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getitinbusan · 3 years

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10 years with Jungkook

California

You met Jeon Jeongguk in the summer of 2012. Two kids brought together by a calling to California and a chance at making it big. Best friends from the start, what happens when only one of you becomes successful? Do you ever forget your first love?

Childhood friends to lovers, angst and smut.

Words: 4600

Warnings: 18 plus smut. Oral F, Sex MF, Swearing. Pretty Mild for me. This is a previously posted fic that has been updated and reworked.

It was a rare rainy August day in California. The heavy drops created a sad melody on the window as you put the dishes away. Tired and lonely, the feeling in your gut kept nagging at you, maybe it was time to give up.

The savings account was drained, there were no jobs to be found and this was the second month of falling short on rent. Surely it would only be a matter of time before your roommates would stop exchanging house cleaning for money.

Hanging the threadbare towel over its hook you stood in the kitchen, your mood mirroring the dim light of the afternoon. Feeling frusterated and stupid, it had taken you way longer than it should have to realize that in LA, you were nothing. Not pretty enough, rich enough, skinny enough or talented enough to ever make it big. So this is how the great Califonia chapter of your life would end, not by choice but necessity.

Gathering up the mail that was strewn across the countertop, you shuffled through it sorting its priority. Junk mail, bills, personal…one in particular standing out. Your heart began pounding as you took in the details.

The penmanship was nice, black ink on an unassuming envelope. But it was the stamp that caught your attention. It was sent from Korea.

Flipping it in your hand you examined the torn top. The letter, having been read, was cradled back safely inside. Addressed to your roommate a frown crept onto your face. Why wouldn’t he write to you?

It was a ridiculously hopeful notion but you widened the envelope and inhaled trying to find a trace of his fragrance, something, anything to trigger a happy memory. Cool California nights were the best excuse. How many times had you borrowed his sweaters just to have his smell on you?

You missed him. It had been a year and a half and you couldn't help but once again ponder the nagging question that always crept back. If you hadn't forced him to break the rules would he still be a part of your life?

It was too tempting to resist, your fingers pinched the paper inside of the envelope and pulled it free.

I’m feeling low, I don’t know who I am, only who I’m supposed to be.

What would life be like if I had stayed in California? We could all be roommates, hanging out and having fun, going to the beach on weekends.

Does she even think about me?

It sounds greedy that with how much I have right now, it’s not enough. I would give anything to wake up in bed beside her everyday. I want more than anything to be able to talk to her about these things but I can’t. I’ve made the mistake of trading her for fame and now I’m destined to keep her at an arm’s length so she’ll never know the price I paid.

How does she even see me? As an Idol? As the boy who abandoned her? Has she forgotten the good days we spent together?

I’ve been wrestling with myself, whoever that is. I wish I could be the teenage boy from that long ago summer again. I wrote this song thinking about it…

~When I see you smile in the screen

You’re good at everything

You’re just perfect

Feels like I've never been you

Do you even see me?

Do you know who I am?

Or how do I look now?

You don’t like me like that

I want to be your decalcomania~

I’m afraid I may not get back for a while, please write. Your friendship and thoughts of her are the only things that are keeping me tethered to some semblance of reality.

Clutching the letter to your chest, your mind took you back to that day.

"Decalcomania, the art or process of transferring pictures and designs. Making a copy of the original on a different medium"

Reading the description on the wall you’d both stood laughing at the piece's strange name, Decalcomania. The gallery visit felt like lifetimes ago but you still remembered clearly. You remembered, not because the piece had struck you as particularly special but because that's where you had decided that Jeongguk's laugh was the best sound you'd ever heard.

California had lured you into its promise when you turned 14. Having been accepted to an intensive dance program at The Movement Lifestyle Studio you packed up and headed West for the summer.

It was July and it was hot, the dancers stepping off the bus one at a time took their places in the studio.

Looking around there were so many older kids, you were probably one of the youngest. Calling out names they put you into groups, it appeared to be by age so you made your way across the unfamiliar wooden floor to the tiny gathering of teens in the darkened corner.

Shy introductions were made as one more member was ushered over to where you had congregated. “This is Jeongguk.”

He had the cutest smile and barely spoke english but his eyes twinkled like the constellations. Immediately drawn to each other you became fast friends.

Absolutely exhausted by the end of the first few days he quietly knocked at your door.

He was homesick and lonely, used to being surrounded by his six members, he couldn’t sleep well without someone beside him. You let him crawl into bed with you, you were 14 and it was innocent.

Inseparable, days and nights were spent side by side, the others began referring to you as the twins. It was the best summer of your life but like every boy meets girl summer story, it had to come to a close. Promising through tears to keep in touch and stay friends you went your separate ways.

Jeongguk would send silly videos of his practice sessions, goofing around with the other members. He’d facetime and text but he always loved to send handwritten letters.

They lived in a box under your bed and contained stories of how hard he was working to become an idol. He always signed off with, "I miss you,” and a few lines of lyrics he’d written.

You didn’t know then how important they would become, the only tangible piece of him you could still hold on to.

Whenever he came back to America you did everything you could to see him. You always found a way to get to the small tour stops whenever they came through. 2015 was the first, then KCon in 2016, but 2017, it was different.

Facetiming you with the news that they were bringing the Wings tour to NY, Chicago and Anaheim, he asked if you’d be part of the dance crew. How could you turn down two weeks with Jungkook the hottest new K-pop Idol? They were getting bigger, more popular and their lives were changing rapidly.

He had strict rules, girls were completely off limits. No talking, no hugging, no smiling at one another, any little thing could be easily misconstrued by the fans. Everything had to be done in secret. Jungkook would sneak you into his hotel room where you would spend your nights together catching up. The boys would bring you in food and cover for him while you both stayed locked away out of sight.

While happy to be with him, you could tell there was an underlying sadness he was holding on to.

"I wish I could go and explore the city with you like we used to," his voice trailed off.

You were laying in each other’s arms cuddling on his bed. Leaning over he kissed the top of your head.

"All I really want is to take you on a proper date."

You snuggled closer into his side as he exhaled deeply, releasing his secret.

"I’ve been waiting so long to become someone, a man worthy of your affection. Now I’m stuck. I have everything I wanted and I’m not allowed to share it with you."

His arms gripped you tighter.

"I’m sorry, this is a terrible confession. I don’t expect you to love me back, not under these circumstances, I just need you to know, you’re the only girl I’ve ever loved and there won’t be anybody else, ever."

Every bit of his confession, every moment of that last night in the hotel room had stuck with you to this day. The words of a 19 year old boy whose life had become bigger than the feelings of two people.

He'd left in the morning without knowing. You were a coward, too afraid to tell him you loved him too.

LA became your home right after they left Anaheim. Focused on your dancing, if you became good enough, maybe you could join the tour with him.

A letter with a big bouquet of flowers arrived a few weeks later.

"Congratulations on your new house in LA!

I hope that all of you are getting along as roommates, it’s hard living with others sometimes.

Last night I dreamt that I was there with you and all of our friends. We were having a party on the beach and we sat together watching the sunset.

Do you remember after practice when we would skateboard as fast as we could to the ocean so we wouldn’t miss the colors?

Maybe one day my toes can feel the sand there again.

I miss you, I miss me… the me I am when I get to be with you.

We're coming back in October for a few days and I’m hoping I can see you, I’m lonely already.

Jeongguk

~Won’t you please stay in dreams

I can hear the sea from far away

Across the dream, over the bush

Go there where it becomes clear

Take my hands now

You are the cause of my euphoria

When I’m with you, I’m in utopia~

By the time The AMAs came, the plan had been finalized. You would steal Jungkook away so that you could take him on your first real date.

Having enlisted Namjoon to help, he was your inside man. The boys, happy to help finally get you together, would cover for his whereabouts with management. The day before the awards they were only scheduled for styling, as long as he wasn’t late for the press rounds the next afternoon your plan could work.

It was Namjoon’s job to get him out of the building. Telling him to follow his lead, Joon convinced the managers that Jungkook must have eaten something bad for lunch. Claiming to not feel well, he was whisked away to meet you at the hotel’s back receiving door.

Sitting in the shiny red rented convertible you tossed him a pair of sunglasses. What you wouldn’t give now to see that smile again.

Barely giving him time to get in you’d sped away heading straight for In And Out Burger.

"Kookie, I hope you’re ready for the best day of your life! We’re going to eat until we explode, drink and party at the beach and then, instead of returning you to your fancy 5 star hotel you’re staying the night in my crappy little house with a tiny uncomfortable bed!!"

He laughed, that perfect laugh. It was so pure and honest, thinking about it now made you sad. Was that the last moment he'd gotten to be his true self? Jeongguk the man not Jungkook the personna?

Knowing you only had one day to give him everything, one day to show him you loved him, you tried to make the best of it.

Picking up the food Jungkook held onto the red and white bags in the passenger seat, sneaking his hand in to steal fries when he thought you weren’t looking. If you weren’t sure you were in love with him before you you certainly were now.

Pulling up beside the tree on the beach he was stunned, "Ahhh Jagi, I can’t believe you brought me here."

Happy that it meant as much to him as it did to you, you both sat on the branch and ate. Two blocks from the old studio this used to be your escape. Every break you’d make your way to the tree for some time alone, together.

With the burgers done he turned to you and smiled. It felt like he wanted to say something, but stupidly, you'd cut him short leading him back towards the car.

Making your way through your checklist you brought him back to where you'd first met. The Movement studios students were starstruck when he walked in. After insisting that he teach some choreography, he reluctantly led the class.

Your eyes were glued to him as he moved in front of the mirrors, no longer that awkward teenager but a full grown man mesmerizing you with his every move.

Getting back to the car he stopped you before you reached for the handle. Putting his arms around you he pulled you in close. But again, you resisted him.

"You stink Jungkook, our next stop is the ocean."

You remember pulling away. How stupid you were, you should have held on to him longer. Reaching into the back seat you revealed a pair of swim shorts and a towel. He looked disappointed that you kept interrupting his attempts at intimacy. It broke your heart but you had a plan and limited time to execute it.

The Ocean was chilly but the wind was warm, he came out of the change room with the shorts on but still wearing his shirt.

"Kookie, this isn’t Korea, you don’t have to be so modest here. Plus, you should grab some sun, you may not believe it but when your skin is sunkissed," you grinned, "you look really sexy."

He raised his eyebrows and quickly removed the shirt at your request.

Running into the water you splashed and played and he took great pleasure in picking you up and throwing you as far as he could.

The sun was getting ready to set and you wanted to dry off before the cooler air set in.

Leading him back to the shore you both laid down on the towel. He put his arm around you and you cuddled into his side.

"My god Guk, look at your abs!"

He blushed like crazy as you traced the muscles on his stomach.

"Stop, it tickles," he giggled.

But you didn’t, you kept tickling him until he held you so tight you couldn’t move. He had you pinned, flipping you on your back he shook his wet hair flinging water droplets all over you. Pleased with himself he leaned in closer to you, his eyes asking for permission to kiss you. As the gap between you got narrower you could hear his name being shouted and footsteps running closer. He flopped onto his back and sighed as your roommates and friends piled on top of him.

Eating, drinking and catching up with everyone you watched each other from across the bonfire. Moving from person to person he slowly made his way back to your side.

"Welcome back." Running your hand through the back of his hair, it was now or never.

Pulling him closer your lips finally met in the way they were destined, soft, slow and full of love. His hands instinctively moved to cup your face as the world stopped around you.

"I love you," you whispered.

Nose to nose he smiled at you and it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen.

It didn’t last long, his phone started going off incessantly. The managers knew, you’d been careless, photos and videos of him from the studio had been posted online.

"I’m so sorry Jungkook, I didn’t mean for you to get in trouble."

His eyes turned hungry as he grabbed your hand.

"You promised I wouldn’t be going back to my hotel tonight, let’s get out of here."

If he was going to get in trouble anyway, why stop now?

The drive back to your place was quiet, adrenaline and hormones flowing like electricity through you both. The time for smiling was over as the seriousness of the situation lingered in the air between you.

It wasn’t just being in trouble or being caught, but the fact that you both knew what was going to happen when you stepped into your bedroom. One act that would change everything between you, it held the power to change the dynamic of your relationship forever.

Leading him to your room you closed the door and stood staring at him as he sat on your bed. He raked his fingers through his hair before he spoke.

"I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than to be able to make love to you. BUT I also know that when I leave I’m not going to get to see you again for a very long time." His head hung low. "Management is going to do everything possible to keep us apart and that won’t be fair to you. I think that maybe we should just let our happy memories of today be enough, I don’t want you to regret anything. "

Walking closer you stood between his legs and he wrapped his arms around your waist.

"The only thing I'll regret is never getting to experience all of you. I can’t live not knowing how it feels to be totally yours even if it's only for one night."

He rested his head against your chest, "You’ll always be mine."

His hands traveled to the hem of your shirt and his fingers ran over the soft skin of your stomach. Undoing the button of your jeans he slowly slid them down your legs and you stepped out of them.

Standing up he lifted the thin fabric of your shirt over your head and you stood before him waiting as he took his off too. Unclasping your bra he sighed as he looked at you taking in your shape, his fingertips hovering over your hard nipples.

"I’ve never done this before," he confessed.

"Me either," you whispered. "I've only ever wanted it to be you."

More relaxed he let his mouth start exploring your body. You were goosebumps and shivers beneath him as his tongue found it’s home between your legs.

He was soft and careful, placing his lips over your clit sucking it in delicately until your moans couldn’t be contained any longer. You could feel his eyes burning into you as he watched in awe as his finger slid inside you.

"It feels good Kookie, please…"

You could feel his mouth stopping to smile before he picked up speed. Moving your hips to eagerly meet his mouth you were unravelling quickly.

"The way you taste is better than anything I had imagined."

Devouring you in sessions between his words of adoration you came hard on his tongue.

"I'm really regretting running you all over town today when we could have just been here...doing that.. " You were out of breath.

"I was worried that I wouldn't be any good." He grinned at you pleased with himself.

Moving up to where your head lay on the pillow he pushed the dampened hair off your face, "Are you ok? Do you need anything?"

He placed his forehead against yours.

"I just want you. I need you to know I'm yours, forever.

Rolling a condom on he moved slowly to line himself up with your entrance.

"Tell me if you need me to stop okay?"

He pushed carefully, slowly stretching you around him. Watching intently for discomfort he froze when he saw the tears welling in your eyes.

"Shit, I’m so sorry, let’s stop, I didn’t mean to hurt you." He was apologetic as he thumbed away the tears.

"No," you delicately kissed his lips. "I’m okay… I’m just so happy, so overwhelmed with how much I’m feeling right now."

He smiled down at you, pressing his body closer he gave another push until he was fully inside. Your bodies fell into a beautifully choreographed rhythm until Jungkook was so lost in pleasure he began to move at his own pace. Quicker and deeper he moved until he finally spilled into the condom.

Laying together in euphoria you kissed, and kissed, and kissed until you finally found sleep while wrapped around one other.

Every few hours he’d wake you up. His hands running over your body checking to make sure you weren't just a dream. You’d made love each time, everytime better than the last.

It was 9 am when he caressed you awake once more.

"I have to leave soon. I don’t want to." He spoke in whispers nestled into your neck. "Please tell me to stay."

Your heart broke at his words. "If I ask you to stay, I’m selfish, you’ll always wonder if you made the right decision." The tears came, knowing you had to do what was right. "If I tell you to go, your dreams come true… ” your voice trailed off.

"And I’ll always wonder if I made the right decision,” he finished.

Your phone started ringing and you knew time was up.

It was Joon, "I’m outside. Sorry, I held them off as long as I could. I told them that I’d come get him so you could at least have time to say goodbye."

Your tears fell out in heavy ugly sobs, "Okay, five minutes… and Joon… thanks, I know you’re probably in trouble too."

Hanging up you turned back, Jungkook was already out of bed with his clothes thrown on. He stood with open arms bravely waiting.

"Thank you for yesterday I'll never forget it."

Laying your head against his chest you took a moment to listen to his heartbeat. You could hear him sniffle and knew he was crying too.

You flashed back remembering that night long ago when he came to you homesick, holding you so he could sleep while he tried to hide his tears. There was a knock at the door and Namjoon’s voice broke through the moment.

"We’ve got to go Jungkook."

Stepping away you’d left his shirt soaked in tears, handing him his sweater he pushed it back towards you. "You keep it."

He kissed you one last time before opening the door to reveal Namjoon's weary face. His Hyung put his arm around his shoulder and led him to the car.

Turning one last time he looked back, his eyes were filled with tears as he gave a small wave before getting in the back of the big black sedan.

For months you pretended that management was the only thing keeping you apart.

You held on to that silly notion until May when they were coming for the Billboard awards. For weeks leading up you waited for a message, a secret meeting arrangement, but you got nothing. His image was all over the TV and his voice echoed through your empty heart. Then, just like that, it was over and he was gone again.

Now, here you stood in your kitchen, his letter bringing him to the forefront of your mind and opening old wounds.

He was just as sad as you but what could you do?

Picking up a pen you began writing…

I shouldn’t have done it but I read it in your letter

You said to a friend that you wish you were doing better

I wanted to reach out but I never said a thing

You don’t ever have to be stronger than you really are

And honey, you don’t ever have to act cooler than you think you should

You’re brighter than the brightest stars

You’re scared to win, scared to lose

I’ve heard the war was over if you really choose

The one in and around you

You hate the heat, you got the blues

You’re changing like the weather, oh, that’s so like you

I’ll pick you up

I’ll catch you on the flipside

If you come back to California

We’ll do whatever you want, travel wherever, how far

We’ll hit up all the old places

We’ll have a party, we can dance till dawn…

Y/N

October came again and a chill was in the air, the smell of the ocean hit your nose and you stopped to take it in.

Bundled in Jungkook’s hoodie you threw your bag over your shoulder and began your walk to work. You'd gotten lucky, Movement had hired you just as you were about to give up and leave California. Filled with hope and excitement a new intensive program was scheduled to start today and you were going to meet the future superstars of the dance world.

Memories flooded your mind as you made your way through the familiar neighborhood. It still hurt, but things were beginning to feel happy again. Writing the letter had given you closure, he knew how you felt and beyond that there was nothing else you could do.

Opening the heavy door to the studio you caught a familiar reflection moving in the mirror. Chalk marker in hand he was writing something, It couldn’t be?

Hearing the door click back into place he turned to face you.

"Hi."

He walked towards you slowly. Unsure of what your reaction would be, he approached with caution.

"Hi."

You were breathless, in the months of not seeing him he’d only grown more handsome.

"I can’t change what happened… and for the rest of my life I’ll be sorry for all of the time we missed."

He was getting closer.

"But I can’t take another day not knowing if I can fix this… somehow…"

He reached for your hand but you pulled it away. His head fell in disappointment.

"Jungkook, I can’t listen to this… look at me."

Reaching for his chin you pulled his head up until he was facing you again.

"I refuse to listen to you apologize for something that is out of your control. Your life was decided before you met me and I am nothing but grateful that I got to appear in some part of your story."

He tilted his head and pressed a small kiss into the hand that was still holding his chin.

"God I’ve missed you." He wrapped his arms tightly around your waist.

"How long are you here? I’ve got to teach class.. It’s the first day but I’d love it if we could catch up?"

He laughed at you and your knees buckled at the sound of his happiness.

Taking his chance he pressed his lips to yours and you could feel the smile forming on his face.

"I’m your private lesson Jagi, I’ve booked you for the next two weeks."

Taking a step back you had to ask, "How Jungkook? What will you be giving up?"

Pulling you back to his embrace he began to dance with you.

"There is no more giving up, on anything. Our contracts were over and I only had one thing I wouldn’t negotiate on, that’s you."

He guided you to look at the mirror.

"I wrote you something."

~Please call my name one more time

I’m standing under the frozen light,

but I’ll walk step by step towards you

Still with you ~

"I promise I’ll never let you go again."

#jungkook #bts jungkook #jeon jungkook #Jeongguk #jungkook x reader #kookie #nochu #10 years with jungkook #california #lana del rey

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meichenxi · 4 years

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Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law: part 1 - Indo-European background

OR: how ‘cannabis’ and ‘hemp’ are actually cognates

tldr: sound change is cool and this great series of videos can explain it better than I can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aal9VSPkf5s. this is going to be the first of a few posts on sound change in German and English. I originally wanted to explain the second sound shift, but quickly realised that it doesn’t make sense without any of the historical context, so please bear with me

What makes a language Germanic? Imagine for a moment that you’re an alien a la Matt Haig, newly arrived to Earth and presented with a sample of the world’s languages - or specifically, part of Eurasia’s. Some languages look very similar to each other; some very different. How would you go about building a hypothesis about which languages were related to each other, and which weren’t? How would you then test this hypothesis? And how, presented finally with data that shows your languages are related, would you explain how these changes came to happen in the first place?

Before we go on to Germanic, though, let’s talk about Indo-European today. You guys probably all know that IE is a large language family that stretches from Icelandic to Hindi; Germanic is one of the sub-groupings of this wider IE family. Within the sub-family itself, there are divisions: German is more closely related to Dutch, Norwegian to Swedish, Icelandic to Faroese and so on. This seems all fairly obvious to us now.

Way back when many centuries ago (not that many centuries, and certainly long after the Bible began), the idea of a language family spanning English to Russian to Farsi was a little less obvious. For much of the 17th century, people (esp a bishop dude called John Wilkins) sought to prove that English was related to Hebrew - this was an important endeavour at the time, because it would lend the language religious authority, especially in its translation of the Bible. Fast forwarding to the 18th century, a man named Sir Williams Jones who lived in Bengal realised - on account of his classical education and extensive contact with Indian languages - that there were much greater similarities between Latin, Greek and Sanskrit than anybody had previously realised. He wasn’t the first to think it, but he was one of the first to make such a definitive statement. The following quote is probably one of the most famous in historical linguistics, so I apologise for quoting it in full: ‘The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have spring from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit, and the old Persian might be added to this family.’

He was wrong in a lot of ways - he excluded some languages that do belong in this family and erroneously included others. He also wasn’t the first to come up with this idea. This quote, more than anything, marks the beginning of people’s interest in the ‘common source’: how could such a thing ever be proven, if we didn’t have access to the language itself? Part of the building ground for Indo-European historical linguistics was the desire to prove that linguistics was an empirical science much like any other, with laws that held universally and hypotheses that could be tested and demonstrably falsified. This rested on two principles both promoted by the Junggramatiker, or Neogrammarians, a Leipzig based group of scholars. Firstly, that sound change - the process by which sounds change, arise and disappear - was a highly regular process that held universally and obeyed certain rules. Secondly, that languages that exist today are structurally and in principle no different from languages that existed thousands of years ago - that is, we have no reason to assume that processes existed in the past that don’t exist today. This is called the uniformitarian principle.

If both of these things are true, that means that it would be possible to not only determine how exactly these languages were related, but also reconstruct an earlier version of the language once spoken by all Indo-Europeans!! (I hope you agree that this is immensely cool.)

Reconstructing these rules is important, because it allows us to better understand structural similarities between languages. There are some similarities which are surface deep: it’s easy to compare English cold and German kalt or warm and - well - warm, and say that they look alike. Pfad and path is a little harder, but when you compared Pfeffer and pepper it’s clear, ok, there’s a <pf> / <p> alteration going on there. Leaving the Germanic family behind, though, things get a little more tricky.

How exactly is venue cognate with come? What about English quick and Latin vīvus? And how can sister and Hindi bahan possibly be cognates??

Some of the most meaningful observations are structural; they are not surface deep, and they’re not immediately available for study. This is because, quite simply, the time depth since Indo-European was spoken is vast; there have been extensive sound changes in all of the languages concerned.

And that’s exactly what Grimm’s Law is. It’s a sound change that happened specifically in the Germanic branch of Indo-European, so it’s common to all Germanic languages, and nothing else. It’s one of those diagnostic criteria that an alien would use to determine that Norwegian and Dutch were related: it’s present, apart from where further sound change has obscured it, in every Germanic language - and it’s not present, apart from in borrowed words, in any non-Germanic language. That’s what we mean by diagnostic.

Let’s have a look at some examples! We’ll explain it in more detail next time, but this might whet your appetite. Don’t worry if you can’t read the phonetic description; it’s the consonants that are important at the moment (don’t, please, ask me about vowels. just please don’t).

(nb: where I use an asterisk *, this means that this form is reconstructed, not actually attested: we don't have any records of IE. > just means ‘goes to’ or ‘becomes’ in the various daughter languages. Also <these> brackets are talking about spelling, and /these/ brackets are talking about phonemes, or actual sounds. Also, the little ‘ means aspiration - we’ll talk more about what that means next time)

*p > f (no later shift in German, though /f/ is sometimes spelled v):

Engl. brother, Germ. Bruder (cf. Lat. frāter, Skt. bhrā́tā)

Engl. full, Germ. voll (cf. Lat. plēnus, Skt. pūrṇás)

*t > *þ (Engl. th) > Germ. d

Engl. three, Germ. drei (cf. Lat. trēs, Gk. /trê:s/, Skt. tráyas) Engl. thin, Germ. dünn (cf. Lat. tenuis, Skt. tanús)

*ḱ, *k > h (no later shift in German):

Engl. hundred, Germ. hundert (cf. Lat. centum, Gk. /he-katón/, Skt.

śatám)

Engl. horn, Germ. Horn (cf. Lat. cornū)

*kw > *hw (Engl. wh) > Germ. w:

Engl. what, Germ. was (cf. Lat. adjective & relative quod, Skt. kád)

*d > *t (Engl. t) > Germ. z:

Engl. two, Germ. zwei (cf. Lat. duo, Gk. /dúo/, Skt. dvā́)

BRUH. ISN’T THIS COOL!! AND THERE ARE MORE!

You can see here already by looking at the German and English that both have sometimes subsequently undergone sound changes, like English */hw/ to /wh/ and then finally to /w/, which becomes German <w> or /v/ - these sometimes obscure things. And if you really want to find out why German is different to English, well, we’ve got quite a few sound changes to get through before we get there!

Melissa, you might be saying, I know for a fact there’s something yucky and not-worky about Grimm’s Law. What about cases where it doesn’t seem to apply? What’s that? Also, I swear some Danish dude had the idea first but just didn’t publish...

Well. You’re not wrong. But this post is long enough already. Next time, we’ll go over what exactly it is, where exactly it manifests itself, and how it didn’t seem to work 100% of the time...and I suppose I still haven’t answered how ‘hemp’ and ‘cannabis’ are cognates...you’ll just have to stay tuned!

Bis zum nächsten Mal!

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myhauntedsalem · 4 years

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Graveyard Shift Workers Share Their Eeriest Encounters with the Supernatural

When the sun goes down, things can get a little creepy. Graveyard shift workers from around the globe have been sharing their spookiest supernatural encounters whilst on the job. From hospitals where death and the recently departed stalk the corridors to security guards who soon discover they are not alone in the empty buildings they guard. After reading these true-life ghost stories you’re about to gain a whole new appreciation for all the brave men and women who work the night shift.

During the long midnight hours, the things that go bump in the night are not always just figments of an overactive imagination, as the following people learned the hard way.

1. They Play at Night

“My mother used to work at a subacute center as a night shift nurse. She said one of the ladies kept calling her and told her to shut the kids up because they’re running around and being loud preventing her from falling asleep. Of course, there were no kids.

My mom just went along with it a few times and after working there for 10+ years, she says there’s one wing in the building where the patients all see children running around and making noise keeping them up in the middle of the night every once in a while.”

2. Midnight Calls

“I’m a nurse that worked at a psychiatric hospital for five years. That place was haunted as shit. Police would call us in the middle of the night saying some little girl who identified herself as Satana was calling 911 from a certain extension in the hospital.

That extension? The arts and crafts room. Nobody goes there at night. Nobody. I assure you. Yet there’s obviously something there. And it calls 911 a lot.

Lots of other stories from that place but that’s the craziest, creepiest one.”

3. The Elevator

“A woman I work with tells this story of how she showed up to work early for her shift, around 4:30 a.m., things are pretty much dead quiet (no pun intended) She gets on the empty elevator, hits the button for the 9th floor, elevator goes up to the 11th floor, doors open, no one there, doors close, back down to the 9th floor, as she gets off sees an old woman standing behind her in the elevator.”

4. The Sleep Experiment

“Like most very old hospitals, at one time our hospital was run by nuns. One particular unit had been converted into a sleep study lab area for outpatients tests. One shift in the middle of the night I was watching the video monitor and five patients simultaneously began removing their monitoring equipment. I went into the first room to ask what was going on and the patient said that old nurse with the cap on told her the study was over and that she could leave.

All the patients reported the same story.”

5. Blue Mist

“Worked nightshift at a treatment center.

We had cameras around every corner, nothing was out of our vision.

Blue misty figure would walk the grounds every once in a while at night. I would go out there and there’d be nothing. But on camera, this motherfucker would just walk around all night. Nothing evil, bad, or anything, but this mother fucker would just walk around like he owned the god damn place.”

6. The Little Girl in the Nightgown

“I used to work nights in a domestic violence shelter. The shelter was originally a school. One night I heard a little girl laughing outside of the office. I got up and the girl turned around and ran down the hall. I really thought that she was one of the resident’s; from the back she looked just like her. Except she was wearing a strange layered nightgown. She ran past the room I assumed she was going to, into a living room space. I went in right behind and there was nobody in there.”

7. The Praying Nun

“My dad worked at a mental hospital that used to be connected to an abandoned nun’s home by underground passage. He says that one night he was walking down there when he saw a praying nun. He walked by her and said hello. She did not acknowledge him.

My dad does not believe in ghosts, but he says there was a nun down there that night.”

8. A Friendly Voice

“I work in a restaurant and all the bakery people who stay late talk about the ghost of a little girl but I didn’t know this when I started. It was the middle of the day but we were slow so I was doing prep work by myself in the kitchen. I was at the prep table, kinda zoning out, listening to the distant music when I feel someone right next to me. Like a sudden presence. Then I swear to god I heard, in a little girl’s voice, the most innocent ‘Hi Josh! (My name) How are you?’ I even felt her breath. It was so so real and vivid but when I turned around there was no one there.

I started telling people about it and found out lots of coworkers heard the same voice. From everyone’s stories she (the ghost girl) seems really nice but it still sent chills down my spine.”

9. Nights on the Psych Ward

“I work night shift in psych. I have heard talking when everyone is asleep, footsteps, knocks on doors where nobody should even be, bathroom lights going off as I walk by (both patients were asleep), as well as seeing shadows every now and again. We had a nurse who was doing checks and felt something tug on her shirt.”

10. The Elevator Doors

“I did night security in a very old grain exchange building that had been converted to mainly lawyers offices. A lot of the building was remodeled but the grain exchange floor and vaults had been preserved and at the end of one hallway behind the main lobby I was stationed in there was an elevator that was original to the building that nobody ever used.

I was sitting at the desk one night around 3am when I heard the ding from down the hall that meant someone had called the elevator. There wasn’t suppose to be anyone in the building except me so I switched to that camera feed and the elevator doors were wide open which is only suppose to happen if the call button has been pushed. I wait a few minutes being pretty freaked out but the doors stay open and I never see anybody. The doors are suppose to close on their own shortly and these ones are stuck open. I start to think that someone is in the building and holding the door open button from within where I can’t see on the feed so I have to walk down there to check it out.

As soon as I get near the end of the hallway where I have a clear view of the elevator the doors close. I just kind of stand there feeling really uneasy and decide to head back to the desk and leave a note for the maintenance crew. About 10 minutes after I get back to the desk it happens again. Ding and then the doors roll open. Except I had the feed up so I know that nobody was there to press the call button. I wait and again the doors stay open. So I walk back down there and as soon as I walk into view they close.

There’s still a chance someone is hiding inside pressing the buttons so I go and press the call button myself. And nothing happens. The elevator doesn’t move and the doors don’t open. I press it again and still nothing so not really wanting to deal with that I start walking back to the desk. Get to the end of the hallway and Ding the doors open. I just stood there not really knowing what to do but then I figure since I’m closer maybe I will make it this time so I take off running for the doors before they close and as soon as I get close they close. I don’t think it would be in anyway possible for someone pressing a button inside to be able to time that without me seeing them peeking out so I decide I am done and go back to the desk. Again the ding and the doors open and stay that way but I just ignore it and switch to a different feed.

All is well for about an hour when suddenly there is a loud crash and a rattle and another crash and a rattle again and again. I am absolutely terrified and have no idea what is happening. I start flipping through feeds and get to the one outside the elevator, the doors are slamming shut and opening and slamming shut again and again. It’s like it knows it has my attention again and then the doors slowly reopen and stay there again like it’s tempting me to try and get there before they close again. I do not do that and instead call our patrol officer who is out driving between locations so I have proof of this with someone else. He gets there within 5 min and the doors are still open so once I fill him in we head down together and sure enough as soon as we get close the doors close. He goes and presses the call button and nothing. He’s pretty freaked out too now but we decide to just stay there outside the doors because if it’s just a perfectly timed malfunction it will open again. We stand there for almost a half hour and they never open but he gets a call come in so has to take off. We get halfway back to the desk and hear the doors open behind us. He tells me to go to the desk and watch the feed while he walks down there. Once I’m in place I tell him to go and same thing as soon as he enters the frame the doors close. He starts kicking the doors and pressing the buttons but it doesn’t do any good. He has to leave so he wishes me luck and tells me to just stay away from it. I have about an hour left in my shift when the doors start doing the slamming and opening again. I just stood at the far end of the hallway listening but it didn’t stop.

Took off as soon as the shift ended and left a report for maintenance about the issue. Next shift I worked I showed up early before they had taken off but they said when they got there it was working fine and they didn’t notice anything wrong. That night was quiet and in the rest of the time I worked there only 1 more night did those doors open but I just ignored it and after awhile they closed again and that was that.”

#Graveyard Shift Workers Share Their Eeriest Encounters with the Supernatural #shared stories #paranormal #ghost and hauntings #ghost and spirits

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spookyspaghettisundae · 4 years

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Nail Biter

Just so you understand where I’m coming from, let me preface this all with the following statement: I never used to bite my nails. While I was always easily stressed out by virtually anything, I always had tools and methods and friends to deal with any pressure or anxiety.

My fingernails used to look so nice that I unconsciously took a good deal of pride in them. Not too long ago, I still took decent care of them in that regard. Healthy, sturdy, and they looked good when I occasionally painted them.

And before you start giving me advice on how to drop the habit—don’t bother. It’s no use. I hear it all the time. All the tricks you hear about how to break the habit of nail biting deal with replacing the habit with another one. But for me, they have no relevance because I have no recollection of ever biting my nails.

They’re always only bitten after I wake up.

I figured it was something like sleepwalking—sleep-nail-biting? I had never heard of such a thing in my life. But curious as I am, I asked friends to keep an eye on me and check if I wasn’t biting my nails during my waking hours. Maybe, I thought, I was just not paying attention to it. We tend to do a lot of things without noticing, and I wondered if it wasn’t the case here, too.

No such luck.

Early on, I did consider therapy but it wasn’t anything I could afford. Furthermore, I was afraid of what might surface in such sessions. Some part of me was afraid of whatever else a therapist could unearth about my psyche. Hell, I was afraid of being labeled as crazy.

Over the course of the past months, I tried out a lot of different things. Changed my diet, my sleeping habits, downing sleeping pills, smoking weed, excessive exercising to tire myself out—you name it, and I probably gave it a fair shot.

The mysterious nail biting problem started having some adverse effects on me. I grew very conscious about my fingernails and tried to hide them by crossing my arms, folding them in my lap, or wearing gloves whenever possible. I began to think that people thought less of me whenever they saw the sorry state my nails were in and I think I inadvertently drew attention to them with my paranoia about people looking at them.

Just last week, I stayed awake for almost forty hours just to see if I could catch myself biting my nails during that time. I was hoping I’d fall into one of those states where you’re half asleep and slipping away, but also half awake and catch yourself doing things you normally do without thinking.

Nothing.

After that attempt, my fingernails looked almost presentable again. And as you might guess, I conked out for a long sleep afterwards.

When I awoke again, my nails were bitten again. It was the most infuriating thing I’d experienced in a long time.

The next night after that was when things got really strange. I woke up in the middle of the night.

Blinked and regained my bearings. In bright red letters glaring from my digital clock, I read the time to be something past three in the morning. My fingertips tingled and I took a look at them. Even in the dim light, I could tell they were bitten again, and even felt a little damp with saliva.

Had I finally caught myself? Had my conscious being caught up with my unconscious mind?

But my lips and mouth were dry and something didn’t feel right. I wasn’t alone in the room. Under any other circumstances, I may have gasped. Or screamed. But I was just frozen solid—afraid that moving might draw attention from the invisible presence in my room. I went from drowsy to fully alert in an instant, and the blood in my veins froze. I felt like I had a colony of ants crawling underneath my skin and like my blankets weighed a ton.

My eyes darted back and forth, straining to make sense of the noise in my field of vision and dispel the notion that the shadows around me were dancing. I listened intently, thinking that I might hear the presence. But there was nothing I could see nor hear there. Like there was a ghost in the room with me.

Wishing I could have the hearing of a bat, I continued to listen, hearing distant sounds of traffic muffled through the windows, a drip of water from a faucet, and someone coughing in a neighboring apartment. But nothing else in the room with me.

Like a damned child, I began to wonder if there was something underneath my bed.

I know this all sounds crazy, but I swear I’m not insane.

Eventually, I fell asleep again. When I awoke, seeing my nails having been bitten was the least of my worries. The following day was a bit of a blur because I went to work despite my better judgment.

Over the course of the day, I hatched a simple plan.

When I got home that night, I set my phone up on a tripod and hooked it up to my laptop, then I had it record a video feed. I’d leave it running the entire night while I slept.

Popping some pills to sleep soundly—which wasn’t part of my original plan, but I think an instinctive reaction born from fear of being awake for whatever my camera might capture that night—I went to sleep early.

While drifting off into sleep, I kept telling myself that I was going to get to to the bottom of this.

So I woke up the next morning, fairly early this time. Like so often when I had taken any medications to help me sleep, I didn’t feel particularly well-rested, no matter how long I’d spent in bed. Another dreamless night.

My entire body trembled as I approached my laptop to review the footage my camera had filmed the night before. Something in my gut region was warning me. Something in the back of my brain was screaming at me, telling me not to watch the video.

But I had to. I had to know.

I sat down with a cup of coffee and my laptop and started watching. There was a bunch of nothing, and the video ran for almost eight hours. Within seconds, I naturally started skipping through it.

The tingling in my body returned, that weird sensation of ants crawling underneath my skin when I saw something while time-skipping through the recording. A shadow—a shape. Like someone had been in the room with me.

My heart pounded and I hesitated to rewind and see what I had skipped over.

Some time around three in the morning, someone had been in my room. Right then and there, I was ready to call the police. Had someone been walking in and out of my apartment and harassing me while I slept, all this time?

Scrounging up every last ounce of courage I could muster, I did it. It took all my willpower to review it, but what truly drove me was the sinking horror of not knowing. I skipped back to what I had glimpsed, to find out what had instilled me with such profound dread.

A shadow emerged from underneath my bed. In the dim light, I could not help but say that this person’s figure looked a lot like my own, albeit a lot thinner. A pale woman whose face was mostly obscured by long dark hair crawled up onto my bed and then sat there on the side of my bed, staring at me for several seconds. Studying my face like a lovesick puppy.

Then she gingerly took one of my hands, cupping it in her palms. She cradled my limp hand with a serene gentleness, like a lover would—and watching this made my skin itch. She lifted my hand until her lips touched my fingertip.

Next thing I know, I’m stumbling towards the kitchen sink to throw up in it. I mean, how would you react if you saw anything like this?

I haven’t been home in days. I haven’t slept in days, either, because, well, go figure.

I can show you the video, but you’re not going to like it. I know how crazy this all sounds, but I don’t know what to do anymore. I can show you the video, but you’re not going to like it. You could spend the night with me, but I wouldn’t want to do that to you.

See, the last time I spent the night with anybody else was with my ex.

My ex who had a nail biting problem and never wanted to talk about it.

—Submitted by Wratts

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benedictgolde · 6 years

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The Athens Marathon

Day 12

Clear, clean and crisp; my favourite weather and time coming together in a sweet combination to make this morning’s 8 miler the perfect start of the week. With that in mind, today’s blog post is going to be another running story. This time of my first marathon: Athens 2015.

(Today’s miles - featuring a silly hat.)

It was early 2015 and the band were touring the UK. We were in Brighton and had arrived early, deciding to head to the beach in our pre-show time to take in the sea air. That same day had been the Brighton Marathon so the beach front was swarming with finisher t-shirts, bright shiny medals and some funny looking walking (post-marathon legs). Muss and me, both being into running, started a conversation about completing a marathon being on both our bucket lists. The atmosphere in Brighton felt electric and you could see the accomplishment beaming on people’s faces. We both agreed that we should just enter one, and not just any marathon – one that was in an adventurous place that neither of us had ever been.

After a quick search on the internet, we had decided on the Athens marathon; it was far enough away that both of us could train for it, it was a place neither of us had ever been and it’s called the ‘authentic’ marathon as it is the very place in which the marathon distance originates from. It ticked all the boxes. Prior to entering, I’d never really adhered to any formal training plan. I would typically run 5/6 times a week but would rarely track distance or time. The furthest I’d ran at that point was about 10 miles, so I went about getting a proper training plan that included nutrition in order to clock up the mileage. This is when running really became more than just a casual hobby for me, the start of what has developed into a huge part of who I am now.

About 4/5 months, many training miles and a couple of hundred bowls of porridge later, a leaner and (sort-of) marathon trained version of me was boarding the flight to Athens, with both Muss and his brother. In the lead-up to the race I’d gotten quite nervous, suddenly realizing the task that was in front of me. My longest training run had been a 22 miler and I’d made the decision to just run and see what time I came in.

At the time, I was unaware of what I was capable of in running as well as not being too bothered seeing that it was my first marathon. We boarded the flight slightly giddy with nerves and I distinctly remember us all joking about who would end up on the bus. The bus being an actual bus that picks up any stragglers who have failed to complete the course in the cut off time, which is typically something like 7 hours. Muss’ brother seemed concerned, although you would have to walk at a relatively slow pace for the entire 26.2 miles in order to stand any chance of being on the bus. We arrived in Athens and headed straight for the Expo, the atmosphere took me right back to Brighton, if not even being more charged as this time we were taking part – plus we were in Greece. Athens is an absolutely stunning city. If you haven’t been before, then I seriously recommend it. It might even be the best city I’ve been to in Europe so far. The expo was full of excitement, we collected our numbers and took a nervous pre-race picture. That evening we decided to take it easy as the race was the following morning. We went out for a nice meal and a small walk around our hostel’s area, which was perfectly situated bang in the centre of Athens – an easy 5 minute walk from the finish line on normal legs (it took me a good 15 post-marathon). A few more jokes about the bus were thrown around. Due to the time difference, our bodies were about 3 hours behind, which meant the 5am alarm came as a bit more of a shock than anticipated. The Athens marathon route means that you have to get a coach to the town of Marathon and then you run the 26.2 miles back to Athens, finishing in the Panathinaiko Stadium. The coach journey took a while, which was sort of expected, all I could think in my mind was the fact that if it took that long in a coach, then imagine what it would feel like on the feet. Upon arriving at the race village in the sports stadium within Marathon, my nerves turned to pure excitement. The sun was just popping its head over the mountains as we started our pre-race warm ups. At the time, I wasn’t that clued up to what a warm up entailed so we sort of just jogged around the track with all the other runners - if in doubt, copy everybody else.

Before we knew it, we were on the start line and the gun had sounded. The song How Deep Is Your Love by Calvin Harris was playing as we crossed the start; that song always taking me right back to that moment. The first thing I noticed was how many people had decided to immediately stop for a quick toilet break, just metres over the start line. All those nerves, I guess. I felt nothing but strong throughout the whole race. My mind was so focused on the moment that I didn’t even consider the fact I was running 26 miles, fully consumed in my stride.

For my nutrition, I’d opted for using what was provided at the feed stations - the segment of banana at the half way point was nothing but pure joy. There’s nothing quite like the taste of food when your body is in need of it. The course was pure beauty, the temperature was good and the atmosphere was amazing. Every little Greek town we passed through was full of spectators shouting “bravo, bravo” as we trod on by.

(All that hair, and the nose ring...)

As we rounded off into the city, I distinctly remember feeling quite emotional at mile 24. There’s definitely something about running long distances that evokes the emotive part of your brain. Running into the stadium was nothing short of incredible – if you watch the little video I made, I swear a lot because I was in disbelief that I was finishing and all those months of training were coming to a close. As I said earlier, at the time I wasn’t much of a runner in terms of time etc, but it was after this marathon that I really got into it and started to reach the PB’s I’ve managed to achieve.

youtube

Anybody who has completed a marathon will know how it feels when you cross the finish line and you take those first few steps at walking pace. Oh my does it come as a shock. Your legs don’t work properly for a good few days after and stairs become your worst nightmare – particularly walking down them. Muss, his brother and myself celebrated well that night, proceeding to have some of the most memorable few days of my entire life. For whatever reason, later on that night, we decided to try and run up acropolis – the term ‘recovery’ jog could be used but we were just being silly.

I think everyone should have a go at the Marathon at some point in their life. Especially if you are a runner or someone who enjoys running. There is something about knowing you’ve completed a distance like that, which makes other areas of life feel a lot easier. There’s also something about knowing you’ve done something a lot of others haven’t, it makes you feel just a little smug.

I love running. I’m not sure that you’ve been able to tell from reading these posts? Anyway, 12 days in – that’s almost half way. How time flies! Peace & love. BG

#athens marathon #athens #greece #blog #daily blog #running #Athens marathon 2015 #acropolis #travel #run #running blog #ukrunner #ukrunchat #Benedict golde #monday runday

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ecotone99 · 5 years

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[HM] [NSFW] How To Stay Single By Being Yourself

I listened to her pack into the MUNI train, and before I lost her in a tunnel, I said, “Sayonara, sardine.”

What a thing to say to someone with whom you’ve never actually occupied the same space, at least to my knowledge. The whole pace of my life seems to be this way nowadays. A skip or a glitch or a miss, or a drunk wrong turn into the wrong drunk person to kiss. Then I slip into another relationship, another year lost monogamous with the wrong person, until I’m my old single self again, masturbating and playing video games for virtual and spermal accomplishments. Until it’s just sad and no longer nostalgic, and I give it up again and move on to taking placebo capsules, more commonly known as vitamins, trying to better myself, eat healthy; when I know in my heart, whether or not it’s connected to a clogged left anterior descending artery, I’ll die just the same. The antithesis of delusions of grandeur, whatever that is. Plus those aren’t things I should indulge in or contemplate anyway, and by now I should have been more than this, but at least it’s good I don’t have kids or a second mortgage, but then comparatively to happier lives than mine, maybe it isn’t.

Responsibilities warped, and I’m honestly just complacent. Had one insightful shroom trip three years ago, camping at the base of Mt. Baldy, ending in three friends coming down from the trip repeating the word ‘comfort’ in harmony, which really stuck with me, and now making enough money so I can afford things that might impress a woman so she’ll sleep with me - because I lack a societally accepted masculine personality, and the accompanying physique - doesn’t seem all that important. Unless she’s gorgeous, thinks I’m funny, holds my doors open for me, and makes sure I cum before her. Because she’s an all giving goddess who’s ultra into reversing the roles. Now I’m the one wearing the bra and being neglectful, and she’s the one that’s fearful I’ll leave her if she’s not careful; if she can’t become my idea of the perfect woman, which could only mean that she’s not really special, not to me or anyone. My 'I’ve truly lost touch with reality' true love. Imagine that. Even when I’m not really with anybody I can’t take a breath for myself. Romantically imaginative, removed but attached. Really I’m just a Little Bitch, but I capitalize the L and the B in that shit. I own my label. It’s my religion, my race, my gender, my age, and my sexual orientation, fluidly. It’s my username on Fetlife, but the original was taken, so I’m LittleBitchFoRealTho. Even though the trained eye would see that’s too many characters. And I don’t know why I have the urge to say this, but, stay woke.

Then I snapped out of it, took a minute to think of all the years I wasted lasting seconds during sex, for months at a time, counting down the femtoseconds until the relationship ends in high entropy. Either overpraised or overfed. Or not needed at all. Just a one night stand, just a bed, just a friend, not even with benefits, just a dude to bring home so she doesn’t have to yet accept and admit to her parents that she’s a lesbian.

Get older, continue to get high, watch The Neverending Story for the thousandth time, and go to bed early. Learning to be lonely. Perpetually a dude currently writing this, sitting in a room, in an apartment with rent that’s ridiculous, if you happen to measure and calculate the cramped square footage, and compare it to how much you’re paying for it. Surrounded by objects that are purely conditional, and those conditions seem to occur few and far between. So everything I bought off Amazon Prime is all essentially useless, but can be delivered in two days, so that it can more quickly begin to lose the factor of novelty, before becoming still life garbage you seemingly involuntarily keep, imbued with a memory of a compelling spell of clicking, which megamorphed into sentimental value, and you only have those hardcovers on your bookshelf to cast the illusion that you’re well-rounded.

In actuality, I’m only rewriting this over and over again, trying to make this ludicrous literature perfect, while experiencing acute mood shifts. Sometimes my phone dies and I lose the latest revision, gone and lost in contextual oblivion. Metaphysically tired in my lazy mind’s lazy eye, from the eternal uphill-pushing of enormous proverbial boulders. A hugely hubristic, bush league, satirical Sisyphus with a creator complex, writing this self-stated, social paradigm shifting content, while in tangible social settings I’m mostly pocketing my psychic two cents. Then keeping my hands in my pockets so my palms sweat, standing far away from her and her friends after she ran over to them, next to a giant metallic cone with a screen in it at the California Academy of Sciences, reading the ticket that admits us into the Planetarium. Skip to the next awkward moment, I finally walk over, because she looked at me like I’m an idiot, we stand in a rhombus and start talking. One friend says, “Hey, nice to meet you”. Then a dainty, moist squeeze of the hands, then release, but no relief, more anxiety, but I manage to speak, “It’s nice to meet you too, Peaches.” I swear that was her name.

I’m saving up to win the spiritual lottery, or just waiting: to die, to fall asleep, perchance to wet-dream. While in my periphery I’m watching Clueless and wishing someone would text me back. As if. Because I sent you this, so I’ll probably never hear from you again, person reading this. A person I can only describe as: a secluded echo, an eclipsed moon, December blue. Soft eyes, no vacancy. Wild ride. You.

Anyway, if you’re still with me, what I’ve been trying to say, lately things seem to go a certain way for me. It’s not bad or good, it’s just causing me to think a little more introspectively. Any remorse for my interactions that may boil up is immediately self-medicated with cannabis that is meant to take the place of dopamine, when in reality I haven’t accomplished a single thing. I’m just sitting here making up silly stories, pretending I’d be content if this was it, nothing more than this. Monotony, mixed with heaven sent absurdity that turns into comedy, or social awkwardness at my day job that on the first and fifteenth of the month turns into money. Which goes to rent and other pointless expenses. If I want to attempt to have sex, gotta pay for dates, probably somewhere expensive, to distract her from fact that one of my ears is lower and points in a different direction.

Then when I’m on these dates, I have to be witty, charming, funny; because I personally believe that’s all I have going for me, and my psychiatrist agrees. I have to be somewhat up kept, overall hygienic, clean my apartment, just in case... you know...I die, or she wants to comes over. Buy a new toothbrush, new socks, deodorant, maybe a tie, get a goofy one while you’re shopping for an outfit at Goodwill, one that isn’t too large or too goofy looking, so as not to appear homeless. Not too drunk or too stoned to not keep up the walls, keep on the mask, perpetuate the facade, go on and on about what you do, where you’re from, but what’s really going on is you’re dancing around the fact that awkwardness is preferable to loneliness, but neither of you are out rightly addressing it, just discussing hobbies you aren’t really all that active in, and all you really want is to put on your favorite song, which is Love is a Battlefield, really loud, and be physically close to another person, preferably naked.

But flaws and awkwardness always win; until you consider and accept that death is the ultimate end, after getting real deep about it during a stoned conversation while listening to The Mars Volta with your old high school friends. Start to contemplate the concept of non-existence, then live your life according to that premise; which I don’t, but then do, too, paradoxically.

A view loosely based on the Tegmark take on quantum immortality, transmuted with my own half-baked multiverse theory recipe, tossed into the ethereal 8-Qt Crock-Pot, on low for 8 hours, alchemically cooking up the basic tenets of my life’s philosophies, stirring occasionally. It’s basically the idea that you can’t actually perceive yourself dying, but everyone else around you experiences your death in that universe’s reality. So for them you’re dead, then either cremated, ashes scattered in the hot tub at your grandparents old house in Walnut while the new occupants are in it. Or buried next to your brother, whose epitaph reads, “Who wants to match on a blunt and smoke out Jesus and Dezi Arnaz when we get to heaven, and why is it getting so hot all of a sudden?”, because my brother’s pretty funny when I write his made up epitaph for him. Or better than both disintegration or side-by-side a sibling in a graveyard; your will states your wishes to be taxidermied, morbidly displayed out in the most visible part of the back lawn, to been seen from a plethora of windows, forever staged reading Infinite Jest, which you never actually finished when you did exist there; until your family moves on emotionally and stores you in the basement next to your Pokémon card collection that never evolved into anything worth anything, much like a lvl 100 Luvdisc.

Where was I? Oh yeah. More bad dates with minutely modified bad outcomes, that would not have come to pass if you hadn’t eaten as many croissants as you did in your past life. Your colon couldn’t love handle it. Now new you figured out ways to continue perpetuating lies, to yourself and others, until again you’re caught in one of them by someone that you spoke spurious, rehearsed lines to, and then somehow learned to love. Another burnt bridge, move on to next place, the next job, the next “one”. Why not? Repeat the pattern. It seems you’ll always fill your life up with made up obstacles and the subsequent distractions, because it’s easier to hide behind another person’s life and pretend you don’t have one. Now their problems are yours, but they’re not as smart as you to handle them, says you. So you express another misplaced emotional reaction, then the inevitable detachment. In your mind it’s the proverbial 'them' all talking about you behind your back, even though they haven’t really thought about you since; but you hear it all in your head, overwhelmingly, a profound paranoid pounding, a feedback loop of an empty orchestra laughing; about all the stuff she knows about you, and told them, and they believe it to be it true, about you doing silly stuff with your penis that you thought would never leave the room.

“You can’t think your way out of a prison that is made of thought.”

- Krishna Das

Then you remember, sometimes if you say the name given to a person later in life because of a spiritual rite, read directly after the last word of a sentence from a quote associated with them, it produces a near rhyme. Sometimes things are just meant to be, two people are destined to meet, destined to be best friends who are silly on purpose, yes-and everyone, and massage each other’s feet. Running on unconditional love, and when we’re drunk it’s always fun and she doesn't end up cheating. If only.

No but really, I hope this was fun to read. Just some real, taboo, and personal themes that hopefully lead to giggles and genuine feelings, simultaneously. Because that’s really what I’m all about, inherently, though sometimes disrespectfully, but I promise it’s not done intentionally. I’m simply digging deeply into the collective unconscious, and sharing all the treasures that I pull out. Because I always pull out, can’t stand a condom: latex, sheepskin, my ego; doesn’t matter. I can’t help but rawly share it and impregnate you with honesty.

A component of my soul, a moment, a stream of consciousness built upon the general thought of a person I could have been and may become. An influence I feel could be a friend - because I swear on the grave of a man named Lasso who lives on the astral plane, who doesn’t know how to dance, but if you know how to ask, will grant you the ability to always know the exact location of the nearest bathroom - that I’m only trying to gain a little understanding so I can be compatible with another person. It’s that simple. I’m the grey hat traversing the gray areas. The one who doesn’t know the proper rules on when to use which spelling of gray, so he always puts both variations of grey in a sentence. So a train of thought came after a disconnection on a train elsewhere, which caused me to think, write and edit this every night until three in the morning for an ever increasing amount of weeks, repeating a pattern so as not to repeat, trying to see if there’s something to glean that’ll lead me to love in this reality. All because I listened to her pack into the MUNI train, and before I lost her in a tunnel, I said, “Sayonara, sardine.”

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#Blogger #Story

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myhauntedsalem · 5 years

Photo

Graveyard Shift Workers Share Their Eeriest Encounters with the Supernatural

During the long midnight hours, the things that go bump in the night are not always just figments of an overactive imagination, as the following people learned the hard way.

1. They Play at Night

2. Midnight Calls

That extension? The arts and crafts room. Nobody goes there at night. Nobody. I assure you. Yet there’s obviously something there. And it calls 911 a lot.

Lots of other stories from that place but that’s the craziest, creepiest one.” – sensicle

3. The Elevator

4. The Sleep Experiment

All the patients reported the same story.” – Dhubler91

5. Blue Mist

“Worked nightshift at a treatment center.

We had cameras around every corner, nothing was out of our vision.

6. The Little Girl in the Nightgown

7. The Praying Nun

My dad does not believe in ghosts, but he says there was a nun down there that night.” – gmen1080

8. A Friendly Voice

I started telling people about it and found out lots of coworkers heard the same voice. From everyone’s stories she (the ghost girl) seems really nice but it still sent chills down my spine.” — bnksy420

9. Nights on the Psych Ward

10. The Elevator Doors

#Graveyard Shift Workers Share Their Eeriest Encounters with the Supernatural #paranormal #ghost and hauntings #ghost and spirits

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myhauntedsalem · 5 years

Photo

Graveyard Shift Workers Share Their Eeriest Encounters with the Supernatural

During the long midnight hours, the things that go bump in the night are not always just figments of an overactive imagination, as the following people learned the hard way.

1. They Play at Night

2. Midnight Calls

That extension? The arts and crafts room. Nobody goes there at night. Nobody. I assure you. Yet there’s obviously something there. And it calls 911 a lot.

Lots of other stories from that place but that’s the craziest, creepiest one.” – sensicle

3. The Elevator

4. The Sleep Experiment

All the patients reported the same story.” – Dhubler91

5. Blue Mist

“Worked nightshift at a treatment center.

We had cameras around every corner, nothing was out of our vision.

6. The Little Girl in the Nightgown

7. The Praying Nun

My dad does not believe in ghosts, but he says there was a nun down there that night.” – gmen1080

8. A Friendly Voice

9. Nights on the Psych Ward

10. The Elevator Doors

#Graveyard Shift Workers Share Their Eeriest Encounters with the Supernatural #paranormal #ghost and hauntings

26 notes · View notes