#covid19 is now where i live

[davidfarland]

David Farland’s Writing Tips — What Are Your Best Practices?

The art and craft of writing is mysterious. Why does one thing work for Joan and not for Dave? That’s a good question. My son Forrest helps counsel writers who are having problems, and a few weeks ago he mentioned something that he’d noticed. Time and again, he’d talk to authors who had been on fire at some point in their careers, writing away joyfully, but now found themselves stuck. So he’d ask them a few questions to find out what had changed.

The answers tended to be amazingly simple. One woman, when brainstorming a novel, used to write her notes down in a notebook and think about them. But when she switched to a word-processor, she found it hard to brainstorm. Why? Who knows. She suspected that it was because she felt more relaxed with a notebook in her hand. She didn’t have to worry about blinking cursors, power outages, and the demands of a blank screen. So Forrest’s advice was simple: use your notebook when you brainstorm.

Another man found that he just couldn’t get started. There was a time when he would get up in the morning and write in order to start the day. But now he automatically answers his emails. I could explain to him about mental states, and how writing requires him to be in the alpha state while answering his email put him in the beta state, but the answer was simple: don’t open your danged email before you write!

Another writer I know used to sit up late at night and put on acid rock while he wrote, but when he got married and had a baby, he was afraid of keeping his wife and children awake, so he switched to writing without music in the morning. Suddenly, he couldn’t find the words he wanted. The answer: he needed to listen to his own personal biorhythms and write at night. A pair of headphones solved his need for loud acid rock.

This problem strikes over and over. A few months ago, I started the Apex Writers Group. When the Covid19 pandemic hit, I noticed that a lot of writers were stressed and not producing.

I began trying to get them to huddle up and get back to work. I recognized that there are a lot of phases to writing: brainstorming, drafting, editing, and so on, and I suggested that we start “Writers Rings”. In a writers’ ring, you get several people who are writing in the same genre and have them share audiences.

But I wondered whether it would be good for them to work in close-knit groups. In addition to just advertising to each other’s audiences, I realized that they could brainstorm together, for example. So a fantasy writer living in the wilds of New Zealand could suddenly be brainstorming with other fine writers in her field, the way that Tolkien and Lewis did it in the Inklings. For those who have trouble self-starting, we could have writing sprints, so that authors can get on and maintain a writing schedule. Again, if the authors want to, they can have critique sessions where they look at one another’s works. They can even advertise together--start blogs together, share cover quotes, train each other in how to use electronic advertising well, and so on.

Suddenly my writers are killing it. I think I’ve seen them release 7 novels just in the past week, and some of the writers who’ve never completed a book are suddenly putting “the end” to their first novels.

And I noticed something yesterday: the writers who are getting the most done are the ones who are doing it all together—having brainstorming sessions, participating in sprints, critiquing together, and pushing their books together.

I hadn’t expected that, but then I got thinking. Back when I first began writing, I too joined a writing group that kept me focused and kept me writing like mad. We were all trying to figure out how to make it in the speculative fiction market. We’d challenge each other and celebrate one another’s victories. I remember how fun it was to brainstorm in groups, and how fulfilling it was to find out how well a scene worked in a critique group. Eventually I had an editor tell me to “quit wasting your time with writing groups. You’re way beyond that.” Yet, what I had been doing was working fine, so now I ask myself, why exactly did I change?

As I consider this, I can think of dozens of professional writers who are under-performing for much the same reason. They started out in a writing group, went solo, and suddenly found that their work went flat and they weren’t creating as much. In the music industry, we see singers doing this all the time. The lead singer in a band goes solo and suddenly discovers that without the drummer who was writing most of the band’s songs, he goes bust. Without the lead guitarist who was always pushing them to do more gigs, he falls out of the limelight.

So there may be group dynamics involved in many authors’ success stories. Do you find that your productivity isn’t where you would like it to be? So ask yourself, what has worked for you in the past? What best practices have you abandoned. Maybe its time to retrace your steps.

For more on David Farland's Writing tips, visit https://mystorydoctor.com/writing-blog/

And you can also click here to get your David Farland Daily Meditations.

#writing tips #writing advice #writing help #writing tips and tricks #author

[frosted-plasma]

what’s your thoughts on the Futurama revival

Anon I'm so sorry you're going to be victim to the longest post you will ever see. I hate it I hate it I hate it

HUGE /neg rant incoming (this show is my special interest and has been for YEARS. This will all be rambling)

THEY FUCKING COMPLETELY DISREGARDED "MEANWHILE." It directly contradicts it. "I offered to reset time to the moment before time stopped!" Okay, but you didn't though. The entire tragedy of the ending was that they'd be doomed to relive their lives from the moment they met (s1 e1) on loop. "Want to go around again?" Okay so that line doesn't make sense anymore!!! I had theories upon theories before the season came out and I was beyond disappointed. This show has shown it can do deep thought-out themes, I was fully hoping for them to show them reliving the past again, maybe its their 1,000th time reliving it, maybe Fry or Leela notices for once that something is familiar about it. Hell maybe there's a 1 in a million chance that they DON'T break the button! Free will and all, maybe things aren't 100% the same each run and they get lucky once. This also could have been used to recap old seasons for people who didn't rewatch them

They don't know how much time has passed?? I understand that was an excuse to make it the year 3023, but why would you do that? What's the point??

Things such as the Scary Door reboot don't make sense, not to mention the overuse of "haha it's a reboot!! Get it?? It's a reboot!! We got cancelled!!!" jokes but I'll get to that later. Timeline things just don't make sense anymore because of the time freeze. It's an awful awful awful writing choice. They unfroze time right where it paused, canonically, they show them unfreezing exactly there, it makes zero sense. How is there new technology and new TV shows when no time has passed. I'm ignoring that it's "10 years later" because it isn't, you can't just say that without showing it, it literally isn't

Even the smaller jokes feel very dragged out? Like Bender laughing at Fry setting a goal in episode one. He laughs and Leela smacks him, his head spins around and it's funny, then his body does an extra spin for no reason other than to emphasize that it's a joke? I guess? And then not even a minute later she slaps his hand again and it dramatically flies back and hits Zoidberg. Do you get what I'm saying? It's just too much focus on every single bit

I do like the updated intro! The added details to the city in the background is super super cool!! I love the thought they put into it (Bender hanging out of the ship on the magnet is a bit much considering all of the other references they included, but I'll let it slide. Just doesn't feel necessary to me in the intro)

The animation is rigged now:/ it's bound to happen nowadays, it just feels sad to look at for me (in general, not just with this show) the characters (ESPECIALLY Fry) feel very off model sometimes:(

Fry's hardly in the first episode. Odd writing choice considering he's the main character

Oh my GOD. The Hulu/reboot references. It's EXHAUSTING to watch. The amount of 2023 references they crammed into this season is physically painful, they drag them out for SO LONG

(in the first ep) the non-binary robots joke was funny and the scenes with Calculon and the Robot Devil were the only scenes that felt like old Futurama! Their voice acting was great and it was funny! The rest of the voice acting feels very lackluster and most of the other jokes just didn't get me

Calculon and the Robot Devil were the funniest characters, that's how dumbed down they made Bender, he's not my favorite that season

The plots are just. Bad. I hate to say it I really do. Shut up with the reboot jokes, the covid19 jokes, the only decent one was the bit mining episode because it actually used the idea as a real jumping off point and that episode still wasn't revolutionary. The other half of the episodes are pure callbacks. The one with Amy and Kifs kids was cute because it had a reason to exist! It wasn't a very funny episode but it was cute!! The other ones like the worm parasites in nibblers litter box (OR GOD FORBID THE ONE WHERE THE TIME MACHINE SHOWS UP OUT OF NOWHERE AGAIN WITH NO DRIVER??) make me MAD with how lazy of an excuse they are to cram in a reference without matching the rest of the lore

I'm fully assuming the reboot came from a place of love from the writers and the VAs but personally I didn't think the new season was very funny nor did it add anything new to the series, and it felt very very bland and dumbed down and I didn't even pay attention to the last few episodes because of it (that is saying something coming from me)

I rewatched the first episode for this so this is mainly talking about that one. Tell me if you want me to talk about the others I have so many thoughts this is me summarizing like all hell I hate the plots so much and this is my all time favorite show I'm still going to watch the next season and I still have high hopes for it

#chris answers #chris posts #futurama #i want to remain excited so so so bad but i have zero hopes anymore that this could ever #do any kind of plot like the old seasons #even the finale was disappointing #but tbf i dont remember it well because it made me dissociate so bad #i understand the point they were trying to make. i guess. but it seemed. *too* literal #and it made me panic because of it #like the sci-fi fun isnt there anymore #if theyre talking about hulu then its about fulu if their talking about simulations theyre gonna make it a simulation #wheres the creativity? #do u get what I'm saying??

[kellyannecontent]

I spend an unhealthy amount of time looking at right wing and far right media. A mix of grassroots style TikTok stuff, pundits with administrative ties to right wing administrations (like Bannon and Giuliani), and of course the good old red meat that's doled out on outlets like FOX and NewsMax.

But make no mistake, the anti-trans rhetoric that we're seeing more and more of in daily discourse, while absolutely consuming right wing media and ideology, isn't contained to just right wing identified or right wing affiliated people.

Something that started becoming very clear to me - when many of my friends and colleagues from the holistic health field were radicalized by conspiratorial content during the onset of the Covid19 pandemic - and is making itself abundantly clear now -

Fascism isn't just a switch that's flipped, where someone is fascist or they aren't. It's not something on the other side of a clearly drawn line. It's a series of talking points, a series of ideologies, that are generally popular, inescapable, and have varying degrees of acceptability in any given setting. It's polite conversation that questions the agency of others, how they (choose to, or are forced to) live, what they do, who they are. It's friendly debate about things that simply shouldn't be debated.

[liskantope]

Current status of my (largely selfishly based) COVID concerns based on the state of the pandemic now: my primary deep fear is of how much the increased level of social distance* is going to be permanent or persist indefinitely.

[Depressing ramble below.]

Things aren't fantastic where the state of the pandemic is concerned: COVID19 seems to be here to stay and we're all going to have to get another vaccine yearly and there will always be some people dying of it and it's another reason for the immunocompromised to be on their guard and so on. But there's little reason to expect the situation to ever really be any better than this, apart from the virus continuing to modify itself to be less lethal or medicine getting better at treating it, and I don't know how much room there is for those kinds of changes. But what I (perhaps selfishly) am mainly upset about is not that; it's a very deep worry that some of the changes we've made to societal norms are here to stay and in fact can't even be undone if we tried.

I mean, I think we've 80%-90% gotten "back to normal" in most areas of the US at least, and the aspects of our society that aren't "back to normal" could gradually get there if enough people's anxiety about the virus fades, but if we stay consistent and the state of the pandemic doesn't improve, then our new social norms aren't going to change. And that scares me.

I'm not suggesting that there are all that many concrete hard-and-fast rules which sprung into being with the pandemic that haven't been mostly reversed now (things being closed, masks being mandatory, and so on). And in fact there are some new moderately-held beliefs and norms that I think would be to our benefit to keep permanently, such as wearing a mask in public if you have symptoms, or an increased respect for vaccines and motivation to get vaccinated in general. When I talk about some new social norms that I'm afraid will stick with us for good, maybe "new social norms" isn't the right phrase, more like... social tendencies in the direction of remoteness and isolation? Like much more working from home, many more events being virtual, more inhibition against approaching others in public, more social anxiety from face-to-face interactions, etc. This shift is deeply unhealthy for us psychologically as a culture, especially given that we were tending alarmingly far in those directions already, back in 2019, and now it feels like the pandemic crisis gave us a rationale to sink further into remoteness and anxiety and lack of willpower to get up and go anywhere and reduced social skills, etc. and make it our permanent comfort zone.

And, again selfishly and "seeing the cup as half empty" -ly speaking, if this had to happen during my lifetime, couldn't it have waited until a point when I have a partner plus an intimate circle of friends and/or my own family?

At the risk of disrupting the cadence of this post, I'll end with a concrete example that came up just last night of how we've slid into a new norm that would be hard to get rid of even if we try: social meetup events (I'm speaking as an example about events through meetup.com, which is what I feel I have to resort to at the moment) are very frequently held remotely by default now and many don't seem ready to go back to being in person. The dynamic here is that once a group had to go remote in early-to-mid 2020, many new members living in far-away regions took advantage of the silver lining of being able to participate at a geographic distance, and this creates a ton of inertia in moving back to an in-person setting for that group's events. I'd seen this dynamic before, but last night I attended an event with a meetup.com group through Zoom as a first-time attendee, where the default venue would have been walking distance from my home (which would in fact have made it pretty much my only social event conveniently close to my home since I returned to the US three years ago, actually!). I asked at the end about whether the group was about to move back to meeting in person, as seemed implied from the title of further events listed on the group's page, and was met with protests from half of the other members, who lived far away and had only been able to start attending meetings because they were remote. And the organizer's answer was, to their reassurance and my disappointment, no, we're not going to resume meeting in person anytime soon.

And this clearly isn't anyone's fault. Many groups were essentially forced by the pandemic to start meeting remotely two and a half years ago, and they gained a bunch of members who for geographic reasons could only ever meet remotely, and now it's like most of their remaining members, and moving back to in-person would seem to unfairly screw them over. But in the meantime, those of us who feel we get intangibly but resoundingly more out of interacting with other humans in physical proximity, and who might (let's say) live alone and feel overall impoverished with respect to human interaction for years, are getting screwed over instead.

*by "social distancing" I'm not using the colloquial meaning that peaked in 2020 to mean maintaining some physical distance; I'm referring to something more vague and general about avoiding doing things in person and our level of intimacy, etc.

#covid pandemic #vaccination #social life #meetup #whining

[blackhazefanblog]

Black Haze characters x COVID19

Idk why I'm even making this now that COVID19 lockdown is over in most countries... but I just got the idea so here you go.

Rood: Took all proper precautions himself, but unfortunately got sick several times due to all the infected people who threw themselves at him.

Ren: Took all necessary precautions herself, and made sure others did too around Opion. Thanks to her, they all had a safe work experience.

Kielnode: Made sure Rood took precautions but didn't take any himself and got sick. Complained about being lonely and heartbroken when they locked him up in isolation for his own good.

Lidusis: Went into isolation even when he wasn't sick. Took Rood ages to coax him back out after convincing him the pandemic was not his fault.

Dio: Was lazy in taking precautions (especially social distancing) and got sick. More than once. Only his constitution as a dragon allowed him to survive.

Lin: Took all precautions herself and made sure others around her did too. Would distribute masks and hand sanitisers to those who didn't have any.

Iel: Took precautions herself and refused to interact with anyone who didn't.

Linus: Kept forgetting to take precautions and got sick. Also accidentally infected Blow and a number of Hereis.

Lapis: Took most precautions but was still infected by a sick Linus surprise-hugging him.

Chevel: Didn't take precautions seriously until he got infected (courtesy of Linus).

Khan: Would be extremely anxious and give anyone who coughed or sneezed some time off. It became a problem to the point where most of the students began to fake coughing to get out of class for a week.

Tessiana: Took precautions once it became a genuine concern, especially around Yuti. Continued to stalk Rood from two metres away.

Rom: Made sure Yuti was well-protected and no one came close to her. She complained he was keeping them more than two metres away but he didn't care. Would insist on sterilising himself and Tessiana from head to toe before approaching the princess.

Yuti: wasn't happy with all the strict rules she had to follow, but Rom and Tessy insisted on them and she remained safe and healthy.

Yumehen: Didn't even know there was a pandemic going on around him until he eventually asked why everyone else was wearing masks.

Shicmuon: Ignored everyone's words of caution and got sick. Determined not to fall for the same thing twice, he took proper precautions after that. But not before he accidentally infected Blow as well.

Eren: Didn't take precautions and got sick because Shicmuon.

Van: Took precautions and got sick because Shicmuon.

Ash: Took precautions and didn't get sick.

Lanoste: Hardly took any precautions but never got sick (maybe because he hardly leaves his office).

Orphell: Insisted on having everyone follow the rules of precaution from the get-go, which they all initially hated but were later grateful for when things became a full-blown pandemic and it had kept them safe.

Lispen: Followed precautions and never got sick. Used mana puppet to carry the virus and infect people he dislikes (such as Diorook).

Dirod: Insisted it was all a conspiracy and never took precautions. But he also never got sick, probably because people hardly go near him.

Elzeble: Interacted with humans too much and got infected before he even knew what it was. Dio eventually told the demons about it to warn them to be careful when he got sick too, but it was already too late for Elze.

Rubymonter: Insisted it was a stupid thing that only affected humans until Elzeble got undeniably ill. She then made sure she and Gamode took proper precautions and locked Elze up.

Gamode: Practically lives the lockdown life anyway, holed up in their hideout and staying away from disgusting humans. He continued his normal everyday routine and did fine.

#black haze #rood #ren #kielnode #lin #iel #dio #lidusis #linus #chevel #lapis #khan #tessiana #rom #yutiarien #yumehen #shicmuon #van #eren #erren #eruen #ash #lanoste #orphell #lispen #dirod #elzeble #rubymonter #gamode #text

[bonellzz]

My first blog : a bit of history of a big challenge I was presented 18 months ago to define who I am today : Christopher J Bonelli 2.0

I came down with a very serious case of COVID-19 Delta Variant. I was placed in a medically induced coma for 55 days FROM July – Sept 2021, in the ICU. I had to be intubated and put on a ventilator, and eventually they had to do a tracheotomy, because they couldn't extubate me otherwise. While there they did a number of surgeries on me, on top of the tracheotomy, included a feeding tube, three chest tubes and multiple central lines.

On the 55th day I woke up with tubes coming out of all parts of my body. I was there for another week and a half, after being released from the ICU. When I was discharged, couldn’t walk or talk, and quickly realized the enormous feat I would have in front of me in order to recover. I had to learn how to walk, talk, eat, breath, and perform daily activities of living, all over again. I’m still on the big oxygen machine and my lung capacity is on 53% , doctors say I should make a recovery between 16-24 months. It currently has been 15 months since being discharged.

I’ve been a loyal tenant for three years now and this is the first time I am late on rent due to a financial hardship from getting sick and having over a year of rehabilitation? This complex has tried to evict due to a few weeks late on rent smh . Why Should I need to be penalized, the government did not help with ANY COVID RELIEF PROGRAMS …the state of FLORIDA did not find me temporary disabled granting me with SSDI although I met all the criteria. ERAP and SNAP declined me probably because my taxes showed I was making more than the threshold but what was I supposed to the in the following months with a 14 month no work order should help because I was making 6 figures and I will again when im fully healthy.

The leasing office knew everything that was going on and put me into another apartment 1406 at the same address 405 ne 2nd st apt 1406 fort Lauderdale fl 33301. There was no exchange a move in fee they handed me a key and I signed a lease. During the move I passed out twice and had to be hospitalized again because my lungs arent capable of that much endurance yet. So I have received an eviction notice and 3day notice to vacate on my door. I’m trying to keep a positive mindset that I will get better soon but I was the only survivor with delta variant from imperial hospital and have not received any funding from government. Im at the point where I need assistance from the government . I really need help.

Having a fiancé cheat on me during my recovery , losing my finances , job , relearning to become a human again of course I’m going to deal with mental issues that I have been overcoming through therapy

Im constantly getting my organs checked and my immune system is at the lowest. I lost everything in a snap of a figure but instead of sitting there an sulking I’ve been pushing myself to be strong and get passed this I went in the hospital at 195lbs came out at 120, I’m finally putting the weight back on, but there seems to be an obstacle in my way every time. I have major PTSD, Major Depression and anxiety disorder all diagnosed by a psychiatrist as well as permanent fibrosis in both my lungs. I went into AFIB 3 times as well. I’m only 32 and it’s a mission for me to bend over and put the dishes away or to walk just one block, I was a bodybuilder before my life was turned upside down.

It’s been 17 months and I have made a 90% recovery I believe it’s time Now its time for me to get back on my feet and others in need of my support and share my story to help overcome obstacles such as mine.

#covid19 #covidawareness #longcovid #covid #coviddelta #coma #survivor #covidreovery #recovery #covidisnotover #covidhelp #covidrelief #coronavirus #covid #corona #stayhome #quarantine #lockdown #staysafe #love #pandemic #share #shareyourstory

[indecentpause]

The Most Beautiful Puzzle: Chapter Three

I know I’m taking a break from writing at the moment, to focus on other projects, but I was thinking it might be nice to leave a parting gift, until I come back :) I’m only expecting it to be a month or so but like I said, I’ll still be around, I’ll still be reading, I’ll still be queueing and reblogging. so please still tag me for your wips :)

cw: covid19, stalking, implied violence, panic attack, police station, police interrogation, blood, offscreen drug deal, drug use (cocaine)

Summary: Meara’s life has been one disappointment after another, and he’s not expecting his new roommate situation to be anything but, either. But he needs to get out of the city and needs a room, and Josselin seems nice enough and has a bed to spare.

But Josselin ends up being more than just a freelance translator, eccentric book hoarder, and taxidermy enthusiast, he’s also a consulting detective the one the police come to when they just can’t crack a case. Meara accidentally gets swooped up in one such situation.

It’s the most excitement and fun he’s ever had in his entire life. He’s hooked.

Puzzle taglist: @ohsugarfoot @abalonetea @only-book-lovers-left-alive @poore-choice-of-words @leadhelmetcosmonaut @jasperygrace @drippingmoon @writtendevastation @viskafrer @thelaughingstag @athenswrites @kaiusvnoir @magic-is-something-we-create 

Chapter One: in which we meet Meara, and are introduced to his struggles, old and new

Chapter Two: in which Meara gets drawn ever deeper into a mess of crime solving, while still trying to keep away from certain parts of his past

A few days pass.

Nothing new on the case on your end. No news from Drake. He hasn’t tried to contact you since you filed the paperwork, though, but nothing government official can move that fast, can it?

Josselin gets calls and texts from the Inspector a few times a day, but he doesn’t leave the apartment. You don’t know what the Inspector is telling him, because Josselin keeps whatever he’s being told close to his chest. Why? He was so open with you coming along with him up until now, and suddenly he’s being so tight-lipped.

What happened?

Frankie doesn’t come by. There’s nothing on the case on any local news site or channel you can find.

You don’t leave the apartment, either, trying to use the downtime to let your ankle heal. The bruise on your wrist gets yellow and green and ugly, but it stops hurting so much when you bump into things, at least.

In the meantime, you start applying for work. You can only live so long off your savings, and you spent a lot of it on your motel and takeout.

A lot of things are still closed. Grocery stores, medical jobs, food service are all still open. And while you quit your job because of safety issues, medicine is all you know. It’s where you’ve worked and gone to school for your entire adult life.

But you can’t work directly with patients anymore, at least, not right now. It’s too hard on your nerves. So you apply for things like janitor and receptionist, where some of your knowledge might still be useful.

You apply at every private ambulance company but your own, for call taker, for porter, for anything that doesn’t put you on the street.

No more paramedicine without proper PPE. Never again.

On day four of your self-imposed quarantine, Josselin knocks on your bedroom door, and calls from the other side, “Meara, I know closed doors mean ‘go away,’ but this is really important?”

You stand from the stack of milk crates that currently serves as your chair and let him in.

He doesn’t step past the door sill. His face is creased up with worry and his phone is in his hand.

“Josselin?” You swallow hard and nervousness jabs at your stomach.

“Dona served the papers. That was just him on the phone. Your ex didn’t take it well.”

The nervousness sinks deep into your gut and turns to dread.

“What… what did he say?”

“Dona didn’t give me specifics, but apparently he got really, really angry and started yelling that the police have no right to do this. Dona’s worried about you. He wanted to know if there’s anywhere you can stay where your ex can’t find you.”

You shrink back, fingers flicking at your sides as your thumb toys with your spinner ring.

“This is all I have,” you murmur. “Staying with Danny would be more dangerous. Drake knows where he lives.”

“Family?” Josselin asks meekly.

You shake your head violently. “No. Not an option.”

He doesn’t push.

“No other friends? Even in other cities?”

You bite your lip and look away.

“All I had was work friends. And they probably hate me for leaving at such a hard time, if they even remember me. I’m not all that memorable.”

Josselin finally slides his phone in his pocket and tilts his head.

“I think you are.”

A long, awkward pause.

“Oh,” you finally manage.

Another much longer, much more awkward pause.

“Thank you,” you finally say.

“I keep a baseball bat under my bed,” Josselin says.

Your eyes go wide. “What?”

“Oh!” recognition flickers over Josselin’s face and he backtracks. “For protection. In case of break ins. I can get one for you, too. One to keep in your car. Metal ones, nice and hard. Difficult to break.”

“Uh.” Everything is happening too much, too many conversations and too many lines of thinking and too many things to consider, and all you can do is bow your head, put the heels of your hands against your ears, and let out a soft, pathetic whine.

“Okay, okay, too much.” Josselin understands immediately. He gently nudges your elbow but doesn’t otherwise try to touch you. “Come sit with me on the couch, okay?”

You nod.

“Okay. And then I’ll be quiet until you’re ready to talk.”

You nod again, let out another quiet whine.

Both of you sit down and Josselin digs his phone out of his pocket. He pokes at it a couple times, then shows you the screen. It’s some kind of chat app. On top is a little icon and next to it, it reads, “Hi! I’m nonverbal right now. If I give you this it’s because I’m having trouble talking, but I can still type to communicate.”

Underneath it is a message from Josselin.

Would this help? it reads.

You pause, slowly lower your hands from your ears, take the phone gently, like it’s something fragile you might break just by looking at it wrong. Your fingers are trembling, but you manage to type out, Just give me a second.

Josselin takes and returns the phone with a simple added on, Ok.

You breathe. Shake your head and ruffle your own hair, like you’re trying to wake yourself up. You kind of are.

Josselin says, very softly, “Sometimes blowing a raspberry helps get my brain moving again.”

It’s silly, but you follow his advice, and you can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it. But it breaks the tension, both between you and in your own mind.

One more deep breath.

“Okay, so, what’s this about a baseball bat?”

“I keep one under my bed,” he explains again. “I have mitts and baseballs and stuff too, to make it look like it belongs there. Just in case. So it doesn’t look like I was planning to use it. But I could get you one, if you’re worried. And maybe a tire iron to keep in your car, if you didn’t want a bat there? People keep tire irons in cars, right?”

“Oh Jesus.” Your eyes go wide and you let out a surprised huff of air. “I don’t know that I could even make use of it if I had to.” Another long pause, and finally, you laugh, because you’ve cried and moped and shouted and mourned and there’s nothing else left to do. A nervous smile tugs at Josselin’s mouth, and he asks,

“Are you okay?”

You bury your face in your hands, shoulders shaking, tears running down your face with the laughter, until it’s not laughter anymore, and you can’t stop crying.

“Um,” Josselin says. “Uh. I don’t know what to do. Tell me how to help. Do you want a blanket?”

You let out one sharp, heavy sob before you manage to get yourself a little more under control, but you don’t know how he can help. The couch shifts and Josselin’s feet pad heavy on the hardwood floor. He comes back so quietly you nearly jump off the couch.

The room goes soft and dims to a warm yellow.

Josselin’s put a blanket over your head, and he’s sitting down next to you underneath it too, his shoulder almost, but not quite, bumped up against yours.

“Sometimes I just need to be in a blanket,” he offers. “And. And I thought maybe it might help.”

“Thank you,” you mumble. You drop your hands to your knees but otherwise don’t move, until Josselin asks,

“Do you need some water? I know after I cry I always need water.”

“Thank you,” you mumble again, wiping at your face with the back of your hand.

He hesitates. “Does that mean thank you, yes? Or--”

“Yeah. Yes, thank you. Do we have ice?”

Josselin puts on a terrible impression of the vine guy who originally said it and quotes, “No, but we have freezable fruit shapes.”

You let out an ugly snort of laughter and snot, and before you can decide what to do with the mess, Josselin stands, still under the blanket, and says, “I’ll get some tissues, too.” He gently lowers his side of the blanket and just barely tucks it in under your leg.

It takes two glasses of water and far too many tissues, but eventually you start feeling a little less brittle and ready to come out from under the blanket. You hadn’t noticed, because you were so wrapped up in your breakdown, but Familiar has joined you on the couch armrest and Crackerjack and Grandpa are in the room, now, too, as if they all want to check on you. Familiar climbs into your lap and knocks the top of her head against your chin, and finally you chuckle, a real, honest laugh, not the hysterics you were in earlier. You scritch at her cheeks and she purrs and begins kneading on your leg.

After a few minutes of quiet and Josselin silently messing with his phone, he turns to you and says.

“So, how do you feel about meeting Dona back at the station? His guys found some things and he wants us to look at them.”

You wipe at your eyes with a tissue, clean your glasses off on the hem of your shirt. Sniffle one more time. Nod.

“Yeah,” you say, with a soft, grateful smile. Because, somehow, investigating murders with your roommate has become the most stable and normal thing about your life.

The police station is cold. You notice that first, even before all the noise. It’s like walking into a refrigerator. There are more desks than there are people, and part of you wonders if it’s because of Covid--are they sick? Do they have jobs that can be done at home? Did they quit, like you?

Josselin leads you past the front desk. The man there rolls his eyes as you pass, but doesn’t say anything. He must be used to Josselin coming around a lot.

He takes you back through the office and past a door, into a hallway, where he takes a couple turns you try to remember but can’t keep in order, until you reach the Inspector’s office.

Or, at least you assume so, because Josselin doesn’t knock before opening the door.

“Inspector!” he shouts. The Inspector doesn’t jump, or flinch, or even blink. He just sighs very, very heavily and looks up at the two of you.

“How long do you have?” he asks. His eyes are ringed with dark circles and his alabaster white face looks somehow even paler.

“As long as you need,” Josselin says, without consulting you.

But you nod, anyway.

“What happened?” you ask.

The Inspector rubs at the tired wrinkles in his forehead and grabs his mask from the desk. He stands and slides it on over his nose and mouth as he nods toward where he wants you to follow.

The station gets quieter and quieter the further down the hallway you get. You pass an interrogation room and glance in, but nobody’s using it right now. Just a couple detectives hanging out nearby at a coffee maker.

The Inspector shuffles you into a smallish room, with laptops, recording devices, microphones, all sorts of things everywhere. He leads you both to a small desk near the back and even though there’s only one chair, he sits you both down in it to share, and says, “Look at this video and tell me what’s wrong.”

Josselin frowns and leans back to look up at him. “Dona--”

“Inspector when I’m on the clock.”

Josselin rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine, Inspector, why don’t you just tell us what--”

“Because you need to see it for yourself.”

He leans over Josselin’s shoulder, pulls up a video that’s been minimized on the bottom toolbar, and presses play.

There’s no sound. It’s black and white, a little grainy, faded on the sides, like an old photograph. A little bit fish-eyed in the lens.

It’s the locker room.

The Inspector pulls up the video feed at about five minutes in and points at the top left corner.

A few moments later, Tobi, in full mascot wear, minus the headpiece, ambles in to one of the lockers.

She opens it and puts the head on. Closes it and turns toward something you can’t see, adjusting the costume. Probably a mirror there.

You and Josselin both lean closer, as if that can bring up the missing audio.

She walks out from where she came in with even less fanfare, trundling along in what was probably a very hot and humid locker room.

Your brow furrows and you look back at the Inspector, about to ask what this is all about, when Josselin jerks forward so fast he almost knocks you out of the chair.

“The video’s been edited. Sloppy work.”

“I know,” the Inspector says. “No timestamp on the original video.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

You turn back again to see Josselin’s pinky hovering over the bottom right corner, where there’s barely a hint of concrete wall.

“Look. Blood.”

Again, you lean forward, squinting at the screen. Josselin clicks a couple things and isolates about five seconds of the video, playing it on loop. It takes a few rounds, but then you see it, too.

“Where she hit her head,” Josselin says. “See?” he pulls the video up to fullscreen and traces the tiny bit of concrete in the corner of the video with his finger. “Right here. This video’s been edited to cut out the attack.”

The Inspector leans closer to examine the spot on the screen.

“Thank you,” he says. “After she leaves, nothing happens the rest of the night. Nobody ever comes in. I knew there was a cut, I just couldn’t find where.”

“So whoever did this had access to the camera footage before you got it, is what you’re saying?” you ask.

“Yes,” the two say in unison. The Inspector stands back and Josselin leans in closer. He isolates the spot and zooms in, but the video is so grainy and dark, it’s hard to tell what you’re looking at.

“I want interviews with everyone who was on the field or in the locker room that day,” Josselin says. “Morning, night, I don’t care. And I want interviews with everyone who had access to this footage. Get any other footage from the locker rooms and fields that day, too. From the full previous and following twenty-four hours. As soon as possible.”

The Inspector is already across the room on an office phone, his back to you, talking softly to someone on the other end of the line.

You lean in again, squinting at the smear of blood on the concrete wall in the corner.

“That’s the spot we looked at, isn’t it?” you ask softly.

“Yeah,” Josselin murmurs, eyes still locked on the image on the screen. “Seems kind of creepy that there would be cameras in any locker room at all, but maybe if we can get something from a different angle, we can get some kind of lead. Something. Because Tobi Miles was murdered, and she deserves for us to figure out by who, and why.”

“Someone from security has to have been involved, right? Or faculty? If they could get to the footage before the Inspector did.”

Josselin doesn’t respond. He just continues squinting at the screen. Finally, what seems like minutes later, he nods slowly.

“With the cocaine and fentanyl on her foot and the heroin in her report, I think we’re looking at a drug ring, too. A dealer or two at least.”

You bite your lip and try not to show your nerves.

“It would be stupid to ask if they’re dangerous?” you ask meekly.

Josselin nods.

“My working hypothesis is that she walked in on something related to it, and whoever was involved with that, was involved with her kidnapping and murder. At least one of them. She was pretty small statured, so even if she was strong, it wouldn’t have been hard even for just one person to overpower her enough to tie her hands and shoot her up.”

Your stomach lurches a little at the way he describes it.

“It happened at the school, didn’t it? The deal or whatever happened?”

“It must have. She was attacked there.”

You nod, swallow, and try to keep your breath from catching.

The Inspector comes back from his phone call in the corner and says, “My team is working on rounding everyone up. It could take a while.”

“A few hours?” you ask.

The Inspector snorts and Josselin bites back a laugh.

“A few weeks, probably. And probably only a few at a time.”

You start to lift your hand to your mouth to bite your spinner ring before remembering you’re still wearing a mask.

“Go home,” the Inspector says. “We’ll be in touch.”

Both of you are silent until you get back inside the safety of your car.

“Why didn’t you tell him what you think happened?” you ask, even though you think you know the answer.

“I don’t want to implicate someone who ends up being innocent,” he says. He leans his head against the window as you start the car and the air conditioning. You don’t pull out right away. With a soft grunt, Josselin looks back at you and says, “I don’t trust cops. I trust the Inspector. His team is all right, but a cop is a cop, and I don’t want anyone going on some witch hunt or power trip against someone just because they were in the area and look a certain way.”

He’s talking about race. Maybe gender, a little bit. He must be. Because if there were any Black or Latino students there that day, and there’s even one racist cop on the team, they’d be the first ones implicated.

“Okay,” you finally say.

As you pull out of the parking lot, fat rain drops begin to splatter one by one against your windshield, and within moments, you’re in a full out storm.

“Let’s go home,” you say.

“Yeah,” says Josselin. “I’m tired, too.”

It’s late.

You’re in your room wrapped up in a blanket, playing on your phone, so just in case the power short circuits in the storm, you don’t have to worry about a power surge to your computer.

You expect heavy rain and lightning and thunder, but you do not expect something to literally explode outside, so big that sparks fly past your second story window. You also do not expect Josselin to scream.

You jump up, tripping over the blanket as you unravel yourself. But you manage to right yourself before you fall, and you stumble out of your bedroom, gripping your phone tight.

Everything is dark.

“Josselin?”

Nothing.

“Josselin!”

It takes moments to run the rest of the way to his room. Oh, god, were his windows open? Did he get hit by some debris?

The ‘knock before entering’ rule completely slips your mind. The door is open so you rush inside to see Josselin curled up in a thick blue blanket, sobbing quietly.

“Josselin, hey.” You keep your voice soft and gentle and unnaccusing, because it’s not like it’s his fault this happened. You take a few steps closer and ask, “Can I sit by you on the bed?”

Josselin’s sobs quickly spiral out of control, and soon, he’s so loud people can probably hear him in the street.

“Josselin?” you urge gently. What the hell is happening? “Josselin, are you hurt?”

It takes a few moments, but finally, he nods, and without waiting for an invitation, you sit down beside him and try to lean into his view without touching him. You don’t want to upset him more.

“Where are you hurt?” you continue.

He shakes his head wildly and lets out a particularly loud gasp, wiping at his nose with the back of his wrist. “I’m okay,” he sobs.

“You’re not, and it’s okay not to be okay,” you say. “Can I touch your shoulder or would that make it worse?”

And before you can weasel an answer out of him, he collapses against you, nearly crawling into your lap. For just a moment, you freeze, but he’s so upset, and you’re the only one here, and he’s your friend. So you take the edges of the weighted blanket and wrap it around both of you. Josselin curls up as much as he can, burying his face in your shirt as he continues to cry.

So you do everything you can.

You stay there, with your arms around him, whispering comforting nonsense and giving him time to find what he needs to say.

You don’t know how much time passes before Josselin calms down enough to speak.

“Sorry,” he whispers. He pulls away and dabs at the tear streaks he left on your shirt, as if trying to dry them. You shake your head.

“Don’t apologize. We all have triggers. It’s okay.”

Josselin looks at you with wide, tearful, frightened eyes. You make eye contact for a brief moment before it becomes too much for both of you, and you turn your eyes to his left ear, and he turns his to your hand on your knee.

“What happened?” you ask.

Josselin shakes his head.

“Don’t want to talk about it?”

He shakes his head again. A flash of thunder and a boom of lighting, and he jumps again, but doesn’t cry.

“Okay,” you say.

A long, long, awkward pause.

“Do you want to listen to some music?”

A halfhearted shrug. Your arm around his shoulders tightens instinctively, and he leans a little closer, lowering his head, like he’s hiding.

So you open your phone, switch from wifi to data, and look for something to listen to on youtube.

Josselin stifles a half-laugh, half-sob when the Spanish version of the Hercules opening begins, soft and tinny in the quiet room.

Neither of you speaks for quite some time, content to listen to the music in relative silence, with only the storm in the background. Finally, when the playlist is almost done, Josselin nudges his nose against your shoulder like a sad cat. As he pulls away from you, he murmurs, “Thank you, Meara. Really.”

“Of course,” you whisper back. “You’re my friend.”

Josselin smiles weakly and his nose and ears turn bright pink. He looks away.

Eventually, the wind calms and the storm calms, and Josselin’s breathing calms, and he pulls away just enough that his shoulder can touch yours. But the power doesn’t come back on.

You check your local outages on your phone, and yep, sure enough, it’s going to be out for a while.

The songs cycle through songs from various children’s movies and shows, in all different languages. Your suggested list is going to be fucked, but that’s okay. There are worse things.

Neither of you speak for a very long time. Eventually, Josselin’s head falls gently to your shoulder, and the position jostles his neck, and he lets out a small snort before his breath evens out. Asleep.

You gently disentangle yourself from him and help him, mostly asleep, into bed, with his weighted blanket covering everything but his feet and his head. Then you close the blinds and head back to your room.

The next morning when you wake up, the power is still out. Shit. Hopefully your food will be okay. At least there’s no meat. The dairy is probably going to be pretty iffy, though, and your ice cream is definitely going to be melted. You peek in the freezer. It’s barely chilled. But you take out your cookies and creme ice cream anyway and decide to have ice cream soup for breakfast.

You drink it straight from the container. No point in dirtying a perfectly good bowl and spoon, especially since Josselin isn’t going to eat any of it.

When you turn towards his room and lean over the couch arm to see if his door is open, Familiar jumps up and her face crashes into yours. She yowls defensively, as if you knocked her off her perch on purpose.

But she curls up in your lap, which must mean Josselin is still sleeping.

Hours go by and he doesn’t get up. You spend the time looking for jobs you can do from home without a college education. All you are is a paramedic. Maybe you can teach yourself to code or something.

A promising application in which you edit a paper to apply for a job as a student tutor at the community college not too far away comes across your screen, and you easily get so lost in it, you lose track of your laptop battery and it shuts off halfway through. You curse under your breath, but don’t have time to think about it too long, because your noon alarm goes off to remind you to take your meds. After you pop them and head back into the living room, you call out, “Josselin, take your meds!”

He doesn’t reply. You frown. Slowly and quietly, you approach his bedroom door, and knock softly. No answer. The door is cracked, so you peek in.

“Josselin? Meds?”

No response, not even the expected grumping.

You push the door open.

He’s gone.

You knock louder at the empty room, as if he’s hiding in the closet or under the bed. But of course, he’s not, so you wave at the camera up in the corner and leave, closing the door behind you.

When you get back to the couch and your things, you shoot Josselin a text. “Where are you?” sounds demanding and “What’s up?” sounds too casual, so you send a simple, “Are you okay?”

For a long time, no response.

Then someone knocks. Your hand tightens around your phone as the cats swarm the door, but they’re not meowing for Frankie or Josselin, and Frankie and Josselin both have keys, and you’re not expecting anyone, and–

You take a deep breath and tiptoe to the door, trying your best to stay silent. When you get there, you stand up tall and just barely put your hands against the door to steady yourself, without putting any pressure against it, as you look through the peephole.

Your heart turns to ice and drops to your stomach.

It’s Drake.

You slap your hands over your mouth to muffle the shout of surprise and stumble back, nearly re-twisting your healing ankle. Thank god you don’t fall. He can’t know you’re here. He can’t.

How does he know you’re here? Josselin, Frankie, and Danny are the only ones who know, and none of them would ever say a word to put you in danger.

Oh god oh god oh god–

Another quick, sharp knock, one two three–

Oh god oh god oh god why does Josselin have to be gone today, why couldn’t it have been yesterday or tomorrow, should you call him, should you call the Inspector? What do you do? If Danny comes over Drake will know you’re here for certain–

Knock, knock, knock–

“Hello?” That's his voice, deceivingly soft and melodic.

How is he here how did he find you–

The three cats sniff the bottom of the door curiously, the little gap between the sweep and the sill. Familiar hisses and runs under the couch, and that gets the other two moving, too. If Familiar doesn’t like someone, they certainly won’t, either.

You stay still and quiet. Thank god there are no windows. He would have heard Familiar hiss before he hears you breathe, so any movement can be contributed to a nervous cat.

Finally, a soft thunk. One more, softer. A muffled, “Dammit,” and the stairs creaking as he retreats. The outside door at the foot of the stairs opening and closing.

You finally breathe.

Your phone is slippery in your tight, sweaty hand. What do you–

Danny. You need Danny.

He’s right there at the very top, your emergency contact. You dial. It goes to voicemail. Fuck.

“Danny,” you say, hushed, strained. “Danny, he was here. He found me. I’m home alone and I don’t know what to do. He’s left the hallway but I don’t know if he’s still in the parking lot. Please call me back. Please call me back.”

You hang up and fumble through your contacts. Who do you call? Josselin and Frankie are both aware of the situation. Josselin. You helped him so he’ll help you, because you’re friends, right? Right?

You call him next. The phone rings a few times and you’re about to hang up when the sound of moving fabric bustles across the line, and then some soft voices and Josselin asking, “Meara?”

“He was here,” you gasp. You can barely swallow. Your mouth is so dry you can hardly speak. “He was here. He found me. What do I do? Josselin, what–”

“Do you want me to call Dona and have him send someone over? I can request for him to send specifically someone who is suited for the situation.”

“I don’t, I don’t–” You don’t know, but you can’t get it out.

“I’ll have someone sent over. What do you want your code word to be?”

“Girl Scout Cookies,” you say immediately, even though it’s not cookie season.

“Okay,” Josselin says. “Okay. Do you want me to come back?”

It’s only then you think to ask, “Where are you?”

“I’m with Frankie,” he says, but he brushes through it and continues, “We can both come back if you want.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt if he’s still–”

“I promise you, Meara, there is nothing he can do to hurt me that would outweigh me helping you right now. Okay?”

You pause at his wording. “I thought you said no promises.”

A long pause. For a moment, he just breathes, and then he lets out a half-huff of a chuckle.

“Just this one time, then,” he says. “Do you need us to come back?”

But your breathing is panicked and ragged and haggard, and even though you didn’t answer, your car is still downstairs, and Drake can easily look in the window at JavaThai and see you’re not there. You should have told Eleanor to ask her family not to let anyone know you’ve moved in. She seems perceptive enough, but there’s at least one small child in the family who might not know any better, and Drake can be charming when he wants to be, and–

“We’re coming home,” Josselin finally says, making the decision for you. “I’ll call Dona, too. I’ll tell him your ex came by and ask him to try to keep someone trustworthy on his team in the area. Okay?”

You nod, and gasp, and with a harsh, grating sob, you finally manage to say, “All right. All right. Thank you, Josselin.”

“Do you need me to stay on the phone?” he asks. “Frankie’s driving, so it’s no trouble. No bus sounds.”

“No.” You shake your head, even though he can’t see it. “No, I need… I need to breathe. I need to do a breathing thing.”

“Look up breathing gifs for anxiety,” Josselin suggests. “So you don’t have to keep count.”

“Okay. Okay. Thank you.”

You rush back to your room and collapse into bed, pulling a blanket over your head, like you’re six again and it can protect you from all the monsters in the world. After a minute of panicked gasps, you open your phone and pull up some images to breathe to. Another minute, and a soft ‘mrrp?’ comes from somewhere outside your covers, and then big, awkward paws and a little bit of weight hit your side. You lift up the corner of the blanket to see Familiar there, kneading at the mattress.

“Hey,” you murmur. You hold out your hand and she sniffs your knuckles, then bonks her head against your hand.

She licks your thumb a few times, and the rough sandpaper of her tongue on your skin grounds you a bit. You close your eyes. You count and breathe.

You stay under that blanket until the front door opens and Familiar darts out to greet them. Josselin calls out, gently, nervously, “Meara? Are you still here?”

“Yes,” you try to call back, but it sticks and croaks in your throat. A knock comes on your bedroom door and you peek out from under the blanket to see Josselin and Frankie standing there. Their posture and faces are a mix of nerves and absolute fury. Oh god, oh god, is he going to kick you out? Where will you go? You have Danny, so you won’t be homeless, but Drake knows where his house is and where he works and goes to school and–

“Hey,” Josselin says gently. Frankie nods and offers a small smile.

“Can we come in?” she asks.

“Okay,” you mumble, like a little kid whose parents are coming to check on you. You pull the blanket over your head again. Like it will help you disappear.

“I’ve called Dona,” Josselin says. “He’s served the court papers personally, so your ex knows he’s not supposed to come near you. But since you haven’t had the hearing yet, there’s not much you can do. Legally.”

You peek out from under the blanket. Josselin sits down beside your hip, Familiar wiggling around in his arms. Franke stays standing, her hand on his shoulder.

“What do you mean, legally?”

“You can’t have him arrested. Yet,” Frankie says. She pulls something out of her purse and hands it over. You don’t grab it immediately, trying to figure out what it is.

“Taser,” she explains. “You’re technically supposed to have a license, but we can figure that out later.”

After a moment, you sit up and let the blanket fall around your hips and stomach, and you take the taser carefully, just examining it.

“I’ll teach you how it works,” she says. “And here, too,” she says, handing you a can of pepper spray. “There are also technically rules on when and where and how you can use it, but. We have friends.”

You never thought you’d be so glad to have friends who know corrupt cops. Corruption is bad, even if it’s corruption in your favor. But it’s good to know people who know people.

But is it really corruption if they’re just helping you protect yourself from a violent stalker? That doesn’t seem right.

You don’t realize how lost you’ve gotten in your own head until Familiar jumps into your lap. With a start, your vision comes back into focus. Frankie has stepped out. Josselin’s still here.

“You know what you need,” Josselin says, trying to be playful and failing miserably. “You need a distraction. You need to come down to the station with me while I sit in as Donatien interviews some people. He’s brilliant, but sometimes he needs help finding the right questions.”

“And you want me to–?”

“Just be there. There’s nowhere safer right now, right?”

A weak smile cracks across your face and you shrug a shoulder. “I guess you’re right. Okay.”

Josselin grins and starts to reach out to pat your shoulder, but hesitates, and after letting it hover a moment, he pulls it back without touching you.

“That’s okay,” you say.

“What?”

“Like. Touching my shoulder and stuff. That’s okay. I know you wouldn’t do anything sexual or weird.”

The light in the bedroom is a little dim, since all the blinds are closed and the lights are off. But you still think a bit of pink splashes behind Josselin’s ears, just for a second.

“Sorry,” you say. “That phrasing was probably a little weird.”

Josselin smiles again, and this time, he does gently pat your shoulder, twice.

“It’s okay.”

You and Josselin part ways with Frankie shortly after. She goes home to her catfishing business and you take your car with Josselin. Maybe if Drake sees it at the station, he’ll back off.

Probably not. But maybe.

Your phone rings just as you start the car. For a moment, you freeze up, your breath catches, your shoulders go tight and your chest goes cold. Josselin, in the backseat, looks up to meet your eyes in the rearview mirror.

When you slide your phone out of your pocket, you can breathe again.

“Hey, Danny.”

“Meara! I’m so sorry I didn’t answer, I was on shift. I’m on break now, do you need me to leave early and meet you somewhere?”

It’s still a little hard to breathe. But you manage. “No, no, it’s okay. Josselin just got home and we’re on our way to the police station where his friend works.”

“Are you going to make a report?”

You actually hadn’t thought of that, but since you’re going to be there, you should. If only to prove the pattern and that the restraining order is necessary.

“Yeah,” you finally answer.

“Do you need me to leave early?” Danny repeats.

“I don’t want you to get in trouble,” you say meekly. He’s your best friend. What if he gets written up and blames you? He wouldn’t, that’s ridiculous, but you can’t help but worry.

“The store owner knows the situation,” he says. “Well. Sort of. She knows someone’s been coming in looking for a friend of mine. He’s been banned from the premises for harassment but like, she knows I have a friend who could potentially need emergency help.”

You look back up at the rearview mirror. Josselin’s put his headphones on to give you privacy.

“No,” you finally say. “But if you could call when you get off work, and maybe come over after?”

“Of course,” Danny says. “We’ll order a pizza or something. Blaze has vegan cheese now.”

“Okay. Thank you, Danny.”

“Meara,” he says firmly. “You’re my best friend. You’re practically my brother. You know I’d do just about anything for you, right?”

Your shoulders relax a little, and finally, a small smile tugs at the corner of your mouth. “Yeah. And you know I’d do the same, right?”

“Yeah.”

A short, awkward pause.

“You said you’re on break,” you finally say. “Go eat or get a coffee or something. I’ll be okay until we see each other later. Okay?”

“Yeah. Take care, Meara. I’ll leave my phone on vibrate and tell my boss I might be getting an emergency call, so don’t hesitate if you need me before then, okay?”

“Okay.”

The phone call ends and you lean back to tap Josselin’s knee. He looks up from his phone and takes his headphones off.

“All right, we’re ready. Danny’s going to come over later.”

“Okay!” Josselin grins. “I only met him the once but he seems nice, and anyone you’re friends with must be pretty good.”

You chuckle awkwardly and brush past it. “What do you want to listen to?”

The police station is cold, as always. The Inspector isn’t in his office when you and Josselin peek in through the window, so Josselin leads you around the hallways to god knows where, until you end up at a locked door. He knocks.

A woman in uniform opens the door, and Josselin nods at her. She rolls her eyes, but lets him in. But then she blocks your entry with her arm, and says, “No.”

“This is my assistant,” Josselin says. “He goes where I go.”

“No,” she repeats.

Josselin turns on his heel and pushes past her arm.

“Good luck, then. You can tell the Inspector I stopped by and deal with him later.”

The officer hesitates. Josselin really has clout around here, if that’s enough to make her second guess.

He turns around and you look over his shoulder when a familiar voice calls, “Josselin! Meara!”

The officer drops her arm and Josselin grins and tips an invisible hat at her as he walks by.

“Inspector Montague,” he says. You nod in acknowledgement behind him.

“We just got done with a round of questions with our first potential witness.” The Inspector sighs and drags his hand down the side of his face, catching slightly on the ear loop of his mask.

“Nothing?”Josselin says hesitantly.

“They don’t keep security guards at the cameras overnight,” the Inspector answers. “Just until 5:00 pm. So whoever doctored the footage must have gotten to it then.”

“Are there any backups anywhere?”

The Inspector shakes his head. “Stolen.”

Josselin huffs and makes like he’s going to bite his thumb, but his mask gets in the way.

“At least we know it happened overnight,” you offer meekly.

“The footage showed us, too, but thank you,” the Inspector says tersely.

“Hey!” Josselin snaps. “You’re lucky he’s even here at all. Be a little more respectful.”

The Inspector sighs and says, “I apologize. You’re right. Josselin called me earlier and explained your situation.”

You shrink back a little, stepping behind Josselin like he’s not shorter and even skinnier than you are.

“I’m going to have someone in your area 24/7 until the order can get pushed through,” he says. “Not necessarily in your parking lot, but in your neighborhood. I’m only putting people I thoroughly trust on it. Even though we don’t know each other well, you’re important to Josselin, and Josselin’s important to me. Does he know you’re living there? For certain?”

“He would have seen my car in the parking lot. There are only five spaces.”

He nods and pulls a card out of his back pocket. “The first is my office number, the second is my cell. If he comes back to your apartment, don’t answer the door and call me right away. I’ll radio whoever I have there and send them over.”

You take the card and nod before you slip it in your wallet.

“Thank you,” you murmur.

The Inspector's eyes crinkle a little in the corners when he finally, for the first time, offers you a smile. “It’s why I’m here,” he says, then turns back to Josselin. He nods toward the window in the wall beside you–probably a double mirror–and to the young woman sitting alone inside the room it leads to.

“We brought this woman in not long ago,” he says. “I’ve asked her a few questions, but she’s been tight-lipped, and the poor kid can’t stop crying. I don’t think she was involved in the murder itself, but I do think she might have some information that could lead us there. She’s too scared for us to get it out of her. She and the victim shared a class together last year before lockdown.” He turns back to the window, and you finally turn to take a look at her, too.

She’s probably even younger than you. Early twenties. Maybe even nineteen. Her eyes are bloodshot and she keeps rubbing at her mask around her nose with shaky hands. Her skin is bright pink and a sheen of sweat shines on her forehead in the harsh light of the room.

“Let me try,” Josselin says. “She might just be scared because you’re a cop. Has she been arrested?”

“No,” the Inspector says. “Just detained for questioning.”

“And what have you gotten so far?”

“Mostly just what I told you. She claims she remembers a person who matches the victim’s description but not her name. Says they never interacted in any way. She didn’t know the victim was also the school’s sports mascot. She was in the next building over in the computer lab most of the day of the kidnapping. That’s as far as we’ve gotten.”

You watch the poor woman while they talk. She’s clearly in the downswing from a high. Probably cocaine, maybe amphetamines. And the mascot suit did test positive for cocaine.

Josselin is about to head into the room when you say it aloud.

“We thought she might be,” the Inspector says. “But our team doesn’t deal with drugs much, outside of being involved in violent cases.” He turns to Josselin and continues, “Of course we asked, and of course she denied any drug use. See what you can get out of her.”

Josselin nods, then pauses and looks over at you.

“Grab her a cup of water,” he says. “She looks like she needs it.”

So you draw a cup of cold water from the cooler and hand it over. Josselin doesn’t take it.

“You’re coming in with me.”

Your brow furrows. “What?”

“You know more about drug symptoms than me. You were a paramedic for years. You’ve seen it in the field, right?”

“Well… yes,” you say. “But I don’t see how that–”

“Just follow my lead,” Josselin says, and he leads you inside.

The automatic lock clicks behind you. The woman looks up, face red and ruddy with tears and heat and withdrawal.

“Hey,” Josselin says gently. He finally takes the cup from you and puts it in front of her on the table. “Some cold water. You look pretty warm and I thought you could use it.”

Her eyes dart down to the cup, up at Josselin, over at you.

“I didn’t know her,” she says softly. “I didn’t. I kind of remember someone like who the officer described but I never knew her name and we never hung out or anything.”

“All right,” Josselin says. He sits and you follow suit.

“I’m Josselin,” he says, and he gestures to you. “This is Meara.”

“Are you police, too?” she asks meekly.

Josselin shakes his head. “I’m a consulting detective, and Meara here is my partner. We can’t arrest you or charge you; only the police can do that. We’re just here to try to figure some things out about what happened.”

She lowers her mask and picks up the cup with both hands and shakily takes a sip. There’s the smallest shadow of smudged blood under her nose.

Definitely cocaine. Josselin sees it. He must. He sees everything. It might even be why he told you to bring the water in the first place. He pulls a tissue out of his pocket and hands it to her. “Here,” he says. “You look like you’ve been crying.”

She nods and takes the tissue. She wipes her eyes and blows her nose, and, as you expected, the mucus is bloody. She doesn't pull her mask back up, but for the first time, you're grateful someone isn't wearing it correctly, so you can see her face.

“What’s your name?” you ask gently.

“Britney,” she hiccups.

“Britney,” Josselin repeats. “Look, I’m going to be honest. Things don’t look great for you right now. The Inspector thinks you might have information that could lead us in the right direction. You want to help, right? You don’t want anyone else to get killed.” His voice is calm and gentle and genuine. He really does want to help her.

Britney’s eyes go wide and she shakes her head. Bloodshot and dilated. “No, no, I don’t want anyone to get hurt, I–”

“I know,” he says. “So you’ve got to work with us so we can find the murderer, so they can’t do it again.”

She sniffles and wipes at her nose. Another smear of blood comes off on her finger. Poor kid, to be picked up by the cops while obviously high. “I want to, but I don’t know anything.”

Josselin nudges your knee with his under the table. You glance over and he very slightly nods his head toward Britney.

“Britney,” you say. She looks up at you. “Josselin’s telling the truth. We’re not cops. But I am an ex-paramedic, and I know cocaine use when I see it.”

Her eyes go even wider and her breath catches.

“Look,” you say gently. “It’s not illegal to be high. It’s illegal to possess or sell. So if you don’t have anything on you, or in your living space, or your car, you’re safe, okay? But if you’re on something, I need to know, so I can get you appropriate medical attention if you need it.”

She wipes at her nose again with the tissue, and for the first time, seems to notice it’s bleeding. She crumples the tissue up and fists her hand around it. She pulls her mask back up with her other hand.

“Did you ever spend time with Miss Miles outside of class when you studied together?” Josselin asks. “Did either of you sell or share drugs with each other?”

Britney shakes her head. “No! I didn’t even know her name was Tobi until the other cop told me. Her name doesn’t sound familiar. I remember a girl who looked like how he described, but there were a lot of white girls in that class with brown eyes and hair.”

“Did you go to many sports events at school?”

Her brow furrows, but she shakes her head. “Not really. I don’t like sports that much. I went to a football game once because my ex-boyfriend was on the team but never other than that.”

“When was that?”

“About a year ago.”

Josselin nods. This whole time, you’ve been watching her. Her fidgeting. Her shaky hands. The redness and sheen of sweat on her face and neck. The darker spot on the back part of her shirt collar where she’s sweated through.

He nudges you again, and you circle back.

“Are you going through a drug crash?” you ask.

She starts at the sudden change in topic, and whirls toward you. Her eyes are watery. Her mask is trembling from her uneven breathing. You want more than anything to reach across and take her hand to reassure her that you’re not the bad guy, and neither is she, but you can’t. You’re not a paramedic anymore. “Is this your first time?”

A long, long pause.

“Being honest now will save you a lot of trouble later,” Josselin says.

Then she slowly shakes her head.

“How long have you been using?” you ask.

“Just on and off for a few months,” she murmurs. “With the campus being shut down for so long I couldn't go to my professors’ offices and I really struggle with online classes and I just… I just need something to keep up with the courseload. My scholarship will only pay if I get straight As and take at least eighteen hours every semester. It was supposed to be just until in person classes start again. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She sniffles just once more, then breaks down into tears.

“Who did you buy it from?” Josseln asks.

“I–” she starts, sobs, starts again, “I–”

“Honesty now means much less trouble later,” he reminds her.

“Oh god, he’ll kill me. He’ll kill me.”

“We’ll make sure you stay safe.”

She wipes at her face with the crumpled up tissue and says, “I got it from one of the guys who used to be on the football team. I don’t talk to him other than that. I don’t know anything about him other than he used to be on the team with my ex.”

Josselin hands her a clean tissue.

“What’s his name?”

She shakes her head.

“What’s his name, Britney? He could have a connection to someone involved in the murder. Miss Miles’s mascot costume had traces of cocaine and fentanyl on it, even though she had none in her system. So someone at that school who uses or sells cocaine or fentanyl or both is involved.”

Her eyes go even wider, like dinner plates. Like wheels.

“I don’t know.” Her voice is shaky. “He–he never told me. But I can point him out in a picture.”

Josselin nods.

“We’ll get one pulled up,” he says. He stands, and again, you follow. You pull out your wallet and dig through it, looking for a specific card. When you find it, you slide it across the table to her.

“Here,” you say. “This is one of the best rehab centers in the city, and they take most insurance. They can help you get clean and find a better way to deal with the stress.”

Britney takes the card and nods.

“By admitting you’ve been using, you just opened yourself up for probable cause for a drug test,” Josselin says. “I don’t know if they’ll want one, but if they do, you’ll want to lawyer up.”

“But you said it’s not illegal to be high!” she cries.

“It’s not,” you say gently, “but they might want to search your house or your car. So just be careful.”

“And don't agree to a polygraph,” Josselin adds. “They're not even admissible in court. They just use them to scare you."

She collapses into broken sobs. Josselin knocks on the door, and the Inspector lets you out.

“Why did you tell her to get a lawyer?” The Inspector sighs in frustration after the door is closed again.

“Because she has the right to one,” Josselin says firmly. “You’re lucky I didn’t give her the option first thing when I walked in.” He looks up at the Inspector with hard, almost cold eyes. You’ve never seen his eyes like that.

“Make sure she stays safe,” he says. “I said she would be. Don’t make a liar out of me.”

The Inspector’s face hardens a little, like it’s a challenge. But he nods.

For a pause that lasts far too long to be comfortable, the two just stare at each other. Then, suddenly and all at once, both of them relax and take a step back, and the tension is gone.

“Do you have anyone else?” Josselin asks.

“We’re working on tracking down everyone involved in the football team,” the Inspector says.

“Students and faculty?”

“Yes.”

“Follow up with Britney,” Josselin continues. “She knows at least one person who sells cocaine and she can point him out in a picture. Last year’s football team. They might have a lead. They have to have gotten it somewhere.”

“We’re looking into the current football team and digging up all the coaches. Their names aren’t hard to find, but a lot of the people we’re looking for don’t have a history. I have someone looking up addresses. I should speak with her now, actually–”

“Britney first,” Josselin insists. “The poor kid is traumatized. Get what you need to get and either arrest her or send her home, but don’t leave her here waiting.”

The Inspector rolls his eyes, but he says, “All right.”

#my writing #rough draft #mystery #writeblr #new chapter #chapter three #the most beautiful puzzle #meara ryanne #josselin clearwater #frankie moore #inspector montague #familiar #donatien montague #drake the stalker #sheraton academy #sheraton academy au #sherlock holmes au #see post body for warnings

[punkpsychologist]

HELLO

AAA. OKAY. ITS BEEN A BIT. You know, I actually drafted this post before but my fucking power went out and I lost it. So here we go again.

Main parts of this motherfucker

where I've been

what happened (yes these are two different things)

where I'm going and how I feel about it

alrighty. so I successfully finished my first year of college at a community college near my home town. i worked asynchronously and was able to make it onto the dean's list again for the second semester!

so all of that was good and well but if you have read some of my previous posts you might know that there is a very specific Scholarship that i have been after. it was very important and was considered to be a deciding factor on if i would be able to go to a university and live in the dorms or not. i did not get the scholarship. my mother and i felt very confident that i would but it was very new and the school that created it had yet to really solidify how it worked and what it's requirements were. in otherwords, the prospect of the Scholarship was unstable from the beginning.

i never got any kind of email or correspondence that explicitly said that i would not receive the Scholarship but i found that it would primarily be given to sophomores. i'm a college first-year who is very close to achieving an associate's degree. my mother and i panicked back during my finals week over the Scholarship. after realizing that I would have a better chance if i had my associates, my mom and i made a plan to put me into a "maymester" course and to completely fill my summer with classes. if i was able to pass all of those classes, I would have my associates by august. now i mentioned that this plan was created during finals week, i was incredibly tired and my pms was putting me in a really bad space. i felt this kind of sense of hopelessness, like it all felt very fruitless. i was tired and i had been continuing on the thought that once i finished my finals that i would get to rest. after realizing how fruitless the effort could be, we scrapped that plan and opted to place me into a full load of classes for the second half of the summer, i was waaaayyyy more supportive of this. my classes begin on july 5th and im once again in the class of one of my favorite professors so we'll see how it goes.

it gets a little more interesting here. so i told you that i never was explicitly told that i was denied the Scholarship, so there was a period of time in the early summer where i was just kind of in this limbo of searching for answers. i was scrambled and panicked and felt rather hopeless. i need to leave home. it's not that my family is bad to me, quite the opposite. i am the only child of a single mother, my father overdosed on opioids when i was a toddler, and my mothers family stepped up to help raise me. i grew up extremely paranoid of people and was always very close to death-related situations. i was also sexually assaulted by someone close to me and couldnt tell anybody. i believe that i am a psychologically unhealthy individual. i have incredible amounts of empathy and sympathy for people, i am also extremely afraid of people. due to my anxiety mixed with my trauma and pms i go through phases of being paranoid and unjustly afraid of people that i love very much. the covid19 quarantine was the most enabling thing that has ever happened in my entire life. i didn't have to talk to anybody aside from my mother or leave my house. i made myself think i was safe and happy when in reality i was slowly allowing my anxiety to consume me. when i say this im serious, like having panic attacks in the grocery store because i cant manage all the people that i run into and lying to someone that i love very much because im afraid to go out and i dont know how to explain to him what exactly is making me act this way. i dont know how to function without my family, and they are all much older than me. i know they will die and i will eventually be left alone.

tldr: i need to be around people my own age and i need to be around them physically because my mental health has gotten out of hand

one of my friends inspired me to transfer to university a year earlier than initially projected. the Scholarship was needed to be able to go.

while in Scholarship limbo my mom straight up called me over and said "you know you're going to the dorms in the fall right?" and i stg its like i had a mini breakdown. AFTER ALL THAT FUCKING SHIT. I GET TO GO. I GET TO GO!!!!!!!!!! I DON'T KNOW WHY SHE DIDDN'T TELL ME EARLIER. THIS DID THIS WHEN I TRIED TO QUIT BAND IN HIGH SCHOOL AS WELL. MAN. I'm so happy, I can't possibly explain how simultaneously happy and afraid I am. Going off and to the dorms is the best possible outcome I could ask for but in yet it is the one that I feared the most. I wonder if this was her way of trying to get me to see how far I would go to try and scrounge up cash or if she wanted to see how devoted I was to the idea of university.

Either way. I have my dorm room and roommates secured. I was on campus a few days ago for an orientation. I also have a couple of friends as well as some organizations that I intend to join. For privacy purposes I still can't tell you all where I'm going or when exactly a lot of things are happening. I will probably upload pics of my room though.

If you're here, thank you. I hope you're doing alright, I genuinely hope anything youre struggling with becomes easier and that you find yourself struck with inspiration often <3

#college update #major college update #ouija vents #ouija talks #university #studyblr #university life #psych student #they let me in #punk academia

[beyond-icelebrities]

Week 10- Digital Detox Experiment

1. DIGITAL DETOX Experiment: Leave your phone at home for one hour to take a walk in your neighborhood. Write down your observations when you return and draw a map of your path. (This is a hand drawn map, not a screen shot of Google or Apple Maps.) 

2.  Afterwards, take a photo of your hand drawn map to include in your book review. What did you observe? Did you notice animals, trees, sounds and sights that you'd never seen before? Did the experience provide any revelations? Were you anxious, relieved, inspired? 

To be completely honest, I do a one hour minimum walk EVERY SINGLE DAY to simply disconnect from the game of life and find space to breathe and be alone with my own thoughts... Getting to do this for an assignment was simply refreshing and natural. Because of my extensive walk history in my area (home away from home while I am working on an acting contract), I didn't necessarily see anything I hadn't seen before; I did however notice some beautiful birds (ducks, irises, and geese), a gorgeous sunset, and most importantly I noticed how at PEACE I felt.

2. What is your favorite quote from the book and why do you find it meaningful?

“Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.”

This quote really resonates with me because as an artist this is truer than ever, in an economy where creation is the mere basis of not only our livelihood but "success". It isn't spoken about enough how productivity can look more internalized than what's usually expected.

3. Why do you think this book, released by indie publishing house Melville Press, became an unexpected bestseller during the height of the Covid19 pandemic? Her book was so successful, she recently released a second title, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock.

During COVID times, society's idea of productivity kind of got turned on its side as people found themselves unable to go about their normal routines; the idea of comfort also became more individualized and niche because everyone was seemingly doing the same thing: everything but NOTHING. I think this book became an unexpected bestseller because honestly people definitely had more time to read as it is, but also I think there was a spiked interest in self-care and mental health during the pandemic. This was a time where people collectively were acknowledging how hard it can be to "spread yourself thin" especially in dire times.

4. How does the attention economy benefit from our social media activity and media streaming consumption?

The attention economy has a severe chokehold on people of all demographics simply because we now live in a world where not feeding into media consumption and social media algorithms is seen as abnormal. Because we are seemingly all so connected all over the world through social media platforms and applications, not only is the demand for content high but we can clearly see how life online can impact the real world in the form of "trends" which continue to feed into that exact economy.

5. How does this book relate to the topic of celebrity culture?

"CELEBRITY CULTURE is an essentially modern phenomenon that emerged amid such twentieth-century trends as urbanization and the rapid development of consumer culture. It was profoundly shaped by new technologies that make easily possible the mechanical reproduction of images and the extremely quick dissemination of images and information/News through such media as radio, cinema, television, and the Internet." -Encyclopedia.com

This book acknowledges that celebrity culture is inevitably growing, becoming wide spread and accepted.

6. Do you take digital detox breaks regularly? If yes, describe them. Were they more challenging during the quarantine era? Why?

I take one every single day, and they are my "escapes" even though in reality these moments end up being where I feel most present and comfortable with myself, so often times I just look at it as a necessity. I have to admit, during the quarantine era it was slightly more difficult to truly disconnect from the digital world when again, that was singlehandedly the way information was shared and seemingly all I COULD do was open my laptop or scroll on my phone for example.

7. Do you sleep with your phone or computer? Are you aware of the impacts on your sleep cycles and relaxation caused by 24/7 proximity? Have you experimented with leaving digital devices in a drawer or another room?

When I am on my own schedule I tend to fall asleep with my devices kind of carelessly to be honest. I have frequently fallen asleep with headphones on for example, connected to either my MacBook or my iPhone and haven't given much thought to it. It doesn't seem to affect my sleep cycle or relaxation as I actually have a form of codependency with music, leading to using electronics as my form of intaking as much music as possible. I could even argue I feel more at peace with my phone playing a random playlist vs. silence in the air. But I have experimented with leaving my digital devices say in the kitchen or something in a past relationship of mine... This habit lead to more one on one focused time with my partner which was the goal.

8. What does Odell mean by 'doing nothing?' Are we capable of doing nothing? 

Odell defines "doing nothing" as avoiding the constant need to feed into the attention economy and instead focusing one's time and energy on what they need as an individual. I think it is extremely hard to convince certain types of people in this day and age to truly do "doing nothing" justice, as many many people actually revolve around consumer culture, so as a whole I am not sure if "we" are capable of doing nothing if that makes sense.

9. What is the role of nature in Odell's book, in particular the role of birds? (P.S. Did you know that birdwatching became a HUGE pastime in the Covid era?)

Odell genuinely shares the same appreciation and love for nature as I do as a human being. She and I see beauty in the simplest of forms such as grass, trees, bodies of water; And we both see birds as symbols of freedom and easygoing.

[biosigh]

Five Years Later

I feel as if I'm floating through space. I can feel the ebb and flow of existence as I drift along a current of dark matter, solar ejecta, and gravity waves among the incontrovertible vastness of this black drip. I gave up journaling five years ago, though not deliberately or intentionally. As with many hobbies, hopes, and dreams, I let it fall to the wayside in an almost childlike and capricious neglect as my senses were inundated with the rush of living presently.

I forgot.

I had been fixated on controlling my present and future that I dismissed the past and its useless reflection as a memoir on my life. A waste of time, at least, that is until I felt existential dread grip me by the ankles and drag me into the cosmos of bleakness where I now find myself tumbling. Looking back, I only see a time capsule, borne in this blog and now surrounded by the degeneracy of tumblr's attempt to fill the vapid nothingness with pitiful offerings.

My life, my present life, is going great. I should have no complaints. I'm heading towards completing my PGY3 year of medical residency, my relationship with my mom is fantastic, I feel well-liked in my circles, I'm in love, and the future just seems so bright to me; I'm heading towards such a luminous future like a star in the distance. Except why do I feel dread?

As my body rolls through space, I see glimpses of that bright star ahead, glimpses of my time capsule behind, and everything else is just darkness. Let me help add some nuance:

I'm heading towards completing my PGY3 year, however I need to find a job. I know I'll get a job, and I know I'll get one where I want to go but the uncertainty of what kind of role I'll have - contractor or employee - soul-killing job or enriching - community or academic - per diem or full time - locum or local? It's tough because I don't know how to circumvent this. Many places want someone soon™ or can't see far enough to want me in a year. Other places want me to sign up, apply and be exclusive with them when I don't feel knowledgeable enough to make a decision without signing away my life for a few years. I'm paralyzed by possibility and I continue to hurtle towards an unknowable future.

My relationship with my mom is fantastic but that came at the cost of losing my dad. He passed during the pandemic but not due to COVID19 - small comfort that is. I felt like he was hanging on until I finished medical school and then felt it was time to leave. I don't think I've ever recovered from that. And inbetween the moments where I think of him and miss him and feel the great weight of loss that this world has, I have glimpses and panic about eventually losing my mom too. Space is cold, no matter how many photos come across me; nothing will ever be as warm as a parent's love.

I feel well-liked in my circles. Everyone seems to want to spend more and more time with me. And as much as I enjoy the welcomeness, I find myself retreating more and more into myself. I don't have gratitude for this because I'm used to striking out my own way. I'm used to solitude. I want to appreciate people, but I feel so exhausted because my time feels owed to others. Relationships are dynamic, and they will eventually die without support. But I so wish I could be a friend who pops in and out. Oddly, the comfort of moving through space is the millennia of solitude.

I'm in love. We're about to enter our 8 years together. He's always given me what I've wanted and what I've needed. And I'm learning to be less selfish in this relationship - I'm not very good at it but I'm learning. I'm afraid that if something happened to him, I will never be able to open up to someone new again (see above). Everyone would be measured against the standard that he is. We worked so hard to forge the relationship of our dreams but my anxieties always brace me for the eventuality - by natural or manmade machinations - that we will be apart. And on and on I float in empty space, alone.

The future seems bright but maybe that's because I can only see nuclear fireworks peppering the sky with blazes of the apocalypse. The future feels bleak. We just survived a pandemic, and an ongoing depression. We have multiple national conflicts stirring with new ones coming around the corners like comets. Are we in the 1920s or 2020s? It's so hard to tell anymore that it feels like time dilation is screwing with my head. Gone were the halcyon days of a promising future, and left behind is the nuclear winter of interstellar space. It's horrifically empty and at times beautifully peaceful.

I just want the spinning to stop. I want to stay frozen in time, locked here blissful in an infinite constant.

[studiesinthisworld]

One of my son heard the sounds of cicadas for the first time in this year, yesterday.

He wanted to go to a park where easier to fing&get incects today because his summer time has started the sounds he heard yesterday.

So, we went to catch summer insects there. But, it was a bit hot &windy to get them.

He've changed his mind to play with water insted of catching insects.

It was a good time to play with water at lunch time& windy day,because not much people there I thought.

It's much harder for me to choose where to go with my sons from since May 8th to untill now.

Because, free PCR tests finished & it costs more than over 2000yen for every test.

We cannot reach to PCRtest easily at any cilnic nor hospital.

We could choose PCRtest or antigen tests before.But now,

we need to get positive by a tntigen tests before we reach to PCRtest.

I think this order doesn't save health nor life nither.

In about a years ago, my son's doctor did antigen test first when he had a fever. He got negative. Then the doctor said "Just getting negative from the antigen test doesn't lead you to the truth.Therefore,let me do the PCRtest,too."

So, most of the people in Japan can't reach to test, so they cannot reach to treat.

Futheremore, many people doesn't wear masks in inside, even in the public school or hospitals.

I wanted my son to choose where he wants to study at home or school before 2019.

But the covid19 came into our life&still here, I cannot let him to choose it becuse it's dengerous.

If the ventilation was good at the publice school or any place...(no ventilation machines,no CO2 monitors, many teachers don't wear masks, no testing for covid19...)

If we can reach to the PCRtest or the antigen test with hight sensivities...

Then I could give him more options to do everyday.

However,

I just keep wearing mask when I meet people, testing whenever I think I need to do, requesting to wear masks who I need to talk, making time to no need to wear masks for my sons,keep talking to them why we live like this and asking them how they feeling now.

Thank for reading.

#homeschool #cicada #covid19 #pcr検査 #pcr test #japan

[davidfarland]

David Farland’s Writing Tips—What Are Your Best Practices?

The art and craft of writing is mysterious. Why does one thing work for Joan and not for Dave? That’s a good question. My son Forrest helps counsel writers who are having problems, and a few weeks ago he mentioned something that he’d noticed. Time and again, he’d talk to authors who had been on fire at some point in their careers, writing away joyfully, but now found themselves stuck. So he’d ask them a few questions to find out what had changed.

The answers tended to be amazingly simple. One woman, when brainstorming a novel, used to write her notes down in a notebook and think about them. But when she switched to a word-processor, she found it hard to brainstorm. Why? Who knows. She suspected that it was because she felt more relaxed with a notebook in her hand. She didn’t have to worry about blinking cursors, power outages, and the demands of a blank screen. So Forrest’s advice was simple: use your notebook when you brainstorm.

Another man found that he just couldn’t get started. There was a time when he would get up in the morning and write in order to start the day. But now he automatically answers his emails. I could explain to him about mental states, and how writing requires him to be in the alpha state while answering his email put him in the beta state, but the answer was simple: don’t open your danged email before you write!

Another writer I know used to sit up late at night and put on acid rock while he wrote, but when he got married and had a baby, he was afraid of keeping his wife and children awake, so he switched to writing without music in the morning. Suddenly, he couldn’t find the words he wanted. The answer: he needed to listen to his own personal biorhythms and write at night. A pair of headphones solved his need for loud acid rock.

This problem strikes over and over. A few months ago, I started the Apex Writers Group. When the Covid19 pandemic hit, I noticed that a lot of writers were stressed and not producing.

I began trying to get them to huddle up and get back to work. I recognized that there are a lot of phases to writing: brainstorming, drafting, editing, and so on, and I suggested that we start “Writers Rings”. In a writers’ ring, you get several people who are writing in the same genre and have them share audiences.

But I wondered whether it would be good for them to work in close-knit groups. In addition to just advertising to each other’s audiences, I realized that they could brainstorm together, for example. So a fantasy writer living in the wilds of New Zealand could suddenly be brainstorming with other fine writers in her field, the way that Tolkien and Lewis did it in the Inklings. For those who have trouble self-starting, we could have writing sprints, so that authors can get on and maintain a writing schedule. Again, if the authors want to, they can have critique sessions where they look at one another’s works. They can even advertise together--start blogs together, share cover quotes, train each other in how to use electronic advertising well, and so on.

Suddenly my writers are killing it. I think I’ve seen them release 7 novels just in the past week, and some of the writers who’ve never completed a book are suddenly putting “the end” to their first novels.

And I noticed something yesterday: the writers who are getting the most done are the ones who are doing it all together—having brainstorming sessions, participating in sprints, critiquing together, and pushing their books together.

I hadn’t expected that, but then I got thinking. Back when I first began writing, I too joined a writing group that kept me focused and kept me writing like mad. We were all trying to figure out how to make it in the speculative fiction market. We’d challenge each other and celebrate one another’s victories. I remember how fun it was to brainstorm in groups, and how fulfilling it was to find out how well a scene worked in a critique group. Eventually I had an editor tell me to “quit wasting your time with writing groups. You’re way beyond that.” Yet, what I had been doing was working fine, so now I ask myself, why exactly did I change?

As I consider this, I can think of dozens of professional writers who are under-performing for much the same reason. They started out in a writing group, went solo, and suddenly found that their work went flat and they weren’t creating as much. In the music industry, we see singers doing this all the time. The lead singer in a band goes solo and suddenly discovers that without the drummer who was writing most of the band’s songs, he goes bust. Without the lead guitarist who was always pushing them to do more gigs, he falls out of the limelight.

So there may be group dynamics involved in many authors’ success stories. Do you find that your productivity isn’t where you would like it to be? So ask yourself, what has worked for you in the past? What best practices have you abandoned. Maybe its time to retrace your steps.

For more on David Farland's Writing tips, visit https://mystorydoctor.com/writing-blog/

And you can also click here to get your David Farland Daily Meditations.

#writing help #writing tips #writing advice

[weigtloss]

Dodgy Diet Signs/Best Lockdown Diet Plan For Weight Loss After Covid19

Coronavirus and dodgy diet signs you need to be aware of if looking to lose weight and get back in shape. It wasn't until lockdown when it was realised the world over just how serious the coronavirus was. When that state of emergency of international concern was announced, it proved we had a major health pande.mic on our hands. custom made keto diet plan. Sady a lot of lives were lost due to covid19, while, the number still remains high for people in hospital fighting to survive this cruel virus. If it wasn't for people around the globe coming together during this traumatic time---giving all NHS workers the support needed to save as many lives possible while risking their own safety, where would be. Even though covid19 is still lurking and being managed... what of them during lockdown who changed their eating habits through boredom and banged on weight. Because of the coronavirus we are now facing another pandemic of people feared to step on to the weighing scales. It can be daunting and overwhelming looking for a weight loss plan, nonetheless, don't act in haste and get sucked in by diet companies gimmicks. Evaluate all diets before making a decision. I can't emphasise enough the importance of getting a doctor involved, especially if personal health issues are included. Your doctor has all present and past records on your medical history, where the doctor can gather information and know whether to refer you to a dietician. custom made keto diet plan.If you've piled on the pounds during those quarantine days and looking to lose weight then choose your diet carefully. A popular and trusted one that delivers on its promise of a positive result is the Note: There's no instant overnight fix for losing weight. Note: Dramatic weight loss is unhealthy and dangerous, so diets offering speedy weight loss... forget it. Look towards a slow and steady approach and the weight will drop off in no time. Note: Dodgy diets are typically highly restrictive and low in calories. It's not up for debate that weight can't be lost, but at the expense of the persons well being. Bad diet signs that suggest you seek medical advice. Severe hunger: This shouldn't be the case... period. Not feeling full after eating is reason for a red light. Hair loss: Defintely reason for alarm. Hair falling out is normally due to a shortage of vitamin B8 (Biotin). Shortage of this kind extends to greying hair, flaky red skin, cracking nails and muscular pain. Energy Loss: If the body is denied a healthy amount of vitamin C and B, metabolism has to do double the work which can bring fatigue and drowsiness. Flaky scalp: Another sign making a statement that not enough essential fatty acids like Omega 3 is consumed. Mouth sores: Mouth sores that keep retuning is likely down to another type of deficiency, that being vitamin B12. Tingling/numbness in the limbs (hands and feet): Normally an indication the body isn't getting ample vitamins of group B such as folate (B9). Extended too, B6 ​​and B12 which are related to issues in the peripheral nerves. Possible outcome from this are bouts of anxiety, depressed moods and hormonal imbalances. It's known that highly restrictive low-calorie diets link to malnourishment and deficits in both vitamins and minerals. Warning: Diets of this sort do more DAMAGE than GOOD. If you want to turn your life around and lose weight safely then simply turn the above quote around and pick a diet that'll do more GOOD than DAMAGE. custom made keto diet plan.If you want to lose weight but scared of choosing the wrong diet, then look for a custom made plan to suit your own personal needs. Find out more about one of the most popular ways of getting overweight people back into shape. Check out the weight loss section at spotthepimple Thanks. Shimul Biswas<<<<>>>>>

#weight loss #ketodiet

[pandora-dark-shorts]

Day 1: Groton Base

"If anyone is listening, this is Vega Styles. I'm broadcasting to you from inside the Groton Naval Base. We have been here for about 14 hours now and the whole area is hot. The base is entirely surrounded by blast barricades awashed with intermittent combat barriers.

The Command Officers here say it can hold as long as the infected dont come in too large of a number. In some areas there are teams with suppressed rifles and on other points where they arent too many coming they have long sharpened rebar to put them down.

From what they have told us, the infected are just that. Infected. Lab technicians in Massachusetts, working with aerosolized rabies, discovered another tech had been infected with it after she attacked a co-worker. She was subdued only after biting several of them. In good old fashion horror movie script, they went to the hospital. You can fill in the rest. Due to a parade, it was for lack of a better word, a buffet for the infected.

People that encountered infected that lived in New York and Connecticut went or tried to go home, infecting others in these states and along the way. So far it is isolated to these spots. The few things they do know are that the virus can infect just by breathing in the exhaled breath of an infected or from getting blood or fluids in your mouth or eyes. It just takes much longer that way. They dont know much else about it...

I'm kind of at a loss of what to say... I'm sorry if I sound all over the place...

Do not come to the naval base. They are not letting anyone in. Stay indoors and barricade all entrance points. If you believe you have been infected, do not try to seek help. There is none. Lock yourself inside for the sake of others. This is all the time I have with our equipment in the news chopters as they are being requisitioned by the military.

My co-ancor, Jane, and I will be leaving on the next flight out with them, and hopefully we will make it to my boat, where we can broadcast from there. Stay inside. Stay safe. Vega Styles, out."

#pandoradark

#pandoradarkseries

#day1

#connecticut #zombies #apocalypse #zombieapocalypse #infected #covid19 #rabies #writing #writinginspiration #writeig #writetumblr #flashfiction #shortstories #inspo #horror

[poeticjazztice2]

Dementia's #DarkMatter and My Alternative COVID-19 Causation Hypothesis

#HeartfeltThanks to @bbcradio4, neurologist @Jules_Montague, co-host William Miller, couple Geraint and Jacqui and everyone else responsible for this episode of the 5-part series "Dementia: Unexpected Stories Of the Mind", which is about "atypical" symptoms of dementia that are now emerging from the darkness of excessively academic, media-politically muzzled medicine into the light of real life.

The series not only supports the unwritten New Covenant (uNC) based, male-female interdependence focused, psycho-biological hypothesis at the heart of my alternative COVID-19 causation hypothesis, it intersects with my more than FOUR decades old, home and community based interaction with neurological #DarkMatter in ways that are exquisitely intriguing.

Basically, my evolving #COVID19 causation hypothesis is simply building on a secular-and-religious-world-views bridging approach to research that I first hinted at in my November, 1982 poem "Communion", where I describe the experience of the Spirit of the LIVING GOD communing with my spirit, as "intercourse/ with the nucleus of/reality".

I had embarked on an evangelical fundamentalist Christian journey and joined a well known Barbadian Pentecostal church in June that year, as I explain in my book The Bible: Beauty and Terror Reconciled, and through "Communion" I seek to convey my sense of what the apostle Paul apparently has in mind in Romans 8:16, where he writes "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God", according to the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible.

Forty years later, I have a much deeper appreciation of how my relationship with my earthly, biological parents and other Barbadian authority figures predisposed me toward the "daft", dark matter matter - of Pentecostalism.

A father myself now, to an 18 year-old daughter and 14 year-old son, I see more clearly than ever the difficulty and importance of co-creating a male-female balance and interdependence focused language with their mother: a glossolalia or "speaking in tongues" proximate, new language of love and trust that is unique to our familial nucleus. So I could not agree more with Montague, when she tells her co-host Miller,

"In medical school, when we learnt about dementia we mainly learned about memory loss. But that changed over my 15 years as a doctor. But to be frank about this William, I've understood more about dementia I feel from visiting our interviewees in this series than from whole swathes of my medical career."

It is through my interactions and observations as a domestic carer, in both formal and informal, unpaid roles that I acquired the practical and theoretical building blocks that allowed me to construct my male-female interdependence focused #COVID19 causation hypothesis in December 2020.

This home-based, cognition-affection constructing material includes experiences dating back at least to my mid 1980s familial care for my nephew Jamal and my voluntary, church-based visits with the late Sanderson Calixte, an elderly fellow member with me of Peoples Cathedral, in Barbados, and various paid and unpaid roles I have held with Norwich Justice and Peace, Surlingham Community Primary School, Domino's Pizza, Better Healthcare Services Limited, Norwich City College, the National Union of Journalists and other entities, since moving to England in 2006.

Of these paid and unpaid roles, that of being a husband and father and as a Health Care Assistant (HCA) stand out most prominently as "laboratories" in which I was able to immerse myself, consciously or unconsciously, in the age old, perennial balance\battle of the sexes, as explicit references and allusions to these "gender gyrations" (Lewd Logic, 2000) in my literary and wider creative output from 1982 to the present suggest.

The heterosexual feminist focus of my #COVID19 hypothesis on the woman, in the Jewish prophet Jeremiah's cryptic question and declaration "How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man," (Jeremiah 31:22) is predicted by my work with the former UNIFEM, now UN Women to stem violence against women.

It is presaged by my selection of at least two Women's Studies courses, as I pursued my Linguistics degree at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill campus, in Barbados.

It can be "tracked and traced" to my eclectic literary tribute to my mother's and other women's shaping of my sensitivities in the e-book Woman-I-Zen (2012), in my March 2005 Fundamentalist Feminism essay, warning of the dangers of an evangelical, fundamentalist Christian approximating variant of feminism and in other cutting edge writings.

I also reinforced the existential, human ecology focused understanding of male-female "compassing", immersion and interdependence in my Careful Conversation With Selma James project, where I subtly foreground a link between human nature and all nature.

This treatment of gender balance as a meteorological phenomenon, or, more explicitly, a sexual "climax crisis" that is not only comparable with but intimately linked to the "climate crisis" is taken up in my #COVID19 hypothesis, where I link media political generated "information inflammation" to the destruction of the earth's ozone layer.

Dementia can thus be viewed as a more fixed, intransigent form of 'brain fog'. It can be located on a continuum of clouded judgement or perception, consistent with my #COVID19 causation hypothesis which suggests that the viral virility of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen is interdependent with gender confusion among humans.

I propose,

"...given COVID-19's well documented impact on the mind, inducing delirium, feelings of exhaustion and other psychosomatic manifestations, called "malaise" by a British Medical Journal (BMJ) article cited here extensively, might it be worth considering the possibility that SARS-CoV-2's virility and reproductive efficacy is interdependent with a radical (albeit gradual, possibly), change in human bio-psychology?

"In other words, might some seismic alteration in human bio-psychology and psychosocial relations have occurred that predisposes human beings to infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, of which the delusions and other neurological or bio-psychological disease insults are "atypical" symptoms?

"Might the much noted penetrative, or binding power of the protein spikes on the envelope which surrounds the virus' core genec material be a consequence of or a complement to a catastrophic, or at least perilous bio-psychological permeability that has opened up in the individual consciences and/or collective unconscious of human beings, much like the hole in the earth's ozone layer?

#covid19 #climate change #climate crisis #gender identity #parenting

[americasummer]

FAS3001 - TREND REVIVAL

I feel there is new wave that has been forecasted and is now here in the form of a 1980’s renaissance that seems to be on trend now. This means that classic pieces that were cool 30 – 40 years ago are making a comeback. It seems classics make a revival every 20 years or so and clothes that made a millennial’s parents look cool have now been spun back up with fresh new ideas. Throwbacks such as shimmer & shine and pleats have been revived. Not to mention oversized shoulders which I must say looks very much like space-age fashion; something from another time to come or in this case, a time gone by. What I like so much about these trends is that you cannot permanently confine them to a particular era or season because their styles and whole looks are timeless. 

Oversized Shoulder Trend – This trend originally hails from 1890s fashion, albeit in a much more rounded form in women’s blazers to give them a rounder and fuller padded shoulder. I remember growing up in the late 1980s and 1990s, seeing my mother tucking in and adjusting her shoulder pads after she had just finished sewing another blazer for work. Apart from being used to create an illusion of a grander stature, shoulder pads were the choice for people who had less defined shoulders, or as a compensator for garments whose fabrics weren’t as firm. 

Today, brands like Dolce & Gabbana and Vivienne Westwood are putting their own spin on this trend that was ubiquitous in bright colours and hues in the 1980s and early 1990s, by adding textures and designs fit for a new generation of fashion consumer as seen in the images below from AW22 edition of DAZED Magazine.

Shimmer and Shine Trend – Wearing the coveted embellished shimmer and shine fashion outfits used to be a way of showing wealth, or status and was reserved for the aristocrats of high society while the mere lower class were bound by the sumptuary laws of the day. But in modern era, people before us have fought and campaigned for rights that some of us never would have had. So now, we have those that came before us to thank for our freedom to be able to live freely in a modernised society, with near enough equality of rights, that we can pretty much buy and wear whatever we like, cost permitting and sometimes religion.  As seen in Dec 2022/Jan 2023 edition of ELLE Magazine below, the trend is here and even though it has taken new form, the classic look hasn’t faded at all.

Printed T shirt Trend – The Christopher Kane ‘THE BRATS’ collection FOR AW22 season shown on the social media platform INSTAGRAM stands out for me. According to his YouTube interview by the journalist Kirsty Wark, he went and bought a load of glitter, craft glue and coloured art paper and started drawing and painting during lockdown, reconnecting with an artform that he once left behind. He adapted to the changing economic downturn created by the outburst of COVID19, where a nationwide lockdown was instilled by the UK Government and others around the world. This event had a great impact on many industries especially the fashion industry as people were being stringent and conservative in spending money as a lot of people were laid off or put on furloughed leave so their financial incomes were not once as they were. Christopher found a way to adapt which emerged from creating art inspired by his family and people close to him. His artworks that were produced during this time have made their way into his new fashion designs to give them new meaning and connect with old and new audience.

Image above: BRAT FACE SHORT SLEEVED T-SHIRT by Christopher Kane.

It seems that classic trends always make a comeback and designers transform them to capture sartorial zeitgeist of every season of fashion that is in vogue. I have spotted these trends across several different mediums such as advertisements, magazines, and social media.