#wish i could have a job that enriches my brain instead

[mosquitinho]

blasting off my brain cells for 9 consecutive hours everyday to get R$2.300,00 a month

[slasherholic]

(psst... did someone say Mikey whump? guys I think someone said Mikey whump…) 

Frisky February Prompt: Electricity~ (yes it’s 15 days too early shush)  @slashthedice

synopsis: Michael gets served up some nasty, nasty revenge by someone who really, really has it out for him.

warnings: torture in a medical setting, sexual assault, mikey has a bad time ok

foreword: the opinions expressed here by the POV character about certain sensitive topics in no way reflect my own beliefs <3

No Faith in Medicine | Michael Myers x Reader | NSFW

The hospital corridor is long and grey and stretches onward toward a single bolted door, labeled by the rectangular sign hanging above it as Therapy Theater No. 5.

This deep within the bowels of the sanitarium, below the patient wards and the enrichment centers and the checkered courtyard, there is hardly any of the familiar clamour; so as you stride closer to the door the clack of your bootheels over the beige linoleum carries like thunder.

Smith’s Grove was never the sort of place you had pictured yourself ending up during all those sleepless nights studying for your Ph.D, and truthfully, you can’t stand it here. The deliberate blandness of the hospital, with its color palettes limited to inoffensive whites and blues and greys—meticulously designed so as not to provoke its residents—wears on you more than anything else.

You feel like you’re suffocating here; but it doesn’t matter.

This job was never about you to begin with. It was never about some commendable interest in the healing of troubled minds, either; oh-no. There are two-hundred-and-forty-nine permanent patients living inside these sound-proof walls, and while it may not be a very doctorly thing to admit, you don’t give a rat’s ass about two-hundred-and-forty-eight of them.

...and as for that last “troubled mind,” well…

The breezy summer afternoon that Michael Myers was sentenced to life imprisonment exists in your head as vividly as a snapshot picture.

Almost as vivid is your memory of the Halloween that a policeman had come knocking at your front door to inform you in a strictly-business-voice that your sister was found dead in her kitchen, her throat slit open from ear to ear.

You remember watching from your couch as the gavel came down and the judge ruled the man who had taken your sister’s life away as criminally insane—and not responsible for his actions on that fateful October night—and therefor not legally a candidate for the death penalty.

You remember the burning, frustrated tears streaming down your face, the shatter of glass as you hurled the remote at the television screen, and then sinking down in a heap on the floor and screaming until your lungs were raw and your voice was in tatters, because it wasn’t fair, wasn’t fair, wasn’t fair.

So when the news came out that Myers was to be transferred back to Smith’s Grove—hardly a forty minute commute from your own house—you had been out the door that very same day, speeding in your car down the highway, ready to accept any available position the Sanitarium would offer you for your credentials.

It had been your one shot at revenge on the sick, evil fucker who had ruined your happiness; and you were prepared to move heaven and earth just to bring Myers hell.

It had taken eight months before you even laid eyes on the man for the first time.

You’d landed yourself a patient therapy position, but only had the clearance to treat patients who fell under the “medium” and “high-risk” categories. In the entire hospital there were only two patients who fell under the third and final category: a spitting lunatic of a man, who couldn’t be safely approached without first being drugged half-asleep with antipsychotics...

...and Myers.

You had possessed the patience of a saint, climbing through promotion after promotion.

And the very minute that you were handed back a fresh copy of your I.D, now with a little red stamp at the bottom, the stamp that meant you were cleared to work with Myers, you had raced down to the front desk to file your recommendation for treatment.

Three days later, after hours of debriefing by Dr. Ashton, Myers’ new court-assigned psychiatrist, you came face to face with the worst criminal the sanitarium had ever known.

You had seen Myers’ face pictured in black and white on newspaper articles and in fuzzy low-definition on T.V. 

And absolutely none of that could have prepared you for witnessing him in the flesh.

The thing that had startled you most when you were led by Dr. Ashton into Michael’s barren, cramped room—the thing that practically had you reeling when your eyes fell on the motionless figure sitting on the cot in the corner, chained at the wrists and ankles by a metal link fastened to the floor—the thing you still despise yourself for thinking—

—is that Myers was jaw-droppingly, stunningly handsome.

His were the kind of ethereal good looks that you might expect to find in some renaissance painting, or a Grecian statue, or a fantasy book.

You had stood staring across the room at the motionless young man, drinking in all the features of his vacant, pretty face; overcome by complete and total disbelief that this was actually the person responsible for all your grief.

And the very next second, that disbelief was shattered like a dropped vase; when you looked into Myers’ stare.

It brought down the temperature in the room like a cold-snap. It was not directed at you, only at the floor, yet it had you shuddering anyway, had all the hairs on your arms standing straight up. It was not a lights-on-but-nobody-home sort of gaze, the kind you were expecting from how Myers had been described by his former psychiatrist. His face was blank, yes; that was accurate enough.

But his eyes, they were the furthest thing from it. 

Michael Myers had the eyes of a ruthless, calculating, viciously deliberate predator.

The longer you had stood there, gawking at Myers as if he were a tiger in a cage, hardly listening to Dr. Ashton’s rambling about his admiration of your interest in his patient’s treatment, the more you became aware of the charge crackling in the air; like the moment in a thunderstorm just before lightning rips through the sky. It was as if every fiber in your body could sense the danger radiating from this man; you could all but see and smell the invisible blood staining his hands.

It had turned your vision into a seething cloud of red. 

Here was a murderer—the worst kind of murderer, who was perfectly, undoubtedly aware of his crimes, a fact you could tell from just his eyes—who carried in his heart not a single shred of remorse for the lives he’d ripped away. Who, when he was unable to kill, had resigned himself to sitting and anticipating the day when he might once again have his hands around a warm throat, the day when he would pick right back up where he left off and take another life as carelessly and thoughtlessly as one snuffing out a candle.

And this man had been allowed to keep breathing.

You think of all these things as you reach the end of the corridor and swipe your I.D card on the door to Therapy Theater No.5. Hidden locking mechanisms whirr and click open.

You place your hand around the cool metal handle. For a moment, you just stand there. Feeling your pounding heart in your chest.

It pounds not because you are fearful; you don’t care if you get caught because of what you are about to do. You don’t care if you get fired, or if you get your license taken away, or even if you go to jail. Those are the most trivial, unimportant things in the world. No. Your heart does not pound for those reasons.

It pounds because, finally, there will be justice.

Finally, the evil son-of-a-bitch who slaughtered your sister is getting what he deserved all along.

And you get to be the one to flip the switch.

You turn the door handle and step into the room.

Therapy Theater No.5 is bathed in bright fluorescent light and smells strongly of antiseptic and sterilization. Three people are already in the room: two armed guards, who nod in acknowledgment at you when you enter.

And laid out at the center across a white padded table, dressed in a pale blue hospital gown, strapped tightly down at the wrists and ankles by hospital-grade cuffs, looking up at the ceiling as if utterly uncaring, motionless save for the rise and fall of his ribs—Myers.

A nurse had come in before you to prepare the room for treatment. The therapy you’re meant to be administering is simple and painless: electrodes are fixed to the patient’s body and a weak electrical current is passed through, stimulating choice muscle groups—and in more recent cases, even parts of the brain.

You had emphasized that part specifically in your pitch of the therapy to Dr. Ashton, referencing a study which showed how violent tendencies could be soothed in patients who underwent the treatment.

And no, you’d reassured him, it was nothing like electroconvulsive therapy.

The electrical current used in E.S.T is never strong enough to induce seizures. The only thing the subject feels is a mild, if not pleasant, buzz...

·…or at least that’s how it’s meant to be administered.

Tampering with the wattage of the machine had turned out to be laughably easy. A few snipped wires here, a few crunched numbers there, and now the bulky device sitting atop the roll-around table beside your “patient” can deliver a shock nastier than a taser with every throw of the switch.

It’s not strong enough to stop a human heart (god, you wish.) But it is enough to make Myers hurt.

Enough to make him writhe on that table.

Maybe even enough to make the heartless bastard feel something for a change.

You thank the guards before dismissing them. They leave the room but you know they won’t go far; no further than right outside in the hall, waiting through the entire session with their hands on their batons in case Myers gets out of hand.

Their security would be a welcome thing, if you were actually about to /treat/ Myers instead of torturing the living daylights out of him. But now, the guards are just another problem in need of a solution.

Though you are almost confident that Myers will retain his silence throughout the ordeal—that he’ll uphold his veil of distance and aloofness and total lack of care with the stubbornness of an ass—you’re not about to bet your shot at justice on it.

That’s what the ball gag in your coat pocket is for.

Reaching down to check that it is still there, excitement swells in your belly as your fingers graze the black silicone.

On the table, Myers is still motionless. He doesn’t tilt his head to regard you. He pays you no attention at all, in fact, as if you aren’t even there to begin with. Never do his steely eyes move from their fixed place on the ceiling light hanging above him.

As you walk up to the roll-around table, plucking a pair of latex gloves from a box stashed on the shelf beneath before snapping them curtly on, for a reason that you can’t put into words, you find yourself hesitating to look Myers in the face.

It doesn’t matter that he’s restrained; it doesn’t matter that there are two armed and capable guards standing watch right outside. Despite both these things, that vitriolic, charged aura you had felt in his cell still surrounds him now, polluting the room, hanging like a storm cloud over your head. 

It’s as if some submissive animal instinct has gripped your brain and now screams warnings at you: Predator. Danger. Don’t look it in the eye. Don’t provoke it.

You do your damndest to dismiss the feeling as nerves.

In a little white tray next to the E.S.T machine sits a filled syringe; a sedative. Dr. Ashton has insisted on it to better ensure your safety, as well as Myers’ cooperation. In the psychiatrist’s exact words:

“These days Michael is, ah, fussier about this kind of treatment—you know, the kind they gotta bring in the guards for, the needles, the cuffs, the whole nine-yards. 

It’s a theory of mine that, after living with the sort of power Michael did, the loss of his own control doesn’t sit as nicely anymore. He doesn’t like it. And he’s not afraid to let us know just how much he doesn’t like it.”

Fussy. That was the word Ashton had used to describe Myers. 

It had taken every shred of self-control you possessed not to scoff in the Doctor’s face at that; as if the man laid out before you now were some sort of stubborn, overgrown toddler, and not a remorseless, murderous psychopath.

You don’t spare the sedative a second glance as you unravel the bundle of wires and nodes connected to the E.S.T machine; Myers is going to be awake to feel every goddamned second of what you do to him.

Only after you’re finished with him will you finally send him under.

You can picture the conversation with Ashton now: Yes sir, the sedative worked like a charm, he was out like a light the entire time; no sir, no complications at all.

You take your time setting up the machine because you’re still hesitant to even look at Myers, let alone touch him. But when the wires are all connected, the red power button flashing idly in standby, there is nothing left to do except attach the electrodes.

You force yourself to look him in the face as you approach. You should not be afraid of this man; you should resent him, should despise him, but should not fear him. He doesn’t deserve to hold that sort of power over you, or anyone else, ever again.

So you look.

Michael is still watching the ceiling. According to his eyes, he does not acknowledge you.

But just from how the hair on your nape stands on end you know you’re being watched.

Myers is regarding you coolly in his periphery with the curiosity of a feline, feigning detachment and disinterest; but the weight and pressure of that penetrating gaze could not be more obvious if it were a ton of bricks coming right down on your head.

With a deep breath to rein in your resolve, you reach down, your fingers working to undo the first knot on Myers’ hospital gown.

Quickly, you discover that it is one thing to look at Myers; to feel for yourself his ruthless awareness, the raw intensity of his presence.

But to touch him is another thing altogether.

He draws a breath of his own as you fidget with his gown, his strong rib cage expanding beneath your fingers. You shudder at the sudden pressure of his body; whether out of disgust, or anger, or some fucked up fascination, you aren’t sure.

After undoing the ties on both sides, you lift the front of his gown up and off—

—and find that Myers is totally naked underneath.

Standard hospital procedure for a therapy like this one. Nothing new.

But it’s different when the patient looks like this.

You hate yourself for ogling him. You detest the way your eyes rove across Myers’ body, lingering on all the features that your lizard-brain decides it likes; from the stark tendons in his neck to his sharp and angular collarbones, from his broad, rounded shoulders to the beautiful definition in his abdomen, and down even further than that before you can stop yourself.

To the V of his obliques—to the trail of curly brown pubic hair on his pelvis—and all the way down to his flaccid penis.

You snatch a towel from the roll-around and drape it hurriedly over his hips. Not for the sake of his modesty; just so you don’t have to worry about your eyes straying down to the cock of the man who murdered your sister.

As far as the placement of the electrodes on his body, you honestly haven’t given it much thought. It seemed like the sort of thing that would come to you like an epiphany, as if suddenly, in the moment, you would know exactly where to hit Myers to really make him suffer.

But no such epiphany comes. Oh well; you have an hour to experiment.

Grabbing the two nodes off their holders, you run the wires across his chest and press the little round circles down flat against his pectorals.

When your gloved fingers graze Myers’ skin you nearly jerk back your hand, startled. The man is hot like a stove.

Your medical fascination is instantly piqued—Myers must have the hottest resting body temperature you’ve ever encountered. You have to force away intrusive thoughts of sticking a thermometer in his mouth to see that number for yourself.

Focus.

Tugging up on the wires, you test the integrity of the node’s suction. They don’t budge from his chest, lifting his skin with them as you pull. Perfect; It’s nearly time. 

Now for the gag.

You just have to cross your fingers and pray that you can actually get it in his mouth.

Looking Myers in the face a third time proves to be no less jarring than it had been the second or the first. You’re just relieved that even after all your poking and prodding he is still pretending not to be interested in you, or in the things you’re doing to his body.

You clear your throat before speaking to him because you don’t trust it enough not to crack.

“Open up,” you command him, mustering every authoritative bone in your body and sounding very official even to your own ears.

Removing the gag from your pocket, you hold it up as if to show him, taking care to conceal the black silicone ball with your hand.

“Mouthguard.”

You doubt that Myers has seen this sort of gag before. Or that he even knows what a gag is. Still, you’re not taking that risk. If this doesn’t work then you’re going to have to drug him just to get the damn thing in place, then wait for him to sober up again—a colossal waste of time.

For a tense second, Myers does not respond to your command. He just lays there on the table, inhaling and exhaling, looking incredibly bored with you, with his nakedness, with the electrodes strapped to his chest.

Your jaw goes tense. You nearly repeat yourself.

But then, he opens up his mouth.

Beneath the harsh overhead lighting his teeth gleam wetly. You suspect immediately that he’s going to try and bite your fingers off the second you get too close.

Game on, fucker. 

From the shelf below the roll-around you snatch up a small blotting rag. Walking around to stand at the head of the table, you gaze down at Myers again.

“The strap goes underneath.” You inform him. “I need you to lift your head up.”

He does.

And you strike. Faster than you had thought yourself capable.

You drape the rag over his eyes so that he can’t see what’s coming. Thrusting the gag hard into his open mouth, you wedge it firmly between his teeth. In the corner of the room, Myers’ heart monitor spikes suddenly, the electronic beeping speeding up momentarily—a sound that has you beaming with pride.

You’ve actually managed to startle him.

As you clip the strap into place around the back of his head, a strange sense of accomplishment floods your body—you’ve done it. You’ve actually done it. Everything is ready. 

Every sacrifice you’ve made in these past eight months, every hour spent in this godforsaken hellhole, it was all worth it just to bring about this single moment.

The moment is made only sweeter when you rip the rag away from Myers’ face.

Oh. Now you have his attention.

Those pale eyes are looking straight up at you. Considering you with the cutting gaze of a hawk. Working out the situation. 

You glare right back down at him. You stare deep into his eyes, the triumphant fire now raging in your chest burning hotter than the ice in his stare, more furiously than all the danger—and you find that you are not afraid of him anymore. Like this, Myers is nothing. He’s not a boogeyman. Not a phantom. He’s just a man—stripped of all his mysticism. Strapped to a table. Naked. Gagged.

Powerless.

Just as powerless to stop what you’re about to do to him as each and every one of the people whose lives he took away.

“Hello, Michael.” You hold his fierce eye-contact as you speak. “Ten months ago you broke into my sister’s house and murdered her.”

Myers doesn’t blink. But neither do you.

“When they tried you, you were supposed to leave that courtroom a dead man walking; you were supposed to die. That's how our justice system works—when you do the things you did, you don’t get to keep on living.”

Nothing changes on Myers’ face as you speak. Nothing changes in his eyes. Not one molecule in his body has an atom of care to give about the words you’re saying. He breathes around the gag, his heart monitor beeping slow and steady.

“I don’t give a single fuck about what that judge said,” You continue. “And I don’t care how sick in the head you really are. You knew exactly what you were doing that night. I can see it in your eyes, Myers—you loved every fucking second of it. And that’s the only thing that matters.”

You draw a long breath. One that you hold in your lungs before letting slowly out again.

“You’re the evilest son-of-a-bitch on this entire fucking planet; and you deserve to die.”

Walking over to the E.S.T machine, fighting back with tooth and claw against furious tears now threatening your eyes, you place your finger over the power switch.

Myers watches you; and you notice something flicker to life in his glacial eyes. Not an emotion. Just a realization.

Good. He understands now. He understands what you’re about to do to him.

“Someone has to make you pay. Someone has to.”

Michael just stares. Watching you. Watching your finger on the switch. His pulse on the monitor ticks as leisurely as if he were about to fall asleep.

“And guess what, you sick fuck?”

Still staring—not blinking—breaths coming slowly.

���I’m so fucking happy that it’s me.”

You throw the switch—

—the wires crackle with live electricity—

—and all of Myers’ deliberate, calculated control is shattered like a dropped glass.

His body seizes. His eyes snap shut. His fingers curl into fists that turn his knuckles whiter than the table beneath him. The tendons in his neck and forearms jump out, straining beneath his skin. His heart monitor beats erratically, the little green line on the screen spiking sharply, racing out of control.

Your eyes are glued to the grisly scene. You devour each and every involuntary reaction, relishing in the complete and utter breakdown of his control.

Fifteen gorgeous seconds pass before you remember that you were supposed to be counting to ten. Whoops. You might be frying his brain into an unfeeling stupor at this point. You flip the switch off in an instant because you need him awake, aware.

Myers’ back falls flat against the table, the current cutting off as abruptly as it began. The muscles in his chest continue to contract and seize beneath his skin long after the electricity is gone; you count the spasms as they tear through his pectorals like sets of waves.

When the spasming stops, his chest heaves up and down, winded. His breaths around the gag come heavily. His eyes are still shut; but no longer are they /squeezed/ shut.

For a moment, you really think that he’s passed out.

Then his eyes twitch beneath their lids and flutter open again. Blinking. Focusing—

—flitting right back on your face. Right back to the spot where he had left them before the current forced them shut.

Myers’ eyes are devoid of care. He is entirely unperturbed by what has just happened to him; entirely unthreatened. But now, that murderous intent—the charge which until now you’d only felt in the air around him—is written in his stare as plain as day.

I am going to kill you, says Michael’s gaze, as nonchalant as if he were stating some trivial fact about the universe, like water is wet, or the sky is blue.

It makes your blood boil.

Adding insult to injury, the speed at which Myers regains control of his body is nothing short of infuriating. You fume as you watch the way his breaths level out again, the beeping from his heart monitor falling back into the former slow, rhythmic pace.

You feel as though you should say something to him; like you should retaliate to this defiance in some way that isn’t staring, because you’ve already lost that battle; you cannot possibly hope to match the severity of Myers’ gaze.

But you don’t.

In your heart of hearts you know that your words will go right through his skull, unheard. There is only one language that Myers understands; only one language that he can comprehend down to his marrow. So you’ll speak it to him.

Without wasting another breath, your fingers find the power switch again. And those defiant eyes of his snap shut a second time.

When you shut the current off the results are the same as before; Myers is heaving on the table. But he takes back his control just as quickly, his stoicism prevailing.

By the third time however, his breaths have begun to linger in their heaviness—

—by the fourth he draws them as shallow as a winded sprinter running a race—

—by the fifth, the intervals between the violent seizing-up of his body are too brief for him to catch his breath—

—and the way he now gasps around the obstructing gag, fighting and failing to suck in air past its silicone, his nostrils flaring rapidly to compensate, is the most beautiful display of desperation that you have ever witnessed.

The sixth time you throw the switch, Myers actually does pass out.

When the current stops his body loses its tension with the abruptness of a cut wire. You wait impatiently for him to open his eyes again with your finger lingering over the switch, preparing to meet that steely gaze with another brutal jolt of electricity.

You wait; and Myers’ heart monitor chugs away like a freight train going up a hill.

Still waiting… waiting...

...and nothing happens. Myers is out cold.

The contentment now pulsing through your veins is what you imagine a shot of heroin feels like. Snapping on a fresh pair of gloves, you walk up to the side of the table to admire your work.

The first thing you notice is the sweat. Myers’ body is drenched in it. It beads up on his chest and clavicle, on his biceps and shoulders, on his brow and cheeks, the skin there flushing a shade of stark, exhausted pink. Gorgeous.

Your eyes travel down his body to continue the examination; you stop at his hands.

Myers’ hands are bloody.

Crescent-shaped cuts litter the skin of his palms, marking the place where his own blunt fingernails had dug in uncontrollably, over and over and over again. The fresh blood streaks in little rivulets down his hands and pools on the white padding of the table beneath. 

You chew the inside of your lip as you stare at the mess; these cuts might be tricky to explain away. You’ll have to gauze them and tell Dr. Ashton that his patient did it to himself; maybe recommend that he be switched to a higher Thorazine dosage to really sell the lie.

Luckily, that’s a problem for the future. As for right now, you’re rather enjoying the irony of Myers’ own blood staining his hands for a change.

The inspection continues. Further down his body, you finally notice it; the bulge beneath the towel strewn across his pelvis. 

Oh my god, he isn’t. You think, lifting the side of the towel for a peek.

And oh my god, he is.

Rather frustratingly, just like the rest of him, Myers is pretty down here, too. Pretty and big. Which is not a compliment, you reassure yourself. Just a medical observation. You let yourself stare this time, because you’re not ashamed anymore. You’re not threatened by the notion of admiring Myers’ physiology anymore.

Not when he’s so completely at your mercy.

Somehow, Myers doesn’t seem to be the masochistic type, so you highly doubt that actual arousal is responsible for this. Sheer adrenaline coupled with his frantically pumping heart are probably to blame, his brain mixing and misinterpreting the signals, resulting in this little accident.

The longer you stare down at the “accident,” the more you find yourself wondering what Myers would look like fully-erect.

You cannot rip the electrodes off his chest fast enough. Plucking the towel from waist and discarding it on the floor, you stick the two nodes down flat against his obliques, then hurry to rig up a third. That one you plant just above his penis; as close to its base as the curly dark hair will allow.

You stand with your finger ready on the go-button again, opting to let Myers’ still-racing pulse dip out of the red before you pull the trigger and plunge him back into hell. Bloodied hands you can explain away, but cardiac arrest? Not so much.

The beeping slows. The green lines on the monitor settle. You throw the switch.

Myers’ pelvis bucks uncontrollably up from the table—

—and he grunts.

The sound makes your heart sing. It is muffled by the gag, low and reverberating, not very loud to begin with. Most definitely not on purpose; just a reaction that’s managed to slip through while his barriers are down.

Myers’ groin is still quivering when you cut the current off. His cock stands upright, stiff and swollen, totally erect. A line of saliva now dribbles down the side of his mouth, trickling between the gag, collecting in a shimmering mess on his shoulder. He blinks sluggishly up at the ceiling light as if transfixed; still dazed, you would guess.

Something twisted occurs to you as you drink in the scene. Something that you can’t deny.

Seeing Myers like this—fighting for his very consciousness, struggling to retain some sliver of control—is the single most arousing thing you have ever witnessed. You want nothing more in the entire world than to climb onto this dangerous, wounded man’s hips and claim him. 

You want nothing more than to give him a taste of what true powerlessness feels like.

It’s a lovely fantasy, a beautiful temptation, and a real shame that it can’t happen. You don’t feel like getting knocked up with the child of your sister’s murderer today; or ever, for that matter. Instead, you think you’ll make a game out of guessing how many more shocks will have Myers coming on his own thighs.

Striding up to the head of the table again, you plant your arms on either side of his shoulders, leaning over him, hardly ten inches from his face.

“Looks painful Myers.” You jest. “How about I make you a deal?”

Michael looks up at you. Unfocused. Blinking slowly.

“I flip the switch,” you continue,

“—and I keep it flipped until you’re covered in your own semen, and after that I jam a needle in your arm, pump you full of drugs, and you get to live out your next eight hours as an unfeeling fucking vegetable. Fair?”

You wait for Myers to do something. For your words to register in his brain. For some flicker of a response to let you know that he’s even still in there.

To your immense disappointment, Myers does nothing. Absolutely nothing. He just...

...well, you can’t even call it staring anymore.

He doesn’t seem able to manage that sort of focus, you realize, inspecting his face closer. His eyes are alarmingly barren; there really isn’t much of anything there, now. None of the ruthlessness, none of that predatory awareness, none of the murder.

You’ve actually shocked the bastard totally, one-hundred-percent out of it.

Whoops.

Back at the roll-around, you snatch up a hand light. Returning to the table, you shine it in his eyes, assessing the damage. His functioning pupil is slow to dilate. Worryingly slow. You click the light off with a contemplative frown.

Half of your mind begs whatever force might be listening that this isn’t a passing affliction, that whatever damage that’s done is done. If the courts insist on keeping Myers alive, then maybe reducing his brains to soup is what it takes to keep him docile. To keep him from hurting another living thing ever again. You can only hope.

As much as you’d love to do so, electrocuting the living daylights out of him some more isn’t likely to bring Myers back to awareness; and the session is supposed to be over soon.

You glance at the clock on the wall—

—Shit. Very soon.

You need to find out right the fuck now if you’ve just rendered Dr. Ashton’s patient catatonic.

Walking around the side of the table, you take Myers’ swollen cock in your gloved hand—trying not to think about the fact that you’re jacking off a condemned murderer—and pump hard, stroking him all the way from the shaft to the swollen tip, squeezing the head, massaging your thumb over it, rubbing all the way back down again.

“Come on, asshole,” you spit. “That can’t be all the fight you’ve got.”

Myers’ hips jerk slightly up from the table as you touch him. Probably just an involuntary reaction. You’ll need him to do better than that. Stroking him faster, squeezing even harder, you pray that the friction of your latex glove against his cock feels just about as pleasant as a rug burn.

As you watch his vacant face like a hawk you see him begin to blink harder, his eyes squeezing shut, twitching beneath their lids, staying closed for a beat before opening up again, like he’s struggling to wake from a deep sleep. A much more deliberate motion; he’s coming back to it.

“Can you feel that? Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?”

He breathes hard around the gag. His knees lurch up from the table, the cuffs around his ankles straining, holding him in place.

You give his cock another hard squeeze.

“Forget where you are Myers?”

His jaw goes absolutely rigid with tension.

Ah. He heard you that time. He’s back.

How unfortunate that his brain isn’t fried after all.

You can see it all coming back now as his eyes flit down, locking on your face, rebooting within him like a program on a script; the chilling intensity, the sharpness, all the things that had made your skin crawl in the days past. Despite the torture, nothing at all about Myers’ demeanor has changed.

“Welcome back.” You state dryly. “We aren’t done yet.”

As if to make your blood boil on purpose—as if the battered state of his body means less to him than dirt, as if he hasn’t spent the better part of the hour being brutally, mercilessly tortured by you—

—Myers just watches you. Damning you with his eyes alone to the same grisly demise as before.

An odd sense of something, not quite admiration, sparks in your gut. Looking into Myers’ eyes, there is one single thing that you are willing to give this monster credit for:

What sits before you is a creature that cannot be broken. One that will never be dissuaded from its primal, violent nature. To try it is an impossible task. You suspect that you could stand in this room for days, flipping the same switch, delivering the same current, knocking him to and from consciousness, and into all the states in-between.

And the result would never change. Not ever.

He’d still be looking at you with that same deadly stare. A stare as cold and sharp as the blade of a carving knife.

And it would only get more piercing.

And what a relief it is that your goal in the first place was never to break Myers,

just to bring the gates of hell down on his pretty, curly head.

And you have. You can hear it in every breath he takes; he’s struggling. Although he draws his inhales slowly, with mechanical control, the ragged wheezing in his chest is no longer possible for him to hide. Myers is hurting—he’s hurting bad.

As much as you would love to stay and twist the knife in even deeper, it's time to wrap things up. You’re all out of time.

Pulling the electrodes from his groin and thighs with one hand, you let two of the nodes dangle freely off the side of the table.

The third you stick against his cock.

“Count your lucky fucking stars that not everyone in the world is as heartless as you are.” You tell him, walking back around to the E.S.T machine.

Myers follows you with eyes the entire way, stone-faced, impassive. Like the fact that you’ve just fastened a live wire to his dick is about as boring to him as watching paint dry.

Flick goes the switch.

His back arches off the table like a bent bow. He scrunches his eyes shut, breathing hard around the gag, tugging furiously at the cuffs, the muscles in his calves and biceps straining dangerously, pulling upwards with a brutish force that has table whining beneath him.

You’re transfixed as Michael comes. His mess shoots out in thick ropes, reaching further than you thought possible, coating the table, getting on his legs. The sheer power of his body is a stunning thing to witness. You keep the current running to milk him down to the very last drop.

When he stops coming, you power off the machine.

The node comes away from Michael’s skin in a “pop” that is all-too satisfying. Bundling all the wires and electrodes back into place on the machine you listen to the only measurable signs of the man’s distress; the tortured intake of his breaths, the elevated beeping of his heart monitor.

Then, picking up the needle from the little white tray, you cross back to Myers’ side.

The vein in his forearm is thick and pronounced and the needle slips in beautifully. You press slowly down on the plunger, grateful when he doesn’t try to yank his arm away, relieved when he accepts the drug without a struggle. He must be exhausted.

The sedative works its magic quickly. You pull up a stool and sit down beside him to watch.

The vitriol in his eyes begins to melt and soften. One by one his strained muscles are allowed to relax again, the tension ebbing away; from his jaw, his shoulders, his abdomen, his legs. The electronic beeping on the monitor slows and slows until its powerful rhythm beats steadily again.

Evidently, Michael has decided he isn’t ready to go under just yet. Though sleep pools in his eyelids he blinks it away, clinging in a death grip to his consciousness.

Just to leer at you. Just to picture in his mind the day he will have his hands around your throat; as if it is already set in stone. As if it is just a matter of when.

Then, Michael’s eyelids flutter—

—fighting to stay open, still staring—

—closing, for just a beat too long—

—lingering shut—

—staying shut.

You move to clean him up quickly. The gag comes out first. Lifting his head to unbuckle the strap, you tug out the black ball, letting his strained jaw fall shut again for the first time in an hour; then carelessly drop his head. It thunks satisfyingly as it comes down hard against the table. Glancing at the gag’s silicone, you notice the deep markings worn into it, perfect impressions of Myers’ top and bottom teeth. You almost shudder; a bite from him would have been nasty.

You blot away the drool dribbling down his chin and shoulder with a rag, and then move on.

The last thing you expect as you begin to clean Michael’s bloodied hands is the tears that spring to your eyes. Even with your fear of the man gone and buried, you wish that you didn’t have to touch these awful hands; let alone treat them, bandage them, heal them.

You wipe away the tears on your sleeve as you gather your supplies together on the roll-around.

Grabbing each of his wrists just above the restraint cuffs and turning them so that his palm is facing upward on the table, you hastily swab him down with alcohol pads, wiping up the clotting blood from his skin, squeezing out a blob of antiseptic from a tube to smear across his cuts. As you wrap Michael’s palms tightly in gauze you try your hardest to snuff out that invasive thought when it comes searing like a bullet through your skull—

—these are the hands that killed my sister.

You simply can’t afford to linger on those thoughts right now. Maybe when you’re at home tonight, alone in your bed, you will let yourself cry; but not now. Not while you still need to clean up after Myers’ unfortunate mishap.

Toweling him down from his forehead to his calves, you soak away the sweat. And the semen. Then, you fasten back up the front of his hospital gown, knotting each and every tie.

And just like that, the job is done.

You knock on the door. The guards come in and wheel Myers’ unconscious body out of the room.

The next day, you have a debriefing session with Dr. Ashton. You feed him your meticulously rehearsed lie: that the therapy went without a hiccup, that you firmly believe this treatment could be the key to alleviating Michael’s tendencies for violence.

The moron laps up your every word.

Ashton ends the session with a delightful little surprise; he’s pulled some strings to allow for Michael’s therapy to be carried out bi-weekly. He is so impressed by your drive to treat his patient that he’s offering you a position as Michael’s secondary caretaker. He only hopes that you’ll accept.

The smile you give him is bright and sincere, one that beams from ear to ear.

“Doctor, believe me when I say that nothing in the world would make me happier.”

[cerastes]

I’m fine where I am. At least for now, I’m fine where I am. I work for my mentor, who supports me and teaches me still, I have a job at all during a pandemic, when I know many a colleague of mine does not. I am in a position where I can try new things and experiment with my craft, not through just theory, but through being able to put it into practice. I like where I am. I like who I am.

But I feel as though I wish to do more. Two years ago, in anticipation to my busy 2019, I started proactively trying out new things. More proactively than I usually am, I mean. Some stuck, others were a nice experience that I’m ok with not revisiting, others, I’m not particularly enthused about but I made promises regarding my presence and activity in those that stand to this day. I wish to do more. I understand that part of this hunger tinged in frustration comes from the pandemic in at least some degree; I intended on working out more than ever before this year, and I intended to start practicing archery.

There’s fun things to do. Streaming has been fun. I like it. Doing it as a group has been fun. I had always wanted to do more streaming in general, it’s just very calming and fun to sit there and talk while playing a game. I’m glad I’ve had AK to sink my teeth into, both in gameplay and in lore (seriously, how can a game so perfectly tailored for me exist?). Recently, I’ve started a creative project with my best friend. I’m very happy about this, we’re still very much in the preliminary phases, but I’m so happy it’s him with whom I can embark on this journey of creation. I guess it paid of to nerdify and weebify him, because I don’t think this would’ve been able to happen before, and I’m both a hermit and someone who has very particular views and opinions on the creative process and how to tackle it. I almost never collab, because I enjoy the silence and my own presence more than I do the company of others, but if it’s with my best friend, that doesn’t apply, I do enjoy his company more than my silence and presence. I’m happy about that.

I don’t know what else I’m going to try my hand at, and this is a weird thing for me to feel, but... I feel as if I could be doing something. Whenever I feel this way, I try things, because I dislike inaction, and I dislike people that endlessly complain about their inaction while remaining, you know, inactive. Makes my blood boil, I’ll be truthful, the whole “what am I doing with my life?” line of thought and vague text posts. If you have time to ask yourself that, you have time to get up and look for something to do, to be, to enjoy, to indulge, to create, to consume. At times I think it’s a harsh judgement, and it’s not like I don’t get how depression works -- been there, buddy -- but you can’t wait for someone to rescue you. I don’t resent self-indulgent media for being popular and not for me, but I do quite resent it for popularizing and romanticizing the idea that your sadness is something you need to be rescued from. You take the first step, and people will naturally help you out from there, but if you just loiter there saying sad and vague things, no one will bother.

In any case.

I’m looking for that, for that extra something I want to do. I don’t know what it is yet, but I know I want to do it, I feel as if I am wasting time not doing it. I am fervently inspired by seeing people I know chasing after things they’ve wanted to do. I, too, want to chase. Improving is a nice feeling. Trying out new things is a nice feeling. Routine is nice but only as long as it is constantly evolving instead of just becoming a stagnant cycle. 

Speaking of particularities regarding creation, though quite obviously I love reading, I’m still more a writer than a reader, and I don’t really talk about my creations. And being honest, I don’t often fancy hearing about others’ in a vacuum (ie. conceptually, “this is my OC!” I’d rather you write a story and show me that). This is a me thing, and I don’t think this explanation will actually be understood by too many (conceptually? yes, otherwise? no), but I think there’s too much You in your creation. This is perhaps just my psychologist brain being itself but people telling me all about their OCs unprompted, to me, who automatically reads between the lines both as seasoned reader and a psychologist, is akin to subjecting me to their psyche, and god I know this sounds cheesy and try-hard, I know, it is painful to write, but 6 friends in the last few months have made big life decisions which were foreshadowed to me by how much of them they put into their creations, which were shared with me. Likewise, I feel like sharing my creations too much, on a conceptual level, even, is putting myself out there. I doubt anyone did, but if anyone wondered why I don’t really share what I write or create with any sort of regularity, there’s why. I just think it’s intimate, and I don’t think intimacy is something to show to everyone, which I know is a weird damn way to see creative endeavors, trust me, but that’s how I view it. That’s not to say I don’t want people to see my things, not at all, I do update my writing blog now and then, after all, and I love seeing people read my stuff, this is more about... Sharing OCs, for example, in a vacuum and talking about them? Feels too weird for me.

Well, there’s that, but there’s also the fact that I also have another particularity (yes, I know) in which I don’t particularly care to hear about OCs as much as I want to see them in an actual written piece. Let me put it this way: I don’t care about a sock puppet if you show it to me during lunch, but I do care for it if you put up a play and let me see the sock puppet in action. I think people should enjoy art and creation in any way they do, but conversely, I like seeing creation in action, not conceptually. Conceptual is easy and vague. Write a story. That’s more exciting and enriching and lets me get a clear view of your created character more than your psyche and all the things you may not even know you’re clamoring (that you put on absolutely every OC, yes, we notice), so write, write, and write. Give your characters a context, scenario, a story.

Of course, I am merely speaking of my own preference. What’s more important is that you enjoy what you’re writing and what you’re doing. I just think a proper story in motion is far more interesting than concepts. I used to love “the concept of”, maybe you remember, I used to make a lot of posts regarding ‘concepts’ and being in love with the concept of this and that in writing. That’s been one of my major changes, honestly, I don’t love concepts anymore. I love execution now.

That’s about it, yeah, head emptied. Sleep now.

[ambitionsource]

wait i actually have more weirdly specific questions (if ur up to it) - how do the kids feel about poetry? do they follow any sports? what childhood tv shows were their favs? do they have celebrity crushes? fav coming of age movie? how are they doing in quarantine? what time in history were they obsessed w as a kid? have they ever been to summer camp? what type of candles do they like? what song do they cry to? how do they drink their coffee/tea sorry if u’ve answered already/too many questions

wooooo thank you for your patience iz!! we’re gonna go point by point

poetry?

charlie loves it genuinely and will read it for fun. riley likes it enough but doesn’t go out of her way to read it. farkle loves coming up with insane explanations for the metaphors and is smug about interpreting it in class. zay doesn’t care for it, neither does lucas. asher appreciates it but finds it boring; dylan likes it for the same reason farkle does, only not to look smart but to come up with something completely crackheaded to combat farkle’s interpretation (which he can’t then say isn’t correct, bc its poetry, so all interpretations are valid!). isa doesn’t like it because she doesn’t get the metaphors on paper the same way she can pick them up in film. maya hates it even though multiple people have pointed out that song lyrics are basically poetry -- she will tune you out.

sports?

sports aren’t Big at aaa (aside from dance), but there are remnants here and there. riley follows basketball of course -- even tho as demonstrated in 110, she cannot play it to save herself -- and she tried out for cheer in 9th grade at her old school but was rejected from the squad (another bad mark on a terrible year). farkle prefers wii sports over any actual sport, but will sometimes watch golf with stuart because it’s quality time with his very busy father. charlie did soccer when he was younger before it got phased out by dance and semi keeps up with it. dylan also “played” soccer, but this meant the other little league teammates getting pissed at him bc he never paid attention to the game and was just like “hey! hey, dennis, look at this!” and did like 3 cartwheels across the field. it was a smart move when randall pulled him from the team bc those intense soccer moms were gonna like beat them up fDJSKG. so now dylan is just an unofficial gymnast instead.

isa doesn’t like sports but played them a lot with foster siblings, and even though she sucks she gets very competitive. lucas liked baseball and was good at track in middle school, but he never thought about doing a sport for real because he knew he was going to quincy eventually where his dad is a coach... yeah. no. but he’s great at running fast from the police!

maya hates sports (aside from the art of dance). waste of time, waste of energy. asher has never done a sport nor ever contemplated a sport. the most Sport he’s endured is going with jade to support dave at his swim meets (where nigel also does swim) and suffice to say, asher wasn’t there to look at the swimming.

childhood tv?

dylan to this day is a spongebob squarepants STAN. legend, icon, scholar, best television show ever made, in his opinion. he also was well-versed in pokemon, adventure time, gravity falls, and phineas and ferb. asher and lucas both didn’t watch lots of tv growing up (if at all), so dylan considers it his job to give asher a thorough education in the quality tv he missed as a kid.

maya was all over hannah montana (miley is still a role model to this day for her), and she, zay, and charlie all remember the fever dream that was shake it up. zay especially loved it bc he was (is) obsessed with zendaya. zay and maya both also watched victorious. charlie was sharing a tv with four siblings so he just ended up watching whatever the dominant sister that day wanted to watch. riley was a disney channel girl, and farkle was a pbs scholar (arthur, cyber chase, fetch! with ruff ruff man... classics).

 celebrity crushes?

zay = zendaya (as previously mentioned). charlie = harry styles to a major degree, although his Cover Story would be zendaya if you asked (ironically). maya = britney spears (but in a I Want To Be Her way, major idolization rather than attraction) and technically the same for valerie de la cruz but like... rip to that lmao. isa = loki, yes we know, but sometimes it be that way (altho that does extend a little bit towards tom hiddleston in general). asher = logan lerman, aka the main valid white boy who dresses nice, is polite and soft-spoken, and minds his own business (not to mention he is the Same Type as dylan). dylan = had crushes more on like... personalities so like ash ketchum and percy jackson, and now its irrelevant bc he met asher and became obsessed and its like every other potential crush just flew out the window of his brain. it’s full asher territory in there nowadays.

riley doesn’t have a specific one, she thinks lots of people are Pretty but no one particularly strongly. farkle doesn’t have one because he’s insane and doesn’t have the mental capacity. lucas doesn’t have one because he’s demi and also hates most celebrities as people.

coming-of-age movie?

maya’s is mean girls. farkle’s is ladybird. zay’s is easy a. riley’s is bend it like beckham. isadora’s is eighth grade. charlie’s is dead poet’s society. asher’s is perks of being a wallflower. dylan’s is spiderman: into the spiderverse. lucas doesn’t know movies.

quarantine?

we’ve somewhat discussed this before, but ultimately es and i elected to let aaa remain in a nice, calm universe where they don’t have to endure covid. lucky them. blow a kiss to the ether for us, buds,

fave time in history?

riley is huge on ancient greece and greek mythology. maya loves the theatricality and Drama of the roaring 20s (a baby flapper at heart). zay vibes hard with the 80s. charlie likes the fashion and romanticism and music and art of the 70s (that sort of flowery positivity clashing with the rebelliousness of the movements of the 60s... yeah. that hits something in him). farkle’s is the great depression not only bc he’s an emo but also all the raw and desperate art that came out of it. isadora was a egyptian mythology kid. i know lucas sounds lame (he is), but i don’t think he cares about history -- but if pushed he’d probably say the 90s bc he dresses like he’s straight out of there, everyone was angry rocking, and he wasn’t born. asher likes the victorian era bc of the sheer elegance and Aesthetic to everything. dylan doesn’t have a favorite time period because due to being the subconscious multiverse conduit (i.e. the being that is somewhat connected to every other version of himself) sometimes he wakes up and for a minute he doesn’t even know what year it is 🤪anyway...

summer camp?

charlie has been to many a christian youth summer camp. zay went to the kossal program, but that was basically it. lucas no although he probably wished he could be anywhere else during the summer sometimes including a camp he would hate. riley went for a few years in elementary school. isa has gone to a couple of “foster kid” summer camp bonding things that she despised. farkle went to jewish summer camp One time and was like that was HORRIBLE, never make me spend a whole summer outside AGAIN. asher was more of a Enrichment courses at the rec center during the summer kid than a camper. dylan no because the orlandos couldn’t afford something like that. same for maya.

candles?

riley has a small variety of scented ones that are like... warm scents, like cinnamon and stuff. asher a couple that smell like clean linen but his fear of accidental fires keeps him from ever lighting them. maya has one and it smells like “star power,” a gift from her mom one christmas. isadora can’t have any because many of her foster homes don’t allow them. lucas legally shouldn’t be allowed anything that catches on fire. dylan doesn’t have one but similarly should not be given one. the minki have a whole collection for different things so farkle can just pluck one at any time if he needs one like for a super fancy bath or whatever the fuck rich people do.

mental breakdown song?

charlie’s are “falling” and “from the dining table” by harry styles.

riley’s is “manhattan” by sara bareilles and “rainbow” by kacey musgraves.

zay’s are “imagine” by ariana and “dear life” from the step up soundtrack (post zc breakup).

farkle’s are “vienna” by billy joel and “get it right” from glee.

asher’s is “don’t cry” by ruel.

isa’s is “you are my sunshine” because valerie used to sing it to her a lot when she was really little, so it will always make her a little emotional.

dylan’s (although rare) are “soon you’ll get better” by ts and “make you feel my love” by adele. the second one is because his mom loved adele when she was just starting out bc 19 was released the same year that she passed away so there’s a lot of like subconscious association there even if he doesn’t realize it.

maya doesn’t have one, and lucas also doesn’t have one because in the rare moments he does cry its in his closet in the dark silence alone bc he literally can’t stand the sentience of knowing he’s crying so. sensory blackout.

coffee / tea?

riley will add at least 3 sugars to anything, but she’s ultimately an iced tea gal. lucas drinks it black but only because it never occurred to him to add anything to it and so it’s a big wake up call when he realizes you can drink it and have it NOT be bitter and horrible and demoralizing ( “i thought we were all just suffering for the caffeine fix??” ). isa is a tea girl mostly, although she wishes she could drink black coffee for the aesthetic (and hates that lucas can... it’s like... he didn’t even Earn that aestheticism, smh). asher doesn’t drink caffeine bc it makes him Jittery (and he’s already jittery) so he’s like... the lemonade bitch at coffee shops which kin, and then dylan definitely drinks caffeine but not thru coffee, he’s more likely to get like a hot chocolate.

farkle lives on coffee but he can only drink it from home because they’re rich and can have like fresh ground good imported whatever the heck etc etc so he’s like spoiled about coffee. zay will hit up a starbucks now and then and will order coffee at a diner, but he’s not too attached either way. maya is a fun n free starbucks gal with her frappes and lattes and lots of cream (whipped or otherwise). charlie doesn’t drink coffee or tea bc hes hyper aware of his body and health (he doesn’t really have soda either) and it was frowned upon in his house.

[laurelindebear]

In today’s episode of My Brain is Spiraling Into Doomsday Scenarios Again:

Lifting the lockdown is going to cause another spike in infections and a lot of people are going to suffer and die.

Maintaining the lockdown indefinitely is going to cause a lot of other issues to go untreated (people unable to get physiotherapy, mental health therapies, speech therapy, etc; kids struggling to cope with not seeing their friends or playing outside, losing ground on their education due to closed schools, etc., and the sheer effects of long-term social isolation combined with increased general stress), and people are going to suffer and die.

Is there any exit strategy which does not incur the deaths of a lot of disabled people, older people, low-paid workers, and health care workers?

A lot of people are going to lose their jobs due to businesses going under regardless of which way governments go on lockdown. Is this even preventable now? How do you stop an economy ‘collapsing’? What does ‘collapsing’ even mean or look like? Is it something that can be stopped or mitigated in some way - any system or concept (economics, government, culture, etc) is something we made up and only works insofar as we all collectively buy into it, so could we just change the whole concept to ‘fix’ the problem? Or would stopping a collapse require genuine altruism and communal good from everyone, including the powerful and uber-wealthy, in which case, history and human nature suggests this is pure wishful thinking?

Is the entire concept of countries or nation-states fundamentally unsustainable in the long term? Globalisation is great from the point of view of personal enrichment - provided you have the resources to make use of it, of course, and not without its problems in terms of colonialist stuff -  but if a problem in one area can and will quickly shut down the entire world, more or less, that’s not good. That’s not even touching the climate issue, which requires a globally agreed and enacted solution, but...well, I’m not hopeful. (There’s continually another more urgent fire to fight, and sooner or later we’re going to run out of time.)

The reliance on ‘key workers’ in certain industries to keep the entire world functioning, usually with bad pay and conditions, and with the expectation that they are fair game to be sacrificed to keep everyone else fed, clothed, medicated, etc., is unsustainable and wrong. How do we stop it?

The price of keeping economies running and society functioning in the way it has become accustomed seems to be a willingness to let a certain percentage of people suffer and die to do so: ‘key workers’, agricultural and mining workers all over the world who are enslaved, or virtually enslaved, people with disabilities and health conditions.

‘Progress’ just means ‘movement’, really, and not all movement is positive or beneficial. Have we uncorked too many genies with double-edged wishes? Can the ship of humanity be righted? Should it?

If, as seems increasingly the case, humans need to revert to a pre-industrial way of life to continue to have a habitable earth environment and to more robustly protect health and well-being of people (by limiting contact with others to small collaborative communities which produce their own food, clothing, shelter, household goods, and luxuries directly instead of relying on vast global networks), what will that mean for people who require specialist care and treatment? Would we all be able to accept limited food choices, shorter lifespans, less learning, no travel?

I don’t want to give up electricity and modern plumbing and fresh fruit all year round and video games and restaurant meals and medication and visiting my family abroad, but can civilization of any kind survive with all those things still in place?

If magically all the land and resources in the world were shared equally and everyone had their own little place and society became small self-sustaining communities working in a collective, environmentally-friendly, anarchist kind of way, would it last? Is ‘progress’ inevitable? How would we stop community leaders becoming tyrants, the more skilled or unscrupulous or just plain lucky people becoming an elite, the greedy looking to raid their neighbors, the adjudicators and lawgivers becoming de facto police? How do we stop all the same mistakes and injustices and atrocities occurring? How do we prevent more ‘progress’ that just takes us into too-deep water again?

Is there any scenario for an attainable future where the same groups of people aren’t always on the bottom and always the ones to pay the highest price? Is it in any way possible for us to construct a form of human living where the disabled, the elderly, people of color/people of smaller ethnic groups in their areas, people of minority religious groups in their areas, children, people who are discriminated against for their sexuality or gender expression, are not just collateral damage or human shields against every scarcity or crisis?

It’s pathetic of me to sit here wallowing in this in my cushy middle-class life. But if supermarkets stop having food delivered, because there isn’t food to deliver, what do I do? I have enough supplies for a couple of weeks, but then what? I can suck it up and eventually cut my own hair, but I don’t own any land and I don’t know how to grow any crops. I can just about keep a few cacti alive on the windowsill.

I can’t see civilization as we know it surviving to the end of my lifetime, honestly. Either humanity will collectively break it in a bid to keep surviving, or outside forces will do it for us (or the leaders of nuclear-equipped countries take the decision out of everyone’s hands, ofc.) I love REM, but I feel anything but fine.

[wildblueyoshi]

8 People I’d Like to Know Better

@itsclydebitches​ said that anybody reading their post is tagged so oops guess I’m tagged.

Hey Clyde I know I just interacted with like 63 of your posts. Uh, sorry for all the notifications.  I promise I’m not cyberstalking you.

Name: Katy Bug.

Birthday: Nunya.

Zodiac Sign: Okay, I will tell you that I’m a Capricorn. Have I done this thing before?

Height: Can I cop out and say average?  For the U.S. at least.

Hobbies: Knitting, crochet, singing, hyperfocusing on things that rarely enrich my life or knowledge set, acting like I write a lot, talking about books as if I actually read them anymore.  Can I also say music if I earn half of my income from playing piano?

Favorite Colors: Cerulean.  I also love purple and yellow.

Favorite Book: The Lovely Bones.  I don’t read much anymore (unless you include fanfiction when I’m in the grips of hyperfocus - hello Good Omens), but I have read this book at least six times in the last decade.  That’s A LOT of rereads for me, since I very rarely read a book more than once.  God, I love this damn book. Okay, I swear I’ve filled this out before.  What am I doing with my life?

Last Song I Listened To: "Bounce” by System of a Down.  I also laughed, and asked my husband, “Wouldn’t it make more sense, biologically speaking, to have multiple, er, pogo sticks, and one lady?  I mean, if you ask me, that sounds more enjoyable.  Pogo sticks have a refractory period, after all.”  Then he said, “But what if it’s really about a pogo stick???” as if he was high as a kite and having some sort of Revelation™.  (With all due respect, Hubbs:  no.  The song is about sex.  It just... It just is.)

Here’s the song, because it is a weirdly fun ditty.  However, it lasts less than two minutes.  Consider that coincidental if you wish.  I do not.

Last Film I Watched: The 2016 “Ghostbusters.”  It was so good!  Now I have a big ole crush on Chris Hemsworth, and I want to be best buddies with the ghostbustin’ ladies.  Especially Kate McKinnon.

Inspiration or Muse:  Uh.  Can I say my own stupid brain?  I haven’t the foggiest where the hell my creative ideas come from.

Dream Job: Idek anymore.  Could I get paid for making stupid jokes on Twitter?

Meaning Behind Your URL:  It’s “wild blue yonder” but with Yoshi from Super Mario World instead!  Yoshi is adorable and I love him so heckin much!

Tagging: Seeing as I have probably filled this out and posted it in the past, I will not risk further embarrassment by tagging people I may have already tagged.  If anybody copypastas from this post and fills it out, tag me!  Even if you filled it out before, too, I won’t remember!  Haha!  *sweat drop*

[measuringlife]

Measuring Monday: Daddy

Tumblr has been my quiet safe space for 8 years. This has been a place to grieve and be vulnerable. Much of what I compiled below for this week’s Measuring Monday was already written and shared here over the years. Only now am I beginning to share my writing more publicly and I am thankful for the space and community here when I was less brave.

The world lost a great man 11 years ago yesterday. My world especially got a lot dimmer and for sure a lot less funny.

My Dad was awesome. He was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island in the same town I grew up in. He was the first in his family to attend and graduate college (with an Art degree) and after being a hippie in Southern California for a few wanderlust months he went back for a Masters in Education.

My Dad was an art teacher in a low income, minority school district and he LOVED IT. He spent his ENTIRE 33-year career in the district. After teaching for 20ish years he went on to administration. He was a middle school assistant principal for a number of years and then a high school assistant principal for a number of years. They wanted him to be principal, but he didn’t want to deal with politics.

When I was in first grade my Dad started a Saturday enrichment program for K-12 students, he ran the program for 12 years. Some of my favorite childhood memories were from that program. My Dad also piloted a night school program within the school district so people could get their HS diplomas. My Dad was a pretty big deal in the K-12 Education world. Even after he retired he couldn’t stay away. The last year of his life he was teaching in an education certificate program at a Dallas Community College. My Dad was great at what he did.

We shared a love of many, many things, especially musicals. RENT was one of our favorites and after he died “Seasons of Love” took on a new meaning. I’m measuring those years within my “dash” (it’s a great poem if you are not familiar, look it up) in daylights - in sunsets - in midnights - in cups of coffee - in inches - in miles - in laughter - in strife and more.  Back in January 2010, a friend of mine challenged me to measure my year in cups of coffee, which lead to measuring my miles, my body, my health and the rest is history. I get a lot of joy and satisfaction in measuring my life. It makes life seem a little more permanent and a little less fleeting at times.

The last 3-4 years of his life I pretty much talked to my Dad every day, even multiple times a day. Since he was retired he was available to talk whenever. I generally would call him when I was walking to and from class in grad school. Even if it was just a few minutes we’d have a great chat. I can honestly say we were best friends. There are still times when I wish I had my Dad to call.

Our last day was a fabulous Daddy-Daughter day - we were dorks and really called them that. Little did I know that a week later he would be taken from me. I was living in North Texas at the time, 5 months into my first job out of grad school and I was going through a rocky patch. My Dad lived 2.5 hours away in Dallas and wanted to come up for the day to cheer me up. Plus my he was having gastric bypass surgery that Thursday and I really wanted to see him before then.

Part of the reason I moved to Texas was to be closer to my Dad. My parents got divorced after my freshman year of high school and he stayed local, but once I went to college we never lived in the same state. I was in Connecticut and he was in New York or Florida or Texas. I saw my Dad so much in those 5 months we both lived in Texas it was wonderful, some of our best times. I had a lot of ups and downs with my Dad, but our last few months were so much fun.

That last time we hung out I drove up to Oklahoma so we could go to the casino and play some slot machines. Well on the 20-mile drive to Oklahoma I get pulled over on a Sunday afternoon for doing 77 in a 70. I honestly wasn’t aware of my speed because it was an open road and because my Dad and I were singing along to the Aida soundtrack on the top of our lungs. I was so upset about the ticket, but my Dad comforted me and made me feel better, he always did. After the casino, we came back to my apartment, rearranged furniture, and just hung out.

I didn’t want him to leave. I had a sinking feeling about everything. That was the day he told me he was getting gastric bypass over a lap band. I wasn’t a fan of his decision to have either surgery, particularly not gastric bypass. He was 6'2 and 300-325 pounds MAYBE. He has lost 100 pounds through diet and exercise when I was in high school and he kept it off for 8 years before quickly gaining it back after he retired. I was disappointed that he was resorting to surgery. He had been talking about lap band for 6 months and talked to many doctors, went to consults etc. Then within a week of his surgery, his doctor talks him into gastric bypass.

His surgery was Thursday, a week before Thanksgiving. 3 days later that Sunday morning, November 18, 2017, my phone rings at 6:30am. I knew before I answered the phone that he was dead. He was still in the hospital and he essentially bled out internally. A blood transfusion and proper care could have saved his life. I was 2.5 hours away in North Texas not having been fully informed or able to fully comprehend post-op complications and too naive to realize I needed to come down. No twentysomething really thinks their Dad is going to die. I had just spent the prior Sunday with him and was scheduled to come down to Dallas Tuesday for the night before flying to NY for Thanksgiving.

I was devastated, I still am. My whole entire world forever changed. Everything about that day and the weeks and months that followed, including a failed wrongful death lawsuit due to the Texas good old boys club, was a nightmare. I sometimes wish I could “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” much of it.

He was 58, I was 24, and my sister was not quite 22. None of us were ready for him to be gone forever. My sister and I had already lost him once in 1998 when my parents separated and he moved out. To quote a friend who wrote about her Dad on his one year anniversary “I feel both lucky to have had my dad for so many years and angry that he was taken from me when I and he were too young. If I know anything better today than I did last year, it is exactly how complicated and messy life and death and grief are.”

My story is a complicated one on many levels. It’s a lot to bear, especially around the Holidays. Family drama and a Mother that I have a terrible relationship with makes things extra hard. There is no winning with her ever, my Dad was one of the few who really understood. I miss having him on my team. The sad reality is the 11 years that he’s been gone have also led to the 11 worst years in my relationship with my mom. A relationship that was rocky to begin with due to her alcoholism and emotional abuse.

The complications of life and death and grief were something I wasn’t expecting and it really causes tremendous pain. However, out of tragedy, I was finally able to find the motivation to get healthy and fit. I did the work, no shortcuts, no fad diets, and most importantly no surgery.

To quote a message from another friend years ago, about losing her mom, "Sometimes it takes the death of a loved one to wake us up. I consider that a lasting gift from my parent.” I found such comfort and hope in those words. My Daddy didn’t need that surgery and didn’t need to die. Sadly he did, but I refuse to let my weight control my life. I also couldn’t have his death be in vain. So in 2010, I started running, I took charge of my health. I also started fundraising for Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2) since most people who have lost loved ones find solace in charity work and there wasn’t a community for my loss out there. So I adopted David Cook’s charity of choice since watching American Idol during those dark months that followed helped me get through each week.

And here I am 11 years later and in the best shape of my life thus far. I thank my Dad for that lasting gift no matter how painful it’s been. I only wish he was here to see me now and the wonderful all-around person I am today.

I’ll leave you with this. One quote I remember my Dad telling to me in a time of struggle in my life was, “Plant your own garden instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.” That quote has meant so much to me over the years. YOU only have one life and YOU need to make the most of out of, right now.

Love you Daddy.

RDJ 4/25/49-11/18/07

[lexypoe-blog]

Readerly Exploration #5        March 13, 2019

Course Reading: Tompkins—Chapter 9, “Promoting Comprehension: Text Factors”

The Big Take Away: Addressing the text factors of comprehension requires teachers to equip students with knowledge of genres, text structures, and text features.

Nugget: My favorite part of the chapter was Tomkins’ section on the elements of story structure. While I am familiar with all five elements, I appreciated how she broke them down into smaller categories. For example, conflict occurs in four ways: between character and nature, between a character and society, between characters, and within a character. Characters are developed in four ways: appearance, action, dialogue, and monologue. Setting has four dimensions: location, weather, time period, and time, and lastly, point of view has four viewpoints: first-person, omniscient, limited omniscient, and objective. Through all of her detailed and organized descriptions, I felt much more confident in my ability to teach the elements of story structure. Also, if I get the chance, I would love to use some of the stories from her booklist that illustrate these elements!

Readerly Exploration Experience:

For chapter nine, my readerly habit was to read a wide variety of genres and formats of texts to grow in my knowledge and experience as a reader. The corresponding task I chose to complete was finding texts from different genres and formats and connecting them to the course reading. Before discussing these texts, I would like to explain why I chose this task. The vignette in the beginning of the chapter described a 4th grade class’ study on frogs. Instead of only learning about frogs in science, their teacher, Mr. Abram, worked very hard to incorporate reading and writing. One way he did this was by providing students with frog books from three different genres: stories, nonfiction, and poetry books. Reading this vignette reminded me of my summer job, when I taught 2nd grade students about monarch butterflies. However, unlike Mr. Abram, I focused heavily on science. I gave students a PowerPoint presentation, had them fill out a life-cycle worksheet, and let them watch a monarch caterpillar transform into a butterfly. While I think my students learned a lot from this experience, I now realize that I missed an opportunity to provide them with rich literary experiences. Now, fast forward a few months, and I have been officially approved to lead a monarch butterfly camp in summer of 2019. This camp will provide rising 2nd to 5th grade students with an opportunity to learn about these amazing creatures. Activities will include building monarch habitats, going on nature hunts to find eggs and caterpillars, and planting milkweed patches to increase food supply.

Given that is an enrichment camp, I want to be very intentional about providing students with access to learning materials. This brings me back to my readerly exploration task. I thought it would be interesting to identify several monarch butterfly books from different genres and formats and start a wish list for my camp. Because I did not have access to a library at the time of this exploration, I relied on YouTube read alouds, online book previews, and book reviews. By the end of my search, I had created a list of several wonderful books from the genres of stories, nonfiction, and poetry!

Stories

Velma Gratch & The Way Cool Butterfly by Alan Madison

Gotta Go! Gotta Go! by Sam Swope and Sue Riddle 

Hurry and the Monarch by Antoine O. Flatharta

Nonfiction

Great Migrations: Butterflies by Laura F. Marsh

How to Raise Monarch Butterflies: A Step-by-Step Guide for Kids by Carol Pasternak

The Monarch: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly by Kylee Baumle

Poetry

Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow by Joyce Sidman

The Monarch’s Progress by Avis Harley

Seeds, Bees, Butterflies, and More! by Carole Gerber

In addition to finding these books, I wanted to draw connections between them and the course reading. Here are some of my ideas...

1. Initially, I labeled the three stories I found as realistic fiction. However, I started second guessing myself because the animals talk. I went to google to try to solve my problems, and it turns out a lot of other people are confused by this as well. One website proposed that if animals talk to humans, it’s fantasy, but if animals talk to other animals and act like typical animals, its realistic fiction. If that rule is correct, my initial thinking was correct!

2. While I don’t want to explicitly teach ELA at this summer camp, I could use the conflicts in the stories to discuss the challenges that monarch face. For example, in Hurry and the Monarch, the monarch faces a conflict with nature, as she must migrate according to the weather. 

3. The nonfiction books are full of expository text structures that could be displayed using graphic organizers. For example, the characteristics of a monarch butterfly could be displayed in a web, the life cycle of a monarch butterfly could be sequenced in a numbered list, and the decline of monarch butterflies could be shown in cause and effect boxes. Since this is a hands-on summer camp, I would not want campers to complete these graphic organizers on their own. If anything, I would have a group discussion where we fill in the organizer together, and then, I would connect this information to a fun, interactive activity.

4. Seeds, Bees, Butterflies, and More! is a collection of poems for two voices. Several teacher reviews said that students loved reading this book with their peers. I think this could offer campers a fun, collaborative, and educational reading experience!

5. The poetry books could definitely be challenging for my younger campers to understand. They are full of poetic devices that they have not yet been taught. That being said, I think my older campers could really benefit from these poems. Personally, I am always emotional when I see a butterfly hatch. I am continually blown away by God’s creativity and the effort and detail he put into our world. These poems and the rich language they use could serve as a wonderful tool for campers to channel their thoughts and emotions on butterflies.

Overall, I found this readerly exploration to be both interesting and enjoyable. Not only did I get myself super excited about monarch camp, but I did it while learning course content! I am really excited to integrate these books into my summer camp and give campers access to a wide variety of genres. I hope they have just as much fun reading them as I did!

Multimedia Extension:

Click here to view the read aloud of Hurry and the Monarch by Antoine Flatharta!

This is loosely related to my readerly exploration, but I had to include this video. When I was teaching my 2nd graders about monarch butterflies, I decided to use this song as a brain break. Little did I know that my students would ask me to play it every day for the rest of the summer. Needless to say, this song became the anthem of our classroom, and I am pretty sure it will be stuck in my head for the rest of my life. ENJOY!!

[elenajohansenauthor]

Fictober18, Day 30: “Do we really have to do this again?”

OCs: Shannon and Orlando

Project: Untitled paranormal romance for Fictober18/NaNoWriMo, now tagged #spookyromancenovel on my blog

Potential Triggers: none

Word Count: 2,285

About: Sun magic and an unexpected phone call.

The process of capturing sunlight is mostly preparation, coupled with lots of waiting. Now, after my coffee date with my mother, the waiting was over.

I don't open the shop on Sundays, but I headed there, since that's where I'd likely be when the sun was shining, any other day of the week. I'd left my assembled kit of spell components there, waiting through every day serving my customers and tending the shelves for the rain to break, for even just five minutes of sunlight to get things started.

Of course it was sunny on my day off. Of course.

Everything was packed in a drawstring velvet bag (one of my most popular items, witches of every stripe go nuts for soft, pretty velvet) so I grabbed it and headed up to the roof, which I could access from a steel ladder on the back wall of my storeroom. Managing the hatch was a pain, I always wished I had stairs instead, especially when I was taking up vessels for collecting rain water, or bringing them in. I had a lot of roof, so I could put out a lot of pots, but they got dirty quickly if I left them up there—I'd found that out the hard way, and let me tell you, chipping off dried bird shit is no fun time. In theory, I could get one of those big weatherproof chests to keep things in, but how would I ever get it up there?

Hauling the bag up was easy, though, I simply looped the drawstring around my wrist and up I went.

The rainfall had lasted long enough to thoroughly soak the cement, but there were dry patches emerging from the scattered puddles. I sat in the center of one and opened my bag.

A scrap of bright golden silk came out first. It had come from an ao dai I'd worn as a child, and the square, cut from the front, still had faded embroidery in one corner. The thread had been bleached by the sun in a way that the silk itself hadn't, but I liked the effect, the white-gold stitches against the strong, mustardy yellow. I'd been using this cloth for ages, and I would keep using it until it disintegrated in my hands.

I weighed down each corner of the square with a piece of tumbled citrine, used to attract joy to one's life, and emblematic of the sun. They were pretty stones, not my favorite, but clear and warm. I only used them for this sunlight gathering spell, which I had done before, but not often. My mother had always frowned on magic in the house, but a natural sun lamp was one of the few things she permitted, once I'd explained how much of a help it would be in the rain and snow of a gray winter. She did prefer to test color palettes in sunlight, after all. The first summer she allowed it, I spent a whole week storing up sunshine, every afternoon until she called me in for dinner.

I wouldn't have that same reliable weather now, but all I could do was my best, which was coming up here as often as possible before the full moon.

A brief moment of curiosity distracted me—Ursula as a moon witch? It wasn't entirely out of the question, but it was a pretty large departure from her family's traditions, if Noah's gossip was accurate. Better that than a necromancer, I suppose, but then, I didn't actually know that much about necromancy. It wasn't, strictly speaking, raising the dead—we already had enough problems with ghouls for anyone to bother with that, I would think—but rather communing with them, as well as using the power of death and its trappings to affect change in the living world. But that was only the broadest outline of the branch, and I didn't know anything more specific.

I supposed if one of Ursula's brothers was capable of mind control, which wasn't necromantic at all, then she might also have ended up with talents that veered in  other directions.

But I was doing this for them, so I needed to do it, and stop dithering.

The next item from my bag was a smaller bag, the boring zipper top kind. It was filled with white sand I'd collected from a beach a few years back, and it was still half full, thankfully—I didn't get to travel often, so I was always keeping an eye out for spell components when I did. I measured out a handful and brought it close to my face, closing my eyes. “Warm sky and brilliance,” I whispered over it. The sand heated briefly in my hand, not unpleasantly. Like holding a bag of roasted, candied nuts. Without opening my eyes, I reached forward and tipped my hand, letting the sand spill over the silk, or at least where I thought the silk was.

When I opened my eyes, I was pleased to see I had a neat pile sitting almost exactly in the center of the square. Good luck, that. It's not that the spell wouldn't work off-center, but neatness and symmetry certainly aided most types of spells.

The last thing I needed was a plain old crystal ball, which I drew out carefully. Any scratches or nicks on the smooth surface could decrease its effectiveness as a vessel, and I was tired, run-down from all the stress of the past few weeks. The last thing I wanted was to drop the ball and have it roll clear across the roof, picking up grit the whole way, until it ran into the low brick lip at the edge and cracked.

I handled it gently, with just my fingertips, and set it firmly atop the sand pile.

Everything was in place. I put on my sunglasses, focused on the center of the crystal ball, and began to chant.

Sunshine, sunshine, bless this vessel. Sunshine, bright light, fill it full. Sunshine, white heat, hear me calling. Sunshine, great star, grant me life.

It wasn't the greatest poetry, but it did the job. If I'd written the chant, I would have at least tried to make it rhyme, but it did have a certain pulsing rhythm to it that I liked, that made it easy to fall into. Because I was going to be up here for hours, with any luck.

After the first twenty minutes of the spell, the crystal ball grew bright enough I was thankful for the sunglasses. After another fifteen, it was too bright to look at anyway—I had to shut my eyes. When I eventually paused to take a few sips of water—I'd stashed a bottle in my supply bag—I could see the gathered light pulsing even through my eyelids. This was going faster than I expected it to, which either meant the sun was unusually strong, or I was. Since the last time I'd gathered sunlight was near midsummer, and now we were in early fall, I doubted it was the former. But it had been years, so maybe I was more skilled than before?

Or more powerful?

A witch's power was a tentative, relative thing. So much depended on aptitude for a type of magic. Just like a person could have different types of intelligence—book-smart, people-smart, number-smart and so on—a witch would could incinerate a hay bale with a glance might find herself completely unable to scry, or imbue a promise with magic, or hear the truth in someone's voice. I had strong Healing magic, a smidge of truth-reading, and the most basic, rudimentary abilities in a few other areas, like sun magic. Yes, I could gather sunlight to store and use later, but I couldn't conjure it from nothing; I couldn't weave its light into illusions or focus it into a laser beam to cause harm.

For me to suddenly be so noticeably better at a spell I'd performed several times before was worrying. How could I have changed so radically? No amount of book-smart research could account for it.

It only took another hour to fill the crystal to bursting with light. I couldn't explain exactly how I could tell it was done, just like I couldn't explain exactly how I could see the invisible edge of one of Orlando's portals. But there was a feeling of pressure against my skin, and that precise kind of silence you hear just between the moment a piece of glass shivers, and the moment it cracks. I could imagine one more word of the chant filling the ball too much, and having the light flood out.

It had never happened to me. I didn't know if I would fry to a crisp, or just get badly sunburned. I stopped. I wasn't taking any chances.

Still with closed eyes, I reached out gently to find the ball. Despite the swirl of brightness I could see even through two layers of protection, the ball was only barely warm to the touch. I brought it to my lips and whispered, “Rest.”

The light died instantly. I left my eyes closed until the false colors my brain was producing stopped flashing and popping against my inner eyelids. When all was black again, I looked at the crystal. It was a solid, matte black, so deep it almost looked like a hole between my hands. The blackness had startled me the first time—I thought I'd failed. But when reawakened, the light had been there for the taking. No, the blackness was a precaution, preventing the loss of light, and preventing the caster from blindness. The amount of light I'd stored was dangerous, if unleashed too quickly or seen too closely.

I slipped the ball back into my big velvet bag. The sand beneath was scorched black, sooty more than sandy. After removing the pieces of citrine, I picked up the silk and shook the ruined sand out into the wind, hoping it would settle somewhere where the soil needed enriching.  I'd tried disposing of the sand in a few different ways, but it tended to burn through plastic trash bags, set puddles of water boiling, and eat like acid through most solids—it was that hot, magically speaking. The only way to disperse that intense energy seemed to be to disperse the sand itself, letting the wind carry and cool it.

I was just opening the hatch to go back inside when my phone rang from my jacket pocket. Orlando was calling. This probably wasn't good.

“Hello?” I answered tentatively.

“I need to see you about something,” he said without preamble. “Can you come by tonight?”

“Something you can't just talk to me over the phone about?” I was close to whining, but I was wrung out. “Do we really have to do this again?”

“That's the other thing,” he said grimly. Internally, I was sighing. There was another thing? “Don't bring Noah.”

“What?” I stepped back from the open hatch, afraid shock might pitch me straight into it. “I don't have the best record with keeping secrets from him, okay? Are you sure I have to come alone?”

“Positive, Shannon. But it'll be worth it.”

I reminded myself not to clench my teeth—bad for my blood pressure. “I can't promise when I'll show up, then. It'll have to be after he's left to hunt. If he even does, I can't exactly force him to if he's not hungry, and there's no way he'll let me leave alone if he's around.”

“Figure something out.” Orlando's voice was flat and hard. “You might think his protectiveness is cute now, but if he makes the transition to full gargoyle, he's either going to rip you to pieces in a frenzy, or guard you so well you'll die of starvation because he'll only bring you ghoul carcasses to eat instead of human food.”

His words were so ridiculous I wanted to dismiss them out of hand, Noah would never...

But he might. If that promise spell broke somehow, if he turned, Orlando was right—Noah would either kill me immediately, or doom me to a slow death of privation. There was no way gargoyle-Noah, with a surviving instinct to protect me at all costs, would ever let me do anything so mundane as go grocery shopping.

“That won't happen.”

“Not if we're all working merrily together to keep him human-ish and sane, it won't. So you need to meet me tonight, without him.”

“Fine,” I growled, my good mood from the success sunlight gathering completely ruined. “Remember, I have no idea when I'll make it.”

“I'll be waiting.” He hung up.

I cursed Orlando with every non-magical swear word I knew, then climbed down the ladder after I'd vented my rage. No temper tantrums would make me risk the charged crystal, but once I'd secured it safely in my office, I shut the door and gave into the temptation to shout my curses, a luxury I hadn't indulged in on top of the roof, in the open air. I wanted to store up my anger like that sunlight, to unleash it on Orlando when I saw him, but some part of me was still afraid of him, of his knowledge and power, neither of which I knew to their full extent. Until I understood him better, I couldn't risk becoming his enemy.

Not when Noah's humanity was still at stake.

By the time I got home, I was still and calm as the surface of an early morning pond. Noah would wake soon, and he must not know I planned to trick him, or then everyone would be pissed at me.

[carrotingreen]

Degree of Happiness

Word count: 1.7k

Genre: Non-Fiction, Anecdote.

The sensation of reaching euphoria knows no bound. You’d feel so overwhelmed and emotional that it is understandable if a few droplets escape your eyes. I’ve felt something close to this before; laughing with my friends at absolute silliness, playing UNO cards with my cousins, feeling air run through my hair as I ride the pillion with my father on his scooter, or when you inhale petrichor all the while wrapped up in your velvet blanket. I guess one would call this feeling content. Now imagine this feeling multiplied by infinity. That’s euphoria. And that’s what I’m feeling now because this time I’m flying. I’m gliding in the sky. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Born into a family of nomads. We simply can’t sit still at home; we have to keep moving. Of course, each of us has different reasons for travelling. For instance, my mother needs an escape from the household chores and my family’s business. Whereas my father’s main motive is to discover new water bodies for him to experiment on with his reel and rods. As for me, I simply want to enrich my life with experiences (sorry to sound pretentious, but I do genuinely enjoy the little things in life). And in my sister’s case, she’ll do anything to escape from the clutches of studies. We’ve had the pleasure to be on various kinds of vacations: food trip, Adventure travel, staycations, overseas travelling, long drives, pilgrimages, beach trips, and I dare say, even luxury vacations. However, this voyage would fall under the category of unforgettable holidays. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ “…a classic blend of peace and tranquility which makes it a haven for nature lovers and adventure enthusiasts…” These words from a random tourism site are the reason why I wanted to visit Manali. Convincing mom was easy, but my penny-pinching dad was an impossible feat. But that’s why we have my sister, her puppy eyes would do the job. What follows next is the routine process of family discussion, planning, and some more discussion when my father realized it was going to cost more than he thought. The day arrived where I, along with my family, reached the infamous town nestled in the valleys of the Himalayas. Usually, people keep a bucket list, but I’d like to keep a Done List. That way I can see how far I have come in life rather than all that is yet to arrive. I’ve had my fair share of adventures. Parasailing, sea walking, trekking to name a few. Right now, the list is too short for my liking, but that’s okay, Manali will help me make it longer. On the first day, we embark on our trip to the next addition to my list. The notorious wild white water is an enchanting siren indeed. Despite how dangerous she looks, she’s calling my name and I willingly await to be devoured by her. Should I be scared? I probably should, but am I? Absolutely not. I am definitely river rafting today. My family joins, of course. “If you are going, then so are we. Might as well go down together” is what my father promised. The four of us and our newly acquainted rower are all settled on our inflatable raft. While my father makes small talk with our new friend, I was busy taking in this surreal moment. A moment when your gut tells you to embrace yourself because what happens next is definitely going to be extremely good or extremely dangerous. A weird combination of excitement and fear. All I can do now is hope I didn’t bring my family into danger for my selfish wants. “Here we go!” screamed my mom. And the wild white water devoured me. God knows how quickly I turned from an agnostic believer to a religious devotee when we all got out of the water and were able to inhale the cold air instead of the icy water. Nevertheless, the smile never left any of our faces, in fact, we were all laughing and screaming. A memory I never want to forget is now created. Teasing the waters as the boat dips its neck in and out of it, we all were living in the moment rather than just surviving it. Beyond any doubt, it was worth

every penny my father had reluctantly let go of. That evening was spent in the villages, gobbling the hot dumplings and sizzling orange jalebis from the old lady vendor near our accommodation. Before my eyelids retire for the day, I coaxed myself into believing I am not afraid. For what comes tomorrow is the final addition to the list for this destination. And far more dangerous. Because I have to do this alone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Icarus was gifted with wax wings by his father to escape the King’s prison. The only warning his father gave was to not fly close to the sun. Icarus soared into the blue sky. The wind running past his hair, his mind was captivated with his greed to go higher. And higher the Greek man flew. But Alas, before his father could stop him, it was too late. The wax from his wings melted and fell into the sea and so did he. As I stand on top of the descending slope, all I can wonder is if I too would fall like Icarus. Would my parents have to witness the fall of their child, like Icarus’s father once did? Though my sister and my mother are also going after me, the fact that I’ll be first bothers me a lot. Of course, I am glad it is me before my family, but it also doesn’t change that I will be the first one to fall. Knowing that my sister will be frightened if she sees me panicking, I pretended to be the brave girl everyone believed me to be. The suffocating safety gear and the terrifying view from here are giving me anxiety when I am not even claustrophobic or acrophobic. Paragliding is a recreational adventure sport. The pilot usually sits in a harness (the safety gear that is currently choking me) dangling below the paraglider’s fabric wing. I’ve heard all about paragliding from my uncle who does it as a hobby. I just wanted to experience it at least once, who knows I would live long enough to see it tomorrow. And this is the perfect opportunity. Fortunately, I am given an instructor since I’m only a mere beginner at this sport. So today I’ll fly with an instructor. Maybe in the future, I’ll fly on my own, but for now, I’ll have to share my special moment with my instructor so that I can come out of this alive. “Are you okay? Are you ready?” “Huh?” “Is the gear all tight and set? Are you ready to fly?” “Oh.” Good lord. Is he seriously asking me if I’m ready to die? I am afraid that I would have to disappoint him, but I’m not. Luckily for him, my body refuses to listen to my brain and muttered “Yes, the gear is tightly fitted. I am ready.”Ugh, my socially inept self simply can’t coordinate well. It’s too late to back out anyway. My father paid a good sum just to fulfill my wish. The instructor was all geared up while I was busy monologuing in my head and he hopped on the second harness behind me. “Get ready on count of three.” “Okay.“ “One. Two. Three!” . . . Wow. The possibility of dying is the least of my concern at the moment. All I can see is how small the world is from this view. And how gravity isn’t pulling me down and I’m floating in the sky. And how, unlike my previous worry of being suffocated by the safety gear, this moment right now feels so liberating. Screams and tears of content keep escaping me as ecstasy fills me up. A moment so ethereal and euphoric rarely comes together. I would really appreciate inspiring instrumental music in the background for this moment, but the melodic silence would have to suffice. The sensation of reaching euphoria knows no bound. You’d feel so overwhelmed and emotional that it is understandable if a few droplets escape your eyes. I’ve felt something close to this before; laughing with my friends at absolute silliness, playing UNO cards with my cousins, feeling air run through my hair as I ride the pillion with my father on his scooter, or when you inhale petrichor all the while wrapped up in your velvet blanket. I guess one would call this feeling content. Now imagine this feeling multiplied by infinity. That’s euphoria. And that’s what I’m feeling now because this time I’m

flying. I’m gliding in the sky. I won’t fall like Icarus. He didn’t have the safety gear. The fool should have just listened to his father just like I listened to my instructor. When he realized I have calmed down, he spiraled us in the air. The moment is much more magnificent. I should definitely thank him later. But for now, I need to focus on living this moment before it dies out and that’s exactly what I did. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ My mom and sister thought it was a piece of cake after seeing how well it went for me. Unlike my case, the wind was not that favorable for them and their landing was a bit rough. Nevertheless, the experience was too good to be ruined by the landing for them. My father’s acrophobia increased seeing how high we were all up in the sky and begged us not to make him witness his family do such adventures again. And as the cliché goes, “all good things come to an end.” We were nearing the end of this memorable holiday. Even so, I am happy I got to extend my Done List with two more additions: River Rafting and Paragliding.

For many Manali was a destination worth visiting, for me Manali was a memory worth cherishing for days to come. ‘Where to go next?’ is a question that will always occupy my fantasy. I guess I’ll have to wait until one of my fantasies turns into my next story.

[tearlessrain]

I have no idea what I’m doing. I know everyone says that, and I know it’s easy to say “yeah but neither does anyone else, we’re all making it up as we go” and I’m sure that’s true but if it is then I am an unsuspecting jock in a massive room full of theater kids who practice improv at lunch every day because I really, honest to god do not have any earthly idea what I’m doing. I can’t seem to motivate myself to do anything regardless of how much I want to and I can’t tell whether it’s because I’m lazy or there’s something legitimately wrong with me. I feel like I’m in completely the wrong place but I don’t have a better one in sight to move toward so I’m still just plugging away at the formless blob that is what passes for my life and career path. Like if I just keep poking it it will magically form up into a proper shape or at least something semi-solid I can work with. I’m trying to sculpt with quicksand.

and the irony is that the stupid hippie college I’m stuck at should be great for that in theory, and it seems to work for some people, but in practice it’s more a repeating process of “well this program looks interesting, oh, okay, this isn’t what I thought it would be from the course description/title at all and it’s too late to switch out now, guess I’m stuck doing whatever this is for an entire quarter” and then not actually getting much out of it even when I do manage to apply myself and now it’s my senior year and I’m still floundering and I don’t feel like it’s particularly enriched my life and all I’m going to have to show for it is a weird unorthodox transcript from a school that’s slowly going bankrupt and was in the news for tumblring too hard. 

and even when the program turns out interesting my brain has somehow built up such a paralyzing mass of anxiety and self-sabotaging tendencies hybridized with laziness into some unholy uruk-hai of procrastination that I can’t even manage to do well then.

kinda wish I’d just taken the gap year I wanted to take in the first place instead of going straight to city college because my dad told me to, having a miserable initial experience (it turns out telling your kid to figure out something entirely new to them that they already don’t want to do on their own and then blindsiding said kid by getting pissed and yelling at them when they finally do it because one of the classes they signed up for was an online one, which you never actually told them not to do, is not the best way to set the tone for a good and healthy learning experience), and then moving states and spending the next couple years working while feeling increasingly anxious because I was supposed to be going to college but wasn’t and then going to this school for reasons that honestly amount to “because it was there”. maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference at all, maybe it would have changed everything completely, I have no idea. I’m probably just looking for literally any excuse for why I currently feel like shit and can’t seem to do anything properly or at all. because why would I want to admit that my situation is 100% my fault when I could just shift the blame to a nebulous set of circumstances that occurred years ago, that seems reasonable.

Also, and this part actually is more because of the inscrutable course descriptions and perpetually shifting catalogue/faculty than a failing on my part, I am not remotely coming away with the credentials for any kind of career in game design, I’m literally only still telling people that’s where I’m headed because it sounds better than “fuck if I know, my life is a train wreck and I don’t even care anymore, working at the dog bakery was more fulfilling than this.”

so is my current job that amounts to “getting paid money to laugh at weird art while I meticulously correct camera distortions and remove dust specks from it,” which it turns out I can do for hours on end multiple days a week for over a month and never get bored which may also mean there is something legitimately wrong with me but working in my favor this time.

[he13na]

honestly i’m so sick of being tethered to work and school and work and school... i wish i had at least an office job as a secretary or i could be a librarian or ANYTHING THAT LETS ME WEAR MY OWN DAMN CLOTHES but i’m stuck at this blue collar dead end fast food job... my life is going nowhere. this is all i’m probably ever going to know and i’ve been trying to crawl my way to a general education associate’s degree since 2012 but i can’t get it because of math. and it’s not just because wah wah, math is hard, boo hoo, i don’t wanna put in the effort, blah blah. i have severe dyscalculia and i was born that way. i could not perform basic subtraction in the 2nd grade when everyone else was doing long division and algebra with fractions (they really push math on you early here).

but i’m even more sick to death of california’s bogus “disability resources” for students and the way they’re treated like they’re invisible. the schools really just sweep disabilities under the rug while claiming to have this grand helpful “resource center” to look good on paper or satisfy a mandatory educational standard. learning disabilities are vast and further complications including brain damage, psychological trauma or developmental disorders don’t make things any easier so handing a student a calculator and subjecting them to test in isolation doesn’t fucking fix anything. they need to grant course waivers in dire scenarios. they need to expand their willingness to help because a calculator is not going to further a severely impaired student. a separate room with a proctor is not a “resource”. can we talk about the fact that community colleges in california DON’T EVEN HAVE SPECIALIZED TUTORS FOR DISABLED STUDENTS??????? not even in their so-called “disability resource” offices????????? yeah. pretty sad. they refuse to accommodate you, shrug and say to your face that there’s nothing they can do on their authority.

oh, and DRCs reject students with epilepsy/memory impairment/complications due to seizures and brain injury because they don’t consider those learning disabilities. so if you’ve got those problems they’re going to turn you away and pretty much have the “#u can’t sit with us” attitude.

i want a degree! i NEED a degree if i ever want to get ahead in life and enrich the quality of my welfare and make something of myself instead of repeating math class after math class unable to pass because nothing’s changing and no one is willing to help me. the school just looks at you and shrugs as long as their cash flow is still coming in and it’s really disturbing because think of all the people and young adults who are already going nowhere in life and at their peak taking one class they’ll never be able to get past because THE CALIFORNIA EDUCATION SYSTEM DOESN’T TAKE DISABILITIES SERIOUSLY. something needs to change.

on a more personal note, i don’t want this kind of life. i don’t want to have to drop out of community college because i can’t pass intermediate algebra (which is way above my level, i could barely pass pre-algebra. i’m not even kidding) but this is my 3rd try and it’s pretty much the end of the road for me. i already know i’m not going to pass because i’ve been through this nightmare year after year, semester after semester and had to withdraw from an intro to statistics class alternative to intermediate algebra because my professor kept being a downright asshole and mocking me in front of the whole class and inviting the students to join in. i couldn’t go in without having panic attacks and i lost sleep due to stress. i don’t want to live my life on my knees working at a fast food restaurant just to pay my cheap smartphone bill and car insurance just to repeat the cycle and go back to 4-hour-a-day shifts and never wear my own clothes stuck in that tacky uniform my whole life until time passes and i’m dead, never doing anything on my days off because i’m waiting until this math class i can’t pass ends for the day BECAUSE I’M NOT LEARNING ANYTHING. I DON’T HAVE THE MENTAL CAPACITY TO RETAIN INFORMATION OR PRESERVE THE MEMORIES OF ALGEBRAIC FUNCTIONS. and the school board just looks the other way.

i only get one life and this is all i’m allowed to do with it and it just makes me feel so heartbroken. this is how i have to spend my time on this earth until i’m dead because i can’t get to a better standard of living without a degree and i don’t want this.

THIS IS REALLY DISENCHANTING.

[adobecharacter-blog]

Using the Bone Tool in Adobe Flash

A puppet is a figure of a person or other living being frequently constructed with jointed limbs, suitably painted and costumed, and moved usually on a stage by a pole or by hand from below or by strings or wires. It is usually controlled by an external force and its movement isn't inherent but is caused. Puppets are utilized to entertain in lots of actual people.

Using puppets has a lengthy history. Greeks were the first ones. Producing such shows was expensive, and considering that Greeks were fond of theatrical props, puppets were employed to take the place of actors. Puppets were made to resemble real characters and their movements are due to manipulating wires the sticks or strings.

Kinds of Puppets

The first sort of puppet is that the puppet which controlled and is typically suspended by a range of strings. Another kind is that the hand puppet, which is controlled by one hand that occupies the puppet's inside. A Ticklebug is a four-legged puppet, similar to a hand puppet by drawing attributes on the hand 21, but made. Black light puppet is lit only with black lighting with both hides the puppeteer and enriches this puppet's colours.

Other kinds are the Bunraku which originated from Japan; the Ventriloquist dummy; the Rod puppet which is very similar to a marionette; however, is operated by a pole instead of strings; the Marotte that's a simplified rod puppet that is merely a head and/or body on a pole; a Shadow puppet which is a 2-dimensional rod puppet that operated behind a display and a light source projected in the rear produces a shadow of the puppet on the screen that may be seen from the audience; the Water Puppetry which is native to Vietnam; the Wayang which is an undercover puppet; the Human-Arm Puppet or a Two-Man Puppet that's somewhat like a hand puppet but is larger and requires two puppeteers; the BuDaiXi that's a Chinese puppet series; the Digital Puppet that's a digitally animated figure; along with the Finger Puppet which is little type that just fits onto a single finger.

Want to make money with digital photography? Want your very own Photographic small business? Its wedding photography, keep reading to discover other ways of earning money and begin your own business! Here's a list of those 10.

Your very own digital, photography based, home business could begin here...

* Matchbooks. Parties, parties, birthdays, firework parties, barbecue supplies. Listed below are a sample. Or add to your ever growing lists of items. I understand people don't smoke in bars, pubs and the like anymore, but a book of matches to take home and outside, is a great advertising tool for a lot of businesses.

* Memo Pads. Memo pads are another marketing ploy, such as above, or how about the souvenir market? A good deal of small tradesmen and girls would adore a reasonably priced memo pad, that had their own name and phone number, but a striking image of these, or their vehicle. To give to their customers.

* Napkin Rings. Napkin rings, for the entertainer. Restaurants, or weddings, parties. Plenty of people would pay above store costs for an unusual gift such as this.

* Tins. Tins are everywhere, not just the obvious biscuit, flour. But other kinds of valuables, storage, old letters, old coins, nick-knacks, pencils and pens, artificial blossoms. What about the tins that seem like meals, but are? You can (no pun) get, blank tins, or just about recycling?

* Stick Puppets. Stick puppets are excellent toys, hours of enjoyment for adults (who would not like to find some politicians on a pole?) , or kids, (their mum and dad, pets, friends). You can print sticky prints that are back out to put onto card & sticks, or offer the support for individual pictures. Again gifts, souvenirs Stick to it and you may make a home business that is fantastic!

* Old Photos. A great deal of people find old photos intriguing. You've got the ones of towns and cities that a hundred decades back and the style photos. You can recreate this using a view that capture the picture doesn't contain anything contemporary and turn it to a sepia print, either digitally or with a print kit. Apart from enlargements as souvenirs, they also make great postcards. There are expensive franchises for victorian portrait businesses now, the specific same prints can be made on your computer or from kit. In the event that you desired, with clothing to change into, the portrait service could be offered by you, you pick.

* Mosaics. There are artists today who make a living producing mosaics, from photos or art. And there is great software that can do it to you. Mosaics make advertising. So put on, personalizing, or company? Do you know any contractors? A mosaic of their assumptions would look good on boards, cards,letterheads.

* Mobiles. Folks make a fantastic living making products. You see the advertisements in bulletin board or the ward and lets face it there is not a great deal while daddy is waiting to make an appearance to read! Mobiles make great gifts.

* Mugs. One of the most popular advertising medias around, they are with every image on these. Narrow focus on classes that are smaller, the market, individuals buy everything that represents their hobby or fire. I will not even begin a list here, you understand exactly what I mean... oh alright, golf, fishing, football, horses, cats, dogs, ducks, wallabies, centipedes, OK I am getting sarcastic!

Decision Shopping Bags. You'll have fun with them, they are great for humor, you know a photograph, or animation of a worn out guy, with the caption 'I store, '' he drops'. Or political such as ' **** occurs, and thus don't vote Labour.' Or your view of this town, or what ever picture. Look out for special occasions, they may need bags. Examine the bags around you, where do you think you can improve, or do they give you ideas? .

This is simply to get your brain and your creative juices going! The internet has opened up an never ending need of everything and anything. Stock photography has changed, gone are the exceptionally skilled, large format shots of models and beaches, that needed to be technically perfect, well they aren't gone, but they are not the only opportunities for aspiring photographers who want to make a living with their hobby, their own fire. Pictures which you wouldn't believe started life up anywhere and the capability is available to everyone, and in the comfort of their own home.

A children have toy for parents who wish to develop their child's technical and creative skills. Following is a list of 9 trendy camera projects for your photographer.

1. About Me Journal

Your youngster will love taking photos of their objects themselves and their environment. Print off these images and blend them into an "About Me" Journal. An alternative to this is to make a "My Day" Journal about a unique day, or even a special outing.

(Photo tip: The Vtech Kidizoom Spin and Smile makes shooting self portraits a breeze. Rotate the lens towards you to see yourself on the camera display)

2. Photo Puzzle

Just take this photo of a loved one, print it off, stick it onto card or laminate it, cut it and you've got a quick and easy to make puzzle gift!

3. What Can I?

There'll be some excellent and some not so good pictures in your children's photo library. Using present photos or by taking new photographs, get your child to challenge you to play the "Mystery Object" match to guess the name of the object in the picture.

Among the best things about After Effects is whether you can create animations that are intricate, It's used for some of the most famous Hollywood character cartoons we understand, You May Also create simple, helpful and Usable animations on your first moment.

Learning procedure or any new instrument, it is valuable to establish that the 'fundamentals', the fundamental tools that form the building blocks for this particular tool and in After Effects or any timeline based animation tool, the basics are layers and stopwatches.

What are 'stopwatches' ? Stopwatches are the point and click tool that you use to identify a place at which quality or a specific event is set, the icons. When you 'click' a stop watch you are creating a keyframe on the timeline for that property. When this event will take place, you are telling your animation. The easiest example is place. You have an animated ball, a ball that is bouncing. At position and time 0, the commencement of your animation is on a ledge. It is nudged off. 1 second, your ball's place is half way to the ground, at 2 minutes, it strikes the floor it is so on and back in the atmosphere from a bounce.

Your 'stopwatch' is the tool you use to place those keyframes, to 'lock in' a new value for the characteristic that that you are animating, in this scenario, the ball's job. At every specifying or second event above, you click on your stopwatch beside your position feature, and the position value is listed for that moment. When you play your animation back, you see the values you specified played out to the rankings you defined at the exact time you recorded.

Using After effects text animation is one of the basic tools in logo animation. When it comes to media cartoon among the design choices and which tool is best for the task depends on your logo is primarily text and can be represented with a text application whether the animations that are available for text.

Let us first look at how you would go about animating your logo if it is largely a text symbol with a few graphic highlights. One of the most effective set of presets from the Adobe is your text animations. Just about everything you can imagine, what you've observed from text tumbling to sliding in to colors, from 1 side or another and luminous can be obtained as a text preset.

Use the text tool to create your logo text, picking your font. Create. Directly across in the text 'twirl down' arrow would be the 'Animate' attribute with it's twirl down pair of animate features. Pick 'position' . You will instantly see a component Digital Puppets under your text, 'Animator 1' using it's own place component and a 'Range Selector'. Twirl open the range selector to view 'start', 'end', and 'cancel' options, each with it's own stopwatch suggesting that every property can be animated.

We know about 'a picture says a thousand words'. For a quick illustration to realize how simple it's to prepare an animation using these basic configurations, place the range selector to it's default values of 0 percent for Start, 100% for End, and 0% for Offset. Set the range selector position 0,-200 (0 for x cancel, -200 for y offset). This setting for y will position your text above your stage.

Click on the stopwatch at time '0', move your deadline to 3 seconds and move the Start value to 100%. Scrub the timeline then preview your animation. You will see your text decreasing 'out of the skies'. For one easy setting that will add another touch of diversity using a single switch, look under the 'Advanced' section of your Range Selector for 'Randomized Order' and click on this from off to on. When your characters chanced upon the stage, they appear. This is a really popular effect with television and movie introductions, commercials, and needless to say, web site logos.

Total Moons, Dogcreek, think globally, act locally. Online Designer Tom Womack uses Adobe Design Suite creating sites. Adobe is my application of choice using possibilities. I use Premiere Pro for video editing, Flash for final Web picture. I am on a learning curve that is constant and regularly update my media site.

[crabsticksforbreakfast]

1. Do you like who you are? Some days more than others. I try to, but sometimes it's hard. 2. What would people say about you at your funeral? Hopefully that I was nice? A good friend? 3. What would you regret not doing in your life? Leaving things unsaid and not travelling more. 4. What’s the wisest thing you have ever heard someone say? I honestly can't think of just one. I have had some very wise teachers in my life. 5. What lessons in life did you learn to hard way? You can't trust people not to hurt you, because sometimes they will hurt you to spare themselves. 6. How often do your biggest worries and fears come true? It depends on the situation. My worries are often related to whatever I'm currently going through. 7. If you had one year left to live, what would you try to achieve? Travel loads. 8. Do you serve money or does money serve you? Neither. I am not motivated by money, but I don't have enough to say it serves me as such. 9. Are you afraid of being your true self around others? Why? Not really. I'm not entirely sure which version of myself the "true" one is anyway! 10. What are you grateful for? My friends. 11. Have you done anything you are proud of lately? I made a really cool song the other day. 12. Have you made any recent acts of kindness? No, not that I can think of. Man, I really should. 13. If you knew that you would die tomorrow, what questions would you ask yourself? I would try not to. What's the point in torturing yourself with no time to change anything? 14. If your biggest fears came true, would it matter in five years from now? It's hard to say. No doubt I'd still be beating myself up for it in five years. 15. How would you describe yourself? Weird but with good intentions. 16. Do you take people’s advice? I try to. 17. Do you get quickly offended? Nope. 18. Do you consider yourself to be a likable person? I guess so. I do have quite a lot of friends who actually care about me and want to hang out. 19. ‘We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give’ – What does this mean to you? It's pretty self explanatory, I'd say... 20. Are you enriching the lives of others? I hope so! 21. Are you living a meaningful life? I'm living my life as well as I can. Whether it's meaningful or not, I don't think that's for me to say. 22. What makes a meaningful life? I would say just being a good person to yourself and to others. 23. Would you ever give up your life to save another? Probably. 24. How much would you be willing to sacrifice for people in poverty? A reasonable amount. 25. If you could live one day over and over again, what would you choose to do? Exploring in Norway and seeing the Northern Lights. 26. Do you think you are important and worthy of affection and love? Yes! Getting other people to agree is the difficulty. 27. What would make you feel more worthy? What do you believe needs to be different about you? I need to worry less and believe that good things will happen. I think my anxiety causes me to give off negative vibes. 28. What brings you down the most often? Other people not doing what I thought they would do. 29. Would you rather work less (and do the things you enjoy) and have less money? I have so little money as it is, and you need money to do the things I want to do. Plus I love my job, so no. 30. Where do you find peace? In nature with my music on. 31. What is the most important quality you look for in another person? A willingness to understand each other. 32. What is your biggest dream in life? To have my love returned and for it to last. 33. What is your biggest fear? Being unloved forever. 34. How would the world be different if you had never been born? I have no idea! 35. What life lessons do you wish you knew 10 years ago? Alcohol is stupid and makes you look and act like an idiot. Most of the people you see as "best friends" now will not even be in your life in 10 years, so don't let these people mess you around. 36. If you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be? You were not a bad person for falling for him. He knew what he was doing and played the game too well. It's not your fault and it does not mean you don't deserve to be happy. 37. If your life was a movie, what would the title be? What The Actual Fuck? Life Story of an Overthinker. 38. If your life was a movie, would you enjoy watching it? It would be so cringeworthy! But parts would be pretty funny. 39. What does success mean to you? Being able to look at what you did and feel proud. 40. If you could be a different person, who would you be? Someone who travels more and is braver. 41. What was the best day of your life? Why? Seeing the Northern Lights or husky sledding. Can I just say my whole trip to Norway? 42. What do you look forward to most in life? Where I'm going next. 43. What bad habits do you want to ditch? Overthinking, catastrophising, being vague instead of saying what I really think/feel. 44. Who do you look up to and why? WW because she has had such a hard life, but continues to be kind and positive. 45. Do you know your partners love language? He's not my partner. Perhaps if I knew his "love language" I would be with him instead of constantly confused about what is going on! 46. Do the people you love most know how much you love them? Some, but not others. 47. Are you satisfied with the depth of your relationships? I am with my friendships, but I'd like to be in a romantic relationship with someone who I completely click with. 48. What do you owe yourself? Patience and kindness. 49. Based on your current day-to-day life, what do you expect to achieve in 5 years from now? Having traveled more, maybe earning more. 50. Do you say ‘yes’ too often when you really want to say ‘no’? Why? No. If it's a no, it's a no. I guess I might say yes to small things when I should have said no, but those things don't matter much. 51. What did you learn yesterday? It is possible to have a really good day doing simple things in my home town. I don't give myself these experiences enough. 52. What do you like about yourself? I am creative, kind, and hella determined. I always make the effort to understand the differences in others. 53. Would you consider yourself to be a generous person? In some ways. 54. Do you really listen when people talk to you? It depends what they are talking about. 55. What is the number one change you need to make in your life this year? Stop overthinking! 56. How many hours per week do you spend on the internet? It varies depending on what else I have to do. 57. What are your most common negative thoughts? Are they logical? He doesn't like you. You are going to open yourself up to humiliation. You are going to get hurt. I guess some are logical but mostly not. 58. Do you think it’s too late to do certain things in your life? Why? No! Who puts age limits on things these days? 59. If you could be the most influential person in the world, what would you change? No more hatred and violence. 60. How much time do you spend with your family and friends? I see my mum every day and sometimes that is too much! I see some friends more than others, and I wish it was more balanced. 61. Where do you want to be in 5 years from now? Living in my own place with the love of my life and cats. Travelling more and earning a decent amount in a job I love. 62. Is your life complicated by unnecessary things? Yes. 63. How can you simplify your life and focus on the most important things to you? I don't know. 64. What stresses you out? I stress myself out by obsessively overthinking everything all the time. 65. What makes life easier? Having people to vent to and give me advice. 66. How often do you give without expecting anything in return? Not enough. 67. What is your greatest challenge? My own brain. 68. What is most important to you in life? Are you giving it the time it deserves? Love, but I actually think I am giving it too much time. 69. If you could send a message to the world, what would you say in 30 seconds? Don't be a dick. All people are equal and religion is pointless. 70. What do you most regret never telling someone? I love you. 71. When was the last time you tried something new? I learned a better way to produce my music the other day. 72. Are you afraid to speak your own opinion? Not usually, but sometimes I choose not to because I don't think the world constantly needs to hear what I think. 73. Do you give into others too often and feel resentful because of it? Not often but sometimes. 74. Are you holding onto something that you need to put behind you? Yeah... 75. How often do you let your fears hold you back? Every damn day. 76. Do the people in your life bring the best out of you? Yes. 77. How often do you make excuses? I tend to give reasons, not excuses. 78. What is one mistake that you will never do again? Drinking alcohol. 79. Which is worse, failing or never giving it a shot? Both friggin suck tbh. 80. What has grown you the most as a person – your challenges and trials or the comfortable yet enjoyable moments in life? Challenges fo sho. 81. If you could choose to have no more challenges or obstacles in life, would you? Only if I could enjoy them. 82. In one word, what is standing between you and your biggest goal? Anxiety. 83. How often do you go to bed feeling angry? Rarely. 84. Would it be wrong to steal in order to feed a starving child? No. 85. If you paid more attention to the sad things in this world, would you feel more conflicted about it? Yeah. 86. If we learn from our failures, then why is it so bad to fail? Because is leaves you with more fears and it takes so long to recover after a fall. 87. What could you pay more attention to in life? The simple pleasures and the current moment. 88. Why do we think of others the most when they’re no longer around? Because we miss them. 89. What does it look like to make the most of your life? Doing things that make you happy. 90. What have you given up on? Friendships that were only surface level deep. 91. How many people do you truly love and what are you doing for them? Define love. 92. Do you ask enough questions, or are you happy to settle for what you already know? I don't think I ask my questions to the right people. And no I need to know everything. 93. What were you doing when you last lost track of time? Making a song. 94. Do you think you would be happy if you never had to work again? No. 95. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? 15! 96. If you could ask for one wish, what would it be? For S2 to be with me. 97. What inspires you in life? Love and beauty. 98. What can you not live without the most? Friends. 99. What do you enjoy doing over and over again? Travelling. 100. When did you last laugh so much it hurt? Yesterday at a stupid video my friend took by accident. 101. What is stopping you from living the life you want to live? Anxiety.

[michaelfallcon]

Kendra Sledzinski: The Sprudge Twenty Interview

Welcome to The Sprudge Twenty Interviews presented by Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2020 Sprudge Twenty honorees please visit sprudge.com/twenty.

Nominated by Kayla Baird

“How do I put into words how Kendra has affected my life and countless others? We met at Joe Coffee in New York five years ago and hit it off right away. Who was this friendly person, I wanted to know! Soon I became aware of Kendra’s influence in the coffee community of Philadelphia. When I went to visit her, everywhere we went, she knew someone. Kendra constantly went above and beyond in Philly to encourage professional development and community with the Joe staff and baristas of Philly—doing palate development and cuppings that were never required, but she knew how to make baristas stay. She works hard for her community, and works hard to lift other people up—and she does so selflessly. Thank you Kendra!”

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

Equal access to education, resources, and professional development and opportunities. The industry is incredibly complex with lots of moving parts and many issues more critical than this, but I say it because it’s within my immediate reach. So many coffee professionals start as baristas. I think back to the days when I subscribed to some elitist coffee thought and language, and I cringe when I think of it.

These days, I want to use my experience as a trainer and educator to empower people with the knowledge they can grow with. This means promoting diversity and giving someone who is only working in coffee because it’s the job they have just as much attention as someone who wants it as a career. It also means listening. I stayed interested in coffee early on in my career because I was lucky to have managers and leaders who took me and my curiosity seriously and encouraged me to grow and learn. When I was training baristas, I would tell them that regardless of how long they occupy the role, knowing how to make coffee well is a valuable (and employable) life skill. I had the time of my life as a barista made easier by safe, healthy, and supportive work environments. Because of that, it’s important to me to help others have a positive experience working in coffee, too.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

The humanity of the entire value/supply stream. Coffee isn’t possible without the labors of humans and that is a fact that has never eluded me.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

The value of that labor on all ends of the supply stream. Producers are not paid enough for their coffee and baristas are not paid enough to make it, either. I don’t think this is overlooked and certainly do not want to oversimplify it, but I do think it’s an ongoing challenge and conversation that should not stop. I hope we can find ways in our industry to make those challenges and conversations more tangible and accessible to our customers and guests without being polarizing.

It starts with our offerings and even how we encourage them to engage with the coffees they buy—encouraging them to buy what they like, not what we think is best or more righteous. I think the pandemic has put a bit of a lens on all supply streams and how consumers buy and interact with products and goods. Maybe we’ll see some positive impacts of this in the aftermath. Either way, working in coffee isn’t sustainable for so many people. How can we make it so we can all be prosperous? I don’t have an answer but I’ll spend my life’s work trying to make it so.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

Coffee is an arbiter of human connection, culture, and social change. The industry is a global community and cafes are community spaces. We can diversify and educate our communities by making those community spaces welcoming and inclusive to all. I went to journalism school because I wanted to see and understand the world, but a career in coffee has given me that in a different, more enriching, and meaningful way.

Did you experience a life-changing moment of coffee revelation early in your career?

There have been so many moments that impacted my trajectory and kept me going and eager to learn that it’s hard to pinpoint just one. However, there is no doubt that many of those early moments were facilitated by Betty Ortiz at Spruce Street Espresso. Spruce Street closed a long time ago, but Philadelphia coffee wouldn’t be what it is today without its influence.

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

Usually I’d say I’m outside a coffee shop with some buddies and we’re sipping, sharing, and laughing in the sunshine. Because that world doesn’t exist right now, it’s my first cup in the morning. I’ve been using brewing my coffee as a way to practice some mindfulness at the start of my day. I brew my cup and sit in my window to drink it. I don’t look at my phone, I don’t read the news. I just sit, sip, and watch the day get brighter.

If you could have any job in the coffee industry, what would it be and why?

In some ways, I’ve already had the job I wanted for so long. I love sharing the joy of learning about coffee and flavor with others. My own ambitions are still malleable. In my fantasy world, I have the means and financial security to start a cooperative company with a bunch of badass coffee friends. We will be approachable, we will provide a great working environment and pay well. People will want to work with us and we’ll lead by example by having a diverse team, balanced power, and transparent, accountable leadership. This, of course, will be after I live out the other part of my fantasy world that involves me learning everything I can about coffee production by studying or doing research and living and working in a producing country for an extended period of time. I have never wanted to stop learning or growing my coffee skill set and I never will!

Who are your coffee heroes?

Many of them are also included on the Sprudge Twenty list. What a true honor it is to be here with them! I am also fiercely inspired by Coffee At Large and really any organized group of coffee workers. Taking risks and standing up for what you believe in isn’t easy and it takes a lot of courage. Folks farther ahead in their careers can learn a lot about workplace health, safety, and justice by taking some cues from these folks. I have so much hope for the future of coffee because of them.

And after this year’s Brewers Cup season, it would be remiss of me not to mention Beth Beall and the way she supports and encourages others. She’s a role model to so many, supports her own team’s growth and professional development in a way that makes me aspire to be able to do the same one day. Most of all, she does it with wisdom, kindness, and grace. We love you, Beth! Thank you for everything you do for the greater coffee community.

If you could drink coffee with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

My late grandmother Elsie Flora Spencer Sledzinski, but she would be drinking tea because she was British and that’s all I ever knew her to drink. She passed in 2009, but I’d like to talk to her openly as a grown adult woman and hear her take on the state of the world. I know she would be disgusted by Trump, and I’d love to bond with her over that.

If you didn’t work in coffee what do you think you’d be doing instead?

Anytime someone asks me this I say, “lavender farmer.” Doesn’t that sound like a nice way to live?

Do you have any coffee mentors?

I wish! I always wanted one, which is why I think I try to be a mentor I never had to others. But I still have so much to learn, and it’s never too late to have one if anyone is feeling generous!

What do you wish someone would’ve told you when you were first starting out in coffee?

To not take myself so seriously! I started having a lot more fun when I quit worrying about being perfect or being right. There is absolutely no one way to brew or enjoy coffee.

Name three coffee apparatuses you couldn’t do without.

I feel stumped, especially after spending more time with brewing vessels during quarantine. Going to have to go with a Baratza grinder, a glass V60, and one of my favorite mugs.

Best song to brew coffee to at the moment.

Tell me you don’t want to get back behind the bar and crush a rush when you hear “Space Jam” by the Quad City DJs?

Where do you see yourself in 2040?

Hopefully happy, healthy, and living extra well because I am finally living out my dream of residing in a beautiful place next to a body of water.

What’s your favorite coffee at the moment?

*sips* Jen Apodaca is slaying it with Mugshots by Mother Tongue! I love a coffee that is easy to brew and tastes sweet and balanced.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted you personally and professionally?

I am one of the thousands of coffee workers laid off from a job I loved. I miss it and many of my colleagues dearly. In the first few weeks, I felt minor relief. Sure, it was a full-time job just navigating the unemployment portal, but with rapidly evolving news made it hard to focus on much of anything but that. Now that more time has passed, it’s hard not to feel discouraged or disheartened. How can I be laid off? I’ve given 13 years of my life to coffee. Am I not good enough? Are my contributions and ideas not valuable? These are some thoughts that have entered my brain despite trying so hard not to. How can any of us in this position not have these thoughts? There’s no manual or reference for how to get through this and it looks different for everyone. We all have different needs. I’ve accepted that some days are just going to be harder than others and truly take it one day—sometimes one hour—at a time. Yet, there is an extraordinary amount of comfort in knowing I am not alone in navigating this. I cannot say I’d be managing it as well if I weren’t connected to so many coffee friends and peers at this time. The shared experience, the empathy; it’s refreshing and it makes me feel immense gratitude for the life choices I made that led me to this work and the coffee community.

I know that one day I will reflect upon this time of cooking projects, 24/7 athleisure, Zoom hangs, movie marathons, and learning the choreography to all my favorite ’90s music videos because I have the time. I know I will ultimately be thankful to have spent it safely in my home with my love and our house plants. Until then, what a way to get better at being patient.

Is there any donation fund or resource in your community we can share with our readers?

I’ve been co-hosting Coffee Break Northeast with the imitable Tommy Gallagher! It’s a way to connect with others in a time of social distancing and we support virtual tip jars, employee fundraisers and coffee businesses in our region daily at 1 pm. We have quite the crew of “regulars” and the camaraderie of Coffee Break has been instrumental in getting me through this time! coffeebreak.group is the website and we do ours at 1 pm eastern. All are welcome!

The Sprudge Twenty Interviews are presented in partnership by Sprudge & Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2020 Sprudge Twenty honorees and a complete interview archive, please visit sprudge.com/twenty.

Kendra Sledzinski: The Sprudge Twenty Interview published first on https://medium.com/@LinLinCoffee

[shebreathesslowly]

Kendra Sledzinski: The Sprudge Twenty Interview

Welcome to The Sprudge Twenty Interviews presented by Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2020 Sprudge Twenty honorees please visit sprudge.com/twenty.

Nominated by Kayla Baird

“How do I put into words how Kendra has affected my life and countless others? We met at Joe Coffee in New York five years ago and hit it off right away. Who was this friendly person, I wanted to know! Soon I became aware of Kendra’s influence in the coffee community of Philadelphia. When I went to visit her, everywhere we went, she knew someone. Kendra constantly went above and beyond in Philly to encourage professional development and community with the Joe staff and baristas of Philly—doing palate development and cuppings that were never required, but she knew how to make baristas stay. She works hard for her community, and works hard to lift other people up—and she does so selflessly. Thank you Kendra!”

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

Equal access to education, resources, and professional development and opportunities. The industry is incredibly complex with lots of moving parts and many issues more critical than this, but I say it because it’s within my immediate reach. So many coffee professionals start as baristas. I think back to the days when I subscribed to some elitist coffee thought and language, and I cringe when I think of it.

These days, I want to use my experience as a trainer and educator to empower people with the knowledge they can grow with. This means promoting diversity and giving someone who is only working in coffee because it’s the job they have just as much attention as someone who wants it as a career. It also means listening. I stayed interested in coffee early on in my career because I was lucky to have managers and leaders who took me and my curiosity seriously and encouraged me to grow and learn. When I was training baristas, I would tell them that regardless of how long they occupy the role, knowing how to make coffee well is a valuable (and employable) life skill. I had the time of my life as a barista made easier by safe, healthy, and supportive work environments. Because of that, it’s important to me to help others have a positive experience working in coffee, too.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

The humanity of the entire value/supply stream. Coffee isn’t possible without the labors of humans and that is a fact that has never eluded me.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

The value of that labor on all ends of the supply stream. Producers are not paid enough for their coffee and baristas are not paid enough to make it, either. I don’t think this is overlooked and certainly do not want to oversimplify it, but I do think it’s an ongoing challenge and conversation that should not stop. I hope we can find ways in our industry to make those challenges and conversations more tangible and accessible to our customers and guests without being polarizing.

It starts with our offerings and even how we encourage them to engage with the coffees they buy—encouraging them to buy what they like, not what we think is best or more righteous. I think the pandemic has put a bit of a lens on all supply streams and how consumers buy and interact with products and goods. Maybe we’ll see some positive impacts of this in the aftermath. Either way, working in coffee isn’t sustainable for so many people. How can we make it so we can all be prosperous? I don’t have an answer but I’ll spend my life’s work trying to make it so.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

Coffee is an arbiter of human connection, culture, and social change. The industry is a global community and cafes are community spaces. We can diversify and educate our communities by making those community spaces welcoming and inclusive to all. I went to journalism school because I wanted to see and understand the world, but a career in coffee has given me that in a different, more enriching, and meaningful way.

Did you experience a life-changing moment of coffee revelation early in your career?

There have been so many moments that impacted my trajectory and kept me going and eager to learn that it’s hard to pinpoint just one. However, there is no doubt that many of those early moments were facilitated by Betty Ortiz at Spruce Street Espresso. Spruce Street closed a long time ago, but Philadelphia coffee wouldn’t be what it is today without its influence.

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

Usually I’d say I’m outside a coffee shop with some buddies and we’re sipping, sharing, and laughing in the sunshine. Because that world doesn’t exist right now, it’s my first cup in the morning. I’ve been using brewing my coffee as a way to practice some mindfulness at the start of my day. I brew my cup and sit in my window to drink it. I don’t look at my phone, I don’t read the news. I just sit, sip, and watch the day get brighter.

If you could have any job in the coffee industry, what would it be and why?

In some ways, I’ve already had the job I wanted for so long. I love sharing the joy of learning about coffee and flavor with others. My own ambitions are still malleable. In my fantasy world, I have the means and financial security to start a cooperative company with a bunch of badass coffee friends. We will be approachable, we will provide a great working environment and pay well. People will want to work with us and we’ll lead by example by having a diverse team, balanced power, and transparent, accountable leadership. This, of course, will be after I live out the other part of my fantasy world that involves me learning everything I can about coffee production by studying or doing research and living and working in a producing country for an extended period of time. I have never wanted to stop learning or growing my coffee skill set and I never will!

Who are your coffee heroes?

Many of them are also included on the Sprudge Twenty list. What a true honor it is to be here with them! I am also fiercely inspired by Coffee At Large and really any organized group of coffee workers. Taking risks and standing up for what you believe in isn’t easy and it takes a lot of courage. Folks farther ahead in their careers can learn a lot about workplace health, safety, and justice by taking some cues from these folks. I have so much hope for the future of coffee because of them.

And after this year’s Brewers Cup season, it would be remiss of me not to mention Beth Beall and the way she supports and encourages others. She’s a role model to so many, supports her own team’s growth and professional development in a way that makes me aspire to be able to do the same one day. Most of all, she does it with wisdom, kindness, and grace. We love you, Beth! Thank you for everything you do for the greater coffee community.

If you could drink coffee with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

My late grandmother Elsie Flora Spencer Sledzinski, but she would be drinking tea because she was British and that’s all I ever knew her to drink. She passed in 2009, but I’d like to talk to her openly as a grown adult woman and hear her take on the state of the world. I know she would be disgusted by Trump, and I’d love to bond with her over that.

If you didn’t work in coffee what do you think you’d be doing instead?

Anytime someone asks me this I say, “lavender farmer.” Doesn’t that sound like a nice way to live?

Do you have any coffee mentors?

I wish! I always wanted one, which is why I think I try to be a mentor I never had to others. But I still have so much to learn, and it’s never too late to have one if anyone is feeling generous!

What do you wish someone would’ve told you when you were first starting out in coffee?

To not take myself so seriously! I started having a lot more fun when I quit worrying about being perfect or being right. There is absolutely no one way to brew or enjoy coffee.

Name three coffee apparatuses you couldn’t do without.

I feel stumped, especially after spending more time with brewing vessels during quarantine. Going to have to go with a Baratza grinder, a glass V60, and one of my favorite mugs.

Best song to brew coffee to at the moment.

Tell me you don’t want to get back behind the bar and crush a rush when you hear “Space Jam” by the Quad City DJs?

Where do you see yourself in 2040?

Hopefully happy, healthy, and living extra well because I am finally living out my dream of residing in a beautiful place next to a body of water.

What’s your favorite coffee at the moment?

*sips* Jen Apodaca is slaying it with Mugshots by Mother Tongue! I love a coffee that is easy to brew and tastes sweet and balanced.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted you personally and professionally?

I am one of the thousands of coffee workers laid off from a job I loved. I miss it and many of my colleagues dearly. In the first few weeks, I felt minor relief. Sure, it was a full-time job just navigating the unemployment portal, but with rapidly evolving news made it hard to focus on much of anything but that. Now that more time has passed, it’s hard not to feel discouraged or disheartened. How can I be laid off? I’ve given 13 years of my life to coffee. Am I not good enough? Are my contributions and ideas not valuable? These are some thoughts that have entered my brain despite trying so hard not to. How can any of us in this position not have these thoughts? There’s no manual or reference for how to get through this and it looks different for everyone. We all have different needs. I’ve accepted that some days are just going to be harder than others and truly take it one day—sometimes one hour—at a time. Yet, there is an extraordinary amount of comfort in knowing I am not alone in navigating this. I cannot say I’d be managing it as well if I weren’t connected to so many coffee friends and peers at this time. The shared experience, the empathy; it’s refreshing and it makes me feel immense gratitude for the life choices I made that led me to this work and the coffee community.

I know that one day I will reflect upon this time of cooking projects, 24/7 athleisure, Zoom hangs, movie marathons, and learning the choreography to all my favorite ’90s music videos because I have the time. I know I will ultimately be thankful to have spent it safely in my home with my love and our house plants. Until then, what a way to get better at being patient.

Is there any donation fund or resource in your community we can share with our readers?

I’ve been co-hosting Coffee Break Northeast with the imitable Tommy Gallagher! It’s a way to connect with others in a time of social distancing and we support virtual tip jars, employee fundraisers and coffee businesses in our region daily at 1 pm. We have quite the crew of “regulars” and the camaraderie of Coffee Break has been instrumental in getting me through this time! coffeebreak.group is the website and we do ours at 1 pm eastern. All are welcome!

The Sprudge Twenty Interviews are presented in partnership by Sprudge & Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2020 Sprudge Twenty honorees and a complete interview archive, please visit sprudge.com/twenty.

from Sprudge https://ift.tt/36yw8Tu