and personalized gift?

Edward didn’t have much time to get an answer, because just then Irving walked over and handed him his gift – the last in the pile, he realized – and suddenly it became clear that everyone in the conference room was looking at him, because he was last and they all wanted him to open his Secret Santa gift so they could be done and go home. The present in his hands was small and rectangular, and fairly lightweight, and as he tore open the paper, he was confused for a second, because he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. 

The outside was a plain wooden frame, and behind the glass was a concert ticket, torn at the corner, yellowing slightly with age. 

SUNSHINE PROMOTIONS PRESENTS RUSH, it read. HARA ARENA. DAYTON, OHIO. AUGUST 31, 1979.

As he read the words, Edward could feel the smile widening across his face. He glanced up, and there across the room was Tom, those blue eyes trained on him, with a grin bright enough to match his own. 

[abtc]

Walgreens Holiday Hours: Christmas Eve And New Year's Day Opening Times

Walgreens Holiday Hours: Christmas Eve And New Year’s Day Opening Times

Walgreens is an American pharmaceutical company that operates the second-largest pharmacy store in the United States of American. Walgreens is focused on health fitness products, health information, filling prescriptions and other functions. Walgreens was founded in Chicago in the early 1900s and it has established itself as one of the top companies in the United States of America. Walgreens has…

[31women]

363 days until Christmas

Walgreens has their Valentine’s Day products out. When I walked in to buy something Christmas-themed, I laughed at the sight of the pink stuffed-animals and heart-shaped boxes lining the top shelves, waiting for their turn. “How ridiculous,” I thought, “We’re not even done taking down our Christmas trees yet!”

But then we realized something; Walgreens wouldn’t have their Valentine’s Day decorations out yet if people weren’t going to buy them. Tish Harrison Warren, author of “Liturgy of the Ordinary” explains that “our culture tends to rush from celebration to celebration—from a month of Halloween, to two months of Christmas to the Super Bowl, Cinco De Mayo, and on and on.”

We aren’t a culture that accepts waiting. But in truth, waiting is a spiritual practice.

Waiting reminds us of two important truths:

1) Time is not our own: I don’t know about you, but when I am stressed or upset, my main complaint is time. I go to bed angrily, wishing that I just had more time for everything—studying, sleeping, talking, exercising, etc. We live in a world that tells us that time is something we own and control. I need to be productive, multi-tasking, focused, and just generally going 24/7, and when something comes along and messes up my color-coded schedule for the day, it makes me MAD. Traffic jams, flat tires, slow food-service, lost keys, forgotten cellphone—these are the nightmares that drive me insane. Yet what are these things but small inconveniences that force me to wait? In “Receiving the Day,” Dorthy Bass terms our perception of time a false theology; “we come to believe that we, not God, are the masters of time. We come to believe that our worth must be proved by the way we spend our hours, and that our ultimate safety depends on our own good management,” she says. Waiting makes us the opposite; we become losers of control rather than masters of time, insecure people rather than gods of safety, and wasters of our moments rather than good managers.  

Traffic jams, flat tires, slow food-service, lost keys, forgotten cellphone—these are the nightmares that drive me insane. Yet what are these things but small inconveniences that force me to wait?

We are not the masters of time, and productivity eventually drains us. Our busy way of life is not sustainable, and even though we center our lives around “go,” we still spend 5 years of our lives in waiting on average. The truth is that time is not our enemy, nor is it a commodity for us to consume and control. In “The Screwtape Letters,” C.S. Lewis explains that “the Present is the point at which time touches eternity” because it is the only time that is reality. Therefore, we should focus on “obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.” What he means (at least from my perspective) is that the only point it time in which we live, and have choices to make, is the present. The time that we can experience God is now. The time we love others is now. Christianity is not a religion of theories, philosophy, and vague ideas about things that have happened or will someday happen. Christianity is first and foremost a faith that is acted out in the present. What will we do to faithfully God is this exact moment of time, which is the only point of time that I can exist as a human. 

Christianity is first and foremost a faith that is acted out in the present.

2) We are a people in waiting: Since Genesis, the people of Israel (and the whole world for that matter) were in waiting for the Messiah. The Old Testament is one continuous story of waiting for the promised savior-king-redeemer. The gospels tell of the coming of that Messiah—Jesus Christ, Emmanuel. The rest of the New Testament is one continuous story of... waiting for the promised Messiah! 

In Romans 8, Paul describes the longing we all feel for a different world—one ruled by God and free from sin. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God ... For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies ... we wait for it with patience.” 

According to Warren (Liturgy of the Ordinary), “Christian time reminds us that we are the people on the way. It allows us to live in the present as an alternative people, patiently waiting for what is to come, but never giving up on our telos [or ultimate aim]. We are never quite comfortable. We seek justice, practice mercy, and herald the kingdom come.”  

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” 

Something inside tells us that where we are now—this life on this earth—is not our end. C.S. Lewis once said in “Mere Christianity,” “if I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” There is a dissatisfied longing that reminds us that there is something greater, something we are in waiting for. 

And what exactly are we waiting for? The apostle John had a vision in Romans 22; “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And he was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold I am making all things new...’” 

“Behold I am making all things new...” 

The times of waiting between Christmas and Easter are just as “spiritual” as the holidays themselves. Warren reminds us that “In the liturgical year [the Church calendar] there is never a celebration without preparation. First we wait, we mourn, we ache, we repent. We aren’t ready to celebrate until we acknowledge, over time through ritual and worship, that we and this world are not yet right and whole. Before Easter, we have lent. Before Christmas, we have advent. We fast, then we feast.” 

Fast, then feast. We are a people who wait. There is something more coming our way. 

-31Women (Beth) 

[dragonsplz]

tw/cw again i think?

maybe this thing will hide it a little bit? i dunno, if someone actually does stumble upon this shit let me know if i can make it so you have to actively click something to be able to see the content like idk discord spoilers? anyways a couple days i took a bar and a half of xanax plus 2x my regular dose (i have only abused my xanax once in the past because generally i was just pretty worried about running out and not having any any when i needed them but the xans pretty much stopped working so my psychiatrist put me on klonopin but ironically i’ve been too anxious to go to the walgreens to get them) anyways yeah massive amount of xanax for little me and according to my housemates i lost like three days of time and did some wack ass shit and i remember none of it but anyways i have finally returned to a state of consciousness slightly above the level of my snails’ and I Feel Good But In A Bad Way. i feel very,,,,, out of control and part of me is like you have So Much Access you really could just drop a bar every now and again and it’s like I'm craving it like i Understand vaguely what it’s probably like to have an addiction and i know if i am not careful i will have one but i don’t really care about the state of my body anymore i don’t think. at least not for now. i stopped cutting awhile ago because i moved and now there’s not really anywhere i’d be able to without somebody noticing but i also gave myself a concussion and i don’t even think i thought about doing it before i did it but anyways i don’t know if what i’m craving is some high i can’t remember or if it’s the not remembering things. i don’t like really have any concept of time so i can’t tell how long it’s been but i think i’ve generally been stoned at least once a day. sometimes i feel bad and swear it off but then like two hours later I'm on the back porch with a preroll. i think maybe thats addiction, too, but weed won’t kill me so i don’t really think about that much. anyways today after i regained consciousness (i was on the kitchen floor and was like in and out of it for two or three hours) i spent several hours just wandering back and forth from the big recliner in the living room and the kitchen because my housemates said they hadn’t been able  to get me to eat for the past couple days but everything just kinda sounded disgusting. i think i managed to get down a slice and a half of three-day-old pizza. honestly i feel really bad because my grandmother sent me home after thanksgiving (dw, cover tests before and quarantine after) with the homemade rolls i really love and i think i’ve eaten maybe one and I'm honestly scared to look at them because they’ve probably gone bad by now and i just wasted food my siblings could have been eating. i didn’t even realize how much i still thought like that until i moved out. like obviously even being away i feel like that. and i think i’ve been hallucinating/having delusions but I'm scared if i tell my psychiatrist she’ll call my grandmother and tell her (and i think she already called her when i told her i was having suicidal ideations again) and/or call the authorities and have me hospitalized. so like thats scary and all and i can’t tell if maybe i’ve developed Something New or if it’s just some new fresh hell of a mixture of my depression/anxiety/ptsd and of course i want it to stop but man i am so afraid of going back into the hospital I'm already kind of a disordered eater and last time i was in the hospital i lost 10 lbs in 9 days and I Took Note Of That. also they wouldn’t let me have my binder but the girls are allowed to have bras and they misgendered me and deadnamed me but they let me have a room alone but i can’t remember if the rumor about depression during the holidays is true and i really don’t think i can afford to be roomed in a girls’ room with another actual girl-identifying person like i really think that dysphoria would kill me like i really think i would pull a kyler and man i miss kyler so bad man i was never allowed to grieve his death like my grandmother really forced me to go back to school the weekend after i found out he killed him. idk sometimes i think his suicide affected me worse than royce’s and royce lived in my dorm. i had classes with royce. but maybe it’s because i can’t really remember much from freshman year anyways. also damn this is long and i think i maybe had a point when i started writing this but it is long gone by now. i keep getting distracted by everything but when i started writing that chapbook like nothing disturbed me i got up once to make Another cup of coffee but otherwise i just sat in that recliner typing. i wrote 25 entire pages between the time that i ate the pizza and idk sometime before now but there were really no milestones between eating the pizza and now and i actually really have no concept of time so i don’t actually know how long that was but it felt like no time and forever all at once and i feel like that a lot but it might just be the weed. i think i used to use weed as a coping mechanism but now i feel that there’s no point. i said to my housemates today that i feel like if albert camus had a character that was an existential father of three with a really dark sense of humor and i feel like a good dad as this character but also i really can’t stand children like a friend of a friend asked me to babysit for her and it’s not like i didn’t have empathy like i did an interview with her at the beginning of covid when she was pregnant and i thought my senior thesis was going to be on covid and i was so excited doing the interviews like man do i have anthropology brain but never transcribed them so it’s a good thing i withdrew from the semester because my peers have all recently had their thesis deadlines and i definitely would not have met them. oh but anyways I'm sorry everything is distracting me but also what am i say I'm really just throwing this into the void of the universe via the internet so nobody is actually trying to follow this anyways it wasn’t like i didn’t have empathy for her but i knew she had other options and her child upset and disgusted and drained me of all of my energy so i said no but i don't think that makes me a horrible person. oh but anyways a tangent on a tangent i guess because i think i started this tangent intending to end the other tangent where i say i think it’s just muscle memory now and not a coping mechanism but my housemates still thinks it helps so sometimes they’ll bring me one of my prerolls which is nice and all but i can't help but think how lost they would be if i was having a really hard time and they tried to give me my vape or something but i told them i was quitting? like dw it’s not like toxic the way this is happening i promise but i don’t actually know how to phrase it in a way that doesn’t sound Like That. anyways i hope nobody finds this but if somebody does please know that while i am vaguely concerned, i am safe. at least for now.