#i have a friend who quit smoking years ago and took up vaping

[s-arslan]

Is that SANEM ARSLAN I see over there? You know they have quite a reputation of being the ARTISAN around town. The 27 year old has been seen around these parts living in CHESTNUT APARTMENTS for HER ENTIRE LIFE and within that timeframe has landed themselves a job as a TATTOO ARTIST/ARTIST. I overheard that they can be quite SELF-DEPRECATING but their saving grace is that they are CREATIVE. They remind me of PAINT-SPLATTERED DENIM AND THE SMELL OF CLEAN LINENS but you’ll have to decide that for yourself.

Sanem Emel Arslan was born to two people who honestly shouldn’t have had kids. They were two young people caught up in the moment and thought marriage was better than nothing. Sanem was given up for adoption at three years old alongside her younger sister Nazli when it became obvious that kids couldn’t fix a relationship and she spent most of her life bouncing from foster home to foster home.

She was adopted at age seven by Elizabeth and Garrett Thomas, a couple who was more performative about their work than anything. They had adopted seven kids by time she arrived with Sanem being the youngest one of all. They had attempted to change her name from her Turkish name to one that didn’t suit her and it only stopped when it became clear that she wouldn’t answer to it. They adopted kids from unfortunate circumstances for no other reason than martyrdom. After adopting Sanem, the state finally told them they couldn’t adopt or foster anymore because they ran out of room.

By the time Sanem turned fourteen, she had been threatened with a group home five times unless she “played ball.” She couldn’t keep any money from babysitting jobs she did or any odd jobs, as her siblings often stole it out of their room. Sometimes, it was simply because she had to “earn her keep” and give her parents money for rent and food, despite the checks given to them by the state.

Sanem was kicked out the day after her eighteenth birthday with nothing but a backpack of clothes and about fifty dollars to her name. She was forced to move onto her neighbor’s couch until she could figure out her next move. With no phone and hardly any way to get one, she took odd jobs to make enough to buy her own phone. Her biggest stress relief growing up was art and she wasn’t just good, she was good. Few things came naturally to her, but art was it. The one gift she ever received without strings or expectations of repayment was an art set and a small section of the house to work. She was accepted to Paier College and worked as a waitress and as an artist in the meantime in order to pay bills until she met someone who changed her world forever. It’s from them that she heard the four words she hadn’t realized she was dying to hear her entire life: let me help you.

Having someone pay for college, an apartment, and an actually decent lifestyle was completely foreign, but for the first time, she knew what it was like to not have to struggle. She could focus on school instead of working herself into the ground.

Headcanons:

Became a sugar baby to pay for art school, still very good friends with said former glucose guardian (it wasn’t a romantic/sexual relationship, but instead a mentor/mentee-esque relationship. this person only wanted to help her succeed when everyone wanted to hold her back. they also helped her get sober) (Connection filled by Matthieu Dixon)

Recovering alcoholic, started her journey of sobriety two years ago. She still struggles, but she’s determined to not relapse. Smokes both marijuana and nicotine for the oral fixation, both vape pens and cigarettes. Surprisingly great at being hydrated, she has a large refillable water bottle on her person at all times.

Became a tattoo artist upon seeing Miami Ink and loves the challenge. She specializes in animals and flowers, as well as calligraphy. She’s currently honing her people-drawing skills, as well as big cats. Strangely talented with dogs/wolves/all things canine.

Well-known for having a light touch and a close attention to detail.

Has a black Lab named Bosco.

Allergic to cats and strawberries.

No contact with her adoptive family, despite their attempts to get in touch with her.

Recently got into contact with her biological parents and learned of her younger sister’s existence. Hasn’t gotten into contact with her sister quite yet.

#rw.intro

[fazcinatingblog]

they’re banning vaping??????? IS THIS A JOKE?????? can’t they just ban cigarettes already godddd 

#imagine thinking cigarettes are safer/better for you than vaping??????? #it's just vapour right??????? #with a bit of nicotine i don't know i don't really care #most vapers have nice fruity scents so that they can vape in public without annoying anyone (me specifically) #cigarettes stink and should be banned forever #or at least banned near me cos i don't wanna smell that shit #except if it's clove flavoured #mmm clove #i can't believe this news #they wouldn't seriously fine people for vaping in public?????? #again... it's just vapour #some vapers that i've seen blow out a shitload of vapour and once at uni i was just sitting there and got devoured by the vape #that's the only time i've detested vapers #it might not even have been a vaper??? maybe their little contraption was smoking weed or something??????? #anyway #godddd i'm so annoyed by this #it doesn't even affect me #i have a friend who quit smoking years ago and took up vaping #and she has plenty of friends in a similar boat to that #so yeah this news SUCKS #it's stupid

[rabbit-reveries]

𝑻𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒉 𝒐𝒓 𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒆

Warning: Drinking, smoking, slight smut ahead, actual smut next chapter

Word count: 3387

Characters: Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy, Cedric Diggory (who is alive and an 8th year the same time as the others bcus I said so), Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Fem!Reader

Rewrite of “Party @ the Hufflepuff Commons” by me :P

"C'mon, Pansy, just get with whoever you wanna get with, no need for games. What are you, fourteen?" asks Draco, blowing vape smoke into the air. 

"Oh, shut up, ferret! I'm just trying to find something for us to do. The party died hours ago, and I'm not anywhere near ready to go back to the dorm." says the girl, stealing the vape from the blonde's hand. 

You take a sip of your drink. The commons are completely trashed, the floor covered in plastic cups, confetti, and food that had fallen off the snacks table, but the music is still blasting, and if you checked the drinks table, there would be enough firewhiskey to last till the morning. Sitting on the loveseat couch, Draco and Pansy share a vape pen and a bottle of vodka. Across from them, Ron and Hermione occupy the other loveseat couch with Harry sitting between their legs on the floor. He and Ron take turns taking hits off Cedric's blunt while the Gryffindor girl sips from a cup of mixed liquor. "Well, we're sitting here in silence, doing nothing, and it's starting to bore me..." you say, more to yourself than to anyone else, leaning on a wall. "If you've got a better idea, then I'm all ears." 

"I don't mind playing truth or dare. Brings back memories, actually." chimes in Cedric, who is sitting on the arm of the loveseat. He takes the blunt from Ron, covering Hermione with his body for a second as he stretches to get the joint from the redhead. "Like, being fourteen, as Draco says, and having only just started to spread my wings."

You snap your fingers and point to him, a grin on your face, visions of the past flooding in. "Yeah, remember that party where we were playing spin the bottle, and I had to kiss Neville? He tried sticking his tongue down my throat; it was gross! Later I found out it was his first kiss and felt so bad for being a bitch about it." you chuckle.

“I don’t remember that.” says Hermione, mildly confused. “Was I not invited?”

“You were! We all were, it was the night we first made friends with Y/N. It was also the night you got drunk for the first time and I had to carry you back to the dorm.” says Harry, laughing. He takes the blunt from Cedric.

The girl averts her gaze to the cup in her hand, a look of embarrassment in her face. “Oh.” is all she says. As you all know, she took quite a long time to learn her limits when it came to liquor. 

You take a sip of your drink, lips curled into a smile. Pansy mirrors you, takes a drag off the vape pen and asks the group: “So, are we playing or not?”

“Yeah, sure.” you say, grabbing an empty glass bottle and setting it on the ground. You sit across from Harry on the floor, right next to Pansy. They all shrug and lean closer to you and the game. “I'll spin it.”

You do as you say, bottle drawing circles in the black and yellow rug. It stops pointing to Harry and Draco. The Gryffindor blows smoke and asks “Alright, truth or dare, Malfoy?”

“Dare.”

Harry pauses and thinks before giving the blonde his dare, a relaxed, self-satisfied grin in his face. “Strip one piece of clothing every time someone says your name.” He takes a drag from the blunt. 

“What? Want to undress me so badly?” says the Slytherin, cocky to try and cover up the fact that he choked on vodka. “All you gotta do is ask. You know I hate playing games.”

“Oh, I know. That’s why I play ‘em, Malfoy.” he laughs, the last word leaving his mouth immediately followed by a cloud of pale smoke. 

The blonde curses, but follows through with the dare, taking off his pullover and throwing it on Pansy’s lap. The girl cackles at his frown, taking his chin between her fingers and forcing him to look at her. “Don’t be shy, Malfoy. Take your shirt off too.” she says, voice teasing as she spits the smoke in his face. Unexpectedly, she plants a kiss on Draco’s lips. 

He pushes her away and wipes her lipstick off his mouth, features contorted into a disgusted expression. “Gross! You make me sick.”

At that, Pansy smiles wider, and takes another drag “Really? It’s not what you said two nights ago. In fact, if I remember it correctly, your exact words were ‘Mommy, please let me c-’” Malfoy looks like he’s about to have a heart attack, mouth open and cheeks flush with embarrassment. He covers her mouth with his hands before she’s able to complete the phrase and eyes the group, completely mortified.

“I did not say that.”

She pushes him off of her, not one bit fazed by his reaction. “Oh, you did. And you cried when we were done.”

“I did not!”

“You did. Now strip. Want me to say your name again, ferret?”

Red like a tomato, he looks like he’s about to say something, but bites his tongue and does as he's told. You gaze at the two, enthralled by their banter. You’d always wondered how Pansy and Draco managed to get along, as they’re constantly fighting, humiliating each other. Taking a sip from your drink, you watch as the boy takes off his striped shirt, revealing to all the iridescent paleness of his chest. 

“I hate you.” he says, staring holes into Pansy.

She blows him a kiss, and, still angry, he sits down next to her. “Okay, who’s next?” she laughs.

“Let’s find out.” says Harry, spinning the bottle in your place. “Y/N and me. I choose dare.”

“A true Gryffindor.” you tease and take another sip of your drink. The truth is that you had no idea what to ask of him. All you could think of seemed so cliche. “I’m great and merciful, so I won’t dare you to do anything extreme. Pick someone to shotgun and I shall be satisfied.” 

“I shall remember your kindness, then.” he grins, getting up from his place on the floor to grab the joint that had been passed to Cedric at some point. You think he’s chosen his prey, but instead of taking a drag in front of the Hufflepuff, Harry sits sideways on the lap of his Gryffindor buddy. Ron blushes like crazy, as surprised as you are by his choice. 

“W-what are you doing?”

“Shotgunning you, duh.” Harry cups his cheek with the hand that isn’t holding the blunt. Eye to eye, he asks “Can I?”

“I mean… Y-yeah, I don’t mind.”

He laughs and takes a drag, taking in as much as he possibly can before inching closer to the redhead. Mouth open, Harry blows smoke at the same rate the other inhales it, the white cloud of vapor disappearing between Ron’s lips. “Done.” he gets up from his lap and returns to his place on the floor. “Let’s see who’s next.”

Ron is still red when the bottle is spun, stopping seconds after, pointing to Cedric and Pansy. The short haired girl leans closer, shifting her weight so her arms rest on her knees. She answers before the question is asked.

“Truth.”

It is hard to ask things of Pansy, you came to find out along the years. You never know what might come out of her mouth, or the point she is willing to reach for a laugh. She is extreme and not above saying things for shock value. That’s part of her charm, you think. Cedric pauses, weightening his words.

“What’s the weirdest thing you've ever done?”

“Does catering to a ferret's mommy kink count?” 

“Will you stop telling people I have a mommy kink?!” the ferret in question yells, head between his hands. “Why do I even put up with you?”

Pansy takes a sip of vodka. “I know too much. Plus, like it or not, I take care of you.” her focus shifts back to the group “Anyway, weirdest thing I’ve ever done? That’s a hard one... I guess the time I had to take Goyle to the infirmary because he got a carrot stuck up his ass.”

“You did what?” Hermione stares at her dumbfounded.

“You heard me. He was naked when I got to the boys’ dorm, and so was Crabbe. I had to calm them down and get them dressed before taking Goyle to Promfey.” 

Hermione eyes her, then turns to Harry and Ron. “I’m sorry, boys, I know I told you two you could count on me for everything… But if one of you ever gets anything stuck, hm, there… Please consider calling someone else.”

“I’m offended you think that something like that is even a possibility, Mione.” Harry side-eyes her, hand stretched to spin the bottle again. “Anyway, Hermione and Malf-” before he can complete the phrase, Ron slaps the back of his head. “Ow! What was that for?”

“You almost said his name!”

“And?”

“I don’t wanna see Malfoy in his underpants! Are you trying to scar me for life?” he exclaims. 

“You just said my name, you big idiot.” Malfoy hisses, getting up to undo his belt. He throws the piece of leather on Ron’s lap and turns to Harry. “Does this count as a piece of clothing, Potter? Say no and I’ll fucking strangle you.”

The Gryffindor pretends to ponder on the question “Hm… Tempting, but I’m gonna say it does, just because I enjoy choking more than being choked.”At that Hermione is the one to slap the back of his head. 

“Ever heard of ‘too much information?’”

You can’t help but laugh at the group. You have an interesting friend circle, all of them linked together by your easy-going smile and sense of humor, and somehow, you make it work. Most of the time, that is. “Anyway, Hermione, you gotta ask… ferret, I guess, the question.” you say, attempting to change the topic. 

“Lord help me… Truth or dare?”

Without hesitation, he answers “Dare.”

She tips the tip of her finger to her lips, thinking a bit too hard before saying “I dare you to do a cartwheel". As soon as the words leave Hermione's mouth, you, Pansy, and Harry start booing her. "C'mon, Mione, you couldn't think of anything better?"

"What? I doubt he'll be able to do it with how much he drank." she looks at you three, quite confused about your reaction. She'd thought she'd done a pretty good job, apparently. "Anyway, a dare is a dare, so you gotta do it."

"That is true. Show us your cirque abilities, ferret." Pansy says, taking back the vape pen and the vodka bottle from Draco. The blonde gets up, clearly not happy with the dare. "Where am I even supposed to do a cartwheel? I'm gonna knock over all of the shit on the tables!"

"Oh, true." says Hermione before shrugging. "Not my problem, though. A dare is a dare."

Malfoy's lanky body gets to moving, and soon he's shown all in the room possibly the most pitiful attempt at a cartwheel any of you had ever seen. Cedric starts clapping, and you all follow. "Congrats, that was the worst cartwheel I've ever seen!" 

"Shut up, Diggory. Who's next?" the blond huffs, sitting back on the loveseat couch. Rude as always, he grabs the stuff back from Pansy and takes a swig off the vodka. Harry spins the bottle, and it stops on and this time it falls on Pansy and Hermione. A wicked grin spreads through the short-haired girl's face. "Say, Granger, truth or dare?" The Gryffindor gulps, taking a second to think before answering: 

"I... I choose truth."

"When was the last time you had sex?"

You turn to the girl, who is red from her neck up. Ron practically chokes at the question. 

"I- I choose dare." 

"Okay, then I dare you to answer the question." says Pansy, chuckling. 

"I refuse to!"

"What? You're not a virgin, are you?"

Hermione looks down at her hands. Pansy continues to tease, until she downs what was left in her cup and blurts out. "Okay, if you wanna know so badly, the last time I had sex was four weeks ago."

"Four weeks ago?!" Ron questions, "That's not when- I mean, that's not so long ago! Why didn't you tell me?"

Hermione looks at him as if he’d just spat on her face "Oh, frankly, Ron, you're not my boyfriend; I don't have to tell you anything!" she huffs, turning to the side. "Let's continue with the game, shall we?"

Harry spins the bottle, eyebrows raised at the exchange. “Ron and Y/N, you’re up.” says the Gryffindor girl, eager to change the focus to anyone else but her. 

“Alright, Y/N, truth or dare?” asks the boy, eyes still on Hermione, curious as everyone in the room.

“Dare.”

“Uh… I don’t know. Sit on the lap… of the person you find the most attractive here.” Ron says, obviously still hung up on Hermione’s truth. Harry passes him the blunt but he refuses it, so you take it instead. After a drag, you get up and motion to Cedric to sit down on the floor. Wordless, he follows the instructions and you sit between his legs, unable to look anyone in the eye. 

Harry chuckles, looking at you, and you show him your middle finger. “Get fucked, Potter. Just spin the bloody bottle.” you say, only provoking him to grin wider, shaking his head as he does as he’s told.

“Ferret, it’s you and me.”

Draco crosses his legs and leans closer to spit vape smoke directly on Harry’s face, way too bold for a man who’s lost his shirt and just showed everyone the most pathetic attempt at a cartwheel. “Truth or Dare, Potter?”

“Dare.”

“Kiss me.”

All in the room stare at him. That is… well, quite bold for a ferret, you think. “What?!” Ron exclaims “What the fuck, Malfoy?”

“Shut up, Weasley.” the Slytherin hisses, “What, scared, Potter?”

“You wish. You talk like a snake but you’ve got no poison whatsoever.” Harry says, but makes no mention of moving. Draco opens his mouth to retort, but is stopped by Pansy’s “Oh, Merlin, just shut up and kiss already! You’re stalling.”

Hermione tries to cover a laugh, but does an awful job. Harry crawls over to where the blonde is sitting, and, on his knees, waits for the kiss that is graced to him when Malfoy leans in and captures his lips. Your eyes widen at how heated the whole situation becomes after a couple of seconds, the Gryffindor hands on the blond’s hair and the blond holding him by the collar of his shirt. Pansy hits the two on the head with a paper plate she’d found on the floor, as if the two were misbehaving dogs.

“Okay, you two, you were dared to kiss, not to swallow each other's faces!”

Red and gasping for air, the two part. Draco leans back on his seat and Harry goes back to his spot between Ron and Hermione’s legs. “That was… something.” you say, laughing, trying to decide whether that was hot or just too much. 

“It sure was.” Cedric says, his hands on your lap like a seatbelt. 

“Ok, who’s next?” asks Harry, spinning the bottle. “Pansy and Cedric- or is it Y/N? Pansy and Cedric and or Y/N.”

“Let’s say Cedric, since he hasn’t been asked anything yet.” you say. You can feel him shrugging as he takes a hit of the blunt, that by now is on it’s very last breath. 

“Alright by me.” he says. 

“Say, pretty boy, truth or dare?” Pansy rests her head on Draco’s shoulder and takes a sip from the bottle of vodka.

“I’m scared of what you might ask me if I pick truth, but I’m terrified of what you might dare me to do if I don’t, so... I’m going with truth.” the Hufflepuff confesses, an honest chuckle following the words.

“Of course. Can’t have you tarnishing your golden reputation just as you’re about to graduate, can we?” you can feel the mockery in Pansy’s tone, and so can everyone else, but, as far as you can tell, Cedric is unbothered. “But really, don’t you ever get tired of being perfect? Don’t you ever want to make a mess, a big one?”

“Is that the truth you wanna know about?”

“Not really, no. What I want to know is, if there were no consequences, what would you be doing right now?”

“I do want to make a mess from time to time. When it gets too much, all kinds of things run through my mind, but then I realize it’s just me trying to find ways to hide from my responsibilities, blow off some steam.” he says, every word perfectly balanced in his tongue. 

Pansy grins, devilish. “Do you have a parent-approved response to everything? Or are you really this boring? Don't you ever wish you could go wild? ” the girl takes a drag from the vape pen “You’re avoiding the question, too.”

“You really are smarter than you look.”

“I’m really not. It’s just that boys see a girl in a miniskirt and think ‘oh, she must be stupid’, as if we have to pick between being sexually liberated or intelligent. Now answer the question, we don’t have all night.” Pansy blows smoke into the air, watching it rise to the sky with an absentminded air. 

Cedric stares at her, expression unreadable. “I… I would be in an orgy. It’s always been a fantasy of mine to be in one.” The boy takes the blunt from Ron, trying his best to act unbothered, but you can tell it is all that is, an act. You eye him and Pansy, mildly concerned about the tension between the two. She speaks again. 

“And what’s stopping you?”

“Consequences. Insecurities. Not knowing who to ask.”

“You could’ve asked me. I’d be down.”

The Hufflepuff stares at her, baffled. He is trying to figure her out, you think. You yourself are confused as to where she plans to get with this joke. “C’mon, Pansy, that’s enough teasing.” you say, laughing to try and keep the mood light. She eyes you and grins. 

“Y/N would be down too. Just ask her.”

“Pansy!” you exclaim, cheeks heating up. It’s a fact you’ve had a crush on Cedric since you first got to know him, but she didn’t need to out you like that.

“What? Are you gonna deny it? Potter would too, he’s been head over heels with you since 4th year. And if Potter’s involved, Malfoy’s bound to join.”

The three of you exchange looks, a silent competition of whose face is flushier. The prize? Getting to strangle Pansy Parkinson.

“And since Weasley does everything Potter does, I doubt he’ll want to be left out. About Granger, I’m not sure. Would you be willing to join, Granger?”

Hermione throws the empty plastic cup at Pansy, face contorted into an expression of disbelief. “It is revolting that you find it okay to ask this kind of question!”

“Is that a ‘no’?” asks the short haired Slytherin, who, unlike everyone else in the room, seems to be finding the conversation quite funny. She takes a sip from the bottle of vodka, which by this time is more than half-empty. “Is there a single person in this room you would mind getting intimate with?”

Hermione looks like she might as well combust, eyes darting through the faces of all present. “I- I…”

“That isn’t a no. In fact, no one here said no yet.”

She is right. No one said no. Pansy sighs, sets the bottle on the ground and crosses the distance between the two loveseats. Like she did with Draco, the witch grabs Hermione’s face and kisses her mouth. “...!” The Gryffindor resists at first, but soon enough closes her eyes and melts into the kiss. You watch the scene unfold, head foggy. Is this really happening…?

The kiss is broken, and Pansy grins, something feline, glowing, in the way her lips curl, lipstick smudged. “That didn’t seem like a no either.”

#harry potter #harry potter fic #harry potter smut #pansy parkinson #pansy x hermione #pansymione #pansy smut #draco and pansy #draco malfoy #draco x reader #draco malfoy smut #drarry #cedric diggory #cedric diggory smut #ron weasley #ron weasly imagine #ron weasley smut #ron weasly x reader #hermione granger #draco x hermione #harry ron hermione #hermione granger smut #bunnie writes

[purplesurveys]

1159

survey by -egocentricity-

Describe the last time you...

Went swimming: It was in Nasugbu with Angela, Sofie, and Gab nearly a couple of years ago. We wanted to go to a nearby beach before the semester started, so we planned the trip at the last minute and literally just right after we enrolled for our classes.

Went on a date: It was at BGC at this nice, romantic French restaurant. Then as we headed back to the car we spotted a jazz bar that had a live band performing, so we took a detour there to have drinks and nachos.

Were hurt by someone you love: My mom says a lot of hurtful things all the time I’ve stopped keeping track of them and letting them affect me too much, but I’m sure she’s done it recently.

Did something nice for yourself: I got myself a night lamp to improve the ambience in my room and make it feel even more homey. The lamp I had before it was just something I borrowed from my parents and it had white light, so it didn’t feel the most calming. The one I have right now emits this soft yellow shade that makes me feel infinitely more relaxed.

Did something nice for someone else: I ordered KFC at like 1 AM last Wednesday because I was feeling hungry and there was nothing at home that could meet my cravings, and aside from getting orders for my parents I also got a Zinger for my delivery driver as a way to thank him and lift his spirits for working that late into the night.

Were injured: I always sport some sort of scratch or gash somewhere on my body these days from playing with Cooper. This morning I got a new wound on one of my knuckles since he was pulling on his leash way too hard when I was walking him.

Went to the hospital: I had to take blood and urine tests last May to figure out what was wrong with me since I had been sick for a week by that point. That was also during the peak of the pandemic, so there was a lot of anxiety about me catching Covid. It turned out to be a UTI, and even though that technically sucks the whole family was relieved it wasn’t Covid.

Understood something that previously confused you: I had my dad explain to me how buying and bidding for houses works. Hahaha I am sooooo not equipped to be a fully-functioning adult.

Faked sick to get out of going to class: I don’t think I ever did this. If I had wanted to skip class, I just skipped it.

Hung out with your friends: I went to Perfy’s with 7 friends shortly before it shut down for good as a result of the pandemic. We had some beer and bar chow, and to be completely frank it felt quite nice to have that one night where things felt normal again, as ignorant as it was. We vaped until we were dizzy and some of them smoked too much that the smell ended up clinging to me and my clothes, but luckily I got home when my whole family was already in their rooms so no one was able to smell me.

Met someone new: There’s this girl who recently got onboarded to one of our client brands and we started working with her about a week or two ago. She’s honestly been a bit over the place, but I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt because she’s fairly new at a particularly hectic time in her workplace. My first impression of her was that she gave such a strong UP vibe so I looked her up on Facebook, and it turns out we went to the same college and the same high school.

Did something that you were afraid to do: A couple of months ago I had a one-on-one video call organized by the CEO of my employer so that she could get to know me better. She was super nice and listened attentively to my answers to all her questions, but it was easy to tell she wanted to see what I could bring to the table and how well I could mesh with the team especially since I’ve never met her and everyone else in person, so I made sure my social game was maxed out for those 15 minutes haha.

Did something you promised you would never do: I vaped literally half an hour ago. I never expected to form a habit out of it especially after being vehemently against any form of smoking for most of my life. Not particularly proud of it but then again I’m here for a good time and not a long time lmao.

Regretted something: Lazada had this huge app-wide sale last week and their Hydro Flasks were like ₱600 cheaper, but I didn’t buy it because I was feeling stingy that day haha. Now the products are back to their normal price and they’ll probably never get to be that cheap again :( There’s another sale happening tomorrow but the discounts aren’t as big, but I’ll probably place an order this time.

Went shopping: I went to H&M last January to get Andi a late Christmas present. I asked Leigh what they would appreciate as a gift, and she told me they’d wanted to start experimenting with feminine clothes so I got them a nice black skirt and this really elegant dress (that I honestly wanted for myself). I heard they cried once they opened the paper bag, and making people cry with the gifts you get them will always be one of the best feelings ever haha.

Asked someone out/were asked out: Idk, it was 5 years ago and nothing I want to remember anymore.

Broke up with someone: I’ve never broken up with someone.

Had someone break up with you: It was terrible and the stuff of all my nightmares combined, and it happened in the middle of an already-shitty month to boot so I had little hope for myself to come out of it alive. I had everything planned and ironed out and all that was left was for me to leave. 

It’s been 7 months and I’ve never felt emotionally and mentally better and healthier.

Were heartbroken: I follow this animal rescue NGO on Facebook and they regularly post about dogs who’ve lived through awful situations and need urgent care and forever homes to live in. Fortunately the page has a wide reach and regularly gets support, and I try to donate to their bank account as often as I can.

You were angry with someone: Haven’t directed my anger towards anyone in a while.

You felt "in love" with someone: It was during the time I was still reeling over the breakup and was caught in an endless loop of still being in love with them and forcing myself to finally detach.

You wanted something unrealistic: I was at the rooftop this morning and I could feel the temperature getting warmer every hour, and when I finally couldn’t tolerate the heat and was forced to go back indoors I felt super annoyed because all I want is to live somewhere with a chilly climate all-year round hahaha UGH

You made someone angry: It was when I spilled a tiny drop of soup onto the dining table and my mom had a complete meltdown about it. After 89457843957 years of her getting mad at First World Problems I wasn’t intimidated by her anymore, but it still irked me at how something so little can piss her off so I just decided not to speak a word for the rest of the night.

You made someone's day: I hope I made my delivery driver’s night when I got him his burger as a surprise. I hold so much respect and appreciation for them considering they’ve been working very hard to get people’s goods to their doorsteps in the midst of a global pandemic.

Tried something new: When I bought my lamp it was the first time I got something to decorate my room. I usually spend all my money on food, so that was a nice change to try out.

Tried your best: I always try my best at work and to make each day more improved than the last.

Didn't try at all: A couple of nights ago I asked my dad to light up my scented candle and he challenged me to try lighting up a matchstick by myself for once. I was all primed and ready to go, but backed out at the last second :(( I told him there was a big chance I could freak out, drop the lit matchstick. and set something in the dining room (where we were) on fire, and that’s when he gave up and just lit it up himself hahaha

Got nothing for your efforts: I’d gladly refer you to my big waste of a 6-year relationship.

Had a serious talk with someone: I always have deep conversations with Andi and they’ve been about various topics over the last few months.

Told someone how you really feel: It was when Bea scheduled a quick one-on-one catch-up call with me to check up on how I was doing with work and if I was doing okay with the everyday craziness of it all. But I didn’t say anything grave; I just told her I honestly like the work we do and that it’s nice that it keeps me excited everyday, so there’s little to complain about.

Hid what you felt from someone: One of my co-workers, Denise, is honestly a little challenging to work with. I always have to pick up after her and remind her of stuff we need to do together, and even Bea has let a few comments slide between us about how difficult she can be. But considering I’m a lot newer than her and we’ve never met each other I’ve stayed quiet for now.

Took something that didn't belong to you: I got the matchbox from my parents’ room to ask one of them to light up the aforementioned scented candle I have.

Borrowed something from someone: I borrowed one of my sister’s cords the other evening to charge my vape pen.

Lost a game: This was when my orgmates and I played a couple Jeopardy games over Zoom about a month ago and I lost to Robin.

Won a game: Not sure, I don’t really play a lot of games.

Told someone you love him/her: Jo, after she shared that she tested positive for Covid.

Went on vacation: It’s been a year and a half and the world has changed a lot since then, but my family and I went to Tagaytay and Cavite for a quick weekend getaway; it was Tagaytay on Saturday then we drove to another hotel in Cavite the next day. We played Heads Up, ate Jelly Belly jellybeans, had a lot of nice food, took some walks, but then I also had to work on a Powerpoint in between because I had a presentation that was due that Monday lol.

Went on a roadtrip: Last January we drove to Tagaytay (again) for my dad’s 50th birthday. Before heading to our accommodation we had brunch at La Creperie where we happened to be seated beside Larry Gadon – bleck – and his wife. Then we headed to the condo unit where we stayed the night at, ordered a samgyupsal set, and I watched GMM’s Let’s Talk About That into the night until I fell asleep.

Flew on a plane: That would be over two years ago and it was during our vacation to Bicol. That also marks the last time I ever spoke a word to my brother, because on our way home my family got into a heated argument and he ended up slapping me in the face. I don’t tolerate physical acts of violence, and especially not from someone younger than me, so I was more than glad to cut ties with him moving forward.

Were annoyed with a family member: My mom is politically incorrect 24/7, and it grinds my gears 24/7.

Took something too far: Idk, maybe cutting off ties with Gab. A part of me wanted to reconnect at some point, once I’ve healed; but I’ve reached a point in my life where that doesn’t seem so necessary anymore. Life just works funnily sometimes, I guess. I haven’t completely cut her off; we’re still mutuals on Twitter (though she also never uses it so it barely counts), and also still Facebook friends (though I’ve unfollowed her and I’ve also blacklisted her from seeing my posts – thank god for that feature), so now it’s really just a matter of pressing some buttons and finally disconnecting for good.

Gave up too soon: I wanted to learn riding a bike during the early days of the pandemic last year, but I gave up after like two days of being unsuccessful.

Listened to a band you had not heard before: I started exploring some of BTS’ music earlier this week after weeks of just knowing Dynamite.

Judged someone: Some of the bloggers that I regularly correspond with for work, and who’ve recently added me on Facebook, have opinions I don’t necessarily agree with.

Asked a "stupid question": I ask a lot of newbie questions at work that maybe some people would consider dumb, but I’d rather get answers to do my work correctly than take guesses and end up doing the wrong thing.

Got "a stupid answer": Not sure.

Took a picture of something/someone: I recently took a photo of my work desk setup so I could show off my new pretty lamp, hahaha.

Told a lie: I told my mom my Hydro Flask is still with Angela and that I should be getting it soon, but I really lost it a few years ago and would have to buy a new one.

Told the truth: Idk I tell the truth all the time.

#survey #surveys

[lovemesomesurveys]

[created by: mollymindfreak - Bzoink]

What is your favorite animal? Dogs and giraffes. 

Who was your last missed call from? My pharmacy.

What is/was your favorite subject in school? English Language Arts classes were always my favorites. <<<

Do you know what time you were born? Around 430PM.

Do you read horoscopes? Nope. I used to when I was younger for fun, but I never believed in ‘em.

What is your favorite room in your house? My room.

How many pets do you have? I have one doggo. 

Are you more close with your mom or dad? I’m closer to my mom. She’s my best friend.

Are you happy with the way things are in your life? There’s a lot of things I’m not happy with. :/

Are you registered to vote? Yes.

Do you like McDonalds? Eh, every now and then I’ll have a craving for a Big Mac.

What's your favorite flower? I always just say roses, but honestly I don’t really have a particular favorite.

What is a nickname that people call you? Steph or Sis. 

Would you rather have money or fame? Money, hands down. I have no desire for fame whatsoever. I like being a nobody, ha.

What is your dream job? I don’t have one. :/

Who is your favorite music artist? I have many.

Do you watch a lot of TV? Yeah, I suppose so. Although, it is on for background noise a lot of the time.

What is your favorite show? I have a ton.

Have you ever visited another country? I’ve been to Mexico once.

Have you thought about joining the military? Nope. I couldn’t even if I wanted to due to my physical disability.

Who is the person that has impacted your life the most? My mom.

Have you ever had a pet fish? Yeah, as a kid I had a fish tank full of fish.

Do you believe in ghosts? I believe in spirits and guardian angels. <<<

What movie could you watch over and over again? There’s several that I’ve seen a ton of times.

Do you prefer tea or coffee? Coffee all the way.

If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? So, I have a bowl of ramen every night and have been doing so for the past couple years, but I couldn’t eat that more than once a day, though. As much as I love ramen and Wingstop, I wouldn’t want it to be my only meal forever.

Have you ever wanted to be on a game show? When I was a kid I thought it’d be fun to be on those Nickelodeon gameshows like DoubleDare. Family Feud would be fun, but I know I’d choke up there if I ever were a contestant. It’s easy to shout answers from home when there’s no pressure and a ton of people aren’t watching you. I would be horrible at any gameshow, honestly.

Could you live without a cell phone? Life would go on. I’d still have my laptop.

Have you ever vaped? Nope.

Do you remember your dreams? Very rarely.

Who was the last person to give you a hug? My aunt.

Have you ever been on TV? I was on the news a couple times after my accident.

Do you wear makeup? I haven’t in over 3 years now.

What's your favorite store in the mall? Boxlunch, Hot Topic, and Bath & Body Works.

How do you like your eggs? Scrambled, over-easy, hard boiled, poached, deviled.

What are your favorite kind of shoes? Adidas.

What is your favorite scent? I have a lot. I don’t feel like listing them right now; I’ve done that plenty of times in surveys already.

Do you smoke cigarettes? Nope.

What is your favorite season? Fall and winter.

Has anyone ever told you that you have an accent? No.

Do you have any piercings? Just one in each earlobe.

How did your parents meet? They were coworkers at the time. Do you have any siblings? I have two brothers.

What was your first word? *shrug*

How do you like to style your hair? I don’t do anything besides throw it up in a messy bun. I’ve finally started to really consider cutting it short. :/ It took me awhile to get it this length (it goes down to my butt) and I like longer hair better for me, but I just don’t have the energy or motivation to do anything with it and it gets so knotted so easily. Shorter hair would be a lot easier to manage for me. Gahhh.

Do you like to spend your money or save it? I like to save what I can, but I like doing some shopping as well.

Is your hair color your natural color? Well, I’m over a year due now for a color and so my natural hair color is quite grown out at this point. It’s a mix of my natural dark brown hair and faded red.

Do you listen to the radio? I haven’t listened to the radio in years.

When was the last time you cried? A couple days ago.

What is your biggest fear? Losing my loved ones, dying, never getting better/getting worse, never doing anything with my life and just waste away...

Can you roll your tongue? Nope.

Do you prefer cats or dogs? Doggos.

Do you eat more healthy food or junk food? Junk food, definitely.

Do you paint your nails? It’s been like 4 years now since I’ve painted my nails.

If you won the lottery, what's the first thing you would buy? I’d have to pay off my debt first and I’d also pay off my parents’ and brother’s debts as well. After that, the first thing I’d do is buy us a house and furnish it.

Do you like the sound/smell of rain? Yesss.

What toppings do you like on your pizza? White sauce, feta, ricotta, crumbled meatballs, spinach, green onions, and garlic.

What do people compliment you on the most? I might get compliments on my hair if I’ve recently had it dyed and styled. I don’t receive compliments often.

What is your favorite kind of dog? Labs and German Shepherds.

Do you get scared easily? Yes. 

What do you spend too much money on? Food.

What is your favorite candy? White chocolate.

What is your favorite physical feature on yourself? Nothing.

Did you like this survey? Sure.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

[pricklylegs]

Camilla's Story"I don't like social media and try to avoid it at all costs. I just had a life-altering moment and feel the need to somehow share it with the world. So, I'm going to share my story and then I'm going back to not using social media.I know no one will probably ever see this. But my story will now be a part of history. My Mom died giving birth to my little sister. My dad raised 3 kids by himself. It was hard, he had a mental illness. At times, life was a bit crazy. He was also a heavy smoker. When I was 7 my dad got lung cancer. He quit smoking. He got out of control and we were put in foster care. It took 14 months before they let us go back home. When we got there, my dad was smoking again and still fighting cancer. My baby sister got asthma so dad quit smoking again. After that, my dad was great one day and really weird the next. When I was 10 I found my dad hanging in the basement. He killed himself. I'll never forgive him for doing that to us. Never. I found out years later that his cancer got worse and was terminal and he didn't want us kids to watch him slowly die from cancer and he had no way to take care of us when he was so sick. We had no family that could take us in. We were split up and put back in foster care. My little sister got adopted. My older brother and I were stuck in the system until we aged out and were dumped on the streets at 18 to fend for ourselves. My brother took up smoking and has COPD. He can't walk 2 blocks. We don't know where our sister is or how she's doing. It's like the world just expects us all to forget each other. I never took up smoking. I hate smoking, it killed my dad. I hate the nicotine that addicted my dad. I have dedicated my life to fighting anything with nicotine.I have dedicated my life to fighting big tobacco. I have never dated a smoker. I married a non-smoker. I beat the crap out of my daughter when I caught her smoking because I was afraid the nicotine would kill her, too. I have joined every antitobacco group in my community. Since my dad died, I have been disgusted by people who use nicotine, who suck on a cigarette, who put a wad of tobacco in their mouths, or think they're cool using one of those vape things. I thought I was honoring my dad's life by working to end smoking and nicotine use.Over the years I've spent so much money fighting big tobacco that my kids didn't have everything I could have given them. I've gone to meetings and hearings and have missed events in my kid's life because I was fighting big tobacco and big nicotine. It was my mission in life. I'm on vacation visiting an old friend. A friend who quit smoking 8 years ago. This friend worked hard to quit. They use one of those vape things and I have always been harsh on them because to me they still smoked and were a nicotine addict. There was zero compassion from me. My friend has a disorder (I can't remember what it's called). She fights depression and anxiety all the time. It has cost her a marriage and a few jobs. I don't really understand what it must be like to be that depressed. I probably can't because I'm always so angry about my life. This morning she put coffee and breakfast out on her patio. The weather is beautiful here. She put her laptop on the table between us and asked me to spend the morning watching a movie with her. When I found out what the movie is, I didn't want to see it. She begged. Not wanting to be rude, I agreed to watch it. Honestly, I wasn't happy about it and tried to ignore it, but after a few minutes, the damn movie sucked me in and I was lost in it for the next hour and a half. Long before the movie was over I was flooded with emotions. I could not stop crying. I hugged my friend and tried so hard to say I was sorry for being so mean about her being an addict. I never understood that maybe that nicotine was helping her. We cried together. We then talked about my dad and his cycles of smoking and quitting smoking and how his mental illness was OK sometimes and awful other times. We talked about my anger and my pain. I got raped in foster care and I've always blamed my dad for that. I blamed him for abandoning us. My friend said she realizes it's hard for people like me to understand that sometimes people with mental illnesses really believe that others would be better off without them. She said that she thinks that in my dad's eyes, killing himself was an act of love to protect us kids. I'll be here for a week enjoying the sunshine. When I get home, I'm going to resign from the organizations I belong to. I'll always encourage people to not smoke so they don't get lung cancer like my dad or COPD like my brother. My days of telling people to hate nicotine are over. I hope I'm doing this right and it all shows up in the right order. I feel exhausted. Emotionally drained. But right now, I feel less angry than I have felt since I was 10.I want to thank my friend (she doesn't want me to use her name) for helping me deal with years of pain. She has always supported me, even when I haven't been supportive enough of her. I will be telling others about this movie. I also want to think her for helping me set up this twitter thing to tell my story. Putting it in words has been helpful. Maybe I'll come back someday and read it all again. If anyone ever finds my story please see the movie You Don't Know Nicotine.My friend says I should put: #knownicotine in this so here it is. I think we're going to go grab a bottle of wine and do some day drinking now that we've both cried our eyes out. Thank-you for reading my story."~ Camilla AndersonSee the original series of tweets here:https://twitter.com/Camilla611.../status/1330546468030210051

#You Don`t Know Nicotine #Aaron Biebert #Documentary available on Ibex #This is what we`re fighting for CHANGE #Aaron Biebert you are my hero

[mirohed]

han jisung | better off dead (i’ll be juliet)

{ HAN JISUNG + GENDER NEUTRAL!READER }

zombie apocalypse au, college au, best friends to lovers

fluff, angst

10.5k

playlist / title insp (yes it’s a thg fansong from 8 years ago)

content warning: this work contains the following: copious amounts of swearing, the mention and underage consumption of alcohol, the mention and use of weapons (guns, knives, blunt weaponry), descriptions of violent acts, and character death. read at your own risk.

a/n: happy 100 (technically 107) days to me and jisung 💓💓 special thanks to @tyongu for screening this fic and giving me the motivation i needed to pick this fic back up from its 5 month long hiatus && to @offonoffs for being a fellow member of jisung nation & expressing interest in this fic ,, it means a lot. 

reviews are greatly appreciated !

You used to think that zombies weren't a realistic sort of monster—not as real as climate change or capitalism, anyway. They were better suited to being enjoyed from the comfort of your couch as you curled up with a bag of chips on a Friday night.

This, of course, all changes the night you get that fateful emergency alert.

You're at Chan's house when it happens. He's invited you and the rest of campus to his frat house for one of his famed end-of-semester ragers. He spots you not long after you enter, catching you in a one-armed embrace, full cup of beer in hand.

"Hey, glad you could make it! The night's still young, but Felix said he'd set his Switch up for some Smash up later. You should join them if you get the chance." A girl from your communications class (Ryujin?) calls out to him, waving him to join her and a few unfamiliar faces for a game of beer pong. "Sorry, duty calls. If you ever get tired of the beer, you know where to find the good stuff," he says, shooting you some quasi-finger guns and leaving you to fend for yourself.

You slip past a few couples pushing themselves up against the walls on your way to the kegs, and fill a cup of your own. Minho's there, leaned against the refrigerator and taking small sips of his drink. "Surprised you haven't switched to Woojin's vodka yet," you joke.

"Usually, I have no qualms about...sampling, but taking from him's a death wish." Taking another sip, he grimaces. "If that means putting up with the cheap shit all night, I'll take it." You mumbled an "amen," knocking your matching red cups together in a toast. You both regretted the swig you took.

"Yeah, I can't do this." You dump the shitty alcohol in the drain. "You know where Jisung is?"

"No clue."

"Damn. Well, if you manage to find something to sample, give me a call. I'm gonna go find him."

You scour the entire first level of the house, weaving through clouds of marijuana and vaguely cotton-candy scented vape juice. Unfortunately, your best friend is nowhere to be found. You don’t bother trying his phone; if he was drunk (which he probably was), all you’d get in response would be unintelligible cheers as he “gets his party on.” You ask around for a bit, but each new set of directions sounds more ridiculous than the last. (You're still not sure if Yukhei was drunk and fucking with you or being completely serious when he said Jisung wasn't at the party at all. You wouldn’t be surprised either way.)

You call it quits after about a half hour, trudging upstairs and feeling both hungry and a little sorry for yourself. Sure, you had other friends, but the one person you wanted to get wasted with was nowhere to be found.

As you head upstairs, you notice the bathroom door is wide open. A glance to your left is all it takes to see Hyunjin kneeling on the bathroom tile, puking his guts out as Jisung rubs his back in a feeble attempt to provide comfort. You make eye contact with Jisung, and he nods his head in the direction of Chan's room at the end of the hall. "'Lix set the Switch up, but Hyunjin's busy being a lightweight." He shoots Hyunjin a withering look, but Hyunjin's too preoccupied to notice. "Take over for me? He picked Isabelle, and we both know how bad I get my ass kicked when he does," he grumbles, helping Hyunjin stand on both legs. "We'll join you guys in a few."

You're planning your victory against Felix (Jisung probably picked Lucario for the "cool factor," which didn’t mean much when all he did in rounds was button mash and hope for the best) when your phone goes off, loud and insistent. Jisung's goes off less than a second later, with Hyunjin's buzzing on the bathroom counter. Based on the way Felix pokes his head out of the door, phone in hand, you can only assume he got it too.

The official alert glares up at you, a few simple sentences in all capital letters.

EMERGENCY ALERT

ZOMBIE OUTBREAK. THE DISEASE IS CONTAGIOUS. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

You exchange a look with Jisung and Felix, all seeming to share one thought: This is bad. You had heard news of this disease before; highly contagious, with nonspecific symptoms that were often misdiagnosed until it was too late and necrosis set in. Scientists had found out that it was a mutation of a disease that was supposed to have been eradicated a century ago. 

Even people that were updated with their vaccinations could catch it; it was transferable via bodily fluids. If someone infected so much as got a drop of saliva or sweat on you, you were at risk.  ("Just goes to show you what happens when people don't vaccinate their fuckin' kids," Minho had said, changing the channel to a rerun of Friends.)

Chan shuts the party down, kicking everyone sober enough to walk out and housing the wasted. He urges them all to find shelter and head for safety as he waves them out. "Listen, if you ever need anything, I'm just a call away," he tells you as you return to your dorm.

Seungmin, the frat's designated driver for the night (that’s a lie—it was supposed to be Changbin, but he conveniently “forgot” and left the job to Seungmin), gives you a ride back at Jisung's request. ("I'm not letting you walk back and get infected," he had insisted, arms crossed.)

The first thing you do after getting home is call him. You spend most of the video call packing your bags, just in case, tossing cans and clothes into the biggest bags you can find.

"I'm starting to think those apocalypse planners had the right idea," you say, trying to cram another bottle of water into your bag. "I could use an apocalypse bunker right about now."

Jisung dries his freshly washed hair, draping the towel around his neck. "Maybe we should beg them for shelter."

"Maybe."

“Remember when we had that plan to build our own bunker back in high school? I wish we never threw those plans away.”

“Wasn’t it you that was like ‘we’re never gonna use these, what’s the point?’” you tease, voice dropping an octave to mock Jisung. “I, for one, always thought they were a good idea.”

“But you let me throw them away!” You put down the shirt you’re folding and plug your ears, shouting that you can’t hear him. He calls you a child, but the conversation makes you feel better about what might happen after tonight.

You’ll be fine, you tell yourself as you lie awake that night. This is just in case things go to shit.

Surprise, surprise, it doesn’t even take a full week before things go to shit.

"Get in!" Jisung shouts, driving down the road at a reasonable enough speed for you to keep up with. You don't bother asking why he has a horde of zombies chasing (hobbling, really) after him. Instead, you sprint behind him, tossing your bags into the truck bed before leaping on yourself.

"Where'd you come from?" you ask, panting as he hits the gas and barrels down the road. There are a few bags, full to bursting, in the trunk with you. "The city?"

"Yeah. We're going back." Your head cranes to look at him from the glass window at the back of his hand-me-down pickup truck in surprise. "Felix is out there somewhere, and we're not leaving him behind. Chan took the others, and we're meeting up with them after we pick 'Lix up. I called Chan earlier, so the cell towers should still be up by the time we get there."

"Can't we meet him halfway? No offense, but if we go back, we're gonna fucking die."

There's no compromise. The ride's silent, save the wind whistling in your ears as Jisung drives as fast as he can (it takes him awhile to realize he can go way over the speed limit; what are the cops gonna do, stop him?) Going back might not be a bad idea anyway; he needs more fuel to keep his truck up and running, and you don’t know about him, but you’re not exactly prepared to hunker down for the long term.

It's absolute chaos in the city. Buildings burn in the distance, smoke billowing out into otherwise clear blue skies. Corpses of the undead (who are now, with any luck, actually dead) litter the streets. People have already gone feral, welcomed the lawlessness of the new world with open arms. You turn down familiar streets and see families in a hurry to leave their homes and get out of the city as fast as possible.

"You stay here," Jisung says, parking across the street from the nearest megamart. You can barely make out the action going on outside the store, but you don't think there'll be much left for Jisung to take by the time he gets there. "Call Felix. I'm gonna see what I can take."

You sit on the roof of the truck, Jisung's worn old baseball bat (now outfitted with barbed wire) in hand. Trying not to cut yourself on the sharp edges, you call Felix.

"Hello?"

"Oh, thank god. I was scared the cell towers were already down. Where are you?"

"I made it to the outskirts of the city. There's a house up here. Jisung'll know where it is, we come up here all the time.”

“Alright. You doing okay?”

“Yeah, just a little shaken up, of course,” he laughs. “Didn’t think this was how I’d be spending my time after finals.” You murmur an agreement, and he continues talking. “Don't waste your battery, alright? See you guys soon." He hangs up, and your fingers itch with the urge to text someone, make another call, but Felix was right. It's not like Instagram's up right now; everyone's got bigger things to worry about.

After what feels like an eternity, Jisung comes running with a full backpack and...a suitcase?

"Where's Felix?" he pants, handing you the heavy suitcase and tossing the backpack in the back of the truck.

"He's in a house on the outskirts of the city? He told me you'd know where it was."

"Should've known. We gotta haul ass, though—I might've pissed off, like, a ton of people." Your eyes widen; there is, in fact, a group of angry people headed your way as you take a seat in the truck bed. Jisung floors it before any of them come close, letting them eat his dust.

“Where is this house anyway?” You’re yelling over the wind, but Jisung catches it nonetheless.

“The frat’s been going there for years, I heard. It’s some tradition to get shitfaced there for initiation, so we all had to go and drink whatever Minho gave us. I must’ve blacked out, because I barely remember it. We go up there sometimes, when we need to get away.”

You leave the city and go off-road, running over new grass. There's a house you've never seen before at the top of a small hill, and it's there that you see Felix. He's managed to attract one of the damn things, but he's definitely holding his own against it, landing a few impressive roundhouse kicks on it. He's whacking at it with a metal rod when you drive up the hill, but the zombie catches on and turns it into a game of tug-of-war.

Wrenching the rod away, he returns to kicking at it, staggering the zombie with one good hit to the ribs.

But the zombie seems to have caught on to that too, and it's as you pull up to the house that it grabs onto his leg and sinks his teeth into him. Felix cries out, his skin punctured and blood dripping onto the grass underfoot. He tries to yank his leg back, but can’t seem to summon the strength, his other leg hopping about to maintain balance.

Now that he's injured, the zombie drags Felix closer, clawing at his head before—

You can't watch, and neither can Jisung. There’s a sickening crunch, and you squeeze your eyes shut.

The next thing you see is Jisung running the fucker over. A distant part of you wonders if that's bad for the car, but it doesn't feel like you're there in the moment at all.

It's like you're watching the whole thing from a third-person view. You see yourself leap from the truck bed as soon as Jisung shifts the truck into park. You can almost see the seed of unease, of we're-so-screwed begin to sprout in the pit of your stomach. 

You can’t tear your eyes from Felix’s body. He’s lying face down (thankfully), but he’s stained the grass red, his leg twisted at an odd angle. You can make out the scratches along the side of his cheek from here, skin broken and bleeding. 

It’s red. It’s all red. Everywhere you look, it’s—

And then you're back in your own body, throwing the car door open to yell at him. "You fuckin' idiot!" you hiss. "Why'd you do that?" Definitely not the right thing to say, but you can't take anything back now.

"What do you think? I killed it before it could kill us." He ventures into the house, purposefully shoving past you with a harsh bump of his shoulder. You follow despite his clipped tone and tense shoulders. Together, you loot the house. Jisung seems to know where everything is, handing you everything from bags of chips stored away to bottles of whiskey. (You're about to ask about the alcohol when he mutters "Molotov." You figure it's not the only use they've got.)

You come upon Felix's pack. It's the backpack he used during the school year, most of the space taken up by his clothes. Jisung shoulders the bag wordlessly before turning to leave. All you can do is follow behind.

You watch the sun set as the busted speakers play some playlist he must have put together. (You admit it'd be a good road trip playlist if not for the fact that you were in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.) His knuckles are white against the wheel, and part of you wants to talk about what happened, but you take one look at his clenched jaw and hold your tongue.

Night falls. The two of you camp out in some crop-bearing fields. He starts a fire and speaks for the first time in hours.

"Do you want to take the first shift or should I?" He's looking right at you, but there's none of the usual light in his eyes. 

You think that when Felix died, part of Jisung died with him. 

You end up taking the first shift, judging time based on the occasional glance at your phone. You keep an eye and an ear out, watching the fire frame Jisung's sleeping face in subtle orange.

He doesn't want to talk about it, you tell yourself. And who would? You're not exactly eager to bring the topic up yourself. You lean back on your hands as you try to think of anything except what happened to Felix.

Before long, you nudge him awake. He's a little disgruntled, but you bug him until he sits up. "Yeah, yeah. I'm up. Get some rest." You curl up in the sleeping bag (Felix's sleeping bag, but you're still trying not to think about it) and shut your eyes.

The fire crackles lowly. You hear Jisung's bones crack as he stretches. You don't sleep.

When you crack your eyes open after god knows how long, the sky is still dark. "Can't sleep?"

"What do you think?" The corner of his mouth quirks up, just a bit. You swear you hear a faint chuckle. "You know we have to keep going, right? Without..."

"You can just say it, you know. Without Felix. Without our best friend."

"Yeah. Without our best friend." You cast the sleeping bag aside, staring at the flames. He pats the grass next to him, and you crawl over to his side. When he wraps an arm over your shoulder, traces meaningless patterns and letters into your arm, you don't complain. Maybe you even lean into his touch, knowing that it might be you and Jisung versus the world for awhile.

You think you're fine with that.

When the sun rises, you and Jisung make plans to meet up with Chan and the others; there's some safety to be found in numbers, after all. Neither of you mention having to tell them what happened to Felix.

Jisung calls Chan. Then Minho. Then Woojin. Then Seungmin. Then Changbin. Then Jeongin, who's still in his last year of high school, but is an unofficial member of the fraternity regardless. Then, as a last resort, he calls Hyunjin. Nobody picks up. Changbin and Minho's phones don't even ring, instead kicking him straight to voicemail. "Maybe their phones died," you offer.

"Disappointed, but not surprised." He pockets his phone with a huff. "The cell towers are probably down. How's the radio?" You've been playing with the radio while Jisung tried calling his friends, trying to find a signal.

"I'm about to rip out the stupid dial and crush the damn thing under my foot, but other than that I'm good," you snipe, throwing him a look and a fake smile. You turn the dial all the way in one direction, more than a little annoyed at all the static you seem to be catching. To your surprise, you hear broken, unintelligible chatter. You move the radio between you two, chasing after the signal.

"-vivors...proceed to... -ary base...infec... -on entry...supplies will be rationed...gates will close once maximum capacity has been reached." The message cuts out less and less as you fiddle with the radio, and once you wait for the announcement to repeat, the full message plays.

"Attention, all survivors. If possible, we ask that you proceed to the nearest military base or encampment. The military will be on patrol to execute zombies and the infected as well as rescue clean civilians and bring them to the nearest base. All civilians will be checked for infection upon entry and routinely throughout their stay. Supplies will be rationed for as long as possible. Gates will close once maximum capacity has been reached."

You and Jisung exchange a look as the message plays once more. When he breaks into a wide grin, you mirror it with a smile of your own. "We're saved!" he cheers, wrapping you in a big hug and knocking the radio on its side. You relax in his embrace, sighing into it. You don't make any moves to break the hug, and neither does he, even after it stretches on longer than a hug between friends should.

"One problem…” you start, voice muffled as you speak into his shirt, “where's the nearest military base?"

There’s a small hospital up ahead, the white building stark against all the browns and greens you two have been seeing the past few days. “Should we check it out?” Jisung asks, eyes flitting to you. “You never know when we’d need medicine or bandages.” 

“No. Before you ask why, I know we’re gonna run into zombies. I can feel it in my bones.” Jisung flattens his lips into a straight line, clearly unhappy with your verdict.

“Your bones don’t know shit.”

“Picture this: first semester of our freshman year of college, right before midterms. You’re barely passing your world history class because you don’t go to lecture. I help you cram for two days straight and tell you I can feel you getting an A in my bones,” you say, clenching your fist to emphasize your point. “When you get your midterm results back, you got an A, not only on the test…”

“...but in the class,” Jisung finishes with a roll of his eyes. “Okay, fair point. But what if you got hurt and I couldn’t save you because I didn’t have the medicine for it?” He’s pulling into the parking lot, but doesn’t shift the truck into park. You can still talk him out of it.

“Then you just let me die? It’s not that deep. Like yeah, it’d suck, but at that point there’d be nothing you could do.” 

His voice is so earnest that it forces your eyes to snap to him. “We both know I can’t do that.” There’s something behind his words, an undercurrent carrying a feeling you can’t name. Carding dirty nails through his hair, he gnaws on his bottom lip. “I think I’m gonna risk it. Besides, it’s out in the middle of nowhere. I doubt there’ll be too many zombies. You sure you don’t wanna come with?”

He stares at you, and you groan, giving in. “God, park the truck somewhere more discreet. We both know I’m gonna have to bail your ass out anyway,” you sigh, opening the glove compartment and withdrawing the knife Jisung had nabbed from the frat house’s kitchen. “Might as well come with and save myself the trouble of going in there to find you.”

“That’s the spirit,” he grins, and you feel like you’ve been played.

The inside of the hospital’s dark and completely devoid of that sterile scent you don’t want to admit you liked. Instead, there’s a musty smell that pervades the building, and your nose wrinkles as you take deep breaths in an attempt to get yourself acclimated to it. “Stay close to me,” you tell him. “I don’t want you wandering off.”

“You think I’m gonna get lost? What kind of idiot do you take me for?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

He doesn’t respond, instead muttering something under his breath. “Whatever. Let’s see if we can find something.”

You creep along the corridors, breathing as light as possible. The whole hospital seems to be moth-eaten and abandoned, but you’re not sure if you and Jisung are alone or not. The rooms you enter are a mixed bag; you manage to get to the small cafeteria and bag some soon-to-be stale chips as well as several bottles of water, but you don’t get much in the way of medicine.

“Where do they keep all the medicine anyway?” you ask, turning away from the spoiled ice cream in the mini freezer, nose wrinkled. The light bulb goes off in Jisung’s head, and he smacks his face with his hand.

“The pharmacy. They keep the medicine at the pharmacy.” You take a water bottle and make as if you’re going to whack him with it when you hear a noise. Both you and Jisung tense at the clattering of equipment from outside the cafeteria. You two stick your heads out the door, Jisung scanning the left side and you scanning the right. The coast looks clear, so Jisung leads the way out the way you came.

You’re almost home free when you spot a zombie ambling about at the end of the hall, back turned to you. Jisung holds up his palm, signalling for you to stop moving. “Okay, what now?” you ask.

“It’s just one zombie,” he starts. “Give me the knife, I got this.” He hands you the backpack with everything you’ve looted, and you hesitate before giving him the only weapon you two have. He sneaks up on the zombie, getting closer and closer…

And then it rears its ugly head, letting out an ugly gurgling noise that scares the shit out of you. One arm’s in a sling and the other hangs limp; you don’t think broken arm would bother the undead too much. It charges, quicker than either of you were expecting (did zombies that were athletic as humans keep that athleticism?) and almost smothers Jisung, who loses his balance and falls hard on his hands. He manages to roll to the side in time for it to knock its head against the smooth tile floor.

“Change of plans,” he says, zombies dressed in scrubs and hospital gowns alike beginning to come out from the corner of the hall, “we’re leaving!” You help him up, slamming your heel on the neck of the zombie that almost attacked Jisung. There’s a satisfying crunch, and then you two are off, turning corner after corner trying to escape. 

You don’t stop running until your feet hit cement instead of tile. You don’t stop moving until you’re both in the truck, trying to catch your breath. “You were right,” his voice is shaky, and you take his hand in yours, squeeze it in an attempt to calm him down. “We shouldn’t have gone.”

Even after his breathing returns to normal, he doesn’t let go of your hand.

You're not sure when things start to change between you and Jisung. Maybe it's when you catch yourself staring at him as he drives, right hand on the wheel and the left resting on the lowered window. (He insisted on keeping the windows down as much as possible; the air conditioning in his truck was busted, “just like the rest of the damn thing.”)

Maybe it's when you stop bothering with arguments over who takes the couch and who takes the bed. You've slept in the same bed before, sure, but that was when you were children. You remember the night it started, not long after the trip to the hospital:

You wake up with fingers already tangled in the sheets, a cold sheen of sweat on your forehead. Every blink of your eyes treats you to the sight that haunted your nightmares: Felix, one of your best friends, with eyes gouged out and flesh hanging from his cheek as he opens his mouth so wide his jaw unhinges. His tongue sits lamely in his bloody mouth as he lets loose an unending wail—

You can’t stay here. You force yourself out of bed and find Jisung still awake, staring down at his hands in the darkness. He seems to hear you coming, because he says, “You too?” before you’re even in the living room proper.

“Yeah.”

“Wanna talk about it?” He feels around for the lantern that was left behind when the former residents evacuated and flicks it on, the warm yellow light a welcome sight. You both take a seat on the couch Jisung had been sleeping on as you try to find the words to describe your nightmare.

“It was Felix. We were at school and I...I saw him from behind, and it’s like we were all alright again. I was calling out to him from across campus, but he couldn’t hear me. Then I turned him around and then…” You shudder, and Jisung’s quick to wrap the blanket he took for himself around you. “He looked like he did after that day we found him. His mouth wouldn’t stop opening. I-” You don’t even notice your hands are shaking until he takes them in his own.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “Take your time.”

“I miss him, Jisung. I miss when the three of us would fuck around and spend all our money on food and video games and have to cram just to pass our classes. I miss having to kick his ass in Smash because you never could. I miss our group calls where we make fun of him for playing Fortnite because it’s not relevant anymore.” 

“I know,” he shushes, pulling you into his arms. “I miss him too. He was in my dream, at the very beginning.” He tucks your head under his chin. “It was the night of the party and he told me not to do something stupid because I could lose you. Next thing I knew, we were at the hospital and it was you facing those zombies and not me. They,” he swallows heavily, “they got you. All I did was stand there. And then I was all alone.” You stay silent, twisting the ends of his hair between your fingers.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss college.”

“You and me both.” Before long, you switch the lantern off, breathing becoming steady. Your eyes get heavier and heavier until you let yourself fall into a deep sleep.

Sleeping by his side wills away most of the nightmares. You get the best rest you've gotten since the night it all started, so good that after that night, you rarely sleep apart.

(You ignore the twinge of...something in your heart when you wake up first. There's something about his sleeping face that makes him look at peace, something about the way his arms snake around you as soon as you lie down next to him, that makes you feel something you think you shouldn't be feeling.)

"Do you think we'll make it?" he asks one night. You're both sitting cross-legged in the back of his truck, taking inventory. He picked up a map from one of the houses you've been squatting in on the way; you're halfway to the base. "Survive, I mean. Not just long enough to get to the fort, but...you know. In general." You glance up from the knife in your hands, humming.

"I hope so. Besides," you start, dragging the knife along the sharpening stone, "we've made it through everything so far, haven't we?"

"Yeah," he says, the corner of his mouth quirking up a bit, "we have." The stars wink down at you as you work under the light of the moon and a small lantern. With any luck, things will get better once you've reached the safety of the base.

You open and close the drawers of the house you and Jisung have stopped at to gather supplies, trying to find something to take with you. The house hasn't been ransacked yet (or at least, you don't think so; the locks were in place and everything looked tidy before you broke in), but the owners sure did a good job of clearing the place out. No canned goods, no bottles of water, nothing except for some office supplies and a worrying amount of rubber duckies in the bathroom.

The lights are all off, and you're pretty sure that the house's supply of running water ran out a long time ago. The midsummer heat makes your clothes stick to your skin just as uncomfortably as the duct tape you and Jisung have taken to wearing along your arms and legs. After what happened at the hospital, Jisung didn’t want to take any risks, no matter how much you both sweat under the adhesive.

You're poring over the drawers in the bathroom when your eyes get drawn to a small box in the corner of your vision. It's a little beat up, but the saccharine pink and white box grins up at you all the same. You're not quite sure what use Hello Kitty bandaids would serve—they're not even that big, really, the most they could do is patch up a paper cut—but you do know they'd make Jisung smile.

And if you're being honest, you've come to miss that smile. It's been hard to come by recently.

Nobody breathes a word about the change in dynamic. There's no angsty "what are we" talk that threatens both your friendship and your budding relationship. It's just you and Jisung, the same as it's always been. 

You get used to resting your head on his lap, to having his hand interlaced with yours as he drives. You throw away the excuse of sleeping together “to get rid of the nightmares” (though that’s still a very compelling reason). The word boyfriend is always on the tip of your tongue, but at this point, labels like that don’t mean much.

You learn to enjoy the little things, the way the blues and blacks of night fade into pinks and purples with streaks of pale orange to greet the world each morning. You learn to enjoy the little things, like the weight of Jisung’s head on your shoulder as you run your thumb down the side of his hand. It’s humbling, you think, how the sun rises and sets, how the world keeps spinning despite it all. No matter how much has changed, some things stay the same.

”You ever realize how insignificant we are?” you ask one morning, eyes focused on the sky above. “Life goes on, with or without us.”

”Yeah,” he shifts to look up at you from his place in the crook of your neck, “but you know what?” You hum as the birds begin chirping, signifying the start of the day, eyes closed as you bask in the morning glow. “I don’t think I could ever feel too insignificant when I’m with you.”

You scoot away, causing Jisung to start whining. “We’re in the middle of the zombie apocalypse and you’re flirting with me?” you scoff, incredulous.

“And you’re surprised?” He’s got this cheeky smile on his stupid face that you swear makes the world, your world, a better place. You lean in, pressing your lips to his for just a second. With your eyes closed, it feels like you’re a normal couple watching the sun rise on a normal world. It feels like nothing is wrong, and you’re right where you’re meant to be.

You’re digging through your backpack to find the beat up paperback you were planning to finish reading and use as fuel for the occasional fires you and Jisung would light when camping out when a set of Polaroids fall out of your bag. You’d crammed them in there long before the thought of a zombie apocalypse ever crossed your mind. There’s one that catches your eye from the night you celebrated your joint graduation with Jisung. (Seungmin and Hyunjin went to different high schools, and Felix was still in Australia at this point; you’d meet all of them on the day of orientation.)

It was the largest party you’ve ever been to, with your families and your friends taking up all the parking in the neighborhood. Avoiding awkward conversation with aunties and uncles was your specialty, and you spent much of the night dodging questions like “So what are you planning to major in?” and “Are you dating that Jisung kid?” 

There were drinks in the cooler that you were expressly told not to touch (not like that stopped you both from sneaking out two beers and chugging them in your room, away from prying eyes), music playing from the Bluetooth speaker you’d never used, and laughter everywhere you looked. 

“Can’t believe we’re adults now,” you said, one arm dangling off the side of your bed. “Feels like I only met you yesterday.” You set the bottle down on your carpet, eyes focused on your ceiling fan as it did its rotations.

“I’m glad we’re going to the same college,” he confessed, setting his bottle on your nightstand before you barked at him to put it on the carpet lest the condensation damage the wood. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Jisung’s parents had brought out a cake, the icing congratulating you two on graduating from high school. All eyes were on you as you held the knife just above the cake, and you felt weightless as the blade divvied up the dessert.

“Wait, I wanna do it too,” Jisung whispered, bumping shoulders with you.

“What? No, this is my house.”

“Well, my parents were the ones who bought the cake!”

You try to think of a retort, but when none comes, you hand him the knife. “Here. Don’t mess it up.”

“I never mess up,” he said as you took the biggest chunk of cake for yourself. You watched him cut the cake into what were initially equal portions, but grew less and less balanced as the cake went on.

“See,” you told him once the cake was all gone, “what’d I tell you?” You take a dollop of the cake’s whipped cream and planted it on his nose.  “You never listen, Han Jisung.” 

It’s then that a flash went off, stunning you both. Yeji grinned as she handed you the developing Polaroid. “Save it for the wedding,” she joked. (It makes you sad to know that although you stayed relatively close in high school, you lost touch in college. You smile when you see each other on campus, but it’s not the same.)

“What are you looking at?” Jisung asks, pulling you back to the present. You stare down at the image, the almost child-like smiles on your faces. It feels like a lifetime ago, when things were easier and the unknown was something you thought you were ready for.

“Remember our grad party?” He takes one look at the picture and you swear you see the lines of stress on his forehead fade away as he laughs at the face he’s making in the photograph.

“God, I miss those days.”

"There it is." The base stands tall, barbed wire promising shelter from the uncertainty of whether you'd spend the day forced to fight for your life or not. You drum your fingers on your thighs as you approach the entrance, chest full to bursting with anticipation. You're half listening to Jisung's stupid hour-long playlist, half relieved that you managed to find a base so close.

He stops at the gate, waiting for a guard to emerge and check you two for signs of infection. He takes your hand in his, squeezing it tight. This is it, the gesture says, we're gonna be okay.

You wait.

You wait some more.

Your hands get sweaty.

"Is anyone there? You'd think for a military base, they'd have someone come out by now." Jisung turns the volume of the car speakers all the way down. He's met with the noises of his truck's engine...and an incessant scratching at the gate.

Exchanging a look, you hop out of the car and try to peek through the slits of the covered chain-link fence. Your first mistake is getting too close; they all seem to catch your scent and greet you with a chorus of grunts and groans as the horde focuses their attention on you.

Your second mistake is looking too closely at who's behind the fence. You make eye contact with the husk of a man, a glazed look in his eyes and skin broken along one side of his face from where he’s been clawing at it. He's dressed in all black, and when you take a second glance (you really shouldn't have), you realize he looks like someone you know. You're almost certain that if he smiled, you'd see dimples. You're almost certain that if you could see his hair—torn out in clumps, his scalp bloody—it would be curly since he wouldn't have access to a straightener in the middle of nowhere.

"Chan?" you whisper. There's no response, but a taller figure pushes into him, forcing his way to the front. When his mouth opens, all you can see are swollen, bloody gums and blackening teeth from weeks of neglect. Despite that, you know exactly who this is. You've tag-teamed toilet duty with Jisung at enough parties to know what Hyunjin's neck and back look like as he lurches forward, trying to ram the gate. "Oh shit." Felix and Jisung did say that Chan took the rest of the boys somewhere, didn't they?

That conversation feels like a lifetime ago, when the term "zombie apocalypse" was just the name of an overdone genre. It was better suited to being viewed from the comfort of your couch on a Friday night and Han Jisung by your side to complain about the shitty effects and act like he wouldn't need to sleep over because he'd get too scared to drive home.

You creep back to the truck, taking slow steps backward to avoid alerting the horde more than you already have. Releasing a heavy breath when you slip into the passenger seat, you try not to think about what you saw. Jisung looks at you expectantly, and you can't bring yourself to break his heart even more. He's already lost his best friend; you don't have the heart to tell him that the rest of his friends, his found family, are most likely locked behind that gate as well.

"You okay? What'd you find?"

"Just some zombies, nothing important. Let's go."

The first time you kill a zombie with a gun, it doesn't end well.

Sure, the deed is done and the zombie's dead (like really, fully dead), but it's what comes after that sucks.

You’re on a supply run, a hunting rifle you jacked from an abandoned house in your hands. You guess the house must not have been as abandoned as you thought, since there are two zombies in front of you and Jisung. You've come to notice that zombies get slobbery. The sight of decomposing flesh slick with saliva isn't very appealing, and that's not including the stench of it all. 

No matter which way you slice it, eau de zombie just isn't for you.

You don't have much experience when it comes to firing a gun. (Or any experience, really.) But you figure it's an aim-and-shoot sort of situation, right? You've seen Felix play video games before, and he's always made it seem simple. So you line the barrel of the gun up with their heads and pull the trigger. One. Two. Three.

The shots echo, and for a moment, you feel on top of the world as the first zombie falls backwards, blood oozing from the bullet's exit hole.

But in that moment, you also realize that recoil is a bitch when you're not prepared, and the second shot misses the other one entirely, the gun skewed too far to the left. You stumble back into the kitchen island, but Jisung's quick enough on his feet to decapitate the remaining zombie without much trouble.

"Hey, you know what I remembered?" he asks, wiping zombie blood from his brow.

"What?"

"Guns make noise."

"Yeah, no—shit." With those gunshots, you gave away your location to any unfriendly forces, human or not.

"You don't think zombies have working ears, do you?" You hit the kitchen with renewed vigor, gathering some essentials—a few knives, some canned goods left behind—and set the rifle down.

"I don't wanna find out. And even if they don't, other humans sure as hell do." He turns the house upside down looking for more bullets. If there is a higher power out there, you guess they must be looking out for you, because the former owners of the house left their safe unlocked. You decide to relieve them of their two pistols and every bit of ammunition you can get your hands on.

Of course, if there is a higher power out there, you guess they must be fucking with you, because minutes after getting back on the road, you hear the roaring of motorcycle engines. They surround Jisung's truck, and their leader stares you both down before yanking his black mask down and rapping two knuckles on the window Jisung forgot to roll down.

"You two should've known better than to wander 'round here," he tuts, running a finger through his hair. "So young, too. Almost makes me feel bad for what I'm about to do." To one of his cronies, he barks, "Mingi! Take what's in the trunk." You don't see this Mingi person, but you feel the truck get weighed down as he leaps on and loots everything worth taking. "Don't take it personally. At the end of the day, it's all about survival. I've got eight mouths to feed, and you've only got two. Only makes sense that we should, ah...relieve you of some of that weight you’re carrying."

Jisung's fuming, fists clenched in his lap, but you know he sees the guns slung along their backs and holstered at their hips and stays silent. The pistols you two picked up are in the glove compartment, and the ammo's strategically buried underneath a pile of clothes at your feet. It's okay, you try to tell him, meeting his eyes. We prepared for this.

One of the leader's other cohorts pulls his own black mask down and whispers into the leader's ear. When he's given permission to speak, the young man looks straight at Jisung and asks, "Are you Han Jisung?"

"Who's asking?" Jisung shoots you a look, but you can only shrug in response.

"There was a group of guys looking for their friend. Their description matched your face, but I guess it doesn't matter now. They went to the base a couple miles south." The young man nods in the direction of the base you were at only a couple days before. "Probably more undead than alive at this point."

"What...do you mean by that?"

"He means," their leader snaps, "that the military base down south got infected. Don't know when. But it was a group of seven, led by some guy named Chad or Chan or something. We tried to get 'em to join, but they were deadset on finding shelter.” He snorts. “Their funeral."

Mingi's finished taking your things, so the leader and the younger man (you catch his name when the leader calls out to him—Wooyoung?) pull on their masks and take off, leaving you and Jisung in the middle of the road. He's silent again, driving down the vast expanse of nothingness with only his playlist to serve as background noise.

"Where to now?" you try, eyes searching his face to gauge his reaction.

"Did you know?" It's a whisper you almost don't hear over the wind in your ears.

"Did I know what?"

"Did you know that they were..." He doesn't finish his sentence. The way your mouth clamps shut, gaze falling to your lap, tells him everything he needs to know.

His grip tightens on the wheel, and you jolt forward when he comes to an abrupt halt, throwing open the door and walking off, slamming it behind him. "Jisung?" You follow him out, but he whirls around to face you, face scrunched as he crooks a finger in your direction.

"You lied to me!"

"Look-"

"I fucking trusted you! You were the only person I had left! I saw my best friend get murdered with my own two fucking eyes!” He’s blinking back tears as he shouts at you. “I've spent god knows how long hoping that the rest of my friends were alive, and the fact that you saw them on that base...the fact that you fucking lied to me..." He takes a deep breath, eyes screwed shut. It’s silent for a long time. His shoulders loosen, hands falling flat, but when he opens his eyes, you feel a chill run down your spine. He's built a concrete wall between you two, locking you out with four simple words: "You're on your own."

"Jisung, what-"

"You heard me." The sentence is curt. He's wiped away years of friendship and whatever romance you might've had all in one fell swoop. (But maybe you did that yourself when you lied to him.) "You're on your own." He enunciates each syllable as clearly as possible, lacing them with as much venom as possible. You wither under his gaze.

He tosses one of the pistols at your feet. No extra ammo; you only get what's already loaded. He drives off without you, and you're left with nothing but the bag you packed that first night, a pistol, and the clothes on your back.

So yeah, the first time you kill a zombie with a gun, it doesn't end well.

You learn how to get by alone, rationing what's left in your bag and clinging to the shadows to avoid a fight. You learn to ignore the rumble in your stomach in favor of focusing on other things, like the distant noise of motorcycles. (You hold your breath when you hear them, pray they don't come close. They’ve taken enough from you already.)

It's lonely. You and Jisung might not have always agreed on everything, but the weight of solitude, real solitude, drags you down like a ball and chain fastened to your ankles, making each step forward unbearable. Some nights, you see his truck parked in the distance, in the garage of old houses or partially masked by foliage. You want to approach him, beg for forgiveness, beg for what you had back.

Instead you tiptoe past, giving the vehicle a wide berth.

You spend some mornings thumbing through the rest of the Polaroids you have. Most of them (unsurprisingly) are of you and Jisung. There’s one of him posing in front of the most expensive cheesecake shop in town (he’d been drooling at the window displays for weeks), one of you facing the ocean, back turned to the camera (you begged him to go for spring break), and one Hyunjin took of you two playing beer pong at one of the frat’s many parties (you were never quite sure why drunk Jisung had better aim than sober Jisung; you ended up losing these matches).

You don’t know why you do it. You know that taking a trip down memory lane is the single worst thing to be doing, but you do it anyway. Maybe you’re lonely. Maybe you miss Jisung. 

Maybe you miss yourself.

The next time you see Jisung, you're in a convenience store infested with zombies. You weren't planning to enter, having heard the tell-tale noises of confrontation, but you caught a glimpse of who was doing the fighting and couldn't walk away.

Jisung's backed up against a corner, trying to beat away the zombies surrounding him with a hatchet. (Keyword being trying: he's just one guy against five disgusting bags of meat trying to kill him.) You see blood all over him, dripping onto the floor, and decide to intervene. He should be grateful when you bash their heads in with his barbed baseball bat, left discarded across the store, but—

"I had that under control."

"Jisung, I-"

"Save it." He wipes the blade of the hatchet on the ragged pants of one of the creatures that attacked him. "Thanks. And keep the bat. You look like you need it."

"Jisung, just listen to me."

"What could you possibly have to say to me? The damage has been done."

"I was trying to protect you!" He rolls his eyes, and you're worried he'll walk away, but his feet stay planted. "How was I supposed to tell you that all your friends got infected, huh? How do you tell someone that? Hell, I wasn't even sure if it was them!" He refuses to meet your gaze, refuses to respond. "Dammit, Jisung..." You screw your eyes shut, but there’s not even a hint of reaction from him.

“You know what, if you’re not gonna listen to me, then fine. I’ll go.” Swivelling on the balls of your feet, you make to walk away, to return to solitude. You don’t look back.

“Wait!” There’s a desperate tone to it that almost makes you want to cave, almost makes you want to return to what life was before you reached the base. You barely manage to keep your head forward, even as you stop in your tracks.

“What?”

"I'm sorry.” His voice comes out soft, something above a whisper but far below his normal speaking voice. “I thought about it after I kicked you out, and you were right. I wouldn't have told me either. Guess I was too stubborn to admit I was wrong," he chuckles. "If you don't forgive me, I get that. You can take some of my food, and we can part ways again, but for what it's worth...I missed you."

You sigh, looking out the cracked store window. "Look, I'm sorry too. It was a tough choice, but I should've been honest with you." It's kinda gross to be trying to make amends here, what with one foot stepping in zombie excrement and all, but your head hangs low in apology anyway.

Your head snaps up when you hear him sniffle, and his eyes are struggling to hold back tears. When you open your arms, he's quick to wrap his arms around you and crumple into your embrace, voice muttering broken apologies. "I'm so sorry," he mumbles. "I missed you so much." You two stand there and let the moment drag out, let Jisung dampen your shirt for what feels like hours.

There might not be much hope left in the tumultuous reality you've found yourselves in, but as long as you're together, you think you stand a chance at weathering the storm.

"Shit," Jisung hisses that night, wiping blood off his arms with a damp cloth. He should've taped himself up before going on a supply run, but he'd been running out of tape; that was the reason he risked entering the infested store at all. The bite marks on either side of his forearm run red and raw, and Jisung fixes his gaze to the popcorn ceiling to avoid throwing up then and there.

A glance is all it takes for him to gag, and he washes the cloth off, red water spiraling into the sink. He caps the water bottle he used and takes a good look at himself in the mirror.

There's blood across the right side of his face. (He's not sure if it's his or not.) There are deep lines in his forehead from months of stress, dark circles underneath his eyes. He figures he should've gotten more sleep while he still could, remembers all the times you bugged him about going to bed early.

He never listened.

He never listens.

If you were with him, he wouldn't have gone in alone, wouldn't have gotten surrounded, wouldn't have gotten bit. Maybe he wouldn't have even gone in at all. Lord knows you've always been his impulse control.

That's it, then. I've got a day or so left then... He wraps the clean(ish) cloth around the bite and resists the urge to squeeze until he bleeds out on the bathroom floor. There's only one thing left to do.

You're in the middle of shaking the dust off the former tenants’ couch cushions when you notice Jisung emerge from the bathroom. "I did some digging around, and I think these'll fit you." He catches the clothes you toss him wordlessly. "You good?"

"I need you to do me a favor."

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Kill me."

Okay. Well. You were expecting something more along the lines of "check if the truck is locked" or "kiss me."

"Wh-" The word gets lodged in your throat when he lifts his hand to show you the bite. His whole forearm's red at this point, blood trickling from it despite the sopping red cloth in his hand. He tries for a lighthearted grin.

(It doesn't work. Jisung's never been a good liar.)

"Please. I want to die on my own terms." To himself, he mutters, "You always deserved better, anyway. All I ever did was get angry and leave you behind." He's focused on the way the blood runs down his arm and fingers before falling down, down, down. The hardwood floor takes it like a champ, he thinks. 

It's really kinda funny how he can think things like that when he knows he has to die, and he has the audacity to laugh. Maybe he’s only laughing because he’s losing a lot of blood.

You cup his face with both hands, the couch cushion tossed to the side, and he hesitates before leaning in. "How- how do you get to decide what I deserve? Decide what I want?" your voice breaks, vision blurred from tears. "You're all I want." Your foreheads touch as you sob, tears mingling with Jisung's blood as they hit the floor. "This isn't fair! I just got you back and- and-" The cry that rips itself from your throat is guttural, a bubbling noise produced from the back of your throat. This time it's Jisung who lets you cry into him, your face buried in the crook of his neck.

"You're so fucking stupid! I hate you!" you scream, nails digging into his shoulders. You may as well be telling the world where you are, but your mind doesn't bother registering it. Before you know it, you're slipping, legs unable to keep you up. You're so tired. It's been a long, arduous few months. "I hate you so much!"

But you don't mean it. You never could.

You weep at his feet, clutching at his jeans in an effort to pull yourself up. "I hate you..."

Maybe it's the look on his face when you pull away to gulp down air like your life depends on it; broken, beaten. Maybe it's the crushing hopelessness that hits you; when Jisung's gone, so are you. Hellish as this world may be, Jisung's the only thing that makes you feel like your last moments might not be so bad. He's your home, your tiny shred of sunshine and hope.

When he tugs you back to eye level, you smash your lips onto his, hand on the back of his head. He responds immediately, mouth moving against yours, hand tugging at your waist (closer, closer, closer).

But then his brain catches up to his body. "Wait," he turns so you're leaving wet kisses along his jaw, down his neck, "wait, this- this isn't right."  He steps back, eyes wide as he puts distance between you. "Now you're-"

"Infected." You think back to the news coverage of the disease. All it took was a drop of saliva for someone to be at risk. You wring your hands, tear your eyes from his forearm (his veins bulge as if they're fit to burst). "I guess I just realized, you know?" A nervous chuckle escapes your lips. "Who else...who else is gonna..." Your voice breaks again, eyes brimming with tears. "Who else is gonna put up with you in the afterlife?"

He's in front of you again in a heartbeat, wiping your tears. With a scoff, he says, "God, what would I do without you?"

You bandage him up properly after that, spend the night talking until you're asleep, head rested on his chest. It's comforting, he thinks. He wishes he could have held you like this back when your only concerns were your uptight Calculus professor and the stress of finals.

"Better late than never, I guess," he whispers, breaking the silence. Your chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, your cheek smashed against his chest as you sleep. "Though I guess we might've been a little too late, huh?"

The sun rises, golden light in your face forcing you to blink your eyes awake. Jisung stirs at your movement, his good hand tightening around you as he tries to stay asleep.

"Wake up." You press a kiss to his knuckles. "We don't have much time."

His voice comes out deep and gravelly, speaking for the first time in a few hours. "I know. Just five more minutes like this, I promise. Five more minutes..." And he's asleep again, mouth open in a little "o." You curl into him, listening for his heartbeat; weak, but still there. He’s still alive and so are you.

You think five more minutes wouldn’t hurt.

"Ready?" you ask. The pistol shakes in your hands; you might not be the best shot, but you can't afford to miss now. You try to will your nerves into complacency. (It doesn't work.)

"Wait!" he says, eyes wide. His veins are clearly visible along the infected arm, snaking up his shoulder and kissing his collarbone. You raise an eyebrow, and he gives you a stupid, million-watt grin. "I love you. Even, uh, even if I am pointing a gun at you." He waves the other pistol a bit to prove his point. "I just wanted you to know before we, you know. Blow each other's brains out."

"Hey." You catch his attention, match his smile for the last time. "I love you too. Just thought you should know before I blow your brains out." He laughs, and it's a real, genuine laugh blooming from his stomach; it’s a loud, hearty sound and makes your heart feel so full that you can't help but laugh with him, laugh at the fact that you're about to shoot the boy you love, laugh at everything that landed you here.

Then the laughter calms down. The wind itself holds its breath, refusing to let even a slight breeze slip through. "On three. Ready?" Jisung nods, starting the count.

"One."

(It's sad you two will never get to see the end of it all, or if there's an end to begin with. Who knows, maybe there are enough true leaders left in the world to make something out of nothing. You hope that this world learns to heal from its wounds, no matter what. But in the end, you guess it doesn't matter. The sun will rise and set regardless. 

“No matter how things change…”

“...some things stay the same.” With those words, you and Jisung taped up the cardboard box labeled “TIME CAPSULE” in black Sharpie. “Man, I hope future us doesn’t hate past us too much for this,” Jisung said, managing to find a space for the large box in his closet. “It’s gonna be a long four years.” Right below the time capsule label read “OPEN AFTER GRADUATING FROM COLLEGE.” 

You’d nodded, hiding the box from view by moving Jisung’s clothes in front of it. “There we go. Now we won’t be tempted to open it.” The rest of the day was spent getting ice cream way too close to dinner to be healthy and trying to find out what the other wrote in their letter to their future self.

You don’t know why you’re remembering the makeshift time capsule you two spent half a day filling, but knowing that you’ll never get to open it makes your toes curl with an unpleasant sadness.)

"Two."

(In a way, you think you're almost grateful for what happened. Despite how twisted and fucked up it all was, you doubt you and Jisung would have ever found each other, truly found each other, without it. In your final moments, you think back to a conversation you had with him the week of the announcement.

"You know what I realized?" he had asked, making himself comfortable on your bed.

"What?"

"Parallel lines stay so close to each other, but they never meet. That's so sad."

"Jisung, are you crying over lines?"

"You know what else I realized?" he asked again, wiping tears from his eyes. "All the other pairs of lines meet once and then drift apart forever."

You ended up comforting him, leaving your homework behind. "Promise me we'll be like parallel lines. Promise me we won't start drifting." His eyes were shiny with tears as he held his pinky out to you, your pinkies interlaced in eternal promise.

Staring down the barrel of the pistol in Jisung's hands, you start to think that this is the part where you start drifting.)

"Three!"

#stray kids #stray kids scenario #han #han scenario #stray kids imagine #stray kids drabble #stray kids angst #han imagine #han drabble #han angst #han jisung scenario #han jisung imagine #han jisung drabble #han jisung angst #han x reader #han jisung x reader #ari.doc #i hope everyone cries :-) #i also hope ppl talk to me abt this fic ...ive been writing for a week straight and i have a LOT to say #also hope it doesnt flop #fingers crossed

[magistralucis]

Ed Banger House Party @ Electric Brixton, 25 Jan 2019 [Review]

😍 Fucking fantastic you funky little Frenchmen... 😍

This was a very wild night. I can’t quite believe I survived it, even as I finish off writing thousands of words about it. It’s probably the most detailed review of a concert or show I have done to this date. I finally saw Sebastian in the flesh, was treated to over eight hours of sweet sweet music, and feel that I have begun my Ed Banger-related pursuits for this year in the perfect way.

And the loot. The sweet, sweet loot.

Read on for more. Mobile users, be warned this is a very long post.

The Journey

If you’ve read my other gig reviews you know the drill: I don’t live in London, have to commute there from wherever I’m living at the moment, London is difficult to navigate. But I had no trouble with my journeys this time, there were no Underground closures, and this venue was exactly the same one as the TBB show two years ago. Nothing to report there, only that I give props to our driver. There was an accident on the motorway, about 25 mins into a 2hr 20min journey. He took us on a thirty-mile detour to avoid the scene of the crash and still got us to London in time. If you’ve ever been on a National Express coach, you know what a big deal that is.

That wasn’t the only accident we stumbled upon in our journey, somewhere in Croydon (part of Outer London for non-UK readers) there was an altercation between two drivers and something like thirty police officers were present. It is rare to see that many police officers on scene for a single collision, so I wonder whether something more sinister was going on. All of them were wearing fluorescent vests and they reflected the light of the traffic most gloriously for a ten-meter stretch of the pavement. It was very attention-catching. I like to think they shared the same general sentiment of (o_o  ) when they looked over and saw an entire busful of people goggling at them, but that’s neither here nor there. It was around 8:30PM when I got to London, and I spent some time lingering in the train station before making my way to Brixton.

I like queuing up early. I had no idea what I was going to find there.

9:20~PM: If you follow Thibaut on insta you might have seen this.

This instastory. It’s not obvious, but these three were far from the only ones in this picture. I know this because I FUCKING WALKED IN ON THIS PHOTOSHOOT. THESE THREE WERE NOT THE ONLY PEOPLE THERE. THIS WAS A VIP GROUP SHOT SESSION WITH 25+ PEOPLE OUTSIDE ELECTRIC BRIXTON AND I NEARLY BARGED IN AMONGST THEM LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING IDIOT

I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! ;A  ;

I’ve met my favourite bands spontaneously. Gone for signings. Received compliments from Rammstein. I’ve shaken hands with Xavier. But I’ve never just happened upon an entire group of my favourite people engaged in a situation not meant for ordinary fans. I was honestly more terrified than elated. I knew they were VIPs because they (all DJs included) had blue wristbands on which allowed continued re-entry into the club, instead of the usual red club stamp on the back of the hand. Later in the show I recognized two of those people as stage photographers. Pedro was closest to me, Irfane passed by (he had very vivid eyes, even under poor lighting), and around the right-hand side Thibaut was putting his arm around Sebastian. I may have seen Vladimir Cauchemar unmasked. Shit was surreal.

This could potentially have been a good place to greet Sebastian zdravo. Unfortunately there’s a time and place for such things, and a VIP photo session I wasn’t involved in was not one of them. (Electric Brixton isn’t known for facilitating after-show fan meets either, due to the club’s structure and how everyone has to be herded out at the end.) Even if it were just the Ed Banger folks milling around, I'm not sure if I’d have been able to approach them in this case. ‘Cause ultimately, I am just an Animal Experiencing Fear, and I was caught so off guard; I stepped back and pretended I had nothing to do with the area. At least that way I could gather my thoughts and continue to observe.

I can tell you this entire moment took five minutes from 9:23pm to 9:28pm, but only because I checked my phone later. I didn’t want to take it out in the moment because I got paranoid they’d think I was a creep. As the phones and cameras were put away and normal conversation resumed I looked up and saw Sebastian five steps in front of me.

You know that recent Seb + Vinco picture. Hang on I’ll find it. You know the look Seb has in that pic?

That. That is his actual gaze. That is what Seb actually looks like when he has nothing to pose for and nobody to speak to. Unless something mind-boggling was happening in the empty space several feet away from where I was standing, that’s his normal nothing-to-see-here expression. At one point we met eyes. I think he blinked like once. You can’t tell his eyes are blue even from a short distance. He looked down, exhaled vape smoke, and bit his lip. Then someone (Myd?) ushered him into the open doors. And that’s how I accidentally stumbled upon the Forbidden Ed Banger Content, and while I was excited at what I saw, I think I’d prefer a do-over in the future. When they’re not all engaged in other business, when I have a pen and an adequate surface, and when I am not a fool with poor timing.

Also Sebastian was not as tall as I thought he was, but also far from short; Irfane was taller than I thought, but visibly shorter than Thibaut; Thibaut was taller than I thought, but no match for Pedro, whose height continues to boggle my mind. I have seen all of those people before, save for Sebastian. Pedro I have seen multiple times, with multiple people, in multiple contexts. Yet I still have no grasp of how tall anybody is in this label.

I don’t know what that implies about my visualization skills. At this point, I’m too scared to find out.

9:33PM: I’m going with this timestamp because that’s when I noted down that security cleared out completely with the VIPs, closing the front doors behind them. A girl comes up near me and stares at the venue, the ‘Ed Banger Records’ written in lights, then at the queue barriers (not open) for some time before turning to me. There were maybe five people altogether waiting.

Girl: Excuse me, is this the queue for people with tickets?

Me: I don’t know. We might be queuing to find out where the queue is.

Girl: [To a freshly emerged security guard, holding a sandwich.] Excuse me, do you know if there’ll be tickets at the door?

Security guard: [Incomprehensible - he’s speaking at close distance and a bus is freshly pulling up behind me, so I can’t hear them. He goes inside and shuts the door as soon as he says his piece.]

Girl: He doesn’t know. What am I going to tell my friends.

Me: Oh my God did you not get tickets.

Girl: My friends did! I was meant to get in early and get the drinks and stuff oh my God I DIDN’T KNOW THEY WERE GOING TO BE SOLD OUT 😰

Me: DIDN’T THEY SAY THERE WOULD BE A LIMITED RELEASE THOUGH 😰

By this time we’re both mired in anxiety.txt and others were coming forwards with the same experience. A group of three girls who got there shortly after me were all waiting for door tickets, and a guy came along who had a ticket for himself but was trying to get his friend (Asian girl, very pretty) in. (I will see this friend repeatedly throughout the show, but not the dude.) Eventually we looked up what the Electric Brixton website had to say, and gathered that a very limited number of tickets were available and they were all here at the right time to purchase it. As far as I know, everyone there got in without trouble.

First release tickets were £15.00. Later I was told it was £25.00 at the door.

Yeesh.

9:50PM: They finally open up the queue barriers. I’m fourth. Several of us in the line take a poll on who we’re here to see:

Pedro: ///

Breakbot: //

Sebastian: ////

Riton: /

Vladimir:

Myd: /

‘Everyone’: //

‘I’m here because of my friends’: /

The girl in the above section answered with the last one. Ed Banger rookie. Writing this now, I’m sure she had the time of her life.

I say Sebastian. Two guys in front of me nod sagely. One of them wears a Woman Worldwide T-shirt and a Justice logo jacket. We mutually express wonder that Seb’s, like. Doing anything again. At this point, however, the queue is split into two: ticketed and buying at the door, on the opposite end of the entrance. The girl and I say farewells as she departs for the latter. Unfortunately, I do not get to see her again. It’s a shame. She was lovely.

9:55PM: Security emerges with QR code readers and club stamps and starts to call us in go go go go go go go go

9:58~PM: The bouncer initiating pat down pauses over my portable battery for a very long time, seemingly considering whether that’s legal. Fuck my life. Eventually, though, he lets me in and I s p r i n t for the bar.

It has begun.

A note before I start: like the XOYO gig review last year, this review has been composed via rough notes, photos, and videos I took through the show. It was a longer night than last year, and everyone played for a lengthy period of time; this review is thus split into six sections, one for each DJ, including timestamped observations and photos/gifs of the night.

The gifs are taken from my own videos. Unfortunately, Electric Brixton’s setup made photography difficult for three reasons: 1) an abundance of flashing lights, 2) the elevation difference between the dancefloor and the DJ booth, unlike in XOYO where there was no audience-DJ divide, and 3) smoke machines, as well as actual vapers in the form of Sebastian Akchoté. Those three things make a mess onscreen, so images are potato quality compared to where I was (front center). This was a constant problem during the night, so instead of complaining about it with every DJ, I’ll just refer to this as the I Cannot See For Shit (ICSFS) syndrome and call it a day.

Busy P (10PM to 11:50~PM)

10PM: Mother fucking sons of bitches raised the price of water!

As mentioned in the TBB review, a 500ml bottle of water at Electric Brixton was £3.00 in 2017. (Even in 2019, at a supermarket it can be as little as 55p/500ml.) Harsh, but it is what you’d expect from London. But when I came back they’d raised it to a whopping £3.60. You could buy yourself a meal with that kind of money, albeit a small one, even for London. Disgusting.

But what can you do with something as necessary as water. I did expect it. I’m sore about it, is all.

10:05PM: Restroom visited, water bought and tucked into bag, jacket tied around waist. I was wearing armwarmers. I take my place by the barriers, front row center, with a guy on my left and an empty space on my right. Left-hand arrangement will not change during the night, while on the right it will be chaos.

10:10PM: Very superstitious / nothin' more to say / very superstitious / the devil's on his way / thirteen month old baby / broke the lookin' glass / seven years of bad luck / good things in your past

This is my first video of the night. Might upload it later.

10:21PM: USE IMAGINATION 💫 AS A DESTINATION 💘 USE IMAGINATION 💫 AS A DESTINATIoOoON 💘 USE IMAGINATION AND COME CLooOoOSER 👄✨ 👄 FOREVER BEEEEE 😘 😘💋

‘Pleasure’ summons the two dudes I was talking to in the queue to my right, especially the Justice fan guy. They stuck with me through Pedro’s set.

10:30~PM: Pedro looks a lot happier than he did at XOYO last year. He’s interacting a lot with fans, smiling, bopping about the way we have all come to expect from him.

10:40PM: I see the first glimpse of another DJ hanging around at the back. It’s Myd, drinking in a corner.

10:50PM: Is that what I think it is. I think it’s what I think it is

10:51PM: POP THE GLOCK THE GLOCK YOU POP IF YOU OUTTA LINE IT’S YOU I’LL BANG POP POP THE GLOCK THE GLOCK YOU POP IF YOU OUTTA LINE IT’S YOU I’LL BANG POP

Fantastic to hear some Uffie in the mix. I missed her so damn much. I think I might upload that clip as well because I want to share the experience with y’alls.

10:54PM: Thibaut jitterbugs into the scene. The lighting’s too bad for a photo so I post about it on the hellsite instead.

11:19PM: The display in front of the DJ booth has remained constant until this point, displaying the Ed Banger logo with only the occasional change in lighting. But now the display suddenly starts changing. Check it out.

It got really trippy with Breakbot.

11:29PM: ‘Genie’ comes on. I can see Thibaut and Irfane at the back now, ready to take over. I take my first drink since I entered the club.

11:52PM: HE PUT ON ‘BURNIN’. HE ACTUALLY DID THAT.

Pedro picks up the mic at this point and greets us for the first time during the night. I have what he said on video but it’s hard for me to transcribe it over all the audience noise, it might have to be an upload later on; I have videos of most DJ-DJ segues of this night, so hopefully that should be an interesting exercise. According to the timestamp on this video, 11:52-53PM is when Thibaut put on the headphones and took over from Pedro, but he continues to linger

11:55PM:

just so he can cOMPLETELY LOSE HIS SHIT APPARENTLY.

Breakbot (Thibaut and Irfane) (11:50~PM to 1:30AM)

12:00AM: At midnight Thibaut and Irfane take over fully with ‘Break of Dawn’. There’s something wild about listening to people sing a song with no lyrics (da DA DA DA darararaRA).

12:05AM: Irfane was on serious mode all night. I’ve also realized that the light situation is not going to get better; if it was Pedro alone I could have forgotten about it, but Breakbot’s set was where the ICSFS got really, really bad. There are so many photos where I tried to capture beautiful moments between Thibaut and Irfane, as they were quite touchy with one another (not as much as they were at XOYO tho), and yet it all turned to shit. I’m so sad.

12:10~AM: The two dudes to the right of me leave. The music is most funky fresh and the smoke machines are on max, so much I cannot actually see either of the DJs on scene. A girl wearing light blue takes over to my right.

I think Electric Brixton has reached full capacity. It’s not a big venue, fitting only about 2000 people or so, but I can feel it in the air. I look behind me and all around me are unfamiliar faces, packed tightly in a crowd. It’s hot. I take off my armwarmers and cram them into my bag. 

12:16AM: Irfane baby I love you but that was not a smooth segue.

(I don’t actually know what song he was on but the music like. Stopped 100% for a second. It didn’t sound intentional.)

12:25AM: I have a note on my phone that says ‘12:25 Pedro making heart’. I have no memory of this. Fangirl magistralucis what are your secrets.

12:30AM: you 😍💖 are all I think about 😍✨😍✨😍 keep me sulking and down 😘👇🏼 but you fill me with 🔥 so much 🔥 emotion 😳💖😳 and I’ll show my 🙏🏼🕊💐 devotion 💐🕊🙏🏼 to you ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

12:31AM: I cannot see for shit. Here have a light show I guess.

12:36AM: Dance, dance with me / Life's a fantasy / Stand next to me / Like ecstasy

12:48AM: Irfane puts on ‘Funkytown’. Thibaut dances beautifully. I’ll drink to that.

12:51AM:

What the hell is this?

1:07AM: Extra, extra, read all about it! The Mysterious Ninth Planet, located at last! Turns out it was in the hands of funky Frenchmen all along, who were hoarding not just the ninth planet, but ALL THE PLANETS

1:08AM: You may have seen what was happening during the above in Irfane’s instastory, actually. He put on ‘Le Freak’. I wonder whether I should upload this clip from where I was.

1:10AM:

?????

1:20AM: Pedro comes back into view. I try to film him but it doesn’t work out, and for once it had nothing to do with ICSFS. The girl to the right of me, who was rocking out for all of Breakbot’s set, is beginning to slump over on the railing. "Are you okay?” I call, but I don’t think she heard. From how rapidly it came on, how she could barely stand during the first five minutes of VC’s set, and how frantically her and her friends left afterwards (she could barely walk), it is quite possible she was going into diabetic shock. She did not return.

This is a known issue. You generally cannot bring food into London clubs, even if you’re diabetic. Electric Brixton had a complaint two years ago that a diabetic person was not permitted to bring in their food to prevent this exact thing happening. I hope whatever she had wasn’t that serious, but. I do wonder.

This leads to a note about security, I suppose. There were none up front by the barriers. There was no one to call for help to, except for maybe the stage photographers, and that’s not what they’re trained to do. People who were falling sick or too inebriated to stand would have benefited from having security help them beyond the barrier straight away, instead of having to wade their way back through a tight crowd.

This continued to be a problem.

1:20~AM: Vladimir Cauchemar is visible. He doesn’t have the skull mask on, but with something smooth concealing his face, kind of like the Taikobots of Danger’s Taiko-era set. When he takes over he has put the mask on.

Vladimir Cauchemar (1:30AM to 2:30AM)

1:30AM: I gotta say, VC was the easiest and the best to photograph in this show, and I both respect and resent that fact.

VC’s lighting stayed a consistent red and black through his set, similar to how it was at XOYO, and the clearest images I have of the night are of him. I’m still not over his collab with 6**9*** so my impression of him isn’t out of the woods yet, which is why my notes for him are brief.

I tell you what, though. He got the crowd going. VC was the first DJ to get the dude standing to the left of me dancing, and this is the dude who stayed the entire eight hours of the night by my side while on my right people faded in, faded out, barged into places. (Dude was holding out for Sebastian, but stuck around for all of Myd as well.) His set had serious limitations - the most gregarious sin of which I’ve noted down below - but he had a great stage personality. I have very mixed feelings.

Still didn’t prevent me from standing out certain songs to go on Russian duolingo, but that was my pride.

1:35AM: ‘Aulos’ comes on. I will upload that video because I might as well, I’ve little else videoed for VC. Someone taps my shoulder. It’s the friend of the dude whom I encountered outside, the Asian girl. “Can I put this here?” She calls, and places her coat down beyond the barrier; there are steps on the other side where you can place your drinks, bags, coats etc if you’re front row. She withdraws behind me afterwards, and when I next look back, she’s gone.

1:40AM: I’m honestly surprised how many people are digging VC’s set. He was not first choice for anyone I asked.

1:51AM: Vladimir, Aulos is great but not twice in the same set.

2:00AM: Third drink of the night. My legs are getting numb. The first 3-4 hours of a set are always the hardest. I don’t remember what VC was playing. At several points he played Michael Jackson but I have no record of when. I stood still to rest my legs and distracted myself with other pursuits.

2:18AM:

Hi I’m in this photo and I don’t like it.

2:26AM: VLADIMIR. AULOS IS GREAT, BUT NOT THRICE IN THE SAME SET.

This. This is the major problem with his set. I know it’s his biggest hit, but VC exploits ‘Aulos’ way too much, and from what I hear he essentially does this for every set he plays. Would it injure him to play a different song every now and then. Seriously. There are so many excellent songs in the world, and some of them might even be ones he’ll drop in the future. Why stick to ‘Aulos’ alone. I don’t get it.

2:26~AM: As I was noting down the third instance of ‘Aulos’, the girl who put her coat down returned. “Can I have my coat back?” She calls over the sound, and I peer over. I can’t see the coat. The red spotlight passes over the floor; the coat’s rolled off the steps and is now lying on the ground.

“I can’t reach it.” I shout. “It’s fallen off.”

“Oh no.” She shouts. 

“Can you wait until the segue?”

She shakes her head. “I’ll go over the barrier, but thanks.”

I offer to help her over, but she doesn’t think she'll make it. She ducks out past the crowd and goes around the side instead (no security to stop her), runs over to grab her coat, and then leaves straight away. She’ll be back for Sebastian’s set, but now it’s Riton time.

Riton (2:30AM to 3:30AM)

I didn’t enjoy Riton’s set very much. This had 0% to do with his music and everything to do with the chaos on my right-hand side, which made it worse. If it was the artist that was bad you chalk it up to a mismatch in interests, but knowing other concertgoers unilaterally deprived you of a good experience is a unique level of terrible. There are no timestamps for this section because I was too busy keeping an eye on my surroundings to take notes; he was also afflicted with the ICSFS, which didn’t help, but it’s a darn shame how much I missed out.

Oh and that too. That was his light show. Riton was a special guest and his name/logo was the dominant display for the entirety of his set. But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about the chip on my shoulder.

Here’s the thing. I attend most of the gigs I go to by myself. I prefer it that way because I get anxious when things go wrong. I have a very specific set of items I bring with me to concerts, and practice very meticulous timekeeping. One of the rules I observe during gigs is that I do not move from my position: I prefer front centre or front centre-right generally, but wherever it is, I stay put.

I am not a tall woman. If I lose my place, it is unlikely I’d get it back. I’m full of anxiety about being at my place, but I’m more anxious to avoid losing it, so I defend it with all my might. I have never lost my place in almost ten years and this show was no exception. But my goodness did the guys to my right push my buttons this time. The guy who was to the right of me for Riton was with a group, all of whom were banging on the barriers and creating a ruckus. Just my luck he was the only one who seemed actually inebriated. He kept putting his head down on the railing, slumped over for minutes at a time, before suddenly raving and flailing around whenever Riton dropped a beat. He had no consideration for whoever he was accidentally knocking about (i.e. me) during this. And as I said, there was no security up front, so I was on my own.

At first I had some sympathy, because I still wasn’t over the girl who left earlier. I’ve never seen people who were inebriated/high during shows last very long where they were, either. But the fifteenth time dude nearly poked my eye out, it was just too much. I do not like people prodding their way into my personal space. I do not like it, Sam-I-Am.

The last time I had to be vicious with a concertgoer was at TBB, where a ginger-haired girl kept on trying to tear people from their place up front, and eventually was ejected by security after she got into a catfight with another girl next to me. Apparently this time it was my turn to give into Righteously Indignant Bitch Hours and the next time he started flailing his arm into my neck, I grabbed him and slammed his hand onto the railing and shouted “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU.”

I wish I could say this made him stop. However, life is dumb. Dude was too out of it to comprehend his own actions, let alone my complaints. His friends pulled him out of the front row for about five minutes but then he came staggering back, muttering something about his lens cap (?) and if I’d seen it. It wasn’t long before he began to barge into the surrounding people again. Only elbows were the solution; I can barely move my right arm even now, it feels so bruised. I’m not proud of what I did, but I’m not sure what I could have done differently, and I would do the same even now.

But, you know. It could have been worse. If you’ve been front row, you know there’s a difference between those who’re trying to grab a good time and those who act out of malice. The former usually try to sneak a hand in next to yours on the railing, or crash into you from the back, or wedge their way in - but they almost always follow it up with an apology, and they tend to carve out their own little space, not actively steal yours. Yes I’m talking about that ginger-haired girl at the TBB show again. I’ve attended full on firebreathing industrial metal shows at much bigger, suffocating venues, and yet those audiences still managed to avoid being vicious and petty. She was the worst. Holy shit. It’s been two years and I’m still mad. Fucking bitch I hope you step in a puddle. What was I writing about again? Oh yeah the dude. He wasn’t acting out of malice, but out of irresponsibility. And to be honest, his friends weren’t that better, save for a girl who was about five feet eight tall and complimented that I was still standing later in the set: “I had to sit down after Thibaut and you’re still jumping like nothing happened!”

That made me think about my own stamina. I never thought I had much. I’m twenty-five years old. I’m in my prime, but I had more energy when I was eighteen, and I am old enough to keep that in mind. I’m not getting younger. After a show I’m bruised and my muscles ache and I pass out asleep for hours at a time. I’m usually awake for 30hrs~ during those times. I don’t eat or drink much before shows to prevent bathroom breaks. I ate on 3:30pm on the 25th and didn’t touch a single morsel of food again until 7am on the 26th, and even then it was a sandwich. After dancing for eight hours.

It’s been that way for years. But maybe most people? Don’t? Do that? And maybe I am? Actually quite strong? For regularly surviving what I do to myself?

I don’t know. Let’s move onto what I think 70% of you are here to read about.

Sebastian (3:30AM to 4:30AM)

3:30AM: Predictably, Sebastian gets the loudest cheers of the night when he comes on. Riton announces him and passes him the headphones. He still does the hand thing, by the way.

This thing.

3:30~AM: Not an observation of the moment, but of the entire set. Seb played some big name EDM songs and what I believe are versions of his YLS tracks. He was the only set I wanted to record in full, but I wasn’t tall enough and my equipment wasn’t good enough to do so. ICSFS is in play. I sort of hoped he'd stuck with his vicious red lighting from Primary Tour, and he did, but not to a degree where I could get good shots of him.

Is anyone excited for him to drop an album this year or what. Pedro said he would.

3:38AM: Seb also has the dubious honour of being the only DJ who contributed extra to the ICSFS problem. He vapes through the entire set. I have lots of feelings and I don’t know what to do with myself honestly.

3:39AM: Neither do the dudes to my right. They are the friends of the inebriated dude who has since staggered off into the crowd. They are completely losing their shit, screaming and taking their shirts off and kicking at the barriers. They contributed to some of the bruises on my right arm. But they still didn’t take my place so whatever.

3:40~AM: Seb is not a smiler. Photographer comes by and he gives him a single glance before turning back. I don’t know why I’m surprised.

3:43AM: The Asian girl with the coat from earlier comes back. She asks me to deposit a different layer of coat this time over the barrier, and stands behind me. I feel very protected.

3:50~AM: Balm to aid my pain: photographers start coming down from the stage to pass out Ed Banger pins and stickers. The first lot are thrown into the audience, but the second photographer takes the time to give all of us one. This is the first time I’ve scored thrown Ed Banger merch during a set. I usually can’t reach them because I am smol.

I am also bonding with the dude to my left during this time. We collaborate to catch the pins we want and share them out between the two of us. He gets the Ed Banger melody logo pin, and gives me the Ed Banger 15 Ans pin. “Are you sure?” I ask. He smiles and nods. I thank him and hand him a Breakbot sticker, one that’s of his name. 

4:06AM: What the fuck the lights are changing

4:06AM: Is that

4:06AM: IT IS

4:07AM: IT’S JUSTICE. IT’S HEAVY METAL. SEB’S PLAYING HEAVY METAL AND HE’S DOING THE HAND THING AND THE LIGHT SHOW’S TRIPPY AS FUCK ALL OF A SUDDEN AND EVERYONE IS SCREAMING AND THE DUDE LEFT OF ME IS DECLARING HIS LOVE FOR SEB IN FRENCH AND I AM SCREAMING OH MY FUCKING GOD

4:09AM: HE SEGUES TO ROLLIN’ AND SCRATCHIN’. HE LITERALLY DID THAT. SEBASTIAN AKCHOTE IS PLAYING ROLLIN’ AND SCRATCHIN’ AND WE’RE ALL GOING BATSHIT INSANE. I’M SORRY FOR THE BAD CAMERA WORK. THIS IS HOW I DIE.

4:15~AM: Myd is finally going back and forth. He will close the night after Sebastian has finished his set. Looking back on the videos of the night, I can’t believe he only played for an hour; it felt a bit longer than that, Sebastian never let up for a single second as long as he was onstage. Not a single minute wasted. And now you’re going to have to excuse me babes because he’s puttING ON STRESS AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE AGAIN RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW

4:24AM: AAAAAAAAAAAA

(Seb’s still playing Stress. Looping the chainsaw noises. Steady camera work lmao what steady camera work)

4:30AM: Sebastian hands over the reins to Myd at this point. I do not have a video of this segue because he does not announce the takeover; with one of his inscrutable hand gestures and a proud look, Sebastian takes up a whole bottle of wine and silently walks offstage. Again, I don’t know why I am remotely surprised. That is probably the most Seb thing I have seen Seb do all night, and it was a night extremely full of Seb things.

At this point I stop jotting down notes on my phone. But I’m at about 58% battery and going strong, so I’m still taking photos and videos whenever I can. Myd’s section is reconstructed from these records.

Myd (Round 2) (4:30~AM to 6:00AM)

4:30~AM: Not a specific observation. As mentioned in the Breakbot review of May 2018, I have unfinished business with Myd. Or at least: had. Myd played the closer in XOYO last year, and back then I was weak and I could not stay through his entire set. I swore to myself the next time he returned, and I was able to see him, I would last as long as he was onstage.

And I did. That’s one promise to myself kept, and what I hope was a little justice done for a DJ of Myd’s caliber.

4:35AM: Coat girl taps my shoulder again. “I’m going home. Could you...?” She gestures to the barrier, and I reach down and pull up her coat. It didn’t roll onto the ground this time.

“There you are.” I say. She takes it and gives me a hug. “Have a good night.”

“Have a good night!” Then she’s gone, alongside the exodus of people who are leaving the club. More people stuck around for Myd here than in XOYO. Guy to my left nudges me to look; stickers are coming around again, specifically the ‘Hello My Name Is _______ [Myd]’ one. We each take one.

4:44AM: I’m out of water. Actually I was out of water immediately before Seb finished, because for some reason I thought downing the last of my only means of hydration with over 1h 30mins to go was a sensible thing to do. I regret this decision bitterly, but I’ll probably survive.

4:58AM:

@_@

5:03AM: It is very difficult for me to ID Myd’s tracks. I suspect a lot of them are original or are from his recent release that I haven’t yet listened to. Appropriate to a closer, he takes a very trance-inspired line to his entire set, with lots of repetition and few loud drops; this was the same in XOYO. I wonder what a Myd headliner set must be like.

5:10~AM: The guy to the left of me is struggling. So am I. But further to his left, there is a guy slumped on the rails. His girlfriend is beside him. They’ve been there all night, but they’ve clearly reached their limit. My right hand side keeps refilling and emptying as people step away or leave.

I talk about that other guy because he summons Thibaut to him.

5:28AM: I took several vids of this but this timestamp belongs to the longest. Thibaut comes back with his own phone to film the audience. He winks and shyly gestures all of us to gather our strengths and be more pumped up, and I recall we obliged him because he asked so nicely. He lingered for some time, gazing at us as fondly as we were gazing at him. He then looked at the guy slumped over on the railing and hopped down from the stage, gently patting his shoulder to talk to him.

I didn’t hear any of their conversation, save for Thibaut asking the dude ‘where he was from’. By the way he clasped his hand to his chest several times, though, I’m inclined to think he was really concerned about the guy. They eventually shook hands and Thibaut made as if to hop back onstage. (The photo was taken as he was leaving.)

Except he couldn’t jump that high. He gave us another shy look and braced his foot against the barriers, perching neatly on the stage before clambering up. He stuck around for about five more minutes to check up on the audience.

I love Thibaut so much. He’s so gentle.

5:34~AM: Holy fuck my bag is full of crap. I haven’t organized it in some time. Discarded cups, beer cans etc have accumulated by my feet, and as I kick them away I’m trying to check my loot is in place and I still have my items. I can’t feel my passport and my blood runs cold for a moment. I turn the camera flash on to look.

“Are you looking for something?” The guy to my left asks worriedly.

I feel my passport in my front pocket. False alarm. “Just organizing my bag.”

(I didn’t see any lost foreign ID or driver licenses on the floor this time.)

5:43AM:

Russian duolingo says fuck millennial lives

5:50~AM: The smoke machine is turned off. I still can’t see for shit, though, because the lights flash rapidly between deep blue and violet and Myd’s hidden behind it.

My last video of the night is timestamped 5:55AM. Myd has a most benevolent smile on his face. He knows the night is drawing to a close.

6:00AM: I did it.

We made it.

I have made it through a Myd set fully and have survived the night.

Myd finished exactly at 6am and exited to a crowd of applause. There are calls for an encore, but given that it's... like, literally morning, it’s not realistic to expect him to stay any longer. Security comes by as soon as he exits, and we all leave Electric Brixton behind at last. The sun has not yet risen. I fall in step with the guy next to me.

Guy: Where are you heading to?

Me: Coach. I came up from Brighton.

Guy: From Brighton?! Was that last night or what?

Me: Yep, two hours before the show. I haven’t eaten or slept all night.

Guy: Wow. [Pause.] Though I think that’s the longest I’ve danced in my entire life, too.

Me: You’re not kidding. I really didn’t think I was going to last beyond Sebastian.

I think he was a Londoner. We say farewells in front of the Electric Brixton bus stop, and I leave for the Underground. My legs are numb and I can barely walk, but somehow I stumble past the barriers and sink into the seats of the train. Back at Victoria Train Station I drop in at Sainsburys for a sandwich and two cans of grape soda, and then realizing I need a resealable container to take on the bus, buy a bottle of Pepsi. The grape soda was just because I really love grape soda and I cannot find a place in Brighton that sells any. It was around 8AM when I finally got on the coach back home.

I had not slept for some twenty hours. I continued to not sleep on the bus. I tried very hard to, but I couldn’t, because I was still buzzing from the adrenaline. It wasn’t until I got home, just after 11AM, that I began to feel sleepy for real. Sig. other made me a cup of tea, and I took the interval to admire some cat slippersocks that had arrived for me in the meantime.

LOOK AT IT.

Overall I’d say this was a fantastic night. I have taken care of unfinished business and seen Sebastian in the flesh. I have, however, come away with another unfinished business to replace the deal with Myd - I should seek out Riton again, the next time he comes here, and deliver a full review of what that was like. To think of the Ed Banger crew making their way across Europe in 2019, with new material and a new Sebastian in tow...

😍😍😍

#ed banger #sebastian akchote #breakbot #pedro winter #thibaut berland #vladimir cauchemar #irfane #riton #busy p #christopher irfane khan acito #myd #ed banger records #edm #reviews #ed banger house party #long post #very very long post #gif warning #flashing gif #mobile warning this post will likely crash your app it is hideously long #but it is that much more detailed for it! ;)

[velehemelsbovendezevende]

Quitting smoking - a ramble

A while ago I posted about my decision to quit smoking. Oh boy, how it has been a battle since that day. After researching on the internet about the best ways to quit smoking, I found that the “cold turkey” method was the most preferred one for a lot of people and so I gave it a shot. If those people could do it, why wouldn’t I be able to do the same?

After five days of no cigarettes, I went nuts. The app I installed on my phone told me the cravings should be cut down to 3 times a day now, but that certainly wasn’t the case for me. I craved a cigarette every second. I got so grumpy and mad, even my friends and family started to avoid me and were careful with what they said to me. I ate a whole fridge worth of food in less than three days and I exercised for at least 4 hours during that same period of time. And yes, I enjoy some exercise, but not in that amount.

One of my dear friends’ birthday came along and I was invited. By this time, he must have regret inviting me, because my behaviour was not really party proof. I knew I was being a pain in the ass, but I couldn’t help but being annoyed all the time. I’m actually grateful he didn’t take back my invitation.

This friend, however, is a severe smoker. He, his girlfriend and his other friends smoke like chimneys. I knew that when there would be alcohol involved, I would cave. So I knew I was going to fail that exact day. I tried to prepare mentally, but to be completely honest with you, I wasn’t really doing a great job at this quitting thing and so I foresaw my failure.

After hanging out with them for about 2,5 hours and 5 cigarettes for each person individually around me, I gave in. It surprised me I held out so long. I felt a battle inside, the monster in me finally went back wherever it came from but my consiences started shouting. I decided to not care that evening. And so I smoked a hell of a lot more than I would “normally”.

The day after the party I didn’t quit again immediately. It took me three more days to try again. But because I like my friends and family, and also it’s very expensive to eat the amount I ate in such a short period of time, I decided not to go the cold turkey way again. So I looked into ways to built down my nicotine-intake more gradually.

Vaping wasn’t an option. I tried to quit by vaping a couple months earlier and to be honest, I enjoyed vaping more than I should’ve. If I turned to vaping again, I would always have to face this high risk of getting back to smoking.

I’m not trying to advertise any product here, but I found nicorettesprays. It’s a spray that contains only nicotine (so no tobacco, or any other of the 400 substances that you could find in a cigarette) and it’s proofed to be very useful in the process of quitting. I didn’t know what made it so effectively, but I sure found out.

First of all, every symptom you get from quitting smoking (depression, hunger, boredom, cravings,...) disappears, literally in a few seconds after using the spray. So I get to keep my friends, yay. Secondly, it is very discrete. It’s small which makes it easy to bring with you, everywhere you go. You can use it inside so you don’t have to go and leave your non-smokingfriends behind or excuse yourself at the table when you’re having dinner with family. Plus, it doesn’t take a long time to use. Talking about a timesaver, especially when you think about the amount of time, at least for me, you spend on smoking. Having a cigarette took me about 5-10 minutes (taking your jacket, going outside, looking for a lighter, etc), while using the spray takes me about 4 seconds.

So you might think; “yes, allright, but now you’re hooked to this spray?” This gets me to my last argument to why I think this spray is actually the best option for me: the feeling I got from cigarettes is nowhere near the feeling I get while using this spray. I don’t feel badass, I don’t feel rebellious. I feel like a silly girl using an ugly, black, weird spray-thing, randomly. In public. Also, the feeling you get after using the spray, isn’t a walk in the park, especially the first few times you use it. Your throat and your tongue get really tingly, which is at least a strange experience to have. I always drink some water right after using it, because I can’t stand the sensation of the spray. As a conclusion to my arguments to use this spray, I could state that this method helps to not be a hungry monster but it simultaneously isn’t a blast to use either.

I’m keeping a chart from how many times I use this thing. I’m determined to quit using it by the end of July, or at least by the first week of August. This time there are no alcoholic parties involved that I’ll have to face, and neither am I going to meet up with friends who smoke, as they are all occupied the next few weeks.

I’m on the fifth day of quitting again. And to be honest, I feel much better than I did on my first, well technically second, attempt. I’m looking forward to spend the money I’m saving, on stuff I can actually enjoy. I already saw improvement in my physical achievements (yep, that quickly) and I see small, but noticeable improvements in my skin, hair and nails too.

For the first time in two years, I actually feel like I can finally taste my food properly. I smell the flowers in our garden again. I don’t feel a slave of the tobacco industry anymore. I don’t feel stressed about when I’m going to have a chance to smoke anymore. I don’t smell like I haven’t taken a shower in five days. I’m starting to have this blush on my cheeks again, as where I lost that for a long time. I looked dead compared to how I look right now, even after this short time of quitting.

Quitting smoking is a journey and there is no “right way” to quit. Whatever works best for you, you should try. There is no golden medal for those who can do it cold turkey (although I secretly do have a lot of respect for them) as there is no punishment for doing it at a slower pace. We’re all different in how we choose to fight our battles, but we’re fighting for the same purpose, at least in this case. It doesn’t matter if you fail, it doesn’t matter how long it takes you. You have nothing to prove to anyone. It all comes down to this one goal; taking back what was yours. Your freedom, your health, your money eventually, your power to be independent from this destructive behaviour. It doesn’t matter how you get here, it doesn’t matter when you succeed. It’s when you took the decision to quit, that you’ve already proven to be strong.

A Chinese expression -at least I think, I don’t remember where I found it, it might be facebook but to hell with it, I found it to be inspirational- says that it takes you six times to fall down and seven times to get up to succeed. It all comes down to you not giving up. Doesn’t matter how much you struggle, I know you can get there as I know I can get there if, or rather when, we find the courage to keep fighting.

I’m sorry if this post contains a hell of a lot writing errors. English clearly isn’t my native language and I apologise if this disturbed you.

#quitting smoking #ramble #personal experience #failure #succes

[gravityfallsweirdgirl]

DOCTOR MIDNIGHT-episode 2- doctor midnight begins

I spend the last few days in the woods, thinking about my mistake. The Image of my late beloved Diana death, still haunts me, if that wasn't bad enough, my consequences cost me my only son's life. I stared quietly into the fire, but the sounds of DiMaggio's laughter echoed in my head over and over, until something snapped inside me.

John: one day DiMaggio, one day I will find you and when I do I'm gonna make you pay.

After my accident, I quit my job at the bank, and spend my days Planning my revenge on DiMaggio. Later on I started gaining muscle, I then trained myself for the day I find DiMaggio, soon after I joined the police academy, I then worked my way Up to detective, I soon found myself in New Jersey. My name is John hunter and I am DOCTOR MIDNIGHT

But before I could join the Police academy, I took self-defense classes, such As Boxing, martial arts, and gymnastics. I then later adopted an identity which wasn't that hard all I needed was a Blue midnight Trench coat and fedora, black dress shoes, leather gloves, sapphire dress shirt, black vest and tie combo, And Oxford blue chino pants. And to be sure DiMaggio won't recognize me I put a mask over my eyes. If DiMaggio knew I was still alive, he would probably would have me killed. At day I'm a detective protecting New Jersey, by Night I'm a vigilante looking for him. Every night I look for clues that might lead me to DiMaggio, I see men that cause trouble and threaten them by asking for DiMaggio, no luck. Consum by revenge, and driven to justice for my family, I was starting to go crazy, I began to reach the point of no return.

During my time in New Jersey I made a friend, Harvey Osborn a hard working detective like me who's trying to make the world safe for his family, he has a wife Charlotte and two kids a son and daughter Jacob and Sammy. Makes me miss mines. If only I could turn back time And stop DiMaggio.

The next day

Harvey: so Johnny boy are you ready for tonight (elbowed me in the chest)

John: ready for what

Harvey:(rolling his eyes annoying at me) you know you're victory party, you're three years of service of defending New Jersey

John:(sigh) ohhh that well I hate to break it to you but I'm gonna have to postpone the celebration party [getting off the elevator he follows]

Harvey: but john this is you're One night off your always out at night doing work and that's not healthy, you need to take a break, get your mind off work, relax for once in a while, have fun I mean what's so important that you can't attend your party.

John: well someone needs to watch over New Jersey

Harvey: well what about that new guy the blue baron

John:( stopping in his track, he turns) doctor midnight

Harvey: yeah that's him (putting his arm around John)

John: I don't know The city needs me

Harvey: awww come on John what will it take to convince you to come

John:(sigh) if I come will stop asking me

Harvey gets on his knees

Harvey: yessssssssssssssss

John: okay okay just get up before somebody see you, {he held his hand out for Harvey} Besides what About your family

Harvey: John it's a families are welcome victory party (he points up at the sign)

John: alright I guess I'll see you at the party Harvey but I have to go do an errand first So I'll see you there bye Harvey (waves him goodbye)

Harvey: alright but if you're not there by the time the party starts you're taking me bowling Next weekend See ya Johnny

6:30 pm it's only a few minutes before the party I was doing my patrol around the city for anything unusual, and by unusual I mean DiMaggio I'm dressed by my alter ego dr. Midnight, I didn't plan on being a superhero but someone reported me as the vigilante of New Jersey, when I find them I'm gonna thank them. Every superhero hero needs a vehicle like the Batman, I drive in a1950s Corvette which is something you never see now these days, it's something Diana Always loved, And every hero needs gadgets I have two gun holsters on my left and right leg, one carries a gun the other a tranquillizer gun, I always carry a pocket knife in my back pocket for emergencies, I also carry a leather whip and a grappling hook on the the side of my belt and inside my vest Are Smoke repellents in case in need to get them out of danger, like say trapped with a tiger but that's a story for another Day. I check every square inch of the city but no sight of DiMaggio, all my Hard work and investigation lead me to DiMaggio's home. Every clue leading to him, ends up In a dead end, I was being to be on the verge on giving up. I took a break on my investigation for one night, I manage to make it on time.

Harvey: Johnny you made it,(he hugs me and wraps his arm around me making me walk around) I was worried that you never made it

John: and missed the hard work you put in this party nah its what friends are for

I soon forgot what my purpose was for until

Harvey: John I want you to meet detective Jones (he grabs me and whisperer in my ear) he's very old

We shook hands

Harvey: well I'll let you too get settled in byeeeee

John: so tell me about yourself how'd you become a detective

Jones: well it started many years ago when I was doing a report on a troubled teen named

ANTONIO DIMAGGIO

That name made my heart stopped

John: you know DiMaggio

Jones: yes I heard he robbed a bank by poisoning the guards ( I grab my notebook and took notes)

John: what else do you know

Jones: he's known around this city ask anyone

My search for DiMaggio soon to start, I started to talked to people about his whereabouts

Cathy: he once murdered a whole neighborhood for not letting him sell his candy to the kids (whispering) and the candy he Sell had Ecstasy in it.

Jodie: I heard he has his own club where deep in his basement he kills anyone who stitches on him, threaten him, owes him money or break a promise, heck if you were a cop he'd feed you to his white tigers.

Jackson: I heard that he has a secret hideout, he's on the run for a family he killed ( those two words KILLED, FAMILY, brought a flashback in my head) no one's ever found him.

John: until today

I got everything I need to know, but based on his history records, he was not a very good man I walked out of my own party.

Harvey: John Where you going (shoot, I was so busy, working on finding DiMaggio, I forgot about Harvey)

John: sorry Harvey but somethings come up, I'm need Somewhere

Harvey:(grabbing my shoulder to stop me) now just a minute you said you were coming to the party

John: yes I did but you didn't saying anything about how long I need to stay (smiling at him)

I walked out, to Go finish what I started

Harvey: alright But I warned you WE'RE GOING BOWLING NEXT WEEKEND

I quickly changed from normal to hero Drove in my convertible and gathered all the information and clues I got from everyone DiMaggio has his own club, men selling illegal products like candy ecstasy, dangerous weapons, and bootleg movies. And once a week he goes to orphanages, retirement homes and steal money from the poor, his days of crime are numbered, but first things first I need to find one of his men, I find his goons, I find DiMaggio. 12:00 it started to become midnight, I beginning to give up on my search when I noticed some creep hitting on a teenage girl she runs away thankfully, and then I noticed him handing people vape pens I got a closer look and then I saw it, it was the same man that shot my son, I soon become furious, I got out of my car and made my way to him

Doctor midnight: HEY(I screamed)

He heard, took a closer look at me and started to walk away, I followed him, then he started running, he tried to lose me. He threw  two trash cans at me I jumped, he knocked down a fruit stand, I did a handspring jump, he went to a alley, which was pretty stupid of him, he climbed over a fence, unfortunately for him, he didn't know I had a grappling hook I aimed it at a billboard swung over the fence and crashed on him, he pushed me off and ran as fast as his feet could carry him, he thought he had lost me, but he did count on me walking in the alley, leading me to him.

Doctor midnight:boo

Klaus: ahhh

I grabbed him by the shirt and push him against the wall it was time to get even

Doctor midnight: talk

Klaus: please... don't hurt me

Doctor midnight: I want answers WHERES DIMAGGIO

Klaus: I don't know what your talking about

Doctor midnight: look you either talk or I'll make you( I clutch my fist on his shirt harder)

When I wasn't looking he grabbed a bottle and slammed it on my head I let him Go.

John: ahh

collapsed on the ground I rubbed my head and saw him running. I called out for my cars and followed him. I followed him until 12:49 when I see him going inside a building called joy time factory.

Doctor midnight: but why would he lead me here this toy factory has been closed since the 70s, was this where DiMaggio hideout was.

I went inside, I lost him, I see an elevator I got inside and hit the 12th button, I got up higher and higher until I heard music when the elevator stop. I saw what a club look like lots of lights, loud Hip-hop music, people dancing in inappropriate ways, girls on the left drinking and On the right Smoking. I'm hoping DiMaggio would be here, I walked inside to find him, I see people on the left And right side doing what's illegal in New Jersey, a girl in a orange dress come to me and puts her arms around me.

Angie: hey handsome you wanna party

I pull her arms off

Doctor midnight: sorry but I'm looking for Antonio DiMaggio

Angie: DiMaggio (places hands on hips) his in his office

She pointed up where I saw three more men walking upstairs, I followed not wanting to spotted I used my grabbing hook swung myself on top of the air vent and ran until it brought me to DiMaggio, I was Close to him finally after three years of planning, and investing all my hard work was final going to pay off.

Samuel: are you, I say are you sure you want to do this DiMaggio,

yakuza: this plan of yours could be dangerous

Les beaux: not to mention that hero this town has, could be on to us

DiMaggio: who the blue baron, I ain't afraid of him

Alligator: I thought his name was doctor midnight

DiMaggio: whatever he's not that smart, and you want to know why

All: WHY

DiMaggio: because he has not once found me, nor have I met him, he's no better than the useless cops of New Jersey, he has not caught me yet, he's no better Then the pathetic, good for nothing, loser, accountant JOHN you know it's men like him and make me sick

I angrily hold my urges against him

DiMaggio: you know what I did to him,................. I killed his family ha haha haha haha ha

His laugh finally pushed me

Doctor midnight: DIMAGGIO

He turned his head, I jumped and hit his face with my foot, I shot the three mafias with my  tranquilizer gun, each fall asleep, I turned to face him, he adjusts his jaw And stands to where I'm standing

DiMaggio: well, well, well if it isn't the blue baron

Doctor midnight: its Doctor midnight

DiMaggio: (looks at the exit door then him) I must say, I admire your work

Doctor midnight: thank you (tipping his head)

DiMaggio: it's too bad you'll never make it out alive

Giving me a sinister smile, I see men coming from my left, right, back and front they all circled me.

DiMaggio:(walks towards the exit) make sure he's taking care of (he winks)

To be continued...

[chimaeracabra]

The medicinal use of Cannabis is actually pretty valid and I have always supported it.

I always hated the way marijuana smells (and still do) and I used to think very negatively of people for using it recreationally. But over the years, I have stopped feeling so negatively about it being used recreationally because I know many people that use it and are still intelligent, professional, and in control of themselves around it. Like alcohol, I really think it should be legal everywhere, with obvious safety restrictions. The other day, Nick was telling me how his coworkers (other nurses) were talking about how much they hate people who use marijuana and how crazy it makes them, and he didn’t bother to say anything.

It pissed me off, because his coworkers constantly tell him that he is one of the best nurses to work with because he really puts effort into the job and is amazing with patients, and he vapes quite often. It would have been hilarious if he could have countered his coworkers because they would probably be surprised to learn how frequently he vapes weed! It actually surprised me when I came over to his place for the first time and he asked me if it would bother me if he vaped some. He doesn’t come off as a “pot head,” he has never smelled bad, or come across as an unintelligent person. And he clearly isn’t. I can have so many engaging conversations with him, especially about science, and he already knows the information. I’ve really never had to explain anything to him, honestly. 

When I vape Cannabis indica with Nick it really, really helps me relax. I had a prescription for alprazolam a while ago briefly for anxiety, and I don’t like the way benzos feel so much. It’s a lot more intense in a way that makes me feel like I cannot function. I used to be absolutely anti-recreational use of marijuana, and I still am not interested in doing it if it is not vapor or an edible. I don’t like smoke and I’m not interested in very heavy drugs. So, I would rather vaporize or eat marijuana if I’m going to do it. Although I don’t like edibles as much because the sensations of highness (daze) for me lasts for about 3-4 days after eating one. I don’t like the daze very much, but even with it, I start to get a lot of shit done (cleaning especially, personal to-do lists get completely done, I start wanting to clean up/out/straighten things out even more than usual).

I keep looking at my sleep score (you can wear Fitbit to sleep and have it track your phases of sleep, how much sleep you got, and the quality of your sleep), and I literally sleep so well when I vape. The following occurs:

My resting heart rate goes down 

I get into bed around 11PM!

Less waking up from sleep

Pain from working out/menstruation/etc. goes away

I am more productive the following day

Resting heart rate: My resting HR is usually around 60 beats per minute, and it gets as low as 57 when I have indica.  

Getting into bed earlier: This occurs because indica does make you sleepy, however, that feeling is easier to fight on indica then it was when I was temporarily taking an anxiolytic. When I vape with Nick, he wants to lie down when that phase of the high begins, but I always get up and start dancing to music. Monday night, I intentionally started drinking coffee with it, and that makes a world of difference. If anything, I think caffeine actually disrupts the high just a little bit because I feel a bit more lucid and I start cleaning a lot. Nick is, unfortunately, okay with messes. I’m thankful that he doesn’t do much outside of his room at his apartment, because I think his roommates would be very irritated with him if he made the rest of the house like his room.

Productivity: Last night, his dad (who I finally met briefly for the first time, does look like Nick. I can see where he gets some features) took his older huge TV that started having problems, the box of which was halfway in Nick’s closet for a few weeks and driving me insane. So, that TV box being gone created some space. There was a whole mess of clothes on the floor in the corner that Nick wanted to take for patients, old clothes he doesn’t wear anymore, but he had them sitting there for weeks as well and that was driving me mental. I threw them all into a trash bag and Nick took them when he went to work this afternoon.

The other weekend, Nick bought all these cleaning supplies (the Clorox bleach I like, sponges, gloves), and I always disinfect the shower before I take a shower. I wiped down his floor with some soapy water, shoved a ton of boxed things under his bed, and rinsed and recycled all the sugar-free Vitamin Water and other drink bottles he has bought us, and threw those in the recycle bin. It’s amazing the space I have created in this man’s room. I couldn’t STAND it! And he told me I should have woken him up so he could help me (he was sleeping while I did all of this). But most people do not clean to my satisfaction, and I wanted to be as comfortable as possible and have some SPACE in his room. His car is worse. My god. Nick even said that we would have a problem if we were living together because he’s really messy. He said that he works very hard at work (which he definitely does, sometimes he works 16-hour shifts multiple days in a row! His coworkers all have great things to say about him, so I believe he is a hard worker, which I love) and then when he goes home, all he wants to do is relax. I can understand that. He was recently dealing with a very violent patient at work who had to have the police come several times during codes, so I believe he is often too stressed to clean when he gets off work. I’ll give him some credit, though. He DID straighten up a bit a few weeks ago after I admitted that I am a neat freak and a germaphobe.

Anyway...

Pain goes away: I have been walking for about 2 hours at a time most days of the week. I’m not going to the gym to run because the virus is again very serious and scary. I don’t want to bring it home to my mom. I jog and run outside a bit too, but it’s taking a toll on my feet. Pain goes away particularly with indica because that species is much more of a body high than is sativa. I was never anti-marijuana for pain and neurological issues; there are some seizure disorders that it actually helps. I knew CBD was helpful for many people with chronic pain, so there’s that.

I don’t know what it is in me, I have often always been someone who likes her environment to be clean and organized. Especially the goddamn floor. I hate a nasty floor. While high and the day after, I am so much more productive and I clean more. I finished more application work today, I cleaned the stairs at home a few days ago, and the floor outside of our bedrooms and bathroom with Lysol solution.

I like marijuana but I still don’t like the smell. It’s not as intense with vapor as it is with smoke. My good friend from grad school is always smoking and vaping marijuana, and I don’t know HOW she manages to function all day and at work WHILE HIGH! I mean, I think I could, but especially for about 4-5 hours after I vape, I think you can tell that I’m not sober. I’m a lot more social and I zone out more, and I move a little funny, and it makes your eyes red (I always have my drops). I don’t know how my friend does it. I would be noticeably high. I have spent an enormous amount of time with her and she never seems out of control at all. In fact, she’s very intelligent and she has done a ton of medical research, works in a lab, etc. so, she’s someone you would consider having all their shit together. Some people are actually high all the time and you may not know because they can function on it pretty well. I think maybe people who smoke all day are using sativa, because there is no way I could walk into a lab and start doing research with a body high from indica.

And I would never try to drive like that. My perception gets very thrown off and I wouldn’t dream of putting myself or anyone else in jeopardy because my body is not entirely my own when I’m high.

My favorite things about indica are that it’s relaxing, relieves pain, makes me sleep well, food tastes insanely delicious, music sounds even more intense and beautiful, and it makes sex extremely intense. Literally, Nick and I were having sex for at least an hour yesterday. We went through almost an entire box of condoms. I cannot physically have that much sex while completely sober. I start getting pain and soreness, which even today, I don’t feel is all that bad. When high, touches feel very good. Your entire body, you notice every touch and sensation in a very pleasurable way. I have had more orgasms in the past 24 hours than I do in one month when I masturbate from time to time. I squirt a lot when I’m high. Indica has helped me learn to relax enough to experience that. And now I can while sober, too. My body is very satisfied overall.

Anyway, that’s my ramble. Went for a two-hour walk today. Wednesday I made oatmeal craisin cookies, saved some for mom at home, brought the rest to Nick’s. He liked them! He’s a pretty picky eater, so I was pleased that he liked them. I had too many. So, I am going to do an at-home work out now.

#personal #love

[purplesurveys]

578

A relationship survey because meh why not, and also to take a quick break from all the randoms.

Are you currently in a relationship? Yeup.

How many relationships have you been in? Two, technically. But I’ve only ever been with one person. Have you ever cheated on someone before? Nope. Have you ever been cheated on before? I know she never has. Do you think you've ever been in love? Sure. I mean I don’t throw that phrase around a lot because I think it’s a little cheesy, but yes I have felt that way and do feel that way.

Has anyone you've ever dated, died? No. That’d be a little unfortunate, given that I’ve only dated one person. Would you be in a friends-with-benefits relationship? If there is ever a polar opposite of demisexuality, that ^ would be it. Do you believe in love at first sight? I personally am not a big fan of the concept; but if that’s what some people feel, I don’t judge or mind them.. Has anyone ever written you a song or poem? Gab has written me poems in the past. But I associate those times with a period of my life that was very melancholic, so I don’t really ask her to continue writing me poems these days. Back then, those were my only reasons to stay alive. What is the most romantic thing someone has done for you? My love language is acts of service, so I’ve always appreciated it when she did things I’d be uncomfortable to do myself, like ordering in restaurants or asking gas station attendants to put air in my tires. Do you think anyone currently loves you? Yes. Do you believe you can love more than one person at once? It happens. Have you ever been proposed to? No. Have you ever proposed to anyone? Nope. I’m not the kind of person in a relationship to do it myself hahaha. Have you ever been married? No, I have not. Would you like to be married someday? Yes. Do you plan on having any children with someone? Yeah, I want kids. My girlfriend knows that, too. Would you consider a long-distance relationship? I can consider it but I know myself well enough that I probably can’t handle one. What is your favorite thing about being in a relationship? I’m not a very clingy or showy person even with close friends, so it’s nice to have someone I can be 101% comfortable and be myself with. The feeling of loving is great too, so. It’s nice to be there for someone and care for them and listen to how their day went and to have days where the two of you like just get coffee in silence and yet feel completely happy and at peace with them. Have you ever broken up with someone? I wasn’t the one who broke up with them, but yes I’ve had a relationship end. Do you think everyone has a soulmate? I never knew what a ‘soulmate’ is supposed to mean, so I never cared enough to think about whether I think I have one or not. Do you believe you've already met your soulmate? What is the nicest thing a S.O. has said to you before? Whenever I feel like I’m relapsing, she always tells me that she has seen my growth over the last three years and that I’m a completely changed person from the one I used to be, back when I was lost, hurt myself, and cried everyday. Usually, hearing that from her is able to calm me down enough. Have you ever lived with a S.O. before? No. I wouldn’t want to do that until we’re both more than financially capable. What is your sexuality? Demisexual, meaning I only feel attraction when I’ve already established a close, emotional bond/friendship with someone. Some ~tendencies common among demis is that they never get instant crushes, dating apps aren’t really an option, and they wouldn’t know how to approach first dates, especially blind ones. Do you believe you are a good S.O.? I have my slip-ups, but I think I’ve been doing a good job. What are some of your favorite pet names? That’s between me and her, lmao. Have you ever been on a vacation with a S.O.? Nah, we’re both broke. I’m excited for the day we get on our first one. Are you a virgin? No. If not, where did you lose your virginity? A little invasive, but I guess I signed up for that when I took this survey. It was in a hotel room. Were you in love with the person you lost it to? Yes. Would you consider having an open relationship? Never. Do you consider yourself a jealous person? I can be, but mostly it’s jealousy towards people who I know could possibly be cooler than me and give my girlfriend a better time than I could. Could you ever date someone who was jealous? I kind of am. Gabie’s always been wary of boys who might be interested in me, but she’s never overbearing or abusive about it. I get it though; guys can be jerks. What qualities are you looking for in a S.O.? Qualities don’t matter as much when you’re demi, I think. I’ve noticed that the people I’ve taken interest in are quite smart, though. Have you ever told someone you love them first? I’m not sure if I was the first one. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was. What is the most important quality in a relationship to you? Trust or time. How old would you like to be when you get married, if ever? 27 or 28, maybe. I’ll be fine with waiting until I’m 32 or 33, but that’s super super super pushing it already haha. Would you consider dating a friend's ex? I doubt I’d the kind of person who would consider this. How would you feel if a friend dated your ex? I’d avoid them, probably. Just to avoid the weirdness. I’d probably enjoy their company individually, but I’m not sure about seeing them together. Do you prefer forehead kisses or cheek kisses? In our case, cheek kisses because we’re about the same height. How many people have broken your heart before? In any way, not just romantically? I can count three. What is the worst way you've ever been dumped? Through a letter, and just before I was meant to go on a 5-day retreat far away from home. Have you ever been in a toxic relationship? Yes. What is your preferred body type in a S.O.? I don’t have any. Who was the last person you kissed? Gab. Have you ever dated someone who was married? I have not. Would you ever consider helping someone cheat on their S.O.? ?????????????????? What is your ideal date? I like doing new things! Bowling, shooting, archery, ice skating, etc. Then it would be perfect to end it with a cute dinner. Would you prefer to date someone more funny or serious? Maybe serious. I’m quite serious as well, so I don’t want to potentially bore them with my quiet demeanor; and at the same time I don’t want to be pressured to be funny so I can keep up with them. Gab and I individually manage to be a bit of both when we’re together, so it’s perfect. Do you think that one person should pay for dates or both? That differs for every couple, honestly. I know so many couples where they take turns treating each other. But Gab and I have always split the bill. It’s just fairest that way lmao. What is a pet peeve about dating that you have? I’ve never been able to digest how people would want to move in after like 5 weeks of dating. To each their own, but still. Do you think you are too picky about relationships? No. Have you ever broken up with someone via text message? No, that sounds horrible. Have you ever had a friend steal a S.O. from you? Erycka wasn’t a friend but she did steal Gab from me all the time, cos they liked a lot of the same things like Star Wars and Doctor Who. It got to the point where people thought THEY were the ones dating because they were always together, so of course it pissed me off and I’ve never liked her since. Have you ever had two people fight over you before? I don’t think so. Do you prefer being called babe or baby? Baby; we don’t use babe a lot. What is your favorite memory of a S.O. or ex? A few weeks ago we had a talk on one of the benches in my school’s track oval. For around 2-3 hours we just mulled over the future - the great, the bad, the ugly that could potentially come out of it. It wasn’t a talk with rainbows and candy, and in fact was as blunt as it could get. But we knew we needed that talk someday, so when we felt it coming up we dove in headfirst. We were accompanied by cars passing by, joggers occasionally running by, and pretty yellow street lights that illuminated the area. It was nice. When you're in a bad mood, do you want your S.O. to help or leave you alone? It differs for me. I can ask for either depending on my mood. How important is sex to you in a relationship? Quite important. Do you think celebrating Valentine's Day is corny? Not really, but I’m not crazy about it either. What is the best relationship advice someone has given you? I don’t think I listened to any of the advice given to me three years ago hahajhshjksdsf Do you need alone time in a relationship? Yep, I just asked for a whole day to myself yesterday because I wasn’t feeling well. Are you friends with any of your exes? What is a relationship deal breaker for you? It used to be smoking but I waived that since I started vaping lmao. Idk I haven’t really thought about this for a while now because for the longest time it was smoking hahaha. Drugs maybe?

#survey #surveys

[plathway]

End of December so that means it’s BEST OF/END OF/WORST OF List time! As evidenced by the blog title I’m just going to be doing a summary (not in ranking order) of my favourite memories from 2017. I won’t even bother with a “Worst Of” because we all know about the terrible things that happened this year, things that we will still be dealing with long past 2018.

I personally am a huge fan of New Year’s Eve. Yes practically resolutions are never fulfilled and everything is extra expensive but I love the hopefulness that usually permeates around this time of year. The new year looks so shiny and new and there really is something seductive about (hopefully) becoming a new or better person. 

The last day of 2017 is a chiller. I was out taking a walk at around 4:30 and the air was so crisp and sharp but the light was so soft. It made me think about the year ahead, all shiny and new; hard and cold as yet untouched with familiar warmth. Daylight seemed to try it’s hardest to cling to the very end. The sky was all pale blues and soft rosy pinks. It made me the streetlight glow feel so golden yellow and the moon is full and such a pure perfect white, it looks like a pearl in the sky. 

I hope I become a better person than I was in 2017. I hope that I will have a lot of fun memories as I did in 2017. And now, in no particular order, my favourite 2017 memories. 

Art Shows: Mystical Landscapes, Blue Whale @ ROM and Georgia O’Keeffe @ AGO

I got to see some really cool gallery exhibits this year thanks to Helen. Mystical Landscapes was nice, got to see some of the classic Monet’s and Van Gogh’s. My favourite ones that I saw was the Blue Whale during one of the ROM’s Friday Night Lives and and the Georgia O’Keeffe at AGO’s First Thursdays.

The Blue Whale was really cool; whales are gigantic and everyone knows that but seeing it was really awe inspiring. I think it’s heart is like the size of a Fiat lol. I really really loved the Georgia O’Keefe exhibit. It was quite big and some of my favourite pieces were: – Lake George Reflection – Flower Abstraction 1924 – Abstraction White Rose – Horse’s Skull with Pink Rose – Farmhouse Window and Door (this one is really cool to see in person because it looks 3D or layered paper but it’s just paint.) – Mule’s Skull with Pink Poinsettias – From the Faraway, Nearby – Rust Red Hills – Red Hills and Bones – Red and Yellow Cliffs – Wall with Green Door 1953 – My Front Yard, Summer

I wish that you could see what I see out the windows – the earth pink and yellow cliffs to the north – the full pale moon about to go down in an early evening lavender sky behind a very long beautiful tree-covered mesa to the west- pink and purple hills in front an the scrubby fine dull of cedars- and a feeling of much space- it is a very beautiful world. Georgia O’Keeffe

Lol my celebrity encounter of the year happened when I was at the O’Keeffe show, I saw Camila Mendes from Riverdale walk by. I was honestly star struck. She walked by and I literally stood there gaping and then had a moment of panic because I wanted to chase after her but I also had to find Helen who had gone up ahead. I finally found her and then we spent the rest of the night running around the AGO looking for her but she had went back to her hotel to live tweet Riverdale lol. 

Women’s March

The Women’s March was the first protest that I’ve ever been to. My mom thought it was dumb of me for going because, “what is it really going to do?” which is a sentiment held by a lot of people. 

I went with Rebekah and it was a really fun experience. The turn out was much greater than I expected, not just in Toronto but all around the world. It felt nice being part of that crowd all with a similar goal. 

Brunch Club 

Brunch times with my Y&E girls and seeing baby Celeste! Lol it’s nice seeing Mei’s 1st OG team and Celeste who is the cutest baby in the entire world. 

Dangerous Dan’s

All the times Rebekah, Precillia and I would go to Dangerous Dan’s. We’d always get the same thing, a coffee shake for me and an uber Amy grilled cheese, with fries or onion rings on the side. Precillia would always get the gyros with a side of pierogies and Rebekah would get a grilled cheese and the owner would always tease her for being a vegetarian. And the very best, we’d get a cookie cow pie to share.

Unfortunately it closed due to the increasing gentrification, but the memories of going there starving with Precillia and Rebekah, hearing the rest of the staff yell at Heather (or Helen? I don’t remember) just laughing and eating the most delicious food was truly some of the best times. 

My first time at a vape lounge

The day of the TRL sale, (Rebekah and I made out like a bandit, the books were like FIFTY CENTS!!!!) Rebekah took Precillia and I to a vape lounge for the first time. I don’t know if it was what she rolled or if it’s because other people were smoking but I have never gotten that high in my life. 

We were discussing middle school crushes and it was my turn, I stopped right in the middle of my story and I felt like it was so hard for me to speak and I could not stop laughing, my voice got so high it was practically a squeak. 

Birthday Party @ BATL

This year for my birthday we went axe throwing and also shot bows and arrows. I don’t know what was my favourite part… seeing old friends and catching up, when they gave us photos of Trump to put in the bullseye… 

Actually, the highlight was when we played the most intense game of gigantic Jenga of my life. 

Escape Rooms

This year we really got into escape rooms. Two of the ones we did were super scary and one of them we beat! The first one we did we were all locked in individual stalls and had to work our way out of them, the second one was a diamond heist so I got to live out my dream of being an actual cat burglar. 

By far the scariest one we did was for Precillia’s birthday. The theme of the house is that we broke into a haunted house but it really turned out to be a murder house. And we had to break through a series of clues to try to escape. I am a big fucking baby so I was useless and spent the whole time screaming. As far as escape rooms went it was really atmospheric. It gave us a lot of fun puzzles to solve that were really hard. And we got to move around the small room by climbing through a hidden cabinet, running up and down the stairs, pulling things out of grates etc.  The hardest part was the actual physical component. We had to make it across this set of monkey bars, I went first and fell into the foam–Rebekah was the only one to make it across. Unfortunately we ran out of time but we made it nearly to the end. Rebekah was the Judas and would have sacrificed us all if we had the time. 

All the visits to Doc

Whether I was freezing in the winter, or getting a sun burn during the summer or any of the visits by myself… hanging out at Doc was always a fun time. Riverdale park is gorgeous. My favourite thing is to go there listening to opera and reading. 

Summer in Port Dover

This summer Precillia told us about Port Dover which is one of the few beaches in Ontario that has palm trees. There are only three of them but a guy wanted them here so badly he planted them and they stand there lol. Port Dover is truly one of the best beaches I’ve been to in Ontario. I wish we were near ocean water but the water in Port Dover is pretty nice for lake water.  We’ve only been three times but each time was amazing. I think my favourite was the second time when Precillia, Rebekah and Ayan went. I think it was after a storm or a storm was coming but we stayed out in the water as the sky turned clear to grey to all these different shades of blue. We saw a rainbow and that day Rebekah and Precillia found twenty dollars in the water and we also got a football from these guys that were chilling near us.  Sitting in Precillia’s car, loose limbed and sun kissed eating salty messy Subway sandwiches before Precillia sped us off into the night that was so blue it felt like we were being wrapped up in it, it was so thick. Every time I hear “Sex on Fire” I can feel Precillia’s car flying down the road and the blue of the night blocking out the sound of the world as that “YeahhhHhHhHhHhHHHHhhh” fills my ears. 

Bruce Peninsula

So, we did everything right starting off the trip lol. We set out really early, got all of our snacks and drove all the way up there… only to stand in the woods for a bit. The Bruce Peninsula has grown so much in popularity, especially because of the Canada Park’s Pass that there were only a few slots during the day that we could go and all of those were filled up. In the end we ended up going to Port Dover. 

Kudos to Precillia for the drive because it was long AF. We eventually got so hungry we were looking for the nearest place to eat and I think we drove to an A&W in some small town. It was full of old white people but it was easily the cleanest and nicest looking A&W we’d ever been in lol. 

Rebekah had an edible that she split with me and it really gave me a new appreciation for Ontario. I truly live in a beautiful province, there were so many gorgeous fields and fields of flowers and farm stands and we saw Mennonites just trundling along beside us in their horse and buggy.

Carly Rae Jepsen @ TSO

For Canada’s 150th birthday, actual Canadian treasure Carly Rae Jepsen played her greatest hits accompanied by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. I went with Precillia and it was truly a magical night. Everyone was dancing and singing along, it was just a fun night with great pop music full of love. 

Janet and Petr visiting

Janet is officially back in Canada with her husband Petr!!!! They came up to visit me for a week and I was ecstatic because I had my foodie buddy back. We ate at some of my favourite restaurants in Toronto such as Descendant for Detroit style pizza, Maha’s for Egyptian food, Hot Star fried chicken, Patois, FuZen, Tsujiri and some of my Kensington Market favourites as well.

Friendsgiving2k17

The second annual Friendsgiving was even more lit than the first if you can believe it! We got a beautiful house with a sauna and stuff this time because I got a credit from AirBnB because they cancelled my original reservation. I have like 5 memories from that night because I decided to compete with Tsering but I cherish all 5 of them. I know we did White Elephant, we had a lovely family dinner, I think Beer Pong was played and we played Monopoly for a few rounds and then Precillia and I murdered a unicorn cake. 

Expectations are HIGH for #Friendsgiving2k18 but know that Precillia, Rebekah, Ayan and I are going to pull it off. 

Anyways, those are some of my favourite memories of 2017! I know I had many more and I’m excited for what 2018 has to offer. I hope it’s nothing but good things for all of us.

Happy New Year’s Eve!

xoxo Cat

Today's featured image is by Pedro Miranda Filho

lmaoooo down to the wire here is my last 2017 post!!! End of December so that means it's BEST OF/END OF/WORST OF List time! As evidenced by the blog title I'm just going to be doing a summary (not in ranking order) of my favourite memories from 2017.

#AGO #amy shout-out tag #Art Gallery of Ontario #ayan shout-out tag #Bell&039;s Palsey #Blockorama #Bruce Peninsula #Carly Rae Jepsen #Cinco de Mayo #Dangerous Dan&039;s #ekow shout-out tag #First Thursdays @ AGO #food #Friday Night Live @ ROM #Friendsgiving #helen shout-out tag #janet shout-out tag #khoi shout-out tag #Port Dover #precillia shout-out tag #PrideTO #rebekah shout-out tag #ROM #Royal Ontario Museum #ugh starbucks #Women&039;s March

[fraudulence-paradox]

4/24/16

Die young and save yourself.

    When I was in ninth grade, I listened to a lot of Brand New. I have a lot of specific memories of being an angst ridden teenager, sitting in the back of my mom’s green van as she drove me from place to place. I’d blast Brand New, and look out the car window. Rain hit the window and dripped down, my breath fogged the glass as my head leaned against it, and I listened to Brand New. My favorite song at the time was Quiet Things. I thought the lyrics were incredibly deep. “Keep that thought in your head, and keep your feet on the ground” Jesse sang to me. Now I think that’s probably one of the worst songs Brand New had to offer. Now as I listen to The Devil and God, or Deja, thier two best albums, I can really appreciate the lyrics.     At the time I’m writing this, I’m only 19, so I don’t pretend to be much deeper than I was only 4 years ago, when I was 15, but I at least feel that between my life experiences, and the hallucinogenic substances I’ve taken, I can think a little more intelligently than I could then.     I remember when I worked at Outback, I trained this guy. I don’t remember what his name was, but I remember a lot about him. I’ll call him I-----. I----- was just like me, and honestly, add a few more years to me, and I can very easily see myself becoming him. He was into psychedelics, telling me once about the time that he took acid 6 hours before his math class, and was asked to write on the whiteboard. He lived a pretty average life, went to a pretty average school, he had troubles dating, didn’t buy the JFK assassination explA--tions, but most of all, he was into Brand New.     It’s not uncommon to bond over music taste, but I don’t think since 2011 I’ve ever met anyone into Brand New. Kr---- is into Brand New now, but not when I told her about it around the same time. J--- can tolerate it as well, but I don’t think he shares the same appreciation for them as I do. I----- on the other hand, was extremely into them. We shared a lot of music taste actually. He had a Blink 182 tattoo on his left breast, which he showed me the day I donated blood.          “Damn, I can’t donate blood anymore”, he said, before showing me.      It doesn’t so much concern me that I’ll become like him because of these traits. A cool tattoo, and a healthy appreciation for early 2000’s emo is what makes you a successful young person, in my opinion. What concerns me is his negative traits. His drug use to be more specific. I don’t know if I worry that I’ll start using drugs as frequently as he did, but I think I worry more that my motivation will be as zapped as his always was. I remember one particular evening he came in, and was on his phone most of the night. He told me he was a bit buzzed, and that he was having issues with his girlfriend, so I thought myself to be an excellent friend when I didn’t mind him texting constantly during our shared shift, and covering for him while he went out to take smoke breaks. 

    Honestly, even this isn’t behavior that I would be concerned to share with him. At my current job, teaching kids Minecraft after school, while I was dating Tessa, I would frequently run to the bathroom to check my phone or stress-vape. In extreme moderation I don’t even really see this as a dangerous activity. But as my mother is so fond of saying, it’s a slippery slope.     One day at outback, I----- disappeared. I wasn’t sure where he went, and I was sad, because he was one of the only interesting people there who spoke english. A-- was a fantastic old El Salvadorian lady (almost all of the kitchen staff were El Salvadorian refugees) who trained me, and really took me under her wing. She taught me the majority of the Spanish relevant to working there. Basura, saboya, para acqui, para yavar, etc. She was sort of like the old hispanic grandmother I never had. She was constantly being hit on by the line chef, O---. The name O--- is short for something, but I’m not sure what. Once, when I asked A-- what O--- had said to her, before repeatedly smacking her ass, she misunderstood, and told me,       “O--- has 10 wives, and 7 childrens with all of them!”. I’m not sure if she meant to say he had 7 children total, or 70 between all his wives, but either way, O--- was a player. He was an absolute lunatic, but he was the best line chef outback ever had. I was told once the managers only tolerated him because he was essentially irreplaceable. I like to imagine back in El Salvador he was the Suis Chef of a 4 star restaurant, serving the aristocrats while secretly giving food to the rebels. Or maybe he hated himself for serving the wealthy of his country, but was trapped in his job making their steaks. That would at least explain the drinking. I remember one time, Ju--, the young assistant manager, came up behind O--- as he was putting the finishing touches on some fillet minion. He grabbed the plastic bottle propped above O---’s stove and took a deep smell, crinkling his nose. 

    “Whatcha got in here, O---?” he said.     “Water man.” Said O---, in his thick accent. Ju-- obviously didn’t believe him, but to prove either his virility or the water’s virginity, he snatched the bottle back and swallowed down all of its contents.     Ju-- was a cool guy as well. One time, while he was helping me at the salad station, the topic of drugs came up. He asked me if I’d ever tried weed, and I told him once, but it didn’t really effect me.     “You know, I’m like your manager, so I can’t really say you should try it again,” he said. “But you should definitely try it again”. Between him and R----, the other young assistant manager, it seemed weed was definitely the cool thing young adults did in their free time. I can’t really protest this notion, because at least in my own life that seems to be the case. R---- was identical to Ju--, just without Ju--’s glasses, beard, or hot waitress girlfriend. He was also a bit more of a “bro” than Ju-- was. What I mean by this is, Ju-- was a very cool, collected guy. He didn’t have to flaunt his confidence. Either because of R----’s lack of it, or excess of it, he did. R---- was loud, outgoing, and eventually became a waiter, which seemed to be the final resting place for people like him. Community college dropouts, with infective personalities. I was always rather put off by R----. Not because I didn’t like him, at least, I like him fine now. But at the time, his confidence and bombastic attitude were just too much for a minimum wage job where I had no upward prospects other than deep frier duty.     I guess this was the real appeal of I-----. Unlike his english speaking counterparts, Ju-- and R----, he was a lot more relaxed. He was laid back, but did his job most of the time. He was the kind of guy that these days I’d like to smoke a blunt with (I’m really mad I forgot his name, or I’d look him up on Facebook right now). This may have been because he didn’t have much in the looks department. At least, not at his age. I remember he had sort of a ratty look to him. Big, beady eyes, and a light mustache that he’d probably only shaved once the three months he worked there. He didn’t have the confidence of the bigger guys like Ju-- and R----, so he kept his composure and put all of his effort into being a nice kid. He seemed genuinely interested in my opinion, despite the fact that he was nearly 5 years my senior, and always had something interesting to talk about, like Brand New.     He was fired because of his terrible work ethic. I can’t really disagree with the managers on that one. Even when I was there to cover for him and push him along, he seemed to only do the work of half a person. Maybe because that’s what he was. He seemed like a really depressed guy, deep down. Maybe that’s why we got along so well. It definitely explains the interest in early 2000’s emo music. He told me he was going to Penn State, for a degree in communications. He was almost a senior and told me from day one he couldn’t decide what he wanted to do. He also told me that at this point all he knew was it wasn’t communications. But what could he do? He had already worked for this degree three and a half years. He couldn’t throw all that time and money away. I feel like I might be like him in this regard. Am I doing cyber because it’s what I want? Or am I just doing it to impress my dad. When I really think about it, I wish I could be doing something in the arts. I wish I could be a cartoonist, or an animator, maybe a photographer, and obviously as I’m writing this, I feel like I should be an author. No. I’m not doing it for my dad. I’m doing it for me. But not for my happiness, at least not in the short term, I’m doing it for the money. Everyone says don’t work for a job that doesn’t make you happy, but really, are a million people in something like data input services because it makes them happy? I don’t think so. I think that’s one of the big secrets of adulthood. You can be happy on the weekends, with the money you made the other 5/7ths of the week.     I----- was fired about a month before I quit. L---, the general manager, and proprietor (a word I picked up at Outback) told me in the weeks before I quit that he came back. He was totally drunk and slurred at her, “you have to give me my job back. You’re not allowed to just fire me. It isn’t fair”. They almost needed the police to get him out of the dining area. That was the last I ever heard from him. I gave him my number before he left, because he said he would send me a list of songs to listen to, but he never texted me. He’s just gone. Vanished back into the population of the world. This is what I’m most afraid of becoming. At first, an interesting guy, but underneath the layers of self-pity and substance abuse, a broken, sad person. Maybe he grew up. Maybe now he’s out there, being happy on the weekends, doing technical writing for some Japanese firm, using his communications degree. But I prefer to believe that somehow, through acid or magic, he transcended this world and lives in the lyrics of Brand New’s Soco Amaretto Lime:

“I’m gonna stay eighteen forever So it can stay like this forever And we’ll never miss a party, ‘Cause we’ll keep them going constantly

And we’ll never have to listen To anyone About anything

‘Cause when it’s all been done And it’s all been said We’re the coolest kids And we’ll take what we can get”

#outback #restaurant #kitchen work #servers #work #stories #story #journal #brand new #soco amaratto lime #bn #blog #die young and save yourself

[davidastbury]

Early Morning .... Manchester ... postcode M1 4RJ

Pavement littered with the detritus of last night’s fun and folly - smashed bottles, crushed cans, pizza packaging, Costa cups, vaping cartridges, vomit.

I was stepping carefully, skipping over pools, when I came face to face with a lovely Japanese couple. They were adults but looked about twelve - identical mops of the blackest hair imaginable and Pierrot white faces. He in belted baggy jeans; she in a very abbreviated Burberry mini-skirt.

There was an instant recognition of our incongruity- they probably thought I looked funny jumping over the puddles; I thought they looked absolutely divine. So we all laughed - and then I carried on, stepping carefully around the smashed bottles, crushed cans and vaping cartridges.

THE American

Henry James said that the Fellow’s Garden at Trinity Hall, Cambridge was the most perfect small garden in Europe ...

‘ ... The trees are of prodigious size; they occupy half the garden, and are remarkable for the fact that their giant limbs strike down into the earth, take root again and emulate, as they rise, the majesty of the parent stem. The manner in which this magnificent group of horse-chestnuts sprawl about over the grass, out into the middle of the lawn, is one of the most heart-shaking features of the garden ... ‘

He also rhapsodised about ‘the other place’ ...

‘... the beautiful gardens of the Oxford Colleges - charming lawns and spreading trees, music of Grenadier Guards, ices in striped marquees, mild flirtation of youthful gownsmen and bemuslined maidens; memories too, of quiet dinner in common-room, a decorous, excellent repast; old portraits on the walls and great windows open upon the ancient court, where the afternoon light was fading in the stillness; superior talk upon current topics, and over all the peculiar air of Oxford - the air of liberty to care for the things of the mind assured and secured by machinery which in itself a satisfaction to sense.’

North of Cambridge

The train was delayed somewhere north of Cambridge and then went at a crazy gallop as if trying to make up lost time. Imogen stared out at the blur of landscape, she was in a foul mood. Her boyfriend, knowing her as he did, realised that there wouldn’t be much enjoyment for him - she was in one of her ‘pushing away’ moods - yet he was under the spell of that mane of red hair and her peevish, caustic, perfection.

‘There’s my school!’ - she called out, pointing at a building in the distance. He decided to go along with her mood and said it looked like a Victorian mental asylum. ‘Good description’ - she replied. ‘Apart from me, it’s full of very tall girls whose fathers are Church of England vicars - or their dads are dead and the church pays the fees.’

And he was right ... there wasn’t much enjoyment that day. The railway line was long since ripped up; the school demolished and is now a science park; everything has gone - Imogen has gone, leaving memories that crumble when touched, like ancient paper or dried flowers.

And only now - at such a distance in time, does the enjoyment pour through.

Young Couple ... 1965

It was a soft goodbye - they’d see each other again - three months wasn’t all that long - it would pass. But he was gloomy and she put her arms around him and made him smile. And the train pulled up noisily; awful squealing brakes, doors slamming open, it was difficult saying anything. He stood at the window and looked down at her and felt that he might never see her again - or he might see her but she would no longer look at him this way. And then it was all over - the train moved, laboriously gathering speed.

He wanted to turn away - go to a seat like everyone else - but he stayed at the window, seeing her vanish.

But he wasn’t aware of the railway’s eccentric topography. The little station passed out of view causing the young man to think - ‘Well, that’s that!’ - but a few seconds later it came back into view. He could see the station again; he could see her again. And then a huge building, railway sheds, blocked everything - but then it cleared and again he could see her. This occurred a few more times and it horribly disturbed him. Saying the goodbye was bad enough - he could still kindle hopes - but these repeated views hammered home the message - ‘You will never see her again’.

A French Trip 1965

Paris was fabulous but he had liked Deauville and Trouville far more. Those two little towns on the Normandy coast made his heart sing. He felt he had stepped into the pages of Proust! The sea-air and gulls; the ribbon of ornate railings; the iron street-lights converted from gas; the butter yellow facades of the hotels where uniformed men held back the doors; the excitement of foreign faces; the elderly women, white-haired and fierce looking, sitting in their wheel-chairs being pushed along by nurses; the wonderful French men with their grey flannel suits and silk ties, smoking Gauloises cigarettes; the feeling of a charming ill-health, not the frightening kind, more like when you were a child and your mother was looking after you; the clever girls leaving the Lycée each afternoon so stylish in school uniform, so pretty, so ... je ne sais quoi; the little cafes, modest and plain, yet serving Chateaubriand steaks few London restaurants could match; the sunshine and elegance and gorgeous ease of it all - he was captivated.

Going back to England filled him with dismay - but there was one further surprise. He and his friend boarded a boat from Dieppe to Newhaven. Again it was a beautiful afternoon. The top deck was quite crowded and he leaned on the handrail watching the complications of disengaging ropes and the jerky manoeuvres to leave the jetty. The boat shuddered and the gulls screamed. People laughed as they almost overbalanced. A man wearing an apron was selling drinks; black coal smoke poured from the chimney but was deflected by the breeze; a young teacher with a party of tiny children got them singing; an elderly man wearing shiny brogue shoes looked up at the sky, as if praying; a woman was clutching her pet dog, nuzzling him with kisses and the dog looked over her shoulder, tongue out.

And in the middle of all this - like the motionless centre of a tornado - stood the most astonishingly beautiful girl he had ever seen. He was nineteen and fearless - he went up to her as if going to his death.

She took his hand and smiled.

She said - ‘My name is Agnes Bujold and my town is Dijon.’

Anna

I’ve mentioned Anna before - the student nurse at St Thomas’ Hospital, married to the unemployed drummer. She was gentle, soft-spoken, generous and uncomplaining, even when her husband brought home his pals from the pub - usually out of work musicians but also every sort of drunk who had missed the last train home, or didn’t have a home to go to. Even at the end of a long shift, when she must have been exhausted, she sorted out supper and carried heaps of bedding.

It taught me a lesson - confirmed many times over the years - that women will overlook mediocrity in their men. Once their heart is set on someone they will overlook almost anything. Anna was a much finer person than her husband. She had intuitions and intelligence far beyond his. She probably climbed upwards through the nursing grades - she had a brilliance about her - he probably didn’t change, he would drift in and out of work, sometimes making money, sometimes playing for the beer. Yet she wouldn’t hold his lack of success against him; she wouldn’t ever make him feel a failure. Her only demand, perhaps never spoken in that soft Welsh voice of hers, was that he treasured her above anyone else - that was all that mattered.

Took a walk today - a few miles along main roads, side roads, country lanes and so on. Passed lots of people but no one I knew; no one wanted me to stop and talk - but - so many (I didn’t count, but it was a lot) smiled and said hello. I’ve never experienced that before.

It’s not all jostling and fighting in supermarkets - people are nice to each other; there is friendliness and affection.

Haircut in Houmt-Souk

He was a charmer! The barber of Djerba, small and bald and old, but nimble on his feet, skilfully snipping the undergrowth at the back of my neck, all the time chirruping in an amalgam of English, French, Arabic etc. Delighted to have a foreigner captive on his faux leather chair. I could see him beaming at me in the peeling mirror - around which were fading Polaroid snaps of the man himself - much younger - in a white tuxedo and bow tie - brandishing a violin.

‘So you are a musician?’ I asked.

He swelled with pride and nodded enthusiastically. I made some pleasant remarks and then he vanished into a side room behind a plastic screen. He reappeared carrying a violin case.

What happened next was a concert - for me and for those waiting their turn. His eyes closed and started to play - ecstatic romantic music - palm court music - Viennese waltzes, Polkas, sobbings and pleadings from his violin - the ache of separation, the hope of meeting again, deepest melancholy, and then! Back to the frivolous and pretty!

This man had played on ocean liners and in palaces. He had been in Egypt before the revolution - the one in 1952 - he mentioned parties for Soraya, the second wife of the Shah of Iran. He had played for everyone - and he was playing for me!

His head was back, swaying to Strauss - a small crowd had gathered. The door was open and the sound had reached the street. Everyone was smiling and nodding to me and the doorway was blocked with small children playing imaginary violins.

‘ ... and hearts that we broke long ago, have long been breaking others ... ‘

W. H. Auden

She had finished with him and he had only himself to blame. Word had got back to her that he’d been seen with another girl and she wasn’t having any excuses. So she finished with him - dumped him as the modern term has it - and there couldn’t be any reconciliation; it was over; totally.

He felt unhappy and angry with himself for a while. Eventually the guilt eased and eventually faded altogether, but then unexpectedly returned in a different form - he was afraid that he may have hurt her in a way that had not occurred to him at the time. He had adored her and she must have known it - he rushed to meet her - he loved being with her - he was always surprising her with gifts - he put her wishes before his own - he couldn’t get enough of her loveliness - but he began to feel a dreadful realisation that he hadn’t made her see how much he liked her - how much he simply liked her.