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haikyuu-appreciation-club · 4 years

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•Closer to You•

Sugawara x Reader

warnings: like one curse word

genre: fluff

word count: 1.8k

Just an fyi, this oneshot was written for one of my friends and modified so that anyone could enjoy sooo if there are some parts that you don’t relate with i apologize, lets just try and use our imaginations pls + ty. anywhooo enjoy lovelies <3

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You and Sugawara had been dating for a little while now but hadn’t really gotten the opportunity to have a proper first date. Both of you were busy with school and extracurricular activities so your schedules didn't really allow any room for spending time with one another. You knew Suga felt bad so you constantly tried to reassure him that you were content with the current flow of your relationship. However, you’d be lying if you said you didn’t miss his company. You supported him whole heartedly. Always showing up to all of his games no matter their importance and cheering for him no matter how much time he spent on the court. Even so, despite the swelling pride you felt in your heart as you watched him pursue the sport he loved so dearly, you couldn't help but wish you could steal more of his time.

Despite you painting that pretty smile on your face and telling Suga that you were fine, he knew better. To be completely honest he missed you too. He loved volleyball but he loved you so much more. He had been in love with you for years now but only recently had he been able to muster up the courage to confess. Never in a million years did he expect you to accept his confession so when you did he was stunned to say the least. None the less, he was over the moon that you reciprocated his feelings, but it seemed that ever since you two made it official, time was not on your side. This is why he proposed that this weekend you would have your first official date. You two weren’t big on things like dinner dates and long walks on the beach so you decided to have a little movie night at Sugawara’s house. You both were very excited that you would finally have the opportunity to just be in each other’s company without the stress of messing up anyone’s schedule.

Saturday rolled around and you walked up to the door of Suga’s home. His parents had gone away on a business trip so you two had the house to yourselves for the weekend. You knocked on the door and eagerly waited for an answer, bouncing from one foot to the other. The door was pulled open, letting out a small creak in the process, allowing your eyes to meet the beautiful hazel ones you were so familiar with. You didn’t allow him time to properly greet you, already wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him into your embrace. He wrapped his arms around your waist and chuckled. While still holding onto him you allowed yourself to address him, a smile evident in your voice,

“Hi Kōshi!”

“Hey Y/N, you ready to get this movie marathon started?”

You pulled away from him as you smiled and nodded your head. He grinned and intertwined your fingers with his, pulling you inside and towards the couch. You sat down on the plush sofa, moving yourself into a position that was comfortable for you while still leaving room for Suga to get cozy as well. Suga threw you the remote as he walked to the kitchen. You cocked your head at the now empty door frame and began to project your voice to be heard from where he stood,

“What do you wanna watch?”

“Your pick tonight, sweetheart”

“You sure?”

“Positive Y/N, now hurry up and pick something before I start scrolling through the horror section.”

You shuttered. You could not tolerate horror movies. Last time you watched a horror movie was when you got invited to a sleepover at Daichi’s house with the team. You had known the boys for quite a while so hanging out all together was nothing new. However, on that particular occasion Noya and Tanaka had gotten word of your hatred for the specific genre and decided that it would be a good idea to scare the shit out of you. This resulted in you huddled up in Suga’s arms for the rest of the night, not allowing yourself a wink of sleep in fear the memories of the film would fill your dreams. Safe to say, you were not too keen on interacting with the two the morning after.

Quickly sifting through the different titles, you decided on a Disney movie. You didn't really know what type of movies Suga was interested in so you thought settling on something that was enjoyed by a wide variety of people would be the best choice. Setting the remote down, you took in the atmosphere of the room. It was very serene, as was the rest of his home. There weren’t many pieces of furniture littering the room but the pictures on the wall made up for any feelings of vacancy. Your eyes scanned each frame, smiling to yourself as you took in the happy memories that were on display. However, there was one picture in particular that caught your eye. Suga couldn’t have been any older than three as he stood in his bathtub, butt naked might you add, hugging his mother around her neck and soaking her in the process. You let out an audible laugh as the boy in question reentered the room.

“What are you laughing about?”

Suga set down the bowls of popcorn and candy as he turned to look at the picture you were pointing at. His gaze settled on the frame and his cheeks heated up, a hue of red now painting them out of embarrassment. He sunk into the space beside you as he buried his face in his hands and mumbled,

“I knew I should’ve taken some of those down.”

Your laughter filled the room once more as you pried his hands away from his face,

“Don’t worry about it Kō, I think it’s cute.”

He looks up at you and melts. The way your soft eyes meet his, slightly crinkled at the corners due to the beautiful smile tugging at your lips. You body was slightly turned, facing him, giving him a perfect view of his wonderful lover. In that moment, he fell in love with you all over again. Cupping you’re cheek and planting a kiss in the middle of your forehead, he picked up the remote to start the movie.

He leaned back and wrapped his arm around your shoulder as you snuggle into him. You two stayed like this for a few movies. Occasionally letting out a laugh or humming the tune to a familiar song. However as you peered up, you noticed that Suga’s facial expression seemed bored. You could tell that he had grown tired of the childhood films and if you were being honest, you were growing tired of them yourself.

You wiggled out of his grasp and reached for the remote. Suga was watching you with a slightly confused expression as you paused the movie and stood up.

“Bathroom break? Need me to refill the snacks?”

You smiled at his motherly antics as you reached your arms to the ceiling,

“No babe, just stretching. I am getting a little bored of the Disney movies though, can we watch something else?”

He hummed and grabbed the remote, exiting out of the movie and returning the the main menu,

“Sure my love, what do you got in mind?”

You sat back down and returned to your original position, leaning up against him once more,

“I heard that volleyball game was on tonight, wanna watch that?”

You watched as his eye lit up, the boredom that was stitched into his face had been replaced by pure excitement that you could tell he was trying to contain. After a minute though, his expression faltered slightly as he looked up at you,

“Are you sure that’s something you wanna watch Y/N? It’s a little different then seeing my games in person. I don’t want you to be confused or get bored.”

You sighed and poked the middle of his forehead, trying to relax the concerned expression that he held as you smiled at him.

“Yes Kōshi, i’m sure. Besides, i’m sure you could tell me a thing or two about what’s going on anyways, i’d like to learn more about volleyball.”

His excited expression returned as he nodded and grabbed the remote, quickly switching to the channel that the game was airing on.

You sat there in his embrace and listened as he talked to you about the game. Truth be told, you knew what was going on. You’ve played volleyball before and even though you were definitely not the most skilled player you didn’t exactly need Sugawara explaining it to you. However, you couldn’t break that news to him. He looked so overjoyed to be talking about something he loved most with the person he loved most that you couldn’t bring yourself to interrupt. So, you sat there with your head rested on his shoulder as he spoke. Slowly but surely, his soft voice pulled you deeper and deeper into sleep. The events of the night had tired you out and although you tried to stay away until the game concluded, you ended up drifting off.

Suga didn’t realize you fell asleep until he noticed you were no longer responding to his commentary with nods or soft hums. He peered down at you, watching the rise and fall of your chest as breath flowed in and out of your slightly parted lips. He smiled at your sleeping figure as he slowly got up, being careful not to wake you with his movements. He slid one of his arms behind your back and the other underneath your knees as he picked you up, bridal style. He carried your silent form to his bedroom, carefully pulling back the blankets before placing you down softly. Suga discarded his shirt, placing it into a hamper as he turned off the bedroom light. He slowly climbed into bed with you and wrapped one of his arms around your waist, the other resting underneath his head. He buried his face in your neck, breathing in the scent of your shampoo.

All felt right in that moment, the world stopped and all that he knew was you. As he drifted off to sleep he thought about how lucky he was to have you in his life, he wanted to get to lay down next to you every night for the rest of his life. So before he was pulled into his dream land, he had to let you know,

“I love you Y/N.”

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sylvie-writes · 4 years

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Loopy

Request: can you write something where the reader calls steve "stevie" for the first time during some random cute moment and he's just like, really flustered and cute about it -anon

Thanks for the request hon! Hope you like it!

Warnings: any inaccuracies and grammar mistakes (it’s midnight for me once again)

Indulging.

It could be a sin.

And here you were indulging in a nice buttery bag of fresh popcorn. Tony had recently invested in a vintage popcorn machine and the whole team couldn’t get enough of the new fad item.

Repeatedly you popped the delicious treat in your mouth, savoring every salty bite. Think of it as a reward! The whole team, including you, had gotten back from a night mission that left you feeling sleep deprived. So instead of sleeping like most of the team, you stayed up with Wanda making popcorn and binging the Hunger Games. She had never seen any of the movies before and you figured what better time than at the ungodly hour of 3 am to start a twelve hour marathon.

Somehow Wanda was wide awake, maybe blame it on the cliffhanger of each movie keeping her so energized. You reached in the bucket and to your surprise, your hand had almost reached to the bottom.

Just shrugging, you crunched on the last few pieces of popcorn before suddenly yelping in pain.

Wanda immediately paused the movie and rushed to your side from her end of the couch.

“Oh my gosh! (y/n) are you ok?!”

The immense amount of pain was so strong you couldn’t even form words, just tears.

“I’m gonna go get Steve!” With that Wanda rushed down the hall and to the elevator, leaving your hand glued to the point of pain in your jaw.

Seconds later Steve came running in, only sweats on, he didn’t even care to throw on a shirt, too worried about your well being. If your tooth would stop palpitating, maybe you could be amazed by his carefree state, but at the moment you cared more about the tooth.

Steve crouched down in front of you, holding your face in his hands, while Wanda went to go turn on the lights. It was 7 am and no one cared at this point if the team could hear or not.

“Sweetheart, I need you to let me see what’s wrong.”

Reluctantly, you removed your hand and he patted your thigh reassuringly before placing his hand back to its original place on your face. Gently prying your mouth open, Steve looked around the best he could in the morning lighting. In a matter of minutes, Steve saw your back right molar cracked.

“Oh honey, your molar is cracked.”

A sound of distress came from you and Steve laughed, earning a smack from Wanda.

She went to go get you an ice pack while Steve helped you up from the couch to take you back to bed. Wanda handed you the pack of ice that was more valuable than your life at the moment. In appreciation, you hugged her before she continued her movie marathon.

It was almost impossible to sleep the remaining three hours. You tossed and turned in an attempt to calm your nervousness. Steve was out like a light, the poor baby was so worn out from the day's event.

That very morning, Steve immediately got out from the bed and made an emergency appointment with your dentist.

“Ok babe, your appointment is at 10:30, you better get going.” He sat on the edge of your bed brushing your hair to reveal your baggy eyes. A frown rolled onto his face and he kissed a side of your cheekbone.

The clock read 9:00 am, meaning you best get up now or suffer in pain, you could always sleep later. Right?

Due to Steve’s military upbringing and his punctuality, you were there exactly at 10:30 am. The office was practically empty except for the receptionist and the tv playing in the corner. It couldn’t be that bad? Just a filling, that was all you were hoping for, but nope!

“Ms. (y/l/n) your right mandibular 2nd molar is split into two separate parts. You’ll need an extraction” The doctor looked at your face of fear as your eyes grew wide.

The doctor went on giving you all the details and pros and cons. He mentioned it needed to be done now so the crack wouldn’t further. You were put in a position to basically be forced to agree.

“Doll, it’s gonna be fine.” Steve kissed your forehead before the dental assistant ushered him to the waiting room.

Your breathing and heart increased tenfold as they put the mask on your face, pushing nitrous oxide into your body, finally causing your body to calm.

While under anesthesia you had no sense of time whatsoever, you could barely even remember when you fell into the dark void of sleep.

It must’ve been an hour that passed before you woke up to the dental assistant giving you some precautions and telling you to take it easy before she left. The anesthetics made it impossible to focus on what she was saying. Your head was spinning and you tried your best to act normal. Mission Failed.

Steve walked in after speaking with the doctor who was giving him the numerous amount of pain medicine prescriptions. You could blame it on the medicine, but his smile seemed so bright. Honestly, it felt like you were hungover.

“How are you feeling, (y/n)?” Steve stroked your face, well actually the jaw wrap around your head. He felt absolute pity for you. One minute you were enjoying your precious popcorn and then the next it cracked your tooth.

You just giggled at his touch, slightly tossing around in the chair. Steve looked completely baffled, after all he had never been around anyone under the influence of nitrous oxide. Back in his day, you were wide awake probably screaming internally to yourself the question of why you were there in the first place.

“Hiya Stevie! Oh! You’re gorgeous!”

Giggles once again spewed from your mouth as you turned to look at the blonde who was blushing madly. You had only been dating for a month by now and of course there were pet names, but never Stevie. Naturally, Steve’s reaction was to be embarrassed, but that didn’t mean that he thought it wasn’t cute.

“Don’t you get all shy on me now, Cutie!” Your hands went to his face to smoosh his cheeks and lips together, creating a duck face.

“Hon, I think you should get some rest now, c’mon.” Steve tried to help you up from the chair since the doctor had already discharged you.

“Stevie! Just like Stevia the sweetner!” In a sing-songy voice, you garbled out the words.

Let’s just say after many attempts, Steve finally just wrapped his arms around your waist. It was hilarious! You tried to kiss his face the whole way, and just ended up laughing endlessly, all while high on the laughing gas. If he weren’t so busy caring for you, Steve would have loved to record this and blackmail you later. Well, not blackmail per se, just payback after you recorded him one night, drunkenly blabbering about his love for you. Yeah, Thor let him have the Asgardian Mead…

Once Steve got you in the car and secure, you both went to go get the pain medicine. It was about a few minutes later, you were still talking, claiming you were fine, but mid sentence you just fell asleep causing Steve to snicker. At the stop light he snapped a picture of you sleeping with your mouth wide open, leaning on the seatbelt with your jaw wrapped. You’d absolutely murder him later, but that’s a whole other story.

The prescriptions were unexpectedly ready in time, making the drive back to the compound even shorter.

Steve himself was tired, yet he pushed through, carrying you from the car all the way to your shared room. You stirred and found yourself on his shoulder.

“Woah buddy boy! We haven’t even gone on a date yet!”

You slurred and laughed to yourself, falling back asleep, but not before catching a glimpse of Tony and Natasha, mocking the incident that just happened.

Carefully, Steve laid you from his shoulder and onto your bed.

He pecked your forehead before changing into his own pair of comfortable clothes, snuggling against your smaller body. He didn’t fear that he’d wake you up because at the current moment you were snoring louder than a middle aged man.

Many hours later, the sun was down, meaning it must’ve been dinner time. You groggily awoke from your sleep, trying to recollect your memories. As you looked around the room, Steve’s side was empty and you went to turn on the lamp on the nightstand only to be met with one thing…

The picture Steve had taken of you in the car with a note which read; “Dinner will be ready soon, doll.” A small winky face beside the ending. That sneaky son of a biscuit knew exactly what he was doing!

You just picked up the picture and burst into a fit of laughter.

Okay so maybe you deserved it…

#steve rogers imagine #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #chris evans #steve rogers x you #steve rogers drabble

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dweemeister · 4 years

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As tagged by @themusicmoviesportsguy! Holy crap everyone, I ramble. Apologies!

rules: tag 9 people who you want to know better / catch up with and then answer these questions

TAGGING (I’m tagging more than 9 because it’s been a while): @derricklogan2, @dog-of-ulthar, @introspectivemeltdown, @maximiliani, @memetoilet, @mundi41, @myluckyerror, @neverwasastoryofmorewhoa, @plus-low-overthrow, @sadisticsunglasses @theybecomestories, and @voicetalentbrendan. Anybody else who wants to do this can do this as well!

last song: From the radio (yes, I listen to RADIO)... “Windy” by The Association. I’m historically terrible at getting lyrics correctly no matter the era or genre - I don’t remember the first time I ever googled a song’s lyrics, but I probably was very excited to correct myself. As might be very understandable in this instance, I thought this song was “Wendy” for a long time. But if the YouTube comments are to go by, more than a few Wendys like this song!

last movie: On a rewatch? The Three Caballeros (1944; my write-up from five years ago is in the link). It’s a fascinating film from its unabashed use of color, a very early melding of animation and live-action, Donald Duck lusting over human women (wouldn’t Daisy be jealous?), and the two charismatic co-leads in Jose Carioca and Panchito Pistoles. It’s no propaganda film, but I guess the movie did its job from preventing former Nazis and fascists from settling in Latin America to escape punishment for their deeds!

As a film completely new to me? Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972, Japan). It’s the second of a six-film series based on the manga Lone Wolf and Cub. I passed on writing a review for the first film, as I will for the rest of the series (at least for now). I’m not the biggest fan of the decision in samurai movies to have the blood spraying out of crumpling bodies like a pressure hose, but I see why this series appeals. Outside of The Mandalorian, I’m surprised that the Lone Wolf and Cub series hasn’t influenced more movies and television - the action scenes are strikingly staged from what I’ve seen so far (the first two films).

currently reading: When it comes down to a presidential election season, this sounds a bit sad, but this is usually the least likely time that I am reading any book for fun. The United States’ and Orange County’s handling of the pandemic has also contributed to this. So other than the numerous news articles and feature pieces, I’ve read several essays on certain films I’m writing on in the coming days. Thankfully (or unfortunately depending on how you see it), there has been a lot written about Elvis movies - the good, the bad, and the mediocre. There’s a lot of mediocre Elvis movies. I’m gonna need help soon from classic Bollywood-knowledgeable friends, though.

currently watching: If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re pretty tired of the Gargoyles and Gravity Falls spam on this blog in recent weeks. My sister and I finished both recently and I am attempting to complete both series’ summer run in the queue on August 31. After that, both will appear more sporadically. I think the best thing for GF is to cycle it in the queue every summer, similar to how I restrict certain Peanuts specials to a specific part of the year (and how I mostly restrict Over the Garden Wall’s appearances on this blog to autumn, especially October). But that’s the recent past.

Right now, two extremely different animated series. The first is The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (thank you to my friend for sharing her Disney+ account). My sister and I haven’t seen the series in ~20 years, and I was curious to see if it has held up. I think, as an extension of the original Disney Winnie the Pooh films and A.A. Milne’s works, it’s exceptionally respectful to young children and the parents that would presumably be watching with them. That’s hard to do. For a late ‘80s/early ‘90s series, the backgrounds are drop-dead gorgeous and you can tell Disney threw a lot of money at this series. The other TV series is Star Trek: Lower Decks. We’re only three episodes in, so no judgments from me yet... I don’t understand people who base their television criticism based on less than half a season.

Currently sitting in the DVR awaiting to be completed is The Little Colonel (1935), starring Shirley Temple, Lionel Barrymore, and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. This is the film with the famous staircase dance between Temple and Robinson* (who struck up an interracial, intergenerational friendship that lasted until Robinson’s death). Given all the problematic films that are featured on this blog, I’m just curious why I haven’t been cancelled yet.

* Yes, I linked the black-and-white original. I fucking refuse to promote colorized prints of black-and-white films for reasons of artistic integrity (unless the colorization was done in consultation/with the approval of the principal creative figures... the instances of which are close to zero).

currently craving: If you can call a trip to the movie theater a craving, sure! Though it may be a craving, California won’t be letting those open for a while. And I don’t feel safe going to a theater upon reopening. It probably will be many months - maybe *shudder* a year - at the rate things are going.

working on anything rn?: *deep breath* These are almost all long-term things...

Thinking about a career pivot.

An extremely informal consultancy gig I’m doing with an old professor of mine on a documentary film she is spearheading.

Continued archiving of all My Movie Odyssey reviews onto Google Drive (this has stalled lately due to the above). The archiving is being done in the hopes of launching a parallel blog in 2021 (WordPress? something else?) which would contain only my movie reviews - this tumblr would remain (and the reviews will still be posted here) for as long tumblr is a viable medium to attract a new reader or two.

Making mental notes about how to approach this blog’s next marathon (“Women Make Film” - Tuesday evenings from Sept. 1-Dec. 1).

In October, I’ll start making preparations for the preliminary rounds of the 2020 Movie Odyssey Award for Best Original Song. Of course we’re doing it again!

And of course, the Movie Odyssey write-ups.

currently playing: Nothing at this moment, but I do admit having a Civilization VI phase in recent months (I suck and barbarians stress me out - yes I know you’re supposed to take out the scout ASAP). That may or may not pick up again.

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ohpedromypedros-main · 5 years

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The Day That Changed It All - Prologue

A/N: Hey all! So I started writing this AU the other day while I was having a bad night and I'm thinking of turning it into a mini series! Let me know what you think about it and if you'd for sure like to see more! 💕 This part is more of a backstory for the reader and how she meets Dacre.

Word count: 2k

Characters: Dacre x Reader

Pairings: Dacre x Reader

Warnings: suicide attempt, angst, major fluff toward the end

Summary: The reader is ready to end it all, strongly believing that her mental health will never get better, but after a failed suicide attempt and her stay at the hospital, she realizes she was very wrong.

The tears wouldn't stop flowing. The pain in your chest from the lack of breath due to your sobs were unbearable, yet you still continued to cry. You were overwhelmed in the worst possible way and you just wanted everything to be over. You wanted the ongoing pain you suffered through mentally and emotionally to finally be done.

No amount of therapy ever helped you. Medication did absolute squat for you, so you were at a stump. You tried, every day you tried to fight the darkness inside you, inside your mind, but inevitably it slowly began to engulf you completely. This was the end for you and there was nothing that would change that.

Or so you thought. This was the day your life would change forever.

25 years. That's how many years of life lived you were about to throw away, but you know what? You didn't care. Your mind was just too numb for you to think straight, to rationalize. If you were being honest, your mind went numb years ago.

You lived all on your own, had nobody to get you through your darkest days. Your parents abandoned you when you were 3, left you in the care of your grandparents who loved and homed you up til the days they died. You were 16 when your grandfather died and 18 when your grandmother died, both times tearing a big chunk of your heart away.

You were alone from 18 to now, your mental health worsening each year that passed without your grandparents. Now, you were sat at the edge of the railing on a bridge which stood hundreds of yards above the water below, cars driving past as if you were invisible. You were shivering, the t-shirt and cardigan you wore not quite keeping you warm from the cool fall air. The temperature didn't bother you, though. It wasn't like you'd be alive much longer to care that you were cold.

Taking a deep breath, you slowly moved to stand on the edge of the bridge just on the other side of the rail, your hands still grasping the cold metal to steady yourself until you were ready to actually throw yourself off. As you were preparing to jump, you heard the sound of tires screeching and a woman's voice screaming not to jump, but it was too late. You pushed with as much force off the rail and let your body free fall into the freezing waters below.

You opened your eyes with a few flutters of your eyelids, the hospital room lights blinding you and making the throbbing pain in your head even worse. You looked around the room with a groan, noticing you were hooked to an IV drip. You moved to sit up, but the sharp pain in your ribs had you doing otherwise. “Ow, fuck.”

With a sigh, you found the call button and pressed it, relaxing against the many pillows beneath your head while you waited for someone to show up. You remembered what you had done the night before and realized why you were in this hospital in the first place. A failed suicide. Great.

After a few minutes a nurse entered the room, closely followed by a doctor. Your breath caught in the back of your throat at the sight of him and the lack of breath caused a lot of pain in your lungs. “Ouch!” You whined, taking a few deep breaths.

“Yeah you're going to be in a lot of pain, dear.” The doctor chuckled and when he neared you, you got a good look at his name tag. Doctor Dacre Montgomery. He gave you a smile, a smile that made your heart melt.

This doctor was the most attractive man you'd ever laid eyes on. His eyes were a piercing blue color, his face was sculpted so perfectly it was as if God himself made him out of pure marble. You could only imagine what lay beneath his doctors uniform.

“Would you like some meds for the pain?” Doctor Montgomery asked you, which you nodded at him in response. “Of course. I'll be back in a few. The nurse here is going to check your vitals in the meantime.”

“Thank you,” you murmured, gaze following the doctor out of the room. You didn't realize you were still staring until the nurse chuckled.

“He's a sight for sore eyes, huh?” She smiled, grabbing the blood pressure cuff off the wall and hooking it to the tube connected to the vitals machine. She wrapped it around your right arm and pushed the button to start the blood pressure reading.

“Yes he is,” you bit your lip with a smile, which the nurse noticed and chuckled again.

“He's the youngest doctor at this hospital,” she said as she removed the blood pressure cuff and recorded your readings. “He also happens to be single.” She winked, getting the rest of your vitals and recording them too.

You blushed at her words, knowing she knew you'd be curious about whether he was single or not. There was just something about him that made you forget why you were suicidal in the first place.

“Yeah?” You smiled. “But I doubt he'd have an inkling of interest in someone like me.” You shrugged your shoulders, earning yourself a shake of the nurses head.

“You never know. I'm pretty sure when they first brought you here, he couldn't keep his eyes off of you.” She chuckled and you looked at her with wide eyes. “I don't think I've ever seen him work so hard on an attempted suicide victim.”

Just a few moments later Doctor Montgomery returned with your pain meds and a cup of water, which he handed to you and watched while you took them. “How were her vitals?”

“They were normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. I think, with your opinion as well, she'll be good to go home in no time.”

“Thank you, nurse. There's a patient down the hall that's looking for a snack, could you do that for me?” He smiled at the nurse who nodded and gave you one last smile before exiting the room. Doctor Montgomery looked back to you with a warm smile, taking the seat beside your bed. “How are you feeling? Mentally, I mean.”

You chewed your lip as you thought, not really feeling much of anything at the moment. “Honestly? I feel nothing. Not in a bad way, I don't have any negative thoughts or clouded feelings in my head. If that makes sense.” You sighed.

“It very well makes sense,” he chuckled, resting his hand over yours. “I'm glad you're feeling better. May I ask you something? If you don't mind.”

“Of course,” you smiled, heart rate picking up when he brought his gaze to your own. If you were hooked to a heart rate monitor, he would know for sure the affect he was having on you in that very moment.

“What drove you to jump off that bridge? Did something happen that drove you to it?” He only asked you this because he was genuinely curious. He wanted to know why someone as young and beautiful as you wanted to end her life.

You gave Doctor Montgomery a sad smile, explaining everything that you went through from when your parents abandoned you at the age of 3 to losing your grandparents at the age of 16 and 18, giving as much detail that you could. He listened to your every word intently, letting you get everything off your chest and even comforting you when the waterfall of tears came.

When you were finished explaining pretty much your entire life story, you looked at Doctor Montgomery with a sort of ashamed smile, which he shook his head at and wiped your tears away with his thumbs. Usually that was considered unprofessional in his field of work, but he didn't care. He wanted to show you he truly cared.

“I'm sorry you went through all of that. I'm sorry there's no one in your life who can help you through your dark days.” He wanted to say more, but his beeper began going off, signifying he was needed elsewhere. “I have to take this. I'll come see you before my shift ends. There's something I need to ask you.”

You were curious as to what he meant by that, but decided to wait until he came back to ask you what he needed to ask you. You watched as he left the room and for the first time in a long time, you felt a warmth in your heart and had the biggest of smiles on your face. You just knew, something was going to change in your life from this point on.

A few months had passed since your attempted suicide. You were holding in mentally, trying your damned hardest to get through your worst of days, but this time you didn't have to go through it alone. No, this time you had the boy whose heart you stole the moment you were wheeled into his ER. Doctor Montgomery.

Right before his shift ended the day after your attempt, he had asked if he could take you out for a coffee when you were out of the hospital and feeling better mentally. He admitted to you that you sparked something in his heart and he wanted to get to know you better.

You happily accepted his offer to take you out for coffee and after that day, he'd asked you on several more dates. He was a busy guy with his job at the hospital, but he did his best to make time for you. He truly did like you, a lot, and he wanted to make sure you knew that.

Currently you were sitting at home at your grandparent's house which you inherited after the death of your grandmother. They left you everything in their will since you were an only child, so you were pretty much set for life in the financial department.

Dacre was curled up on the couch with you in his arms, your head rested against his chest while the two of you watched a Halloween marathon. You grabbed a piece of popcorn from the bowl in your lap and held it up to his mouth. Dacre chuckled and leaned forward to grab it with his lips.

“You're adorable, you know that?” He smiled, pressing a kiss to your hair.

“Am I?” You giggled, something you hadn't done in years until Dacre came into your life.

“Absolutely.” His Australian accent came out thickly with that single word and it made your heart race. You absolutely loved his accent.

“Why thank you.” You grinned, lifting your head up to look at him. He smiled down at you, moving one of his hands to gently rest against your cheek. You leaned into his touch, softly humming out your desires.

“Y/N?” Dacre bit down on his lip, his blue eyes locking on your gaze.

“Yes?” You smiled, cheeks burning at the sheer fact that he was gazing so intensely into your eyes.

“I, uh, I like you a whole lot. And well, I was wondering…” He took a deep breath, eyes never leaving your own. “Will you be my girl?” His heart was pounding against his chest, scared you would turn him down since you had only known each other for a short amount of time.

“I thought you'd never ask,” you whispered, leaning up to capture his lips, kissing him with a passionate force that would make any person's head spin. Dacre was quick to return the kiss, his arms tightening around your waist to pull you closer into him.

“So that's a yes?” He chuckled after pulling back from the kiss, earning himself a happy nod.

“Yes, Dacre. That's most definitely a yes.” You smiled, leaning up to kiss him again, unable to resist the feeling of his soft lips on yours.

You were extremely grateful for Dacre. He didn't totally make your depression disappear, but he was there for you when you needed him most. He was a constant reminder that life DOES get better and you were looking forward to what your futures held.

Tagging: @hargrove-heaven @halefirewarrior

If anyone wants to be tagged in future parts, let me know!

#dacre montgomery x reader #dacre montgomery x you #dacre montgomery x y/n #dacre x reader #dacre x you #dacre x y/n #dacre fanfiction #dacre montgomery fanfiction #tw: suicide attempt

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slutforpoetryx · 7 years

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1 to 500 😁

Oh jesus christ. This is such karma 😭 but challenge accepted…. 😏

1) A book you read for a movie: I hope I get that question right but I only did that once and it was with the Maze runner.2) A favorite adapted movie: Uh Harry Potter I guess?3) A guilty pleasure: Binge watching my fav tv series4) A movie from your favorite director you didn’t like: Hmm I don’t really have a fav but I do like Tim Burton a lot and from the movies I’ve seen there’s never been one I didn’t like. They’re all super original5) A movie that was better than the book: Usually all the books are better than the movies. Have yet to encounter the opposite 6) A movie that you know is bad but you can’t help but love it: There’s one movie, forgot the title, but it was like this B horror movie that I just loved even though the effects and make up was so bad. Even the acting was bad. But it was about this werewolf’s life and how he fell in love with this girl and well yeah romance always sucks me in 😂 7) A movie you watched mainly for an actor: Sweeney Todd, I watched that one mainly because of Johnny Depp and also because it interested me 8) Age: 20 🎉9) Any piercings that you want?: I want a few piercings still. In my ear, a dermal and belly button piercing once I have the bod for it 10) Any tattoos you want?: I do want tattoos but aside from a few personal things (🐱) I don’t know what (yet, I guess)11) Anyone you’re giving up on?: No one12) Are relationships ever worth it?: Usually they are. If it’s real and natural, something that just fulfills you and makes you happy. Makes you a better person the hell yes. They’re not worth it when it’s overall wrong13) Are you a forgiving person?: I am very much so. Not always a good thing though14) Are you a heavy sleeper?: Fuck yes I am. My mom always says that I’d sleep through an earthquake or bomb15) Are you a jealous person?: God…. Love wise, yes. Definitely yes. But I become a crazy bitch then 🙂16) Are you a social or an antisocial person?: Forever asocial asf17) Are you allergic to anything?: Not that I know of. Certain skin products and a sensitive stomach but that’s it 18) Are you currently in a relationship?: Nope19) Are you dating the last person you talked to?: Sadly enough not….. yet20) Are you due sometime this year for a doctor’s visit?: I hope not21) Are you easy to get along with?: As long as it stays superficial then sure. The ones closest to me have their hands full with me22) Are you going out of town soon?: No 😭23) Are you good at hiding your feelings?: Depends but sometimes I am24) Are you good at math?: God no, the worst at that. 35% on an exam kinda bad 25) Are you happy with the person you’ve become?: No I’m not. I do hope to be happy with who I am trying to become26) Are you lonely?: I often am27) Are you mad at someone right now?: Yes I am28) Are you nice to everyone?: As long as they deserve it then yes 29) Are you outgoing or shy?: Shy, verrrrrrry shy30) Are you over your past?: Not yet but one day I will be31) Are you someone’s best friend?: I’m not32) Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?: As I am now then no, as I hope to be then yes33) Are you tired right now?: Very tired, always am34) Are you wearing any perfume or cologne?: Not today35) Are you wearing socks right now?: No hahaha I’m in bed so36) Are your toenails painted pink?: No they’re not37) Basic question: what’s your favorite color/colors?: Green/black/grey/red/beige38) Baths or showers?: Depends on my mood but lately mostly showers39) Best friend(s): No one40) Biggest age gap between you and someone you’ve dated: Never really dated anyone so don’t have an answer41) Birthday: 17/0242) Can insanity bring on more creativity?: Oh hell yes, the insane created creativity43) Can you commit to one person?: I can and always will 44) Can you drive a stick shift?: I can45) Can you drive? If so do you like, why?: I can drive and love speeding the most but it also gives me anxiety so.. I end up not driving46) Can you hold your breath under water without using your hand?: Obviously yes47) Can you live a day without TV?: TV yes, Netflix no 😂😂48) Can you tie a bow-tie? A regular tie? If yes, how and when did you learn?: I can’t……49) Coke or Pepsi?: Neither ew50) Currently wanting to see anyone?: Yes, my poopsie51) Dark, milk, or white chocolate?: Milk chocolate ftw but never much cause nausea52) Deadpool is the greatest; discuss: Deadpool is just overall the funniest. He doesn’t give a fuck about anything but still does good. He’s original53) Define: Art: Art is anything that can touch the soul whether that is in the form of a song, book, poem or even a Van Gogh. I believe even the human body is a piece of art. Nature is art54) Describe your best friend, personality and looks: ///55) Describe your favorite food. Who makes it?: My fav food is this pasta my mom makes with a cream cheese tomato sauce just fuck yes 56) Describe your physical “ideal mate”: My physical ideal mate… Hmmm someone that has muscled arms with sleeve tattoos. Veiny hands 😍 dark hair, a stubble and beautiful green eyes. Looks good in joggers, a suit or anything inbetween 57) Did you have a dream last night?: Don’t remember58) Did you have a good day yesterday?: Yesterday was overall a pretty good day actually59) Did you wake up cranky?: I didn’t 60) Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?: In most cases people deserve a 2nd chance. It just really depends on what they’ve done. Some things can’t be forgiven or fixed61) Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?: I believe in both ghosts and aliens 62) Do you believe in karma?: Oh for sure, even experienced it myself63) Do you believe in love?: I do believe in love64) Do you believe in luck?: I believe people can get lucky. But actual luck, not sure 65) Do you believe in magic?: A part of me wants to believe that magic is real but rational me doesn’t66) Do you believe in soul mates?: I do hahaha67) Do you believe that everyone has a soul-mate?: I think everyone has a person they’re meant to be with 68) Do you care if people talk badly about you?: I care more than I’d like to admit and it affects me too which sucks69) Do you chew on your straws?: Oh god I do, I can’t stop once I’ve started hahahahah70) Do you collect anything?: I don’t anymore71) Do you cry easily?: Too easily 😢72) Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?: I don’t drive but I have almost crashed twice so73) Do you eat meat?: I do eat meat but also meat replacements74) Do you ever wanna get married?: I’d love to get married at some point75) Do you fall for people easily?: Not at all76) Do you get a lot of colds?: I used to but thankfully not anymore77) Do you get butterflies around the person you like?: I’m not physically around the person I like but he gives me butterflies from a distance so78) Do you hate anyone?: I do but wish I didn’t have to79) Do you hate the last guy you had a conversation with?: Nope, actually love him so80) Do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend? If not, do you want one?: I don’t and at some point I do want a bf, when I’m ready and a better person81) Do you have a collection of anything?: I have a collection of a few things. One that comes to mind is Me to You bears 82) Do you have a crush?: I do but it’s also more than that, way more83) Do you have a tan? Is it fake or real?: I’m as white as milk 🍼84) Do you have any body modifications?: No85) Do you have any empty alcohol bottles hidden somewhere in your room?: No86) Do you have any nicknames?: Nuno and mie/mieke87) Do you have any obsessions right now?: Uh tv series I guess88) Do you have any pictures on your Facebook?: I do yes89) Do you have any piercings?: A few in my ears and a nose piercing which I actually completely forgot I had hahahha 90) Do you have any relatives in jail?: Not that I know of 😂91) Do you have any strange phobias?: Hm the dark isn’t that strange but maybe the idea that werewolves are real92) Do you have any tattoos?: Unfortunately not93) Do you have many toys? What are your favorites?: I have 094) Do you have someone of the opposite sex you can tell everything to?: I do, he’s also the only one I tell anything and everything to 95) Do you have someone you can be your complete self around?: My mom, brother and CJ96) Do you have trust issues?: It sucks but I do97) Do you like anime?: I don’t think I ever watched anime 98) Do you like true crime?: I love it. I’m very fascinated by it 99) Do you like deep conversations?: I do but suck at starting one myself100) Do you like hot sauce?: Love it101) Do you like it when people play with your hair?: Only the person I love102) Do you like sports? Which ones?: I love a good marathon….. a movie marathon103) Do you like the climate you live in? What do you like or would change?: Don’t like it, it’s 4 seasons in a day. I’d like more stability 104) Do you like to wear any jewelry? Bracelets? Necklaces?: Only the bracelet my mom got me105) Do you like watching scary movies?: They’re my fav so yes106) Do you like your neighbors?: Ew no107) Do you miss anyone right now?: Hm not really108) Do you need to do laundry?: Always hahaha109) Do you plan on moving out within the next year?: Nope110) Do you play video games? What are your favorites?: I don’t anymore but my favs were Spyro, Crash, Mario and Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry. Idk COD is cool too111) Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?: Video chatting but only with close ones112) Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?: Always behind113) Do you prefer to be friends with girls or boys?: Neither114) Do you prefer to text or call your friends?: Texting ftw 115) Do you replay things that have happened in your head?: All the time 😕116) Do you save money or spend it?: Depends but usually save117) Do you secretly like someone?: It’s not a secret so118) Do you sleep with or without clothes on?: With119) Do you sleep with the door open or closed?: Almost closed120) Do you still talk to the first person that you kissed?: No121) Do you think someone has feelings for you?: I do122) Do you think someone is thinking about you right now?: No hahaha123) Do you think the person you have feelings for is protective of you?: Oh very much so 124) Do you think you can last in a relationship for 6 months and not cheat?: I can last a lifetime without cheating so 125) Do you think you like someone?: I know I like someone 😂😂126) Do you think you’ll be married in 5 years?: Nope127) Do you think you’re a strong person?: I’m far from a strong person, I’m rather weak128) Do you think your life will change dramatically before 2014?: My life did change dramatically before 2014. If it will by next year, who knows129) Do you want a boyfriend or girlfriend?: When I’m ready for a bf, then I do want one130) Do you want any piercings? Where?: I would like a dermal between my boobs, more piercings in my ears and a belly button piercing once I have the bod for it 131) Do you want children? How many and what would you name them?: At this point it’s not something I can answer132) Do you want tattoos? What of?: I do want tattoos, only 2 I am sure of 🐱🌛133) Do you want to try any drugs? Acid? Shrooms? Ecstasy?: LSD x Weed134) Do you want your tongue pierced?: Ew no 😝135) Do you wash your car or let the car wash do it?: Both136) Do you wear jeans or sweats more?: Sweats ftw137) Do you work out?: Yes by getting out of bed in the morning138) Does anyone hate you?: Who knows hahahaha probably139) Does anyone like you?: I think so140) Does anyone regularly (other than family) tell you they love you?: Not regularly but enough141) Dogs or Cats? Why?: Both cause both are freaking awesome duh 🐶🐱142) Don’t tell me lies, is the last person you texted attractive?: The most attractive143) Draw a selfie: Too lazy and no talent 144) Ever been in a physical fight?: Yes 😂145) Ever been in love?: Yes and still am 146) Ever been on a plane?: Yes147) Ever been suspended or expelled? what for?: No I was a good, boring student 148) Ever go to camp?: Pony camp hahahaha149) Ever had a poem or song written about you?: Yes 🙄150) Ever had a rumor spread about you?: Hm yes151) Ever had a terrible breakup?: No152) Ever kissed under fireworks?: No153) Eye colour: Just brown 154) Favourite actors: Hmmm fav actors. Probably Morgan Freeman, Johnny Depp, Jonah Hill, Dylan O'Brien, … 155) Favourite actresses: Fav actresses: Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, Emma stone, Meryl Streep, …156) Favourite animals: All animals (dogs, cats, birds, chameleons, dolphins, turtles, lions …) xxx157) Favourite bands: Uh Kodaline and Papa Roach are he only ones I can come up with hahaha 158) Favourite cartoons: Hmm avatar159) Favourite color: Red, green, grey and black. Beige too160) Favourite Comedy: Jesus tough one uhm The Hangover probably 161) Favourite comic book movie: I think hmm Deadpool 162) Favourite day of the year: Don’t have a fav day 163) Favourite Disney Movie: Beauty and the Beast but Mulan, the Lion King, The Little Mermaid etc come close too 164) Favourite drink: Ice tea 🙂 no idk alcohol wise it just depends on my mood165) Favourite Fantasy: Uh idk tbh, I have so many166) Favourite feature on yourself: My eyelashes or my kindness, not sure what kinda feature hahahah167) Favourite fictional character: Ron Weasley168) Favourite film: V for Vendetta169) Favourite food: Kebab170) Favourite food for munchies?: Salty snacks171) Favourite hobbies or things to do after smoking?: I don’t smoke? 172) Favourite ice cream?: Banana (coconut, lemon, vanilla)173) Favourite Love Story: Ruth and Ira from The Longest Ride174) Favourite Movie Soundtrack: Banks - waiting game175) Favourite movies?: Before I wake, The best of me, The lights between oceans, Mr and Mrs Smith, Charlie’s Angels, …176) Favourite movie remake: Nightmare on Elm street177) Favourite Musical: Beauty and the Beast178) Favourite mythical creature and why?: Tough one.. A dragon 179) Favourite number?: 17180) Favourite person?: Poopsie181) Favourite quote from a movie: “I love you so much. I just want you to be happy. Even if that happiness no longer includes me”182) Favourite quote from a song: “It’s holding on, though the road’s long. And seeing light in the darkest things. And when you stare at your reflection. Finally knowing who it is”183) Favourite quotes in general?: “But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most.”184) Favourite Science Fiction movie: Uh idk actually185) Favourite season and why?: Spring because the blossoms are appearing, people feel more alive again186) Favourite singer?: Demi Lovato 😍187) Favourite song: Kesha - Praying188) Favourite stage show?: No idea189) Favourite store to shop in?: A grocery store190) Favourite subject?: Personality psychology191) Favourite things to do: Just chilling and watching a tv series. Going on a trip and taking pictures. Writing. Spending time with loved ones192) Favourite TV show?: Overall probably Teen Wolf but I have many favs193) Fears?: Being abandoned, not being good enough and the dark194) First thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word: food?: Idk this table full of food I love 😂😂195) First thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word: love?: Poopsie196) Get the book closest to you, open to page fifty. What’s the first line?: “They both looked surly and unhappy, and the girl had clearly been crying.”197) Girls love it when boyfriends cry; correct?: That’s a very odd thing. I love when a guy is able to show emotions. I don’t love it when they cry cause it’s sad obviously198) Girls…. (finish the sentence); Boys…. (finish the sentence): Girls are all beautiful and unique, so are guys 🙂199) Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word: heart: A shitload of songs about heartbreak 200) Hair Color?: Light brown 201) Hair Length?: Pretty freaking long. Doesn’t reach my ass yet202) Has anybody ever given you butterflies?: Oh for sure 😍🦋203) Has anyone of your friends ever seen you cry?: Only 2 of my friends204) Has anyone told you they don’t want to ever lose you?: They have205) Has someone of the opposite sex ever told you they loved you, and meant it?: Yes, my poopsie206) Have you been to a gig in the past month?: A concert of Oscar and the wolf207) Have you been to the movies in the last 5 days?: No208) Have you bought any clothing items in the last week?: No209) Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight?: Thank god not, only 24 hours210) Have you ever been called a tease?: Uhm yes211) Have you ever been in a physical fight?: Yes212) Have you ever been in love?: Yes and still am213) Have you ever caught a butterfly?: No, they aren’t made to be caught214) Have you ever cried over a guy?: Uh obviously 215) Have you ever drank your soda from a straw?: Yes at McDonald’s 216) Have you ever eaten a crayon?: No? 😂217) Have you ever fallen for your ex’s best friend?: No ew also don’t have an ex218) Have you ever felt replaced?: Yes, often219) Have you ever found it hard to tell someone you like them?: Always, fear of rejection220) Have you ever had your heart broken?: Yes 221) Have you ever kissed a Chris?: Not yet 🙂🙂🙂222) Have you ever kissed a Sophie?: No223) Have you ever kissed someone older than you?: Yes224) Ever kissed someone whose name begins with the letter ‘A’?: No225) Have you ever liked one of your best friends of the opposite sex?: I have226) Have you ever liked one of your best friends of the same sex?: I haven’t 227) Have you ever liked someone who your friends hated?: Yes 😂228) Have you ever liked someone who didn’t like you back?: Yes229) Have you ever liked someone you didn’t expect to?: Hm yes 230) Have you ever thrown up in the car?: Thank god not, that’s gross231) Have you ever told someone you loved them?: I have 232) Have you ever wanted someone you couldn’t have?: I guess yes233) Have you ever wanted something you couldn’t have?: Yes more than once 234) Have you had any real Tumblr crushes?: Yes, one 235) Have you heard a song that reminds you of someone today?: No 236) Have you kissed someone whose name starts with a ‘J’?: No237) Have your pants ever fallen down in public?: No, that’s weird…..238) Have your parents ever caught you doing something you wish they hadn’t?: Not in the moment but after yes239) Height: 1m70, or something at least240) How are you?: I’m fine 241) How are you really?: Who the fuck knows, I don’t so242) How do you like your eggs?: Omelet243) How do you look on a night out?: Boring, dark clothes usually. A bit of mascara, hair straight and loose 244) How do you look right now?: Oh god you don’t wanna know. Horrible, awful, disgrace hahahahaha245) How do you vent your anger?: By writing, exploding or smashing doors 246) How is your best friend?: No idea, also don’t really have one247) How late did you stay up last night and why?: 3.30, watched a movie. Texted with poopsie and did the first part of these questions and then KO'ed 248) How long can you hold your breath for?: 40 seconds maybe. Tested it once but forgot and was many years ago249) How long does it take you to bath?: Like 40 mins hahahaha250) How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?: Depends on how much time I have. Can be from 25 mins to 1h30251) How long does it take you to get ready for a night out?: 1h30, with showering and everything252) How long does it take you to shower?: 12 mins to 35 253) How many kids do you want to have?: I don’t know254) How many TRUE friends do you have?: Like 2 probably255) How mature are you?: Depends. I can be very mature but when emotions are involved I become a childish mess256) How much do you weigh?: None of your damn business Tumblr257) How much do you want to weigh?: 62 kg258) How often do you bathe?: Depends on how I feel but 3 times a week usually259) How often do you go to see live music?: Oh almost never, it’s very rare260) How often do you listen to music?: Daily261) How old are you?: 20 years old 262) How old were you when you got your first boy/girlfriend: Well no idea since I never had one263) How old were you when you had your first kiss: Like 9 for a kiss on the mouth and more was 17264) How tall are you?: 1m70, this is quite repetitive tbh265) How tall is your crush?: I think taller than 1m80266) How’s your heart?: All over the place267) Ice cream or cake? Why?: Hmmm depends on my mood and the weather 268/269) If the person you like says they like someone else, what would you do? If the person you like says they like someone else, what would you say?: I’d be upset, having a bunch of mental breakdowns. Be absolutely devastated and just feel like there’s no point in anything anymore. Isolate myself from everything and everyone. But I’d wish him the best and tell him all I’ve ever wanted is for him to be happy. If she makes him happy then that’s all that matters. I’d also still wanna be in his life. Don’t wanna lose him, ever270) If the person you wish to be with were with you, what would you be doing right now?: That can quickly escalate from talking and laughing to something else, right? 🙂271) If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?: “Be more accepting of one another”272) If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?: Going to class273) If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?: Everything 🙂274) If you could change your eye color, would you?: A few years ago I would’ve said yes but thanks to a special person, no thanks I like my eyes 275) If you could have one wish, what would it be?: For my mom to not be in pain and for her leg to heal completely276) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?: I don’t have a desire to meet anyone really. But I do wanna be with poopsie irl277) If you could move somewhere else, would you?: I sure as hell would278).If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?: N.279) If you had to delete one day of your life completely, which would it be?: The day I first got confronted with trust issues280) If you had to delete one year of your life completely, which would it be?: The year I had met him281) If you were drunk, who would you want to take care of you?: The guy I love, however it’s not his responsibility282) If you’re being extremely quiet what does that mean?: Sunken in my own world, overthinking and sad283) If your first true love knocked on your door with apology and presents, would you accept?: My first true love is still and will always be in my life284) In a relationship?: Nope, single pringle 285) In the next 48 hours, will you hang out with a girl?: No286) In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?: Trust, honesty, communication and being head over heels with eachother 287) Is cheating ever okay?: N E V E R288) Is it cute when guys kiss you on your forehead?: Fucking adorable when the guy you love does that. I mean never had that actually but I think I’d love it289) Is there a boy who you would do absolutely everything for?: 2 actually, my brother and the one I love290) Is there anyone you can tell EVERYTHING to?: Yes 291) Is there anyone you want to tell EVERYTHING to?: Yes292) Is there anyone you know with the name Michael?: Nope, I don’t know many people in general293) Is there anything pink on you?: No, only purple294) Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?: Yes, small papers to note stuff on295) Is there someone mad because you’re dating/talking to the person you are?: Yes hahahaha296) Is there someone you will never forget?: Yes297) Is there something that happened in your past that you hate talking about?: Unfortunately yeah298) Is your life anything like it was one year ago?: Nothing like it299) Is your life anything like it was two years ago?: No, it changed dramatically300) JFK: conspiracy or not?: Honestly no idea but knowing America, probably 301) Last book you read?: I can’t remember actually. I think Fifty Shades of Grey, by Grey but never finished it302) Last food that you ate?: Pastry 303) Last gig you went to?: Oscar and the Wolf, their concert304) Last movie you watched?: IT 😂🙄305) Last person you cried in front of?: I don’t know, my mom I think306) Last person you talked to?: My mom, just now, 2 seconds ago307) Last person you talked to for over an hour?: Poopsie308) Last person’s house you were in?: My dad’s 309) Last place you were?: My house? 😂310) Last play you saw?: God uhm no idea, been too long311) Last prank call you remember doing?: Never prank called anyone and my mom doesn’t count312) Last show you watched?: Riverdale 313) Last show you watched with a friend?: Hannibal, but he’s not really a friend so no idea if it counts314) Last song you listened to?: Ruelle - Recover315) Last song you sang?: Ruelle - Recover316) Last sport you played?: I haven’t played sports in ages but kick boxing I guess317) Last thing that made you cry?: An argument318) Last time you cried?: An hour ago319) Last time you got stopped by a cop or pulled over?: Never!!!!!320) Last time you hung out with anyone?: A month ago I think? It’s been long321) Last time you hung out with a group?: Well 2 people are a group to me so also a month322) Last time you kissed someone?: 4 years ago, something like that323) Last time you took a shower?: The day before yesterday324) Last time you were insulted and what was it?: The day before yesterday, “fuckhead”325) Least favorite sport?: Running, jogging, moving 326) Least favourite animals: I don’t have any so327) List 5 movies that you love: Hey I already kinda did this but ok, I’ll just give more. Harry Potter, Zootopia, Tangled, The Incredibles and hmmm National Treasure 328) List all the countries you’ve been to. Write a comment on each of them. Or some, if you can’t be bothered: Hungary: just beautiful. One of my fav countries, the little towns are great and the lake is just 😍 Rhodos (island): so many friendly people, found one of our cats there, beautiful ocean and amazing food. Italy: just wow. The most beautiful cities, friendly and open people, the pizza is just 👏🏻👌🏻 329) Location: Belgium.330/331) Loud music or soft?: Both, but mostly loud332) Meaning behind your url: Something that symbolizes a relationship/kink that is important to me 333) Most adventurous place you’ve smoked?: I’ve never smoked 334) Most attractive celebrity of the opposite gender?: Uh no idea.. Hm 🤔 Scott Eastwood is attractive and Johnny Depp in his 20s335) Most attractive celebrity of the same gender as you?: Angelina Jolie, Demi Lovato and Emeraude Toubia. Can’t choose 🙂336) Name: Nina R.337) Name of the person you first kissed: Asshole.338) Name something you dislike about the day you’re having: My headache and the argument339) Name something you’re happy about the day you’re having: Talking with poopsie340) Name something you have to do tomorrow?: Chores and grocery store341) Name something you’re glad you don’t have to do tomorrow?: Go to class342) Name three things you like about yourself: I can be nice I guess but yeah no, don’t like much about myself.343) Next trip you are going to take?: Nothing planned344) Nickname: Nuno/Mie/Mieke345) One movie you can watch everyday of your life?: I’d get bored so none but as a kid probably Charlie’s Angels 346) One must have?: My phone347) One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?: Get the fuck out of there obviously? Probably scream idk. No honestly I’d probably hide under my blankets and freeze348) One thing you would say to a person who hurt you?: “Did I ever mean anything to you?”349) Opinions on dating people older than you: All good, as long as it’s not like a minor with someone much older. Aside from that people can do whatever. My age limit is 26 I think350) Opinions on dating people younger than you: I’d never date anyone younger than me cause lack of maturity most of the time. And I don’t want a boy but a man351) People you want to smoke with? Whether they actually smoke or not?: I don’t smoke wtf but Poopsie 352) Pick something from your immediate surroundings and tell the story behind the item: My bottle of ice tea. I love ice tea 353) Pick up the nearest printed material in your first language and copy out a random paragraph: None of your business tumblr. It’s a bill354) Place you want to visit?: New Zealand355) Place you’d want to smoke most?: Seriously?356) Places you’d like to visit?: Dubai, Peru, Mexi357) Post a picture of yourself: Too ugly358) Put on shuffle, what came on and what are your favorite lyrics?: Kesha - Learn to let go, “You don’t gotta be a victim. Life ain’t always fair, but hell is living in resentment. Choose redemption, your happy ending’s up to you”359) Put your music playlist on shuffle. Give me the first 6 songs that pop up: Anne-Marie with Ciao Adios, Foxes - Devil Side, Fergie - You already know, Beyoncé - If I were a boy, Ruelle - Monsters, Foxes - Scar 360) Reading or watching: Watching 361) Relationship status: Complicated362) Sexual orientation: Straight 363) Smell the air. What do you smell?: Home364) So, the last person you kissed just happens to arrive at your door at 3AM; do you let them in?: Hell no, fucker is gonna get slapped365) Something you miss?: Taking pictures366) Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm: The table, my dog367) Suppose you see your ex kissing another person what would you do: Don’t have an ex so nothing 368) The last time you noticed you’d put a piece of clothing on incorrectly, i.e. backwards/inside out/etc?: Probably my pjs and in the morning so no biggie369) The reason I joined Tumblr?: It was very popular back then and it seemed fun, a platform where you didn’t have to pretend370) The relationship between you and the person you last texted?: Hmm… Pretty complicated. Close but also at risk of ending. Could be something great if I continue to go in the right direction371) The Zodiac Killer is…?: Who knows372) Think back 2 months ago; were you in a relationship?: No373) Think back 12 months ago; were you in a relationship?: No 374) Think of the last person who said I love you, do you think they meant it?: I do yes375) Three names you go by..: Nina, Nuno and Mie?376) Top 5 actors: Hmm… Johnny Depp, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland, Morgan Freeman, Seth Rogan377) Top 5 actresses: Helen Mirren, Katherine Heigl, Emma Watson, Catherine Zeta Jones, Chloë Moretz 378) Top 5 directors: ///379) Top 5 favorite blogs on Tumblr: @eagerforpower and the ones I reblog often from, you guys know who you are380) Top 5 movies: Not again381) Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?: Both hahahaha I can’t possibly choose 382) Turn offs?: Bad breath, asshole, no hygiene, disrespecting, childish383) Turn ons?: Respectful, mature, amazing smell, being sweet etc384) Wearing any bracelets?: Not now385) Were you happy with the person you liked in March?: At that point, no 386) Were you in a relationship in January? How was it going?: Nope387) Were you single over the last summer?: Yes388) What are you actually gonna do for a career?: Hopefully become a psychologist389) What are you listening to right now?: Nothing390) What ARE you looking forward to?: Uhm idl nothing really 391) What are you NOT looking forward to?: Class/exams392) What are you sitting on right now?: A desk chair393) What are you supposed to be doing right now?: Nothing, I think 394/395) What are you wearing right now?/What are you wearing?: pjs396) What are your fears?: Being abandoned, the dark and not being good enough397) What are your plans for tonight?: Finding a new tv series to watch398) What brought you to Tumblr?: A friend who told me about it 399) What color bottoms are you wearing?: Grey, striped. Dark and light400/401) What color is your shirt? What color shirt are you wearing?: Purple402) What color underwear are you wearing?: Grey403) What do you do/what do you want to do when you grow up: Become a psychologist who actually helps people. While also enjoying my own life and seeing what the world has to offer404) What do you think about most?: Life, what to change and just my daily worries405) What do you think about tattoos and piercings?: I think they’re great, they are art that cover a blank page. Beautiful even406) What do you want to know about the future?: Honestly nothing, I’m already busy enough with it407) What does your last text message say?: “Dude some questions come back like 10 times”408) What does your latest text message from someone else say?: “And don’t answer them then”409) What exactly are you wearing right now?: Dude pjs 410) What gender do you identify as?: Female, also born that way411) What has been the biggest moment in your life so far?: Hm nothing 412) What is a typical breakfast for you?: Bread413) What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?: Fighting for someone I love 414) What is your all-time favorite romance movie?: Hmmm the best of me415) What is your current mood? Write and/or draw: Just neutral 416) What is your current screen saver?: The sky417) What is your favorite animal?: A dog I think. I love all though 418) What is your favorite word?: Schnitzel419) What kind of people are you attracted to?: People who are open minded, honest and just who they are. With humor of course420) What makes you laugh no matter what?: My dogs421) What should you be doing right now?: Nothingggggg finishing these damn questions422) What size shoes do you where?: 40 usually423) What song are you listening to right now?: None424) What tabs do you have open right now?: Tumblr, my notes and kik425) What was the last book you read?: 🙄426) What was the last lie you told?: Not sure actually.. It’s pretty blurry427) What was the last movie you watched in theaters?: Spiderman Homecoming428) What was the last thing you had to drink?: Ice tea429) What were you doing at 12AM last night?: Watching a movie/texting 430) What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?: There’s nothing I’m afraid to be honest about I think. “Did you ever doubt letting him go?”, this comes close though 431) What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?: Stereos - Cupid432) What’s a song that always makes you sad when you hear it?: Sleeping at last - Already gone433) What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?: I hate tinnitus sounds and I love his voice 434) What’s the first thing you notice in the opposite sex: The smile/eyes435) What’s the last sporting event you watched?: Eh soccer a few years ago 436) What’s the last thing you purchased?: Food 😭😭😭437) What’s the last thing you put in your mouth?: Excuse me? Pastry hahahaha438) What’s the meaning behind your url?: A relationship, something personal439) What’s the relationship between you and the last person you texted?: Already answered this I DON’T NEED TO RUB IN HOW COMPLICATED IT IS, DO I TUMBLR?????440) What’s the worst place you have ever been to?: Police office 441) What’s your biggest “what if”?: What if he never did what he did?442) What’s your current problem?: Learning how to change and be better443) What’s your dream job?: Psychologist 🙂444) When did your last hug take place?: Yesterday evening with my mom 445) When is the last time you ran?: Probably when I was about to miss the bus. I don’t run otherwise 446) When is the last time you went to the mall?: Over a month ago447) When was the last time you cried?: A little bit ago.. 448) When was the last time you drove out of town?: Well my town is small asf so a few days ago to go to the grocery store in another town449) When was the last time you smiled?: A few mins ago when I laughed at him laughing at me450) When was the last time you told someone you loved them?: Yesterday451) When was the last time you were extremely disappointed?: I am disappointed in myself 24/7 but a few days ago it was extreme452) When’s the last time you were aggravated and happy at the same time?: I don’t remember453) Where do you go when you’re sad?: Wherever my tv series brings me to454) Where is the shirt you are wearing from?: De Zeeman idk 455) Where is your best friend?: No idea and also don’t have one. Way to make someone feel lonely, Tumblr456) Where were you 3 hours ago?: Same chair, answering these questions 😂😂457) Where were you last week at this time?: At home458) Where were you yesterday?: At home459) Who are you in love with?: Poopsie 😍💜460) Who are your best friends?: No one 461) Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything?: Poopsie, always him 462) Who do you have texts from?: My mom and poopsie, a few friends too463) Who is probably talking a load of crap about you right now?: Uh I hope no one?464) Who is the biggest gossiper you know?: Oh shit no idea hahahaha me? No idk I share a lot but don’t gossip465) Who is your celebrity crush?: Demi Lovato hahaha, a queen 😭466) Who is your favourite Beatle?: Lennon467) Who was the first person you talked to today?: Poopsie 468) Who was the last person you drove with?: My mom469) Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?: Hmm… Poopsie 😂😂470) Who was the last person you held hands with?: My mom 471) Who was the last person you talked to before you went to bed last night?: My mom 472) Who was the last person you talked to?: Poopsie 473) Who was the last person you took a picture of?: Holy cow I’m not sure, Max of Oscar and the Wolf I think 🎶474) Who was the last person you were on the phone with?: My mom475) Who was your first crush?: Asshole. 476) Who’s in your profile picture with you?: It’s a middle finger so no one, not even me 😂477) Will you be in a relationship in 2 months?: No478) Will you get married?: At some point hopefully yes479) Will your next kiss be a mistake?: No 🙂😏480) Worst injury you’ve ever had?: Concussion or broken finger, either481) Would you date an 18-year-old at the age you are now?: No I wouldn’t 482) Would you ever smile at a stranger?: Yes483) Would you rather be hot or cold?: Cold, you have blankets to keep you warm but cooling off is a whole lot harder + I feel uncomfortable then484) Would you survive a zombie apocalypse?: I like to think I would and that I’d be as badass as Milla Jovovich but eh idk485) Write a 6 word story: She never looked back, it was over (7 words fy)486) Write an autograph version of your URL: How even?487) Write your URL in some writing that you thought were super cool when you were younger. Eg, bubble letters, digital clock letters, letters with lots of embellishments, or letters with smiley faces in them: No too lazy488) You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?: Being invisible for sure. So many abilities with that. Get on planes unseen, robbing banks etc489) You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?: I wouldn’t tell anyone because I don’t want to be treated differently nor do I want people to be scared or sad the time I have left. I’d spend as much time as possible with my loved ones and do the things I love most while I still can. I’d be scared yes. Scared I hadn’t done enough. Scared my loved ones would be left broken490) You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?: Fire me motherfucker. Not gonna let that cutie drown 😗🐶491) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?: That night.492) You can only have one of these things: trust or love: Trust, without trust there can be nothing493) You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?: This moment that I had built a fort for me and my brother, we had no idea about the bad of the world yet and laughed endlessly. I was allowed to move the couches, use blankets and pillows. We would stack snacks there and go on missions 494) You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?: Ew no one495) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?: Hmm not sure but New Zealand or Thailand 496) Your best friend likes you, what do you do?: Tell them I don’t like them and that we can continue as friends but again I don’t have that problem cause I don’t have best friends497) Your best friend wants to do something you really don’t want to do. What do you do?: Not do it? 498) Your dream vacation?: Just full on relaxing but with enough adventure. Discovering places and food. Taking many pictures and just being happy to be alive. If it’s with someone I love then go on cute dates there too499) Your thoughts of long distance relationships?: They can definitely work and they’re as real as other relationships. They just require a lot of commitment and trust, from both sides 500) Your zodiac sign?: Aquarius ♒

Thank you for the hours and hours of entertainment 😂😗

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ryanellisphoto · 5 years

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#153 — Saturday, March 9th, 2019 — Ryan Ellis Photography - Detroit Street Photography Session #153 — Nikkor 24mm f/2.8

Walking the M-1 Rail on foot - David Klein Gallery - David Bosco Willis - Jazz Man’s Broken Horn Blues - Broken Saxophone - Roy R Rowlands - Pain in the Neck - Batman Forever (But Hopefully For Shorter Than That)

Arrived @ 8:10 AM

Departed @ 4:40 PM

254 photos (and a whopping 36 videos) taken in 8½ hours with but 26 “keepers” among them, rendering a respectable 10.24% “success” rate at a sluggish 29.88 shots per hour (I desire the most at least to achieve a 10% “success” rate and 100 shots per hour).

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PREFACE:

Famed rock critic (and mentor to the man that decides what plays on ClearChannel [which sets the programing for much of the tunes heard on the radio today]), Robert Christgau, has a letter grade system for evaluating musical works he reviews. While calling bad bad and good good, he also sometimes calls bad good. In other words, sometimes an awful piece is so bad that it is good. Getting away from music, a film that might fit that description is Tim Burton’s, “Batman Forever.” Among its flaws, the suits worn by the supers have hard, molded necks that extend up from the shoulders, which hilariously forces the characters to turn their whole bodies in order to look behind them instead of simply turning their necks to do the same (quite impractical if you are trying to save Gotham). That level of rigidness is what I had to maintain today as I took pictures and videos in the city I do not love (but am slowly learning to appreciate). My neck was still in pain, and I babied it (albeit while pushing myself to the limit to see what I could yet accomplish). All in all, it was a good and profitable day.

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PATH TAKEN:

Greektown - I took a prescribed high-dose ibuprofen to mask the deep pain from my recent neck injury. According to the bottle, it is supposed to last eight-hours (and I follow its instructions), but I find it only lasts maybe four-hours in my body. My whole life, I have always been highly-tolerant of pain-numbing medicaments. I half-joke (and half-shudder) that I am terrified of growing old. I fear the inconsolable pain of unpredictable but inevitable procedures approaching me during my especially-aged years.

Monroe Street

Campus Martius Park

The Esplanade on Woodward Avenue

Congress Street (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Campus Martius (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Grand Circus (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Montcalm Street (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Sproat Street / Adelaide Street (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Charlotte Street & Woodward Avenue - I ran into my beloved friend, Devin, here. A portrait of her graces the “top ten” shots of the day. I was following the path of the M-1 Rail down Woodward when I crossed Charlotte Street. I saw a car speeding toward me, coming from halfway down the block. There was a stop sign before Woodward, so I kept crossing and pointed to the car and then to the stop sign to indicate the legal need to decelerate soon (aside from the fact that they might hit me otherwise). I finished crossing ten-seconds before they reached where I walked, and I heard uproarious shouting behind me, which I figured was the driver’s disdain for my firmness. Then I heard something quite unexpected—my name. “Ryan! Ryan!,” they shouted. I had to look back now. The voice registered in my mind a picosecond before I saw the familiar face of my wondrously wonderful companion in this town, Devin. I had not seen her face since the last (or two times ago) David Klein Gallery artist talk that I had attended. We keep in touch via text. In fact, she is looking to upgrade her gear, and Tuesday of this same week, we chatted about what next she should buy. I suggested she get a full frame Nikon DSLR with an external audio input and output (D600 at least, because it is the cheapest [oldest]) Nikon body that fits this bill. She wants to instead get the “Black Magic Cinema Camera,” which currently is the smallest, cheapest, pro-video camera (I think it shoots in 4K raw). I ran up to Devin’s car. Her window was rolled down, so I reached in and hugged her. I was overjoyed to see her. She is a good person. She is a sweetheart. After hugging me back, she exclaimed that that was not good enough and got out of her car and hugged me more properly. Hahaha. We chatted for two-seconds, and I told her she knew what was next. She posed, and I photographed her for a minute. She explained that she is now driving for one of those modern-day taxi-like services for side cash. I wished her well, and we made plans to shoot together when the weather warms up. What a charge to the system that was! I was ready to take on the world (or at least Detroit)!

Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard / Mack Avenue (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Canfield Street (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Warren Avenue (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Ferry Street (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Amsterdam Street (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Baltimore Street (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Grand Boulevard (M-1 Rail [on foot])

Penske Tech Center (M-1 Rail [on foot]) - Having just completed walking the length of the line in just under one-hour, I told a stranger nearby my accomplishment. He smiled.

The Fisher Building - This building is called by some “The Gem of Detroit.” I rather think that the Guardian Building is the gem of the city, but the Fisher Building and the Guardian Building each have immense glory to them, so I accept such a compliment for either. I think the Guardian Building is better than the Fisher Building, because the Guardian (to me) was more thoughtfully conceived on its outside. It also had details (down to the waitresses’ uniforms and the cutlery in the eating areas) chosen by the architect to match the building’s aesthetic. That said, the inside of the Fisher Building is grander than the one of the Guardian. There were stones mined into extinction that made it into the Fisher Building. While perhaps cruel, it is also majestic to see such extreme measures taken to ensure that the Fisher Building was a sight to behold (and one-of-a-kind at that).

The DMC (Detroit Medical Center)

Milano Bakery - I had just walked (and at times jogged [across intersections with fading crosswalk countdowns]) the 3.3-mile length of the M-1 Rail (and then some). Then I walked from City Center, through Midtown, and into Eastern Market. I arrived fifteen-minutes early for my 11 AM meeting with my dear friend, Roy (I was surprised I had kept such a keen pace). After I visited with my security guard pal there, I found a table inside and plugged in my camera battery charger to charge a battery, and I waited for Roy’s arrival, which came at six past eleven. I was dead-tired and famished (I had very little for breakfast, and I certainly had walked myself into an appetite more fitting of a newly-minted marathon-finisher than what seemed appropriate given the distance I had just covered). This hunger suited Roy’s present mood as well quite conveniently.

Tepanyaki Japanese Steakhouse - Roy had a hankering for “Chinese” food. We drove to Tepanyaki in his red Mercedes convertible. The front doors were deadbolted shut when we reached the entrance. As we took a few steps back, we noticed “For Lease” signs on the windows. Roy told me, “I had my heart on that place.” He did not know where else to grab food. I looked up a couple Chinese restaurants on my iPhone that were on Michigan Avenue. He did not like either option. He considered getting pizza at Dearborn Fresh Supermarket, but he decided against the idea.

Greektown

Campus Martius Park

David Klein Gallery - Having been eight-hours since I took my physician-prescribed ibuprofen, I was due for the next pain pill. I held off taking it, wanting to test if I could go without the relief (to see if maybe I was improving and did not need the help). For better or worse (for worse… haha), this was when the artist talk occurred at the David Klein Gallery (3:00 PM [my next dose was due by 3:30 PM]). The talk had began, and I was sitting in the front row when an immense pain came over me, starting at the neck. The pain was localized to the point of the injury, but it seemed to echo through my body at times. I thought about getting up and excusing myself to the bathroom to take the ibuprofen, but this rare artist exchange was underway, and I was in the front row. Haha. The air-conditioning turned off a few minutes in, and I sat in what seemed to be an immense silence feeling the pain pulsate through my neck. The artists were speaking normally, and I was screaming inside. I was not at all going to produce a pain pill from my pocket and pop it into my gullet in front of everyone. That would have looked sketchy, even though it was anything but bad. I learned that with such pain, there is no distracting myself. I pride myself with being quite in control of my emotions and thoughts, but the pain was certainly a distraction too big to put off my mind. That said, I have had so much pain otherwise in my life that I have a pretty solid block face no matter if I desire to look so nondescript or not, so I hope I was not a distraction during the discussion. :—:— I asked a question of each of the two artists, Andrew Krieger and Alisa Henriquez (the third artist of the exhibition, Brad Howe, was in Malibu enjoying the not-cold there). Andrew left art to be a carpenter for a good while before returning to art just before doing this exhibit, so I asked him how his time in carpentry made him a different artist than he was before. He said that his experience with the CNC machine made him more apt (and adept) to build things. Alisa explained that some of her work on display was autobiographical and that she had drawn from images of many women to rewrite what she said was the mishandling of women in art as objects and otherwise lessers by men throughout the history of art. I asked her if any of her works were entirely about her. She said no. I further asked how she might produce a piece in the vein of her recent work that centered around a single woman instead of many women. She said that she would have to choose a female model as her subject that she did not know but who would completely open up to her. She said that that would be the only way to get the material needed to produce a piece as she would desire it. I commented without a response from her that that seemed to leave off looking back to instead look forward (implying a positive view ahead instead of a negative view behind [I thought to myself that though bad existed in the past, we had ought to see what good might be pursued in the present and even in the future]).

Campus Martius Park

Monroe Street (in Greektown, near the First Baptist Church) - “THE MAN WITH THREE FIRST NAMES!” I shouted gleefully and freshly at my good pal, the faithful street saxophonist always playing with a direct musical link to his soul each moment in his performances, Mr. David Bosco Willis! He laughed, and we fist-bumped glove to glove. I asked him how he was, and he said that he was not well. He said, “I dropped my horn today when I got here, and now it is broken.” The lower keys would only produce a squeak, making it impossible to play as he desired. I asked for clarification about how it was not properly functioning. He said that there was a bend in the top that caused the keys on the bottom to have the issue. I always have some gaffer tape rolled around the miniature tripod I always have connected to my street-photography camera body (my beloved Nikon D800). I offered to give him all my tape on the tripod to see if he might be able to tape the offending pipe that was bent out of shape. He accepted, and I mentioned I had the rest of the actual gaffer tape roll in my car. Before seeing if this initial solution worked (the gaffer tape was a little less-tacky than the brand new variety on the roll), I told him I would be back with my roll of tape. He ascended to my journey, and when I came back, he said that the solution would have to allow movement of the pipe when he pushed the keys, which tape would not help, since the tape held to one position without bending back and forth. He still asked for some more tape, taking a shine to the idea of mine to have extra tape on hand in case of emergencies. I told him that a bungie cord might do the trick. He had one on him and said that it would still be too stiff for the instrument. I asked him what he planned to do to maintain his playing schedule despite his broken sax. He said he might rent one, since his cost him $200 (it was worth $700-$800 new). I scoffed at the idea, saying that renting was like buying in slow motion, sans ultimate ownership. He countered, saying it only cost $25 per month to rent a similar sax! I was taken aback! He said he could make back the $25 monthly fee in mere hours and make profit after that to save for his next sax! I pray he is blessed beyond his best bedtime visions in donations in the coming weeks and months!

Greektown

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WHAT WENT ON ON THIS DAY OUT IN DETROIT?

I followed the M-1 Rail down Woodward Avenue with the idea of making a video from clips taken at each stop on one side of the street. I ran into my dear friend, Devin. She is a beam of light in this town. It was a chance encounter, but it charged me for the rest of the day. I also made it at long last to the Fisher Building (for the first time in a long time). I plan to return soon. I went to an artists’ talk at the David Klein Gallery and asked questions of artists, Andrew Krieger and Alisa Henriquez. I ran into my pal (with ”three first names”), David Bosco Willis. The jazz man had the broken-horn-blues (he dropped his sax when he arrived, and it squeaked on the lower keys, making regular playing probably impossible [if that makes sense!]).

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⋰B⋰U⋰Z⋰Z⋰W⋰O⋰R⋰D⋰S⋰

“Inside baseball” concepts talked about in this Detroit Street Photography Session —

● M-1 Rail - This 3.3 mile streetcar line from downtown to midtown to city center in Detroit originally started as a municipally-funded project. The city in all its bureaucratic entanglements took so long to progress the project that the richest man in the city, Dan Gilbert, offered to fund the project himself, provided he take ownership of the line. The city agreed, and in three-years, the three (and some) miles were completed. At first, the line was to go much further than three (and some) miles within a small part the city. In fact, it was to stretch beyond Detroit into Royal Oak and even Birmingham (as of 2011), but voters rejected the idea, with many expressing fear over unsavory folks (drug dealers and the homeless) having easier access to the suburbs of Detroit. The line was completed and running by mid-2017.

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If you like what I do, consider supporting me on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/seedetroitlikeido

Check out my YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmWGEXMZfJn5tutCOgK_dtg

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https://twitter.com/prayforryan

I have an Instagram that I am proud of. It has neat write-ups for my different works that also appear on my YT versions of the same videos. It also has photos and videos that appear nowhere else:

https://www.instagram.com/rellish3214/

✦ If you ever have any questions, feel free to email me. I am here for you. Email: [email protected]

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jillmckenzie1 · 5 years

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In the Pursuit of Home

Four hours ago, I blew a fuse on my inverter. Four hours and twenty minutes ago, I didn’t even know what an inverter was or that half the plugs in my Airstream were powered by an inverter, which is monumentally different (and altogether far less powerful) than those plugs that are grounded.

Learning. Don’t plug a space heater into an inverter circuit.

If you’re worried about my lack of electric plugs at this point in the story, don’t be. My grounded plugs are still working and my Airstream itself has power (praise God because it’s a whopping seven degrees outside). The major concern here is that my interior Christmas lights are plugged into one of the inverter circuits. Oh, and so is my TV. So, I’ve spent the entirety of my evening with no lights and no Christmas movies. Naturally, my bah-hum-bug levels are skyrocketing through the roof.

Three hours on YouTube later (via my iPhone), I have learned how to undo my Airstream’s front seat cushions and shove my head into a small hole underneath the dining seat (while trying to remember what was said in aforementioned YouTube videos). Really, I have no choice but to fix this thing. Plan B is not an option because, well, it doesn’t exist. Hard fact: I’m not rolling this tin can out of here anytime soon. If you follow my Instagram stories, then you know that it took me and my brother 42 tries just to get her level (and he’s no spring chicken when it comes to handy work).

So, amidst texting my Airstream dealer (please ignore the fact that this sounds like a drug reference), DMing one of my best friends from high school who constantly has to deal with my ignorant shenanigans, crying, throwing the dining room cushion the whopping 23 feet to the back of my humble abode, maintaining a decent amount of sanity with my head submerged inside a tiny cut out hole, pushing buttons and probing around wires that could very likely electrocute me, I did it. I fixed the inverter.

Airstream, one. Stephanie, one. Okay, who am I kidding? The Airstream is royally kicking my ass, but the point here is that there has been a restoration of both the Christmas lights and the Christmas movie marathon.

If I were really keeping score (and I’m totally not keeping score), the Airstream would be up 37-14 (this is me, not keeping score). Between losing my back window in my maiden voyage to Colorado to the huge dent that is now on the passenger-side back panel from God knows what at my rinky-dink RV park in Houston to my water freezing in transit to Amarillo and to the perils of cold-weather camping in the Rocky Mountains, I’m often shocked that this silver bullet is still standing. Hell, I’m often shocked that I’m still standing.

Fact. My confidence in solo trailer travel has increased exponentially, but I am often plagued by two things. One. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t have to learn something new to merely function in my day-to-day life. Two. This really cool, amazing experience can get really lonely.

I’ll expand. I usually like to lead with the bad news first, but in this case, I’ll work through the good and end with, what I am going to call, the not-so-good (in the spirit of optimism).

When I hitched the Airstream to my Denali back in May, I had never towed anything other than a ten-foot long U-Haul trailer in my entire life. When I tell you that I had no idea what the I was doing, I quite literally mean that I had no idea what the I was doing. Aside from a half-day tutorial from Claudio, my personal Airstream Jedi, and a one-hour crash course on backing up from Steve, my aforementioned Airstream dealer, I had zero experience with nearly everything that was required to keep the trailer in working order. And, despite the insecurities that flooded over me due to this inexperience, I had purchased the trailer, so my only option was to attach the trailer to my car and take it off the lot.

Disclaimer. I have recently noticed my affinity towards putting myself in situations where I am forced to do things that I would not normally do as a byproduct of my fear of failing. Meaning, I intentionally place myself in extreme circumstances where “no” is not an option in order to create an environment where fear cannot exist because the only viable choice is “yes.”

So, I hitched. I towed. I drove the Airstream to Sun Valley from the dealership in Boise (with the seven-way plug trailing behind me, if you recall). I backed it up with flying colors. I packed her full of everything I thought that I would need and then we embarked on her first real trip to the motherland of Colorado, sleeping at a movie theater parking lot somewhere outside of Salt Lake City along the way.

Then, Denver paralyzed me. I realized how difficult it was to find a camping spot. I was too intimidated to even attempt to use my propane. I didn’t have a water line or sewer hookup while crashing in the back parking lot of my mom’s office building, and I didn’t want them, because it just felt like more things for me to learn how to use and then break and then learn how to fix. I remember sitting in my brother’s kitchen as he innocently told me to go out and see the world. I smiled and nodded with every ounce of dwindling confidence inside of me.

Easy for you to say, bro. You are good at these things. And, you have someone to share in the learning and the breaking and the fixing and the planning. Not me. Not today. Nope. Today, the choice to move just feels too damn heavy.

And, so I sat in that. The heaviness. For two months. Until my mom’s boss basically gave me the boot and I came to the cathartic realization that, in my current state, I had bought an Airstream to live in the back parking lot of an office building. In other words, life not exactly going to plan.

So, I spent a day Googling campsites and reading road maps and researching the 72 questions that were buzzing through my tired mind. And, I did it. I planned my first real trip to Zion to Newport Beach to Yosemite to Flagstaff to Sedona to Houston. Me. I planned it. And, yes, lots of shit went wrong along the way. But, I hooked up my sewer line and drained my tanks and used my propane and checked my batteries. And, I witnessed some of the most grandeur sites that the United States has to offer.

More importantly, I grew. I sat with myself through the good and the bad and the beautiful, and I paid homage to the piece of me that didn’t think I could do it by waking every morning to be the one who was doing it. I started to shed insecurities layer by layer until the only thing left was a belief in myself that, yes, I am this woman driving around in her Airstream with the confidence to do it alone.

Ouch. That word. Alone. I warned you about the not-so-good part of this adventure. I’m not even sure that “adventure” is the right word choice here. Because it is my actual life. Maybe this is one of those awful word plays on the SAT where it reads, “All adventures are life, but not all lives are an adventure” and you have to determine whether the statement is true or false. True, my current life is most certainly an adventure, but it is also just that, my life.

From afar, the perception of this life is infused with freedom and flexibility. From afar, I’m saving money and seeing the world. From afar, I’m living out too many people’s dreams who will never actually take the opportunity to seize those desires simply because they are scared.

Hear me. If you want something bad enough, you will stop at nothing to make it happen.

From afar, the loneliness is not an ever-present reality. Because, no one was sitting on the floor with me last Sunday as I cried for two hours while listening to Marshmello’s “Happier” on repeat. I had just left Houston – a place where I feel deeply connected to a community, a place where I had settled and established a routine – to return to the geography that inspires my soul, only to realize that I am now in a town where I know nothing and no one.

My back is pressed against the fridge. Nugget is curled up in my cross-legged lap, and I can smell the pumpkin spice candle burning on the dining room table, the table that is surrounded by the glow of the Christmas lights plugged into the inverter circuit. I am cozy. And happy. And, yet, I am simultaneously overcome by sadness because of the silence that sits behind the music that is flowing through the Airstream’s surround sound.

Fact. I can confidently do this alone. Fact. I do not want to do this alone.

And, what is “this?” Because I am not trying to make some grandiose statement about tiny home living. I am not saving money by living in Breckenridge, Colorado for an entire winter (seriously, I’d be better off renting a room than this concrete slab). I am not on a mission to force more people into a nomadic way of life.

I am simply trying to understand where I want to plant my roots or even if I want to plant my roots. I don’t necessarily need a person to find that answer. But, I want a person. Because I’d rather be typing this long-winded diatribe next to the warmth of another body. Because I’d rather have someone else pick the campsites while I handle the grocery shopping. Because I’d rather laugh inside the deepest connection to another human when, after three hours of watching YouTube videos, we still can’t figure out what the hell we’re doing. Together.

So, maybe he’ll want to jump in with me. Or, maybe he’ll ask me to stay. I don’t feel a deeper attraction to the former or the latter. I don’t have an expectation for that outcome. I simply know that I must continue to live my life with the confidence that this adventure steadily sharpens and provides. He will find me. Or, I will find him. Or, hell, we’ll both swipe right on each other and engage in five days of witty banter that culminates in an actual first date of unprecedented epic proportions.

What I know is that whether we stay, or go, or stay and go will be irrelevant. Because the adventure will be us. And, this confidence that I’ve gained, it will always be mine. But, him, he will be home.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/in-the-pursuit-of-home/

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lhight1-mtsac-eng1a-645to50 · 6 years

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HOMEWORK (DUE 9/27):

Please read “Notes to My Biographer” by Adam Haslett (posted below), and answer the questions on the study guide (also posted below).

NOTES TO MY BIOGRAPHER

A short story by Adam Haslett

Two things to get straight from the beginning: I hate doctors and have never joined a support group in my life. At seventy-three, I’m not about to change. The mental-health establishment can go screw itself on a barren hilltop in the rain before I touch their snake oil or listen to the visionless chatter of men half my age. I have shot Germans in the fields of Normandy, filed twenty-six patents, married three women, survived them all, and am currently the subject of an investigation by the IRS, which has about as much chance of collecting from me as Shylock did of getting his pound of flesh. Bureaucracies have trouble thinking clearly. I, on the other hand, am perfectly lucid.

Note, for instance, the way I obtained the Saab I am presently driving into the Los Angeles basin: a niece in Scottsdale lent it to me. Do you think she’ll ever see it again? Unlikely. Of course, when I borrowed it from her I had every intention of returning it, and in a few days or weeks I may feel that way again, but for now forget her and her husband and three children who looked at me over the kitchen table like I was a museum piece sent to bore them. I could run circles around those kids. They’re spoon-fed Ritalin and private schools and have eyes that say, Give me things I don’t have. I wanted to read them a book on the history of the world, its immigrations, plagues, and wars, but the shelves of their outsized condominium were full of ceramics and biographies of the stars. The whole thing depressed the hell out of me and I’m glad to be gone.

A week ago I left Baltimore with the idea of seeing my son Graham. I’ve been thinking about him a lot recently, days we spent together in the barn at the old house, how with him as my audience ideas came quickly, and I don’t know when I’ll get to see him again. I thought I might as well catch up with some of the other relatives along the way. I planned to start at my daughter Linda’s in Atlanta, but when I arrived it turned out she’d moved. I called Graham, and when he got over the shock of hearing my voice, he said Linda didn’t want to see me. By the time my younger brother Ernie refused to do anything more than have lunch with me after I had taken a bus all the way to Houston, I began to get the idea that this episodic reunion thing might be more trouble than it was worth. Scottsdale did nothing to alter my opinion. These people seem to think they’ll have another chance, that I’ll be coming around again. The fact is I’ve completed my will, made bequests of my patent rights, and am now just composing a few notes to my biographer, who, in a few decades, when the true influence of my work becomes apparent, may need them to clarify certain issues.

Franklin Caldwell Singer, b. 1924, Baltimore, Maryland.

Child of a German machinist and a banker’s daughter.

My psych discharge following “desertion” in Paris was trumped up by an army intern resentful of my superior knowledge of the diagnostic manual. The nude-dancing incident at the Louvre in a room full of Rubenses had occurred weeks earlier and was of a piece with other celebrations at the time.

B.A., Ph.D., Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University.

1952. First and last electroshock treatment, for which I will never, never, never forgive my parents.

Researcher, Eastman Kodak Laboratories. As with so many institutions in this country, talent was resented. I was fired as soon as I began to point out flaws in the management structure. Two years later I filed a patent on a shutter mechanism that Kodak eventually broke down and purchased (then?Vice President for Product Development Arch Vendellini was having an affair with his daughter’s best friend, contrary to what he will tell you. Notice the way his left shoulder twitches when he is lying).

All subsequent diagnosesand let me tell you, there have been a numberare the result of two forces, both in their way pernicious. 1) The attempt by the psychiatric establishment over the last century to redefine eccentricity as illness, and 2) the desire of members of my various families to render me docile and if possible immobile.

The electric-bread-slicer concept was stolen from me by a man in a diner in Chevy Chase dressed as a reindeer whom I could not possibly have known was an employee of Westinghouse.

That I have no memories of the years 1988?90 and believed until very recently that Ed Meese was still the attorney general is not owing to my purported paranoid blackout but, on the contrary, the fact that my third wife took it upon herself to lace my coffee with tranquilizers. Believe nothing you hear about the divorce settlement.

When I ring the buzzer at Graham’s place in Venice, a Jew in his late twenties with some fancy-looking musculature answers the door. He appears nervous and says, “We weren’t expecting you till tomorrow,” and I ask him who they are and he says, “Me and Graham,” adding hurriedly, “We’re friends, you know, only friends. I don’t live here, I’m just over to use the computer.”

All I can think is I hope this guy isn’t out here trying to get acting jobs, because it’s obvious to me right away that my son is gay and is screwing this character with the expensive-looking glasses. There was a lot of that in the military and I learned early on that it comes in all shapes and sizes, not just the fairy types everyone expects. Nonetheless, I am briefly shocked by the idea that my twenty-nine-year-old boy has never seen fit to share with me the fact that he is a fruitcakeno malice intendedand I resolve right away to talk to him about it when I see him. Marlon Brando overcomes his stupor and lifting my suitcase from the car he leads me through the back garden past a lemon tree in bloom to a one-room cottage with a sink and plenty of light to which I take an instant liking.

“This will do nicely,” I say, and then I ask him, “How long have you been sleeping with my son?” It’s obvious he thinks I’m some brand of geriatric homophobe getting ready to come on in a religiously heavy manner, and seeing that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look in his eye I take pity and disabuse him. I’ve seen women run down by tanks. I’m not about to get worked up about the prospect of fewer grandchildren. When I start explaining to him that social prejudice of all stripes runs counter to my Enlightenment idealsideals tainted by centuries of partial applicationit becomes clear to me that Graham has given him the family line. His face grows patient and his smile begins to leak the sympathy of the ignorant: poor old guy suffering from mental troubles his whole life, up one month, down the next, spewing grandiose notions that slip like sand through his fingers to which I always say, you just look up Frank Singer at the U.S. Patent Office. In any case, this turkey probably thinks the Enlightenment is a marketing scheme for General Electric; I spare him the seminar I could easily conduct and say, “Look, if the two of you share a bed, it’s fine with me.”

“That drive must have worn you out,” he says hopefully. “Do you want to lie down for a bit?”

I tell him I could hook a chain to my niece’s Saab and drag it through a marathon. This leaves him nonplussed. We walk back across the yard together into the kitchen of the bungalow. I ask him for pen, paper, and calculator and begin sketching an idea that came to me just a moment agoI can feel the presence of Graham alreadyfor a bicycle capable of storing the energy generated on the downward slope in a small battery and releasing it through a handlebar control when needed on the uphill, a potential gold mine when you consider the aging population and the increase in leisure time created by early retirement. I have four pages of specs and the estimated cost of a prototype done by the time Graham arrives two hours later. He walks into the kitchen wearing a blue linen suit with a briefcase held to his chest and seeing me at the table goes stiff as a board. I haven’t seen him in five years and the first thing I notice is that he’s got bags under his eyes and he looks exhausted. When I open my arms to embrace him he takes a step backward.

“What’s the matter?” I ask. Here is my child wary of me in a strange kitchen in California, his mother’s ashes spread long ago over the Potomac, the objects of our lives together stored in boxes or sold.

“You actually came,” he says.

“I’ve invented a new bicycle,” I say, but this seems to reach him like news of some fresh death. Ben hugs Graham there in front of me. I watch my son rest his head against this fellow’s shoulder like a tired soldier on a train. “It’s going to have a self-charging battery,” I say, sitting again at the table to review my sketches.

With Graham here my idea is picking up speed, and while he’s in the shower I unpack my bags, rearrange the furniture in the cottage, and tack my specs to the wall. Returning to the house, I ask Ben if I can use the phone and he says that’s fine, and then he tells me, “Graham hasn’t been sleeping so great lately, but I know he really does want to see you.”

“Sure, no hard feelings, fine.”

"He’s been dealing with a lot recently . . . maybe some things you could talk to him about … and I think you might"

“Sure, sure, no hard feelings,” and then I call my lawyer, my engineer, my model builder, three advertising firms whose numbers I find in the yellow pages, the American Association of Retired Personsthat market will be keyan old college friend who I remember once told me he’d competed in the Tour de France, figuring he’ll know the bicycle-industry angle, my bank manager to discuss financing, the Patent Office, the Cal Tech physics lab, the woman I took to dinner the week before I left Baltimore, and three local liquor stores before I find one that will deliver a case of Dom Pérignon.

“That’ll be for me!” I call out to Graham as he emerges from the bedroom to answer the door what seems only minutes later. He moves slowly and seems sapped of life.

“What’s this?”

“We’re celebrating! There’s a new project in the pipeline!”

Graham stares at the bill as though he’s having trouble reading it. Finally, he says, “This is twelve hundred dollars. We’re not buying it.”

I tell him Schwinn will drop that on donuts for the sales reps when I’m done with this bike, that Oprah Winfrey’s going to ride it through the halftime show at the Super Bowl.

“My dad made a mistake,” he says to the delivery guy.

I end up having to go outside and pay for it through the window of the truck with a credit card the man is naïve enough to accept and I carry it back to the house myself.

“What am I going to do?” I hear Graham whisper.

I round the corner into the kitchen and they fall silent. The two of them make a handsome couple standing there in the gauzy, expiring light of evening. When I was born you could have arrested them for kissing. There ensues an argument that I only half bother to participate in concerning the champagne and my enthusiasm, a recording he learned from his mother; he presses play and the fraction of his ancestry that suffered from conventionalism speaks through his mouth like a ventriloquist: your-idea-is-fantasy-calm-down-it-will- be-the-ruin-of-you-medication-medication-medication. He has a good mind, my son, always has, and somewhere the temerity to use it, to spear mediocrity in the eye, but in a world that encourages nothing of the sort the curious boy becomes the anxious man. He must suffer his people’s regard for appearances. Sad. I begin to articulate this with Socratic lucidity, which seems only to exacerbate the situation.

“Why don’t we just have some champagne,” Ben interjects. “You two can talk this over at dinner.”

An admirable suggestion. I take three glasses from the cupboard, remove a bottle from the case, pop the cork, fill the glasses, and propose a toast to their health.

My niece’s Saab does eighty-five without a shudder on the way to dinner. With the roof down, smog blowing through my hair, I barely hear Graham, who’s shouting something from the passenger’s seat. He’s probably worried about a ticket, which for the high of this ride I’d pay twice over and tip the officer to boot. Sailing down the freeway I envision a lane of bicycles quietly recycling power once lost to the simple act of pedaling. We’ll have to get the environmentalists involved, which could mean government money for research and a lobbying arm to navigate any legislative interference. Test marketing in L.A. will increase the chance of celebrity endorsements, and I’ll probably need to do a book on the germination of the idea for release with the first wave of product. I’m thinking early 2001. The advertising tag line hits me as we glide beneath an overpass: Making Every Revolution Count.

There’s a line at the restaurant and when I try to slip the maître d’ a twenty, Graham holds me back.

“Dad,” he says, “you can’t do that.”

“Remember the time I took you to the Ritz in that Rolls-Royce with the right-hand drive and you told me the chicken in your sandwich was tough and I spoke to the manager and we got the meal for free? And you drew a diagram of the tree fort you wanted and it gave me an idea for storage containers.”

He nods his head.

“Come on, where’s your smile?”

I walk up to the maître d’, but when I hand him the twenty he gives me a funny look and I tell him he’s a lousy shit for pretending he’s above that sort of thing. “You want a hundred?” I ask, and am about to give him an even larger piece of my mind when Graham turns me around and says, “Please don’t.”

“What kind of work are you doing?” I ask him.

“Dad,” he says, “just settle down.” His voice is so quiet, so meek.

“I asked you what kind of work you do.”

“I work at a brokerage.”

A brokerage! What didn’t I teach this kid? “What do you do for them?”

“Stocks. Listen, Dad, we need”

“Stocks!” I say. “Christ! Your mother would turn in her grave if she had one.”

"Thanks,“ he says under his breath.

"What was that?” I ask.

“Forget it.”

At this point, I notice everyone in the foyer is staring at us. They all look like they were in television fifteen years ago, the men wearing Robert Wagner turtlenecks and blazers. A woman in mauve hot pants with a shoulder bag the size of her torso appears particularly disapproving and self-satisfied, and I feel like asking her what it is she does to better the lot of humanity. “You’ll be riding my bicycle in three years,” I tell her. She draws back as though I had thrown a rat on the carpet.

Once we’re seated it takes ten minutes to get bread and water on the table, and sensing a bout of poor service, I begin to jot on a napkin the time of each of our requests and the hour of its arrival. Also, as it occurs to me:

Hollow-core chrome frame with battery mounted over rear tire wired to rear-wheel engine housing wired to handlebar control/thumb-activated accelerator; warning to cyclist concerning increased speed of crankshaft during application of stored revolutions. Power break?

Biographer file: Graham as my muse, mystery thereof, see storage container, pancake press, flying teddy bear, renovations of barn for him to play in, power bike.

Graham disagrees with me when I try to send back a second bottle of wine, apparently under the impression that one ought to accept spoiled goods in order not to hurt anybody’s feelings. This strikes me as maudlin, but I let it go for the sake of harmony. Something has changed in him. Appetizers take a startling nineteen minutes to appear.

“You should start thinking about quitting your job,” I say. “I’ve decided I’m not going to stay on the sidelines with this one. The power bike’s a flagship product, the kind of thing that could support a whole company. We stand to make a fortune, Graham, and I can do it with you.” One of the Robert Wagners cranes his neck to look at me from a neighboring booth.

“Yeah, I bet you want a piece of the action, buddy,” I say, which sends him back to his endive salad in a hurry. Graham listens as I elaborate the business plan: there’s start-up financing for which we’ll easily attract venture capital, the choice of location for the manufacturing plantyou have to be careful about state regulationsexecutives to hire, designers to work under me, a sales team, accountants, benefits, desks, telephones, workshops, paychecks, taxes, computers, copiers, decor, water coolers, doormats, parking spaces, electric bills. Maybe a humidifier. A lot to consider. As I speak, I notice that others in the restaurant are turning to listen as well. It’s usually out of the corner of my eye that I see it and the people disguise it well, returning to their conversations in what they probably think is convincing pantomime. The Westinghouse reindeer pops to mind. How ingenious they were to plant him there in the diner I ate at each Friday morning, knowing my affection for the Christmas myth, determined to steal my intellectual property.

Re: Chevy Chase incident, look also into whether or not I might have invented auto-reverse tape decks and also therefore did Sony or GE own property adjacent to my Baltimore residencenoise, distraction tactics, phony road construction, etc.and also Schwinn, Raleigh, etc., presence during Los Angeles visit.

“Could we talk about something else?” Graham asks.

"Whatever you like,“ I say, and I inform the waiter our entrées were twenty-six minutes in transit. Turns out my fish is tougher than leather, and the waiter’s barely left when I have to begin snapping my fingers for his return.

"Stop that!” Graham says. I’ve reached the end of my tether with his passivity and freely ignore him. He’s leaning over the table about to swat my arm down when the fellow returns.

“Is there a problem?”

“My halibut’s dry as sand.”

The goateed young man eyes my dish suspiciously, as though I might have replaced the original plate with some duplicate entrée pulled from a bag beneath the table.

“I’ll need a new one.”

“No he won’t,” Graham says at once.

The waiter pauses, considering on whose authority to proceed.

“Do you have anything to do with bicycles?” I ask him.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Professionally.”

The young man looks across the room to the maître d’, who offers a coded nod.

“That’s it. We’re getting out of here,” I say, grabbing bread rolls.

“Sit down,” Graham insists.

But it’s too late; I know the restaurant’s lousy with mountain-bike executives. “You think I’m going to let a bunch of industry hustlers steal an idea that’s going to change the way every American and one day every person on the globe conceives of a bicycle? Do you realize what bicycles mean to people? They’re like ice cream or children’s books, they’re primal objects woven into the fabric of our earliest memories, not to mention our most intimate connection with the wheel itself, an invention that marks the commencement of the great ascent of human knowledge that brought us through printing presses, religious transformations, undreamt-of speed, the moon. When you ride a bicycle you participate in an unbroken chain of human endeavor stretching back to stone-carting Egyptian peasants, and I’m on the verge of revolutionizing that invention, making its almost mythical power a storable quantity. You have the chance to be there with me, ‘like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacificand all his men looked at each other with a wild surmisesilent, upon a peak in Darien.’ The things we’ll see!”

Because I’m standing as I say this a quorum of the restaurant seems to think I’m addressing them as well, and though I’ve slipped in giving them a research lead I can see in their awed expressions that they know as I do, not everyone can scale the high white peaks of real invention. Somesuch as thesemust sojourn in the lowlands where the air is thick with half measures and dreams die of inertia. Yes! It is true.

“You’ll never catch up with me,” I say to the gawking industrial spies.

This seems to convince Graham we indeed need to leave. He throws some cash on the table and steers me by the arm out of the restaurant. We walk slowly along the boulevard. There’s something sluggish about Graham, his rounded shoulders and bowed head.

"Look, there’s a Japanese place right over there, we can get maki rolls and teriyaki, maybe some blowfish, I can hear all about the brokerage, we might even think about whether your company wants to do the initial public offering on the bike venture, there could be an advantage"

He shakes his head and keeps walking up the street, one of whose features is a truly remarkable plenitude of shapely women, and I am reminded of the pleasures of being single, glances and smiles being enjoyed without guilt and for that matter why not consummation? Maybe it’s unseemly for a seventy-three-year-old to talk about erections, but oh, do I get 'em! I’m thinking along these lines when we pass what appears to be the lobby of a luxury hotel convention-center kind of place, and of course I’m also thinking trade shows and how far ahead you have to book those things so I turn in and, after a small protest, Graham follows (I tell him I need to use the bathroom).

“I’d like to talk to the special-events manager,” I say to the girl behind the desk.

“I’m afraid he’s only here during the day, sir,” she replies with a blistering customer-service smile, as though she were telling me exactly what I wanted to hear.

“Well, isn’t that just wonderful,” I say, and she seems to agree that yes, it is wonderful, wonderful that the special-events manager of the Royal Sonesta keeps such regular hours, as though it were the confirmation of some beneficent natural order.

“I guess I’ll just have to take a suite anyway and see him in the morning. My son and I will have a little room-service dinner in privacy, where the sharks don’t circle!”

Concern clouds the girl’s face as she taps her keyboard.

“The Hoover Suite is available on nineteen. That’s $680 a night. Will that be all right?”

“Perfect.”

When I’ve secured the keys I cross to where Graham’s sitting on the couch. “Dinner is served,” I say with a bow.

“What are you talking about?”

“I got us a suite,” I say, rattling the keys.

Graham rolls his eyes and clenches his fists.

“Dad!”

There’s something desperate in his voice.

“What!”

“Stop! Just stop! You’re out of control,” he says. He looks positively frantic. “Why do you think Linda and Ernie don’t want to see you, Dad, why do you think that is? Is it so surprising to you? They can’t handle this! Mom couldn’t handle this! Can’t you see that? It’s selfish of you not to see a doctor!” he shouts, pounding his fists on his thighs. “It’s selfish of you not to take the drugs! Selfish!”

The lobby’s glare has drained his face of color and about his unblinking eyes I can see the outlines of what will one day be the marks of age, and then all of a sudden the corpse of my son lies prostrate in front of me, the years since we last saw one another tunneling out before me for some infinite distance, and I hear the whisper of a killing loneliness travel along its passage as though the sum total of every minute of his pain in every spare hour of every year was drawn in a single breath and held in this expiring moment. Tears well in my eyes. I am overcome.

Graham stands up from the couch, shaken by the force of his own words.

I rattle the keys. “We’re going to enjoy ourselves.”

“You have to give those back to the desk.”

By the shoulders I grab him, my greatest invention. “We can do so much better,” I say. I take him by the wrist and lead him to the elevator, hearing his mother’s voice behind us reminding me to keep him out of the rain. “I will,” I mutter. “I will.”

Robert Wagner is on the elevator with Natalie Wood but they’ve aged badly and one doesn’t take to them anymore. She chews gum and appears uncomfortable in tight clothing. His turtlenecks have become worn. But I figure they know things, they’ve been here a long time. So I say to him, “Excuse me, you wouldn’t know where I might call for a girl or two, would you? Actually what we need is a girl and a young man, my son here’s gay.”

“Dad!” Graham shouts. “I’m sorry,” he says to the couple, now backed against the wall as though I were a gangster in one of their lousy B movies. “He’s just had a lot to drink.”

“The hell I have. You got a problem with my son being gay?” The elevator door opens and they scurry onto the carpet like bugs.

For a man who watched thousands starve and did jack shit about it, the Hoover Suite is aptly named. There are baskets of fruit, a stocked refrigerator, a full bar, faux rococo paintings over the beds, overstuffed chairs, and rugs that demand bare feet for the sheer pleasure of the touch.

“We can’t stay here,” Graham says, as I flip my shoes across the room.

His voice is disconsolate; he seems to have lost his animation of a moment ago, something I don’t think I can afford to do right now: the eviction notices in Baltimore, the collection agencies, the smell of the apartment … “We’re just getting started,” I say quickly.

Graham’s sitting in an armchair across the room, and when he bows his head, I imagine he’s praying that when he raises it again, things will be different. As a child he used to bring me presents in my study on the days I left for trips and he’d ask me not to go; they were books he’d found on the shelf and wrapped in Christmas paper.

I pick up the phone on the bedside table and get the front desk. “This is the Hoover Suite calling. I want the number of an agency that will provide us with a young man, someone intelligent and attractive”

Graham rips the phone from my hand.

“What is it?” I say. His mother was always encouraging me to ask him questions. “What’s it like to be gay, Graham? Why have you never told me?”

He stares at me dumbfounded.

“What? What?” I say.

"How can you ask me that after all this time?“

"I want to understand. Are you in love with this Ben fellow?”

“I thought you were dead! Do you even begin to realize? I thought my own father was dead. You didn’t call for four years. But I couldn’t bear to find out, I couldn’t bear to go and find you dead. It was like I was a child again. I just hoped there was an excuse. Four years, Dad. Now you just appear and you want to know what it’s like to be gay?”

I run to the refrigerator, where among other things there is a decent chardonnay, and with the help of a corkscrew I find by the sink I pour us two glasses. Graham doesn’t seem to want his, but I set it down beside him anyway.

“Oh, Graham. The phone company in Baltimore’s awful.”

He starts to cry. He looks so young as he weeps, as he did in the driveway of the old house on the afternoon I taught him to ride a bicycle, the dust from the drive settling on his wetted cheek and damp eyelashes, later to be rinsed in the warm water of the bath as dusk settled over the field and we listened together to the sound of his mother in the kitchen running water, the murmur of the radio, and the stillness of evening in the country, how he seemed to understand it as well as I.

“You know, Graham, they’re constantly overcharging me and then once they take a line out it’s like getting the Red Sea to part to have it reinstalled but in a couple of weeks when the bicycle patent comes through that’ll be behind us, you and Linda and Ernie and I, we’ll all go to London and stay at the Connaught and I’ll show you Regent’s Park where your mother and I rowed a boat on our honeymoon circling the little island there where the ducks all congregate and which was actually a little dirty, come to think of it, though you don’t really think of ducks as dirty, they look so graceful on the water but in fact” And all of a sudden I don’t believe it myself and I can hear my own voice in the room, hear its dry pitch, and I’ve lost my train of thought and I can’t stop picturing the yard where Graham used to play with his friends by the purple lilac and the apple tree whose knotted branches held the planks of the fort that I was so happy for him to enjoy never having had one myself. He knew me then even in my bravest moments when his mother and siblings were afraid of what they didn’t understand, he would sit on the stool in the crumbling barn watching me cover the chalkboard propped on the fender of the broken Studebaker, diagramming a world of possible objects, the solar vehicles and collapsible homes, our era distilled into its necessary devices, and in the evenings sprawled on the floor of his room he’d trace with delicate hands what he remembered of my design.

I see those same hands now spread on his thighs, nails bitten down, cuticles torn.

I don’t know how to say goodbye.

In the village of St. Sever an old woman nursed my dying friend through the night. At dawn I kissed his cold forehead and kept marching.

In the yard of the old house the apple tree still rustles in the evening breeze.

“Graham.”

“You want to know what it’s like?” he says. “I’ll tell you. It’s worrying all the time that one day he’s going to leave me. And you want to know why that is? It’s got nothing to do with being gay. It’s because I know Mom left you. I tell you it’s selfish not to take the pills because I know. Because I take them. You understand, Dad? It’s in me too. I don’t want Ben to find me in a parking lot in the middle of the night in my pajamas talking to a stranger like Mom found you. I don’t want him to find me hanged. I used to cast fire from the tips of my fingers some weeks and burn everything in my path and it was all progress and it was all incredibly, incredibly beautiful. And some weeks I couldn’t brush my hair. But I take the pills now, and I haven’t bankrupted us yet, and I don’t want to kill myself just now. I take them and I think of Ben. That’s what it’s like.”

“But the fire Graham? What about the fire?”

In his eyes, there is sadness enough to kill us both.

“Do you remember how you used to watch me do my sketches in the barn?”

Tears run down his cheeks and he nods his head.

“Let me show you something,” I say. Across the room in the drawer of the desk I find a marker. It makes sense to me now, he can see what I see, he’s always been able to. Maybe it doesn’t have to end. I unhook a painting from the wall and set it on the floor. On the yellow wallpaper I draw the outline of a door, full-size, seven by three and a half.

“You see, Graham, there’ll be four knobs. The lines between them will form a cross. And each knob will be connected to a set of wheels inside the door itself, and there will be four sets of hinges, one along each side but fixed only to the door, not to the frame.” I shade these in. Graham cries. “A person will use the knob that will allow them to open the door in the direction they wantleft or right, at their feet or above their heads. When a knob is turned it’ll push the screws from the door into the frame. People can open doors near windows without blocking morning or evening light, they’ll carry furniture in and out with the door over their heads, never scraping its paint, and when they want to see the sky they can open it just a fraction at the top.” On the wall I draw smaller diagrams of the door’s different positions until the felt nib of the pen tatters. “It’s a present to you, this door. I’m sorry it’s not actual. You can imagine it, though, how people might enjoy deciding how to walk through it. Patterns would form, families would have their habits.”

“I wanted a father.”

“Don’t say that, Graham.” He’s crying still and I can’t bear it.

“It’s true.”

I turn back to the desk and, kneeling there, scrawl a note. The pen is nearly ruined and it’s hard to shape the letters. The writing takes time.

Though some may accuse me of neglect, I have been consistent with the advice I always gave my children: never finish anything that bores you. Unfortunately, some of my children bored me. Graham never did. Please confirm this with him. He is the only one that meant anything to me.

"Graham,“ I say, crossing the room to show him the piece of paper, to show him the truth.

He’s lying on the bed, and as I stand over him I see that he’s asleep. His tears have exhausted him. The skin about his closed eyes is puffy and red and from the corner of his mouth comes a rivulet of drool. I wipe it away with my thumb. I cup his gentle face in my hands and kiss him on the forehead.

From the other bed I take a blanket and cover him, pulling it up over his shoulders, tucking it beneath his chin. His breath is calm now, even. I leave the note folded by his hands. I pat down his hair and turn off the lamp. It’s time for me to go.

I take my glass and the wine out into the hall. I can feel the weight of every step, my body beginning to tire. I lean against the wall, waiting for the elevator to take me down. The doors slide open and I enter.

From here in the descending glass cage I can see globes of orange light stretching along the boulevards of Santa Monica toward the beach where the shaded palms sway. I’ve always found the profusion of lights in American cities a cause for optimism, a sign of undiminished credulity, something to bear us along. In the distance the shimmering pier juts into the vast darkness of the ocean like a burning ship launched into the night

Work Cited

Haslett, Adam. “Notes to My Biographer.” Zoetrope All-Story, Fall 1999, https://www.all-story.com/issues/9

ENG 1A

Hight

STUDY GUIDE FOR “NOTES TO MY BIOGRAPHER”

Please answer the questions as thoroughly as possible (on a separate piece of paper), and please keep in mind: I am really dumb, so I don’t understand short and vague answers.

1. The narrator of the story, Franklin Caldwell Singer, insists that there is nothing wrong with him, and that the “mental-health can go screw itself on a barren hilltop in the rain”. Do you believe him? Why or why not?

2. Does Franklin have an interesting voice? Is he witty, sarcastic, or annoying? Why? How would you describe his personality?

3. Will Franklin ever make any money off of his bicycle idea? Why or why not?

4. Why does Franklin want to re-connect with his estranged son, Graham? Is it because cares about his son, or does Franklin have some ulterior motive? What do you think and why?

5. What happens at the end? Why does Franklin leave Graham? Is this a noble gesture? Why or why not?

6. Who do you sympathize with more: Graham or Franklin? Whose side are you on: Graham or Franklin? Why?

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dorothydelgadillo · 6 years

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7 Brutally Honest Marketing Conference Survival Tips

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we can all agree that IMPACT Live 2018 was absolutely fantastic.

With more than 500 of our closest marketing and sales friends, we all experienced two very full and memorable days of learning, meeting new people, and having a total blast while doing it. (You can check out the recaps here and here.)

Heck, I even got to speak this year!

Here's the thing, though.

Marketing conferences -- especially the good ones -- are exhausting marathons that leave me at once elated and energized to take action, and completely and utterly ready to embrace a new life as a human contact-avoiding hermit.

In fact, this was me last Thursday, the day following IMPACT Live 2018:

Current status.🐻 (📸: @chrisduprey82)

A post shared by Liz Murphy (@naptownpint) on Aug 9, 2018 at 1:20pm PDT

I spent the entire day on the couch in our office, hiding behind Bear, our team's cuddle consultant, while I did work.

This emotional and physical deflation isn't a new experience for me. This was my second IMPACT Live, and I've been to INBOUND three times.

I also know that both INBOUND and Content Marketing World are just around the corner. So, I want to take a few minutes this morning to share with you my favorite tips for surviving conferences -- and not the usual, "Oh, yeah, don't forget to network," kind of tips.

I'm talking about my favorite ways to get the most out of these epic, inspiring events without losing your sanity.

#1: Dress with Some Sort of Layering Strategy

Conference venues are fickle, independent ecosystems that have little to no regard for seasons, weather patterns, or expectations of attendees who wish it to be not too hot or too cold.

And often, rooms within the same venue will vary drastically from one to the other in temperature.

So, plan accordingly.

Bring a blazer or wear a light sweater with you each day, even it's the middle of summer. It doesn't matter if it's basically Death Valley or the dead of winter outside. You may freeze or, alternatively, remain a hot, sweaty mess indoors, depending on how effective (or functional) the venue's air conditioning or heating system is.

If you're a female, don't forget to carry a hair clip or band with you in your bag, so you can quickly toss your hair up, as needed.

Which leads me to my next clothing-related piece of advice...

#2: Pack More Than You Think You'll Need

Like most normal people, I try to pack "lean" when I'm traveling for work. Even though I rarely take a plane -- I'm an Amtrak kind of gal, and I'll explain why later -- I just don't want to deal with the hassle of having a ton of luggage.

But here's a fun fact:

It was so ungodly hot in Hartford last week (and a touch on the warm side in our venue), that a few folks from the IMPACT team actually made a quick run to Target to buy some new clothes to wear while at the conference.

For the same reason, it was also not uncommon for IMPACTers and IMPACT Live attendees to perform a quick costume change during the day (or before evening festivities), because staying in the same outfit all day in 95+ degree weather would have been gross.

Here's another related truth:

I can't go a week away from home for work without at least three coffee-related shirt fatalities -- particularly if we're talking about conferences, where I'm spending at least 50% of my time rushing around. (I'm not really strong in the coffee-while-walking department.)

The moral of both stories is simple -- while you might need to put a little extra effort into closing your carry-on or suitcase, it's worth it to toss in a few extra shirts and underthings.

Whether you're networking, sitting in an audience, or speaking in front of one, being around people comes with the territory of marketing conferences. You want to feel comfortable and at your best as much as possible.

A fresh shirt can do just the trick, so pack one -- there may not be a Target near where you are.

#3: Mind What You Carry

Last year, when I got home from INBOUND, I had trouble bending over, or turning left or right at the waist for about a week.

Of course, I had no one to blame but myself.

I had spent the week prior carrying a 2010 MacBook (which must have weighed 1,000 pounds), three notebooks, books I had purchased from the gift shop, pens, business cards, a hairbrush, my wallet, and much more in a tote slung over my left shoulder.

Conferences involve a lot of walking. But because you usually don't get to go back to your hotel room until late in the evening, after the day is done, there's this compulsion to carry everything you could possibly need with you.

Learn from me. Resist this urge to be a pack mule as much as possible. If you don't, you will be miserable, and there's a good chance you could hurt yourself.

Here is what I carry now, after learning this lesson the hard way:

iPhone (and earbuds)

iPhone charging cable (and wall plug)

Small travel wallet (not my usual big wallet, and it only contains my ID, credit cards, a little cash and credit cards)

MacBook (now much smaller and only 3 pounds!)

Hairbrush (and clip)

Travel-size deodorant

Small body spray or perfume

Chapstick

That's it.

No books. No planners. No extra notebooks or water bottles. No extra weight.

I may end up coming back each evening with additions to my daily haul -- like swag or books I've purchased, etc. -- but I spend most of my days only carrying around exactly what I need, and nothing more. And my shoulders and back are forever grateful.

What ends up going into your daily bag will likely be totally different from what goes into mine, and that's okay. My only request is that, before you walk out each morning, you take a long, hard look at what's in your bag and ask yourself, "Do I really need all of this?"

#4: Don't Skip Meals

Even though I'm a huge fan of food and an avid snacker, I'm awful at breakfast. I don't know what it is, but if you want me to put anything in my face besides black coffee before 11 a.m., you'll have to force me to do so.

The exception is when I'm at a conference. For example, every morning at each INBOUND I've attended, I've stopped by the New England mecca, Dunkin' Donuts, for coffee and a breakfast sandwich. I do so under duress, but I know I'm saving myself a potential disaster later on.

In a surprise to no one, I've also learned this lesson the hard way. I won't go into details, but I was hangry and exhausted, and everyone around me suffered.

Even if meals are provided by the conference organizer, the line may be insanely long -- or you may miss a meal entirely due to conversations with your team or new contacts.

If you hate breakfast like I do, suck it up, and eat a banana or something. If you miss lunch for some reason, don't skip it -- make it a point to take a quick break and grab a protein box from Starbucks. Finally, I don't care how tired you are at the end of the day, eat something before you go to bed.

Conferences are an endurance test, so don't run on empty.

#5: Don't Forget Your Business Cards

I don't need a lot of explanation for this one, so I'll cut to the chase. Not so long ago, there was a 9-out-of-10 chance I would forget my business cards when packing for a work conference. And, being me, I would only discover my oversight in the middle of a conversation, when someone asked me for mine.

Don't be like me. Pack your business cards in your suitcase first. Every. Single. Time.

#6: Don't Stay Out Late Every Night

At most of these conferences, there are nightly networking events and sponsor parties. Also, if you're like us at IMPACT, you'll have client dinners, team bonding meals, and many hotel happy hour opportunities all over your calendar.

Besides eating, not running yourself into the ground (or, let's be honest, not partying too hard in the cocktails department) is the most important thing you can do to keep yourself in tip-top shape at a conference.

While I know how awful it feels to miss out on a good time just as much as the next person, you don't have to go to every single party or event. Or, if you do, you don't need to stay until last call.

Not only will you have a better chance of getting a good night's sleep, you'll keep your reputation in tact by not accidentally going overboard in front of coworkers or valuable new connections. Given how tiring these events can be, you have to recognize your tolerance may be lower if you're sleep-deprived, dehydrated, and/0r running on an empty-ish stomach.

(My usual rule of thumb is that I'll give myself one moderately "fun" night. Otherwise, no matter what post-session events I attend, I'm in my hotel bed watching Murder, She Wrote by 10 p.m.)

#7: Finally, Try Taking the Train

While trains are not always the most efficient way to get around, they are my favorite.

For example, it's about five hours to travel via Amtrak from my home in Annapolis, Maryland, to Connecticut, where IMPACT Live takes place every year. And it's about eight hours to Boston, the home of INBOUND.

Traveling the same distance by plane would obviously be much faster, but the benefits of train travel far outweigh any efficiencies I would gain by flying.

Instead of rushing through airports, dealing with security, and generally hating life, my travel is stress-free. There's no security. I can carry full-size toiletries. I can bring a bag larger than a carry-on with no added cost. I can bring my own meals, snacks, and full-sized beverages.

But that's nothing compared to the peace and serenity of the Amtrak quiet car. I can work. I can nap in relative comfort. I can stare out the window as we go over rivers and lakes, and through large cities.

Most of all, I have plenty of time to mentally prepare myself for the whirlwind of activity and having to be "on" for people 24/7. And, on the way back, I have those hours to myself to decompress in a totally calm environment, before I have to deal with puppies and all of the, "So, how was it?!" conversations.

In short, thanks to the train, I am able to bookend most conference experiences (at least those on the East Coast, heh) with some much-needed me time, with no one bothering me.

I know, the train isn't for everyone. But if what I described sounds like heaven to you, I urge you to give it a shot. It may take me longer to get from point A to point B -- so, my travel mornings tend to start pretty early -- but it's 100% worth it to me.

What are your favorite tips for surviving conferences?

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/marketing-conference-survival-tips

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