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prorevenge · 3 years

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Ex-girlfriend had me arrested and contributed to stealing $1000's of dollars from my bank account before I got my retribution.

This is really long but ends with a lot of irony and perfect results.

TL;DR Ex lies and has me arrested because I didn't take her on trip with me. She also destroyed some of my property and possessions while stealing others along with cash and bank card. Prosecutor finds out it's all lies files charges to which she wants me to have dropped. That angers me so I turn over evidence of her other crimes. She goes to jail. Good stuff!!!

About 13 years ago I was in an amazingly toxic relationship, and was completely blindly stupidly in love or so I thought at the time. We had been together about 2 years and had been living together since literally the first night we met. I owned my own home which I worked from and made great money and asked her to quit her job after one too many incidents where she had to deal with a handsy boss. Months into our relationship we rented an apartment out on the beach but I kept my house and we'd go sleep there 2-3 times a month. Since she was looking for a job I told her I would pay our bills while she found and settled into her new job. Her job search lasted about 5 minutes and then she took to hanging out around the house while I worked 15-16 hour days. We spent all day everyday together except for when we would go out to bars together and she'd meet her girlfriends and I'd meet my people's. I got burnt out on work and since I owned my own business I decided I could have my subcontractors do the day to way work and I'd take a year to travel while working remotely 2-3 days a week.

It was around this time I noticed a change in her attitude and our relationship. She became suspicious and accusing me of cheating which was completely unfounded and confusing to me since we were together almost always. Had I listened to those around me I would've put that relationship out of its misery and walked away. However, I decided to try and make her see I wasn't what she thought I was. I obviously see now it was projection and her on concern about being caught sleep around.

We took a year and went all over the US on road trips, going to music festivals, and seeing friends all over the country. We also went to Europe a few times so she got to do and see not just our country but 7 others on my dime while cheating on me but making me feel like the bad guy.

Things would be great while traveling until we were about to land, or just after we got home then she'd pick a fight and I'd go to my house for the night. Our last trip together was to Portland for 10 days in the first week of October. We had a great time and things seemed like the worst was behind us. Boy was I wrong! In our town there's an annual halloween street party. We had each gone for 10+ years before we started dating and every year since we began dating. This particular year I had decided I wanted to go to voodoo festival in New Orleans which is the last week of October and our local shindig is the last Saturday of October. This caused a huge fight between us and I told her I needed a break to assess our relationship. This brought out an evil side in her which I'd never seen. I was shocked and wasn't going to tolerate it. I packed my bags and went to the airport and caught my flight to NO. I got there the day before the festival started and went and gambled and did my tourist obligations on Bourbon Street. That evening I was missing her so I booked her a ticket and tried calling her but got no answer. I texted her and let her know that a ticket was at the airport and a car would be waiting to bring her to my hotel but still got no response. Hours after I called her she drunkenly calls me screaming about how she knew I had one of my whores with me on this trip. She went on for 20 min before I told her to forget the ticket and to fuck off at this point I was 100% done. At that point she asked what ticket because she hadn't seen the text (flip phones were the worst for that reason) but it was too late in my book. For her to think I was that type of person and the seriously personal attacks she launched into let me know there was nothing left to salvage. Before hanging up I told her when I returned I would be moving out of the apartment and I would no longer be paying for everything so she had a week to make arrangements.

Because we were living together she had access to the spare key to my house I kept in our apartment. She went to my house and dumped bleach all over my clothing and my sneaker collection. That there would be enough for me to murder her if I wasn't a decent person. She also stole 300+ records and my spare bank card plus the $10,000 I kept for emergencies (bail money) in a safe hidden in my closet. This was an intelligent woman but her thinking during her little crime spree wouldn't indicate that. Instead of using the bank card herself she gave it to a friend of hers and they spent over $3500 on purchases and withdrew $5500 from my savings. I only found it was happening because my bank called and wondering why my card was being used in 2 separate states minutes or hours apart in the same day. I shut the card off and filed fraud claims and put her out of my mind for the rest of the week while having a blast. Festival was great and had a great time hanging out drinking, drugging, gambling, and partying while in New Orleans. The festival ended Sunday and I flew home the following Tuesday. I come off the jetway into the terminal and am met by two detectives. They ask my name and I of course started answering all their questions. Within 5 minutes I'm in handcuffs and being led away for felony domestic violence, terroristic threats, burglary, assault, and criminal mischief.

I had left on my trip on a Friday afternoon. That next day is when I sent her the ticket and we had that blowout where I ended it. She called the police and told them we were fighting and I came to her house and she wouldn't let me in, so I threw a brick through her sliding glass door. Once in then I started to strangle her and one of girlfriends tried to stop me and I punched and beat her up. She told the police I fled to New Orleans. (The level of crazy here is beyond scary she staged a break in by smashing a door in our apartment, had hand marks on her neck to be photographed, and the other girl had a split lip...all faked) The police somehow got my flight info but didn't bother to check that I wasn't even in town when all this allegedly happened. I went to jail and bonded out ($35,000 bond) and had to hire an attorney. Based on charges filed I was looking at 12 years now that's what I would've served but still scary AF. I knew I could prove where I was so wasn't overly concerned. However it cost me $3500 for bond and $10,000 on an attorney. I got my $3,5000 back when my case was dropped. After getting out of jail I went to the airport to get my car and she had slit all 4 tires on my car leaving the pearl handled switch blade I bought her as a gift in the last tire.

My attorney gets all my travel documents to the prosecutor and the charges are dropped. I was going to let the rest of the shit go and be done with her. Honestly if losing that money meant I'd never have to see or deal with her again I would've paid double. The prosecutor was pissed and filed charges on both my ex the other girl who lied to police. At this point he didn't know about the fraud complaint from the money stolen from me. Again I was going to just let it go until my ex called me. She tried apologizing by saying she was sorry she had to do all the stuff because I told her I never wanted to see or speak to her again while in New Orleans. By doing those things she felt it would get my attention is the way she put it. I told her she was a spiteful bitch and karma would run over some day. Her response was I was spiteful for leaving her and going on the trip without her. My last words to her that I would be very spiteful and her oncoming karma rolled into one. Because I had texts asking her about the damage done in my home and the missing $10k/bank card and the money spent in which she admitted all of it I turned those over to the prosecutor. He filed theft, burglary, identity theft, misuse of credit card, and about 4 other charges on her. She had a key but no permission to be in my house so the burglary charge stuck and so did 5 of the other charges. She got 6 years and did 3. Once out I would see her when I was out because she has always bartended or been a waitress. Over a three year period I saw her working at 5 places. At all 5 I notified the manager or owner that she was thief not to trusted and gave them just enough info to see she was a felon. She lost those 5 jobs. After that she moved away. Last I heard she lived in Chicago. Feel sorry for whatever person this parasite is currently attached to.

Crazy Psycho = 0 Me = 1

(source) story by (/u/Burnvictim49percent)

#prorevenge #by /u/Burnvictim49percent #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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toddbeeson · 4 years

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Ghost Busting

The spirit appears and works in mysterious ways. Last Tuesday, I revisited my collection of writings to find something I had written in November of 2006 and had posted to my MySpace account.

I found a list of 20 things that I written about, made some slight edits and added another item to the list!

See if you can detect what song was the subject of 19-21.

Read below to find out!

Connecting thru music!

More musical gifts Current mood: awake

I can’t sleep…I feel like a detective possessed by solving a mystery…kind of like they do in the movies…the person has no real home life, they just have to solve the mystery. Ever since the Rick Allen incident, I have been followed by Def Leppard music. Lately it has turned itself up a notch…the songs come flying at me instantly. Check out these recent events involving Def Leppard and a few companions…I will type this up in a chronological form.

1) Oct 9th, 2006. While I was driving back home to LA from El Capitan Canyon, north of Santa Barbara, I pondered on a Jack FM concert that I saw in August. Before that concert, I had told my brother that I would only go if I could go as a VIP. Well...that never happened...until the actual day of the show my good buddy Jason had an extra couple of tickets-- he won VIP tickets. It featured Def Leppard as the headliner. I thought about that band a bit on my drive. As I was driving I had to pull over to go to the can at a gas station near Calabassas…and somehow met the Def Leppard drummer, Rick Allen (i wrote a song called “Whistle on the Pot” inspired by the story. Long story short– we were in line for the bathroom…however he didn’t even end up going to the bathroom– so it seems he was there just because I thought of him– it was very surreal.)

2) I started hearing Def Leppard songs everywhere…I wish I had written them down…but you’ll see how they showed up in November.

3) Fast Forward to Friday, Nov 3. I had a date that night…on my drive to her place, my choice of car music was the U2 album “Unforgettable Fire.”

4) Saturday, Nov 4. Oops…I find out I left a mark on my date’s neck. It was embarrassing, frankly.

5) Sunday, Nov 5. The very next morning while walking in Trader Joe’s I heard “Love Bites” by Def Leppard– Laughed out loud…now that is funny!

6) Monday, Nov 6. My radio alarm clock wakes me up to “Foolin’” by Def Leppard. True! Not foolin ya!

7) Just before bed time, I sent an email to that same woman I am dating w/ the song “Sugar” in it by Dan Wilson and express that it was beautiful when she mentioned the word “Surrender” to me a few weeks previously.

8) Tuesday, Nov 7. The next morning, I woke to a song called “Bad” by U2 from their “Unforgettable Fire” record... just before Bono sings the line “Surrender.” Amazing...

9) Later that evening, I entered my studio w/ my Itunes on random playing the song, “Pour Some Sugar On Me” by Def Leppard…thousands of songs and it happened to be a DL song w/ the word “Sugar” in it. Wowza...

10) Wed, Nov 8. My date called to say she heard a song at yoga class and wanted to know what it was…she sang a few lyrics, I knew it to be “Landslide” by Stevie Nicks/Lindsey Buckingham. I told her that Lindsey Buckingham is actually playing The Wiltern Theater and that I would mail her an mp3 of “Landslide.” I found “Landslide” on “The Dance” album of Fleetwood Mac. Also on it, an amazing version of Lindsey playing and singing “Big Love” acoustically and forwarded that song as well.

11) Thurs, Nov 9. I taught the song “Blackbird" to a guitar student. Later, I did an IM (Instant Message) with a friend who just happened to be emailing with the songwriter, Paul McCartney, at that moment.

12) I visited my friend’s place and told him that I am reading the book "Living, Loving, and Learning” by Leo Bascaglia…he then pointed to a bunch of furniture in his home that used to belong to Leo.

13) I made arrangements to attend the Lindsey Buckingham concert…which I gracefully got to attend for free.

14) Friday, Nov 10. I attended the LB show…walked into it late…but perfectly about 10 minutes before LB plays “Big Love.” He performed it intensely and the crowd erupted…I sat and then stood in wonder.

15) Sat, Nov 11. Upon returning home from the health club in my car, I listened to a radio station that was going to play a song by a band called Wired All Wrong…I turned the station because I thought that the name choice is not very ultimate (My band, The Lift, had a song called Wired- -which is about being connected to peeps) and turned it to a station that happened to be playing “You Can Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac, sung by Lindsey Buckingham…and performed by him the night before…now that was the station for me! The next song, “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” Okay…I am starting to go thru the roof with this…thankfully, I was driving my bro’s convertible!

16) Sun, Nov 12. I told a few friends all these stories…including my bud, Braden.

17) Mon, Nov 13. I got in my car to go teach elementary schooI and turned on the radio to find a re-broadcast of the in-studio appearance w/ Lindsey Buckingham– within a minute he is playing “Big Love” live…I called Braden to tell him…he happened to be listening to “Landslide” at the time. HOLY FREEKIN $#*t!!!

18) I emailed a few peeps about #17- including my brother, Brett.

19) While emailing my brother during a school break, a student came back into class during recess..and mentioned that her “uncle” had written and recorded a popular movie soundtrack song from the mid 80’s– I told her that I happened to know him and that his wife was my modeling agent.

20) Ten minutes later, I called my brother to get his reaction from 1-18…he then said, “I don’t know what to think about it, though I did hear a song twice today, and I had not heard that song in years.” That song happened to be the song in #19. He had no idea of #19 when I called him...

Speechless.

21) Tuesday, October 13, 2020, I read this writing for the first time in years…and I had just one guitar lesson for that day…and guess what…my student asked to play the song that was the subject of #’s 19 & 20.

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noccalula-writes · 5 years

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I wrote a long-ass essay about the entire experience with my father, as it was happening, because that’s how I cope with shit.

CW: parental death, discussions of abuse, medical situations, dying.

(7/4/2019)

It’s Thursday. The hospice nurses don’t think he’ll die tonight and I don’t either, but his breathing pattern is beginning to change. The rattling of the gathering fluids at the back of his mouth. The way he sleeps with his mouth hanging fully open, a much further drop than the way he’d nod off in his chair or on the couch, open enough to drool and snore but not the near-scream affectation of his jaw hanging loosely that I’ve been seeing since we arrived here yesterday by ambulance.

His jaundice is returning, albeit more subtly than it was before. Sometimes he sleeps deep. Sometimes his eyebrows move, knitting and raising and fluctuating like he’s in the middle of a very important conversation with someone who just isn’t getting the message. For some reason, I keep thinking he’s talking to his own father. I hope he is. I hope it’s a good conversation.

But his breathing becomes erratic and the emaciated curve of his chest starts to heave a little or goes too still for too long and then rises harshly, and I hold my own breath while I wait to see if his is coming back.

I want to be here when he dies. I will be here when he dies.

***

I had booked a flight on Sunday for 7:45 pm. I made it out the other side of the TSA checkpoint when I got the text that American Airlines had canceled my flight.

I called and explained the direness of the situation, and the best they could offer was 7am the next morning.

Monday morning, I flew into Charlotte NC with a 36 minute layover, just enough to let me pee and refill my water bottle and make it to the gate with less than an hour’s wait til boarding.

No sooner had I sat down than American Airlines sent out yet another text. “Your flight has been cancelled.” I was five and a half hours away from Jacksonville as a straight shot. The next flight they could put me on was at 2:45 that afternoon. The nurses had been encouraging me to come down due to my father’s rapid deterioration – I spent the entire transit up until that point only mildly afraid that he would die before I would arrive.

There in North Carolina? I was terrified.

I called, talked to yet another sympathetic courtesy clerk who could do nothing for me, talked to a far less courteous clerk at the actual airport desk, tried to see if they could just get me a rental car instead. I could either sit for a six hour layover or I could get a car and make it to Jax half an hour before my flight would leave.

Nothing.

I did not have the money to fly here – a dear friend bought my ticket – and I do not have the money to fly back. I’ll work that out after. I definitely did not have the money for my own rental car.

Finally, I went back to the courtesy desk, cried to the older gentleman behind the computer, and how quickly his face changed when I said my father was dying told me he too knew what it meant to need to get home now, now, now.

He handed me a comp ticket for a 1:11 flight that no one else had even brought up with me and told me I had to run if I was going to make it across the airport in time to board.

***

Yesterday morning, he had the last period of real lucidity, unreplicated since we arrived and began comfort-care treatment.

His main doctor came into the ICU and explained to both him and me, freshly awakened by the sound of her pulling his curtain, father and daughter both bleary-eyed but alert and trying to look focused at the importance of the situation.

“There is really nothing else we can do,” she offered with empathy, looking more at me than at him. I don’t blame her for that. It must be harder to look him in the eyes and tell him he’s at the end of the road. We both nod grimly and I ask him, just to be sure, if he understands what she’s saying.

The day before, he slept through my consultations with his kidney doctor and his oncologist and through the group meeting (myself, both half sisters, their mother) with palliative care specialists but naturally was awake when hospice came. The word ‘hospice’ knocked the breath out of him, his left hand searching feebly along the side of his hospital bed, trying to hold on to the edge like he was cresting a daunting roller coaster.

I was crouching to his right, trying to stay eye-level instead of looming over him. I think he reached for my hand. Maybe I reached first. All I know is I took his hand and he squeezed mine.

He asked for a day to consider it, and when that patch of lucidity was gone in twenty minutes, so was his consideration.

That next morning, however, with his lovely doctor standing over us both while I rested my arm and chin on the bedrail beside him, like were co-conspirators instead of a distant father and daughter with a contentious relationship whose power dynamic was about to shift considerably, there was no question of the conversation we were having.

“Do you understand why we need to do this?” I asked him after explaining that we were out of other options. My Great Aunt Jane couldn’t handle home care, even with me present, and he would never get a moment’s peace with her hovering and micromanaging. The hospital was at the end of their ability to care for him, and any measures taken to sustain his life were only delaying the inevitable.

I don’t know if he fully understood that last part, but he nodded, looking away.

I waited for a moment, summoning my courage.

“You understand this is metastatic cancer, right?”

Another nod.

Another moment of gathering courage.

“Your oncologist told me you’ve known about this since last year…” I was cautious, careful not to make him feel judged though I knew it might be a moot point, “Do you remember that?”

He paused, taking assessment, his eyes moving slowly across the ceiling as he pulled through his own memory to find the answer.

“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t… but I must have known.”

***

I arrived on Monday afternoon, my cousin bringing me straight from the airport to the hospital.

I slept on the small sofa in his hospital room both Monday and Tuesday nights. I only left for an hour on Tuesday to meet a close friend at a restaurant right on the other side of the business park from the hospital, a quick catch up to eat and get some take out for Tara.

When I start to worry that I’m doing this because I need to feel like The Goodest Daughter, like I’ve somehow exceeded everyone else’s efforts by miles, I remind myself that I’m still putting chapstick on him, rubbing lotion onto his feet, helping the nurses turn and hold him to change his diaper, enduring the vilest of shit (that systems-are-shutting-down feces is no joke), making sure his dentures are clean and his goatee is free of food despite the fact that he’s called me Tara more than once.

***

My father and I have barely spoken in the last several years.

Nobody seems to suspect that.

***

I’ve been trying to journal but it’s difficult to keep up with considering how tired I am – writing by hand is still a beautiful pastime but I’m at the point where my memory goes so quickly that if I’m not in front of a keyboard, I lose whatever nice prose I thought I had going.

I know from a self-care perspective that I should probably leave a little more often. Go for a walk around the property at a more leisurely pace than my panic-stricken power walk – big body, short little legs, shitty shoes means my legs have been killing me since the day I had to hoof it across the Charlotte airport all the way until I got back from my quick Target trip today, four days later. But I can’t.

The idea of him being alone and afraid makes me feel sick.

But he’s calm now. He’s been calm since we arrived at hospice yesterday afternoon, after I rode in the ambulance beside him that took us from his 8th-floor ICU suite to the Hadlow hospice center on Sunbeam Road, a road only slightly off the path that I rode with my father so many times. We’ve definitely driven down it before together, though, and I can’t stop thinking about time, about how eight years ago today he put “happy 4th, love ya” on my facebook wall and within three years of that we were so strained we barely spoke, existed somewhere not quite yet arriving at estrangement but somewhere further away from familiarity.

***

I’m working very hard to not let that anger I carried for him all the way up until the phone call came on Saturday that he was dying get transmuted into guilt. Of course, it’s happened to some degree, that much I couldn’t fight off – but I’m trying to remember that this anger isn’t the dysfunction of a spoiled kid who couldn’t quit butting heads with her father, but someone who tried very hard to build a relationship that never took, who eventually decided to take her hand off the burner because eventually she stopped accepting pain as a trade-in for affection.

One of the things that has emerged the clearest to me during this transition between ICU to hospice, between periodic lucidity and near constant sleep, is how different a relationship to him Tara has had than Alina or I had. Alina has always carried the bitterness of feeling unfavored atop the conflict that close proximity built between them – she spent the first 7 years of her life with him constantly, traded off every other week after that. She’s angry at him for things that he did or said, for how he chose to shape her life from that vantage point. I spent two months of every summer with him and every Christmas and birthday as they fall during the same winter break from school. I was a part-time visitor in the life he had with both of them; I came and lived in his life, on his terms.

Her anger comes from a sense of entitlement. Mine comes from an ever-present ache of abandonment. Alina has always resented him for what he did when he was there; I resented him for not being there to begin with. I ached for a relationship with my father. I called him sporadically – far apart enough that it wouldn’t cramp his distant style, but close enough that we could maintain a steady narrative of what my life was like (always mine, almost never his – my father was as cagey and distant with me as I often was with other people). The rivers of bad blood between his longtime girlfriend and all 3 of his daughters made matters worse; she was the sort of woman who never made it past high-school level social skills and let pain and depression turn her cruel and callous, and once their relationship was over my father very openly blamed her for the strain between him and his daughters.

I once countered to him that he had made the decision to not step in and stop her. To me, it was more his fault than hers. She was awful but he was complacent with it.

Never being able to consolidate world views in general atop my feelings of having been abandoned to my grief after my mother’s death in a house that felt more like a prison (I once left a cup of water unemptied in the sink and came home to find he had dumped it all over my bed – another time, I arrived home to find my dresser from Alabama pluming up smoke from the burn pile in the back yard without so much as a word to me, because he said he saw spiders in it) made it incredibly difficult to stitch the distance between us closed. I started leaving at 5am to go to my boyfriend’s house before school and have breakfast with his family (or, more often, sneak in and either go back to sleep or have sex). I begged to move out, to leave and go stay at my great aunt’s house instead, and he resisted me only until his girlfriend needed my bedroom for her kids when they visited. Then, I was allowed to leave.

He kept all of my social security survivor’s checks. I only saw the very last one. I worked at McDonald’s to pay for my own gas (I inherited my mother’s car, a 1990 Cutlass Cierra, when she died) and insurance, and I bought my own food as well so his girlfriend didn’t get upset when I ate at the house.

He judged my mother mightily for her mistakes and while my sexuality didn’t seem to hang him up too much – he nearly choked on chicken when I told him I had been dating a girl, but he recovered quickly with a shrug and a “well… shit happens” – and my defensiveness of her put us at odds with each other again. I tried to call and set up dinner dates or ask him to come see whatever new apartment my girlfriend and I were living in. He visited one once and then never again. I brought over a pizza to hang out with him one night and within thirty minutes, Cynthia called me to tell me that one of our cats had died. Spending time together got harder to arrange, and the more he seemed indifferent to how hard I was trying to forge a relationship, the more I resented him for it.

My calls went unanswered. Seeing him required going out of my way, every time. He rarely met me halfway, almost never if it required real effort on his part.

By the time Cyn and I moved to Pensacola, we had been living less than 10 minutes away from one another and had seen each other less than 5 times in a year.

By the time we moved to Columbus, Ohio, I didn’t even tell him we were going. It didn’t seem to matter.

***

The jaundice and edema have returned by Friday morning. His breathing is becoming more and more erratic. Morphine and Ativan are coming in through a subcutaneous port because he no longer wakes up to swallow.

I have to fight the urge to try to wake him, make him take a sip of water for his parched tongue. His mouth stays wide open all of the time now. I gently rub chapstick over his lips a few times a day so they don’t crack, but the corners of his mouth are bruising from the constant tension.

I am letting him die. We are letting him die. It feels like a failure somehow, even though I know I would absolutely encourage literally anyone else to do exactly what I am doing now in exactly this situation.

***

When I was 12 years old, I played my first live show.

My father brought me onstage at the bar where he played lead guitar in the house band, a vast waste of his natural talent, and had me sing Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” while he accompanied me. We drilled it night after night in his studio apartment during the summer that he split from Alina and Tara’s mother. We worked on Tom Petty’s “Breakdown” but there was something to “Time After Time” that we both really loved – I had only recently gotten very good with pitch control and my young voice was still high and soft, able to curl over the notes gently. Now I sing with the base of my chest and what I suspect are several vocal nodes, my voice getting weak quickly but frankly it suits my style.

I was shaking, I remember very clearly wanting to throw up, but my father beamed at me from his post on the barstool beside me and started to play.

Years later, my Italian macho-typical misogynist of a father would come to the local women’s center where I worked as a victim advocate for a sexual assault response team and play in our courtyard during our survivor event in April. He played an Ani DiFranco song and I sang.

***

Time is a swallowed bomb, waiting. You pay for the whole seat but you only use the edge.

***

On Friday night, they’re saying less than 24 hours. His breathing has changed again, growing labored and strange.

I almost have a panic attack when I have to go to the funeral home to sign papers for a cremation and fill out what of his death certificate I can remember.

Tara is staying beside him. Alina joined us for a while today, all three of us sitting and holding his hands, petting his leg while we listened to his favorite Splendor album and sang “Yeah, Whatever” to him. Hospice brought his lunch; he doesn’t eat or take water anymore. We stole his cookie and split it and talked to him about how good it was, teasing the way he always teased us. We reminisced, talked about the past and our mistakes. We all cried. We all laughed. It was as good a moment as we’d had together in a long, long time.

He didn’t wake up, but we were holding his hands. We were keeping him safe.

***

I sing to him when we’re alone – his favorite Bonnie Raitt songs. Time After Time, of course. When I try singing Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me In Your Heart For A While,” I only make it to the second stanza before I can’t go on.

“When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun, keep me in your heart for a while; there’s a train leaving nightly called When All Is Said And Done, keep me in your heart for a while.”

I asked him for guitar lessons once. He tried to teach me a G chord, told me to keep it simple.

“With your voice, you won’t need to learn much,” he said, and I was so overjoyed for the compliment that I’ve never forgotten it.

***

My dear friend Diana comes in to see him, despite having only known him through me.

He would hate this, I think, but I need her to be there, if only for a few minutes.

We met at the abortion clinic we both worked at; she became my boss within two months of my starting and we’ve been close ever since. When she goes to leave, she addresses my father, coming to put her hand gently on his.

“Mister Vance, if I don’t see you again, safe travels.”

I don’t know where he’s going. If there is somewhere, though, it’s going to have so much music. He’s going to be playing his heart out, saying everything his pride never let him say with notes and bars.

Once, back in college, he called me and said nothing, setting the phone beside him on the couch while he absolutely nailed the Eruption solo from Van Halen’s cover of “Girl You Really Got Me Now.”

I have never thought of him as a good father. I have always thought of him as an incredible musician.

***

Back on Sunday, when I knew I would be flying out due to the severity of the situation, I told the nurse to tell Dad I was coming.

I didn’t think he was lucid enough to understand much of anything anyone said, but I missed a call from the hospital by margins of seconds. In an absolute tizzy over what might have been on the other end, I called back.

My father answered, his voice barely a hoarse whisper, his focus obscured by so much morphine.

“Dad? Is that you?”

“Bre?”

“Dad?”

“Bre?”

“Yeah, Dad, it’s Bre.”

His voice broke. “Oh, my baby girl.”

I felt my heart fall out of my ribs and drop down the staircase I fell down the year before and cracked my tailbone, shattered a tooth. I sat down on the stairs. I had been so worried he wouldn’t want to see me, that I’d get there and the ice coating would crawl back over our relationship and I’d have rushed down for little more than maybe a chance to say hello.

“Are you really coming?” he asked, over and over, like a child afraid of the answer being ‘no.’

***

On Saturday, he’s gasping for breath like a fish on a deck. It’s terrifying for me and Tara, who sit on either side of him wide-eyed and panic stricken, waiting for the higher dose of morphine to kick in. It’s violent to watch, but thankfully it starts to subside by that night.

The fear dissipates from the room, but we don’t forget the experience.

***

I show the night nurse pictures of my father with his long dark hair, his brown-tan skin, his brilliant green eyes. I show her pictures of him just two short years ago, round-faced and charming in his straw fedora as he played his guitar, blissfully unaware of all the shitty connotations of fedoras nowadays. She marvels at how handsome he is, how happy he looks holding a guitar. I tell her he’s a really good carpenter but he’s a much better musician, raised by a father who was notoriously talented as well. My father lit up onstage, not as towering as a front man but as the ever-present lead guitarist, just quirky and fun enough to draw your eye from the main microphone but practical, decades of practice and honed skill turning him into the kind of perfectionist he resented in his father.

The lead singer of the last band he played for comes to see him for the third time since Monday. He’s the kind of man who has a natural charm about him, a comfort with being the center of attention that most of us can’t cultivate. He’s sincere in his grief about my father, but he’s also the kind of person who acts as though it’s never dawned on him that not everything he does will come with applause. He performs a very dramatic one man show of his grief when it’s just him and my sister; when I’m here he holds court with his memories and talks about throwing back whiskey with my father at the bar they played at.

“He always said the doctor said it was okay!”

I fight back irritation when I respond, “The doctor absolutely did not say it was okay, he had liver damage.” It’s not this man’s fault my father took big gambles with his health and his addictions. It’s not his fault that my father has always loved a good time. It’s certainly not his fault my father lied about his condition to most people to avoid having to talk about it.

He makes open-ended statements designed to make us ask him questions about himself. Neither one of us do. This seems to bother him. It occurs to me that after a lifetime of being handsome and musically inclined, he might just be expressing himself the only way he knows how – from a vantage point where the world ends at the end of his nose.

Later, when his wife comes, it’s a complete 180. She is calm and warm and immediate, built small and slight like my mother, and between that and her unabashed Mom vibes I’m instantly glad that this virtual stranger is in the room. We watch my father struggle to breathe and she puts her hand on my back, one hand on mine on his, and for a second I shut my eyes and let myself cry – not the way I want to cry, I haven’t found the softest spot to rip that one open from yet, but quietly. If I keep my eyes closed, it feels like my mother is beside me. I can’t think of a not-weird way to tell her I’m grateful for that, so I don’t.

***

Tara and I hold vigil all day on Sunday. His lungs are full of fluid and his face is going grey. His breaths are gentle and small but he sounds like a coffee maker, an observation I make after waking from a catnap in the bay window.

It’s just the three of us and a Law & Order SVU marathon. Dad’s come to like police procedurals in his old age.

We put up a statement on Facebook asking people to send their well wishes via text and phone calls, that we are running out of road and we’d like to focus mostly on spending the last hours or days with him. Alina doesn’t show. She’s been present but sporadically, unable to bear the full weight of the reality of the situation perhaps or too distracted by her own personal demons. I wonder, of the three of us, which daughter will be the one living with the most regret. It’s probably between me and Alina.

When Tara finally goes home for the evening, the nurse comes back to check on him again. Between his blood pressure and his gentle, rattling breaths, he could easily go tonight or go into the morning.

I text my cousin and refer to my father as Captain Refuses-To-Die. She laughs. I feel guilty. She points out that no one would be laughing more than my father. I feel better.

On this, likely the last night we’ll ever have together, I read to him from the book I’ve brought from home (Dessa Wander’s My Own Devices, nonfiction essays that are beautiful and poignant), put Chicago PD on mute and play him Jeff Buckley. I read aloud from the chapter in which Dessa filmed the music video for “Sound The Bells”, and the ending lines crush me all over again: “Some places you need to go, even a chestful of air is too much cargo. Some places you can only go empty.”

I tell him, for the hundredth time, that it’s okay to go if he needs to. His blood pressure is lower and the rattling breaths are a sign we’re growing closer, but he’s still warm to the touch all over. If he’s mottling, we can’t see it. There’s gray in his face again but he reacts to the oral swab of moisturizer to keep his mouth from drying out by furrowing his brows, almost turning away but not quite. The nurses aren’t sure what to make of it. One of these literal angels asks me if I’ve tried telling him it’s okay to go – I tell her that might be what’s holding him up, because now that it was someone else’s idea, he’s just not going to do it.

I hear him in my ear sometimes. Quit rushin’ me. I’ll go when I want and not a moment sooner. Sit down.

We listen to three different versions of Buckley’s Hallelujah – instrumental while I read to him, live, and studio. We move on to the rest of the Grace album.

I’m afraid to go to the bathroom or take a shower when it’s just me and him, so convinced he’ll wait until the second the door clicks shut and then take his opportunity to slip away unnoticed, robbing me of the moment where I get to hold his hand and put some symmetry to our relationship. After all, he was there when I came into the world, purple and defiantly refusing to breathe until suddenly I sucked in air and began to scream. He saw me come in; I vow to at least be here when he goes out. I want to hold his hand the whole time, but if in all his wittiness he decides to kick while I’m half-sleeping on the World’s Okayest Cot, just being in the room will have to be enough.

***

When Alina arrived at my great aunt’s and found him on the floor, slumped against his bed bleeding and unable to get up, he told her he had become addicted to oxycodone since nothing else was helping for the pain. He told her he was done, that he was tired of being sick and tired of fighting.

Despite this, he’s still hanging on. I don’t think he wants to go. He’s only 61 years old. It seems far away to me now the way my mother’s 39 years seemed when I was 16, but now I am 32 and 39 gets more horrible and tragic every day. My father was the life of the party between his sense of humor and relentless flirting and I can only assume that on some base level, he’s not ready for the party to stop yet.

His fingers stopped searching for the fret board days ago. His eyes don’t move behind the lids anymore, and the shadows and bruises around them are coming in fierce. The Haldol is doing nothing to stop the secretions and he’s still in full brew mode, death rattle on all day long. It’s terrifying at first but after a while it’s just a rumble, just a purr. There are moments when Tara and I are perched in our respective chairs on either side of him, eyes turned to the TV or our phones, and this is… ‘fine’ isn’t really the word, but mundane. Just a thing we’re all doing. Boring, even. And then I glance at the bed and see my emaciated, sunken-faced father gurgling through yet another breath and it takes my own away how very not okay it all is.

He’d hate this, is the only thing I can keep thinking. He would hate all of this.

***

There’s a train leaving nightly called ‘When All Is Said and Done.’

Keep me in your heart for a while.

I love him with every ounce of my being. I’m so angry for all the time we missed. I’m so sad that he didn’t let me love him more.

***

It’s Thursday, again. The last few days have been a blur so emotionally exhausting I haven’t had the presence of mind to put pen to paper in any capacity.

When he’ll die is anyone’s guess. For a while yesterday his breathing changed so drastically, came in short little hiccups, that the PRN was sure he was breathing his last. Then, like nothing had ever transpired, he was back to the soft, shallow breaths of before, the rattling having disappeared within a day of its arrival. He started having spells yesterday where he exhales so hard that it engages his vocal cords, making a groan or soft moan like a zombie in a horror film; this terrified the shit out of Tara and me so badly that we grabbed the nurse. His eyes tried to open. It was incredibly upsetting.

The nurse explained that these were reflexive, the deep sighs were him fighting his own heart’s slowing down on some basal level. He’s been unconscious for an entire week now – the eyes opening are a reflex, not intentional and not a sign of any sort of awareness behind the lids.

When they opened after he was cleaned, they had rolled all the way up into his head, leaving nothing but a sliver of white, making me feel sick to my stomach. I knew dying wasn’t elegant and beautiful the way the movies would have you believe, but this is taking so very, very long and it’s so very, very awful.

It’s been a week without water now, so at some point something will have to give.

Tara has spent every day right next to me, sometimes holding his other hand, sometimes napping in the armchair while I nap on my cot. It’s often the two of us in comfortable silence for long stretches or cracking jokes over whatever is on tv. We share his trays when they come in – sometimes the worker slips us a second tray specifically for Tara – or she runs to grab lunch. We tried going out together a few times but no results; he would be exactly as we left him upon our return. Whatever he’s holding on for, he’s holding on with both hands.

I watch his pulse pound in the veins in his neck. I can see his heartbeat through the emaciation of his ribs. I wish to god this was a Death With Dignity state. I wish to god the end would just come gently for him already, and then I feel like a monster for wishing that. How do you want someone you love to die? How do you want them to stay and suffer? Damned if I do, fucked if I don’t.

I play him Joe Bonamassa, more Jeff Buckley, Bonnie Raitt, Bon Iver, Eva Cassidy, Warren Zevon. I sing every song he ever asked me to sing for him, even the ones he chastised me for singing too loudly for him to hear the radio. I hum when I can’t muster the energy to sing, which is increasingly often at this point.

I’m a ghost wandering the hospice halls. The staff greets me by first name and I know most of theirs now – Lisa, who is a literal angel, sent in a dining room cart loaded with sandwiches and chips when a big storm hit yesterday, thinking Tara and I wouldn’t likely go out to get dinner. Gloria dutifully checks on me and my dad and Tara. Jasmine, Victoria, Tinkey, Dolores, the cleaning lady named Cynthia (my wife’s name) is a particular comfort, going out of her way to talk to me every time she comes in to sweep.

The guilt is palpable. I miss my wife and my dog and my apartment; sleeping on this cot has triggered my already flared vestibular disorder and I am so dizzy I worry I’ll fall over at least once a day. I eat what I can when I can but my diet is garbage. I often forget to eat. I’m making it a point to drink as much water as I physically can without getting sick as it helps my headaches.

But I haven’t cried in what feels like days. I can’t anymore. I talk about the increasingly mottling on his fingers, his toes, his ears like it’s a matter-of-fact conversation about the weather. The sound of his sighs and groans still make my heart catch in my throat every time but I’m going numb to the rest. We’re just kind of trapped here in limbo between being able to care for him, which we no longer can, and being able to mourn him and grieve, which we cannot yet do. It feels like torture. I mentally calculate out how much therapy I’m going to need to get out the other side of this. I watch more cop procedurals than I’ve watched in years and hate every last one of them unless Olivia Benson is in them (except Criminal Minds, which I have a complicated relationship with but Tara and I both share a deep abiding love of Spencer Reid, so.)

I want to go home. I feel like dog shit for wanting to go home. I can’t leave him. Not like this. I don’t know how to ask for help but I feel like I’m drowning.

***

The only slices of time where I feel like I can breathe is when Tara and I run to Target for no good reason or when I’m in the shower late in the evening. At first I was too afraid to so much as use the bathroom, scared he would slip off the second I left the room in one final act of independence to prove once and for all that he didn’t need anybody else’s input or help.

Dad’s hospice room has a huge walk-in shower built to accommodate a sitting toilet for those who are still resisting the sponge bath with all their might. Dad was unable to walk for the three days he was in the ICU, much less now, so I drag the entire rig of pvc and toilet seat out into the bathroom proper and enjoy a shower with enough space to comfortably fit three people. In my apartment back home, we haven’t had a functional shower in months; the whole set up fell out of the wall, leaving us only with our very deep and very beautiful porcelain tub. It’s hard to complain about such a tub but the reality is that cup baths get tiring very quickly when you’re disabled and getting into and out of that gorgeous porcelain tank is real work.

This shower comes equipped with safety rails, which at the ripe old age of 32 send my chronically ill self into pure joy. I find reasons to stay in the shower longer than I normally would, water conscious as I try to be. My legs haven’t been so shaven so frequently since I was a teenager. I don’t always have the energy to slip off and stand in hot water for twenty minutes at a time but when I do I try to take advantage; we don’t know when he’s going to decide he’s had enough and I’ll be quickly packing our things into all these Zaxby’s carryout bags I keep hoarding.

***

At some point, this has begun to feel deliberate. Am I locked in one final battle of wills with my father? Is he testing my mettle – and Tara’s, for that matter – to make sure we’ve got the stones to follow up on our promises?

My father made a lot of promises he didn’t honor. Whether they haunted him or if he just forgot is anybody’s guess.

***

I’m on the lanai near my father’s room when I noticed a few people going in and out of the room. I tell my aunt Sharon, “If he slipped off while I was outside on the phone, I swear to god.” He hasn’t, but we’re close; they’ve repositioned him to try to help things move along. The doctor tells me the mottling has moved quickly up his legs and that we’re looking at hours now, maybe even sooner.

His eyes are partially open again. I grimace and close them gently. I remember my mothers’ open eyes, dead for hours when I found her, and it’s something that sixteen years of road between that moment and now have never been able to rub free from my memory. I wonder what about this will haunt me in specificity – the whole experience, sure, but the little things. If I’ll smell someone wearing his nurse practitioner’s perfume and it’ll send me straight into fight or flight. If I’ll be so consumed by my grief that I can’t eat but the second I can I find I can never eat trail mix again. If something will slip just under the edge of my self awareness and then one day I’ll be crying in the aisle at Kroger for no reason.

Bronze nail polish, unexpected splashes of Daffodil yellow, and “Girl You Really Got Me Now” stop me in my tracks in regards to my mother, but she was part of my life every single day. This man laying in this hospital bed is undoubtedly someone I love so much it makes my chest hurt to think of, but not much in my day to day life will change when he is gone – he wasn’t a part of it, hadn’t been for years.

A storm is rolling in. I call my sister.

***

He dies at 10:40 on July 11th.

Tara is asleep on the cot on one side of him, I’m sitting in the armchair on the other, listening to him breathe and texting my wife. Chicago PD is on because of course it is. I get a strange prickle of discomfort and pause, realizing that I no longer hear the heaving of his breath.

At that exact moment, my sister wakes for no reason and goes into the bathroom, passing me as I quickly come around the bed to look at my father’s face in the blue tv light, his eyes slit just barely open. His chest unmoving. The thrum of his heartbeat, so visible for so many days, stilled. I pressed two fingers to his neck, fought the urge to recoil, and pressed the call button to the nurse’s station.

We get an hour and a half with him before the funeral home arrives at nearly 1 am. With my mother, my shock and fear kept me from being able to go anywhere near her body after I dropped her when I tried to turn her over. My criminology studies made me slightly more comfortable around the dead but that quick recoil didn’t leave me and before long I was doubly nursing a burgeoning drinking problem and a crippling fear of death. I’ve done the reading. I’ve pushed myself past my comfort zone. When my beloved dogs died in 2015 and 2017, I spent time with them before burying them myself in the backyard of my aunt’s home.

When the doctor backs out of the door gracefully, quietly, I press my ear to my father’s chest and hear nothing. I put my arm over both of his. I let myself sob into his still, unmoving shoulder and I remember for a moment how he held me in my bedroom at his house the day I moved in, when my mother’s death was suddenly too real to stand under the weight off. How he let me lean fully into him and slid down to the floor with me, let me sob until I was too sore to keep crying, how for that one blessed moment he was the father I needed at exactly the moment I needed him.

They come to take him. The funeral home worker watches me with a soft expression as I dip down one last time and tell him, “On to the next adventure. Thank you for everything. I love you, Dad. Goodbye.”

***

I love you, Dad.

Goodbye.

***

I think I’m going to feel better but really, I’m just tired. Bone-deep tired. A tired I can’t put a name to. I want to go home and be held by my wife more than I want anything in the world. I spend the day with my sisters, alternating between being mostly-okay and having my breath snatched from me by how not-okay I am. Alina submits herself back to rehab to return on Monday. We make plans to go through his things, together, in September, when I’ve returned for a wedding. It feels okay-ish, and then it feels less okay, and then it’s so awful I can’t wrap my head around it.

And it will continue to be awful. I know that. But it will gradually become less awful, the edges rubbing down until it doesn’t cut me every time I brush against it. It will always be awful. But it will turn into a shape of awful that I can breathe around.

I take stock of what I’ve got left in my hands now that my watch has ended. I went from “my father is not in my life” to “my father is dying and I am caring for him in his final days after a lifetime of his antiseptic behavior to my attempts at building emotional bridges with him” to “my father is dead” in the space of about 13 days. There was no time. It all happened too fast.

On my last day in Florida, I drag both of my exhausted sisters to the beach. Alina sleeps on a towel. Tara and I wade out into the ocean, and I let the salt water of my sweat and my tears remind me how we all came from the sea, how we all return to the earth, and how one day this planet will keep spinning without me, regardless of whether I’ve left a list of things undone or not.

I don’t scream. I don’t cry. I just float for a while.

#personal #noccalula updates

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snoozejoon · 5 years

Text

Too Much | Park Jimin

pairing: park jimin x black female oc (ft. jung hoseok.. again :))

genre: angst, fluff, a whoole bunch of lovey-dovey stuff n heartbreak

warnings: mental illness (specifically bpd - borderline personality disorder), mature scenes, vulgar language and mentions of suicide and depression.

word count: 3.3k

Solace Wright just wants to remove herself from her overbearing job and find some genuine joy in her life on her own terms. She didn't exactly expect to land in South Korea to begin making an acclaimed name for herself, and she definitely didn't expect to fall so easily in love. She knows what she came to do and isn't exactly fond of having such a large distraction, but her heart softens without her permission and leads her to experience things she never imagined for herself.

Did she want this? No. Will she stay anyway? Yes.

She may have bitten off more than she can chew.

PREMIÉRE

Past.

HOSEOK hated the heat. He hated L.A too. He loathed the bright, smoldering heat that made him have nightmares of lava eating away at skin before he fell asleep; accompanied by the restless sounds and people that enshroud him everywhere he seemed to turn. And if one more droplet of sweat dared to drip down his face one more time, he'd hop on the fastest plane to Korea within the next hour.

The moment his skin made contact with the summer sun here, he immediately regretted even coming. Why his father sent him out of all the other nice, heat tolerant people he has employed at his aquarium was beyond him. Beyond him. Literally. He knew little english, despised American food, and random foreigners that couldn't mind their business, so this was the worst job his dad could possibly give him.

The only liable reason he can come up with is that his father trusted him. Which was kind of a given, seeing as he was the only child he had that considered marine biology as a career path. He was also his dad's only child, so there was that aspect too. Hoseok was being sent to one of the biggest sea life aquariums in Los Angeles to sign literally one slip of paper and shake some probably cold hands just to confirm the conversion of the aquarium into the Jung corporation, due to horrible reviews on the well-being of their sea life, and poor treatment of their customers — and employees.

So naturally, sales dropped, and prices ran cheaper, but people never seemed to want to visit anymore. Hearing about their children's favorite killer whale dying the day after the family went to visit wasn't exactly the best look . . . at all.

His father, noting that every other company tied within the U.S simply refused to lend a helping hand, stepped in on his own. Being a businessman was his best attribute; this simple encounter alone was going to add millions to his company, evidently putting himself even more on the top of the marine world than he was already. He'd do his best to add more revenue to the aquarium under his ownership; since all of the 4 aquariums he owned in South Korea were healthily successful, he only expected the same outcome for the one here; but that would take time. A very long time.

That was great and all, but did it require a whole suit and tie ensemble? In black? He almost wants to cry, but for one: he'll for sure taste the salt in his tears and it's too hot for that, and for two: he's not trying to explain to an American the reasoning behind his tears in his kindergarten level English on this bus that was going way too fast for his liking. So no crying. He could sit and be pissed though, so that's exactly what he does.

It takes a good forty-five minutes to get to his hotel, just to fumble with his key to his room when it was handed to him, lug his too-heavy-for-a-week-stay suitcase into his room, and eventually fall into some strangely comfortable sheets and fall into the arms of a power nap. Jet-lag was yet another thing that Jung Hoseok hated, and he refused to let it hinder the pace at which he could actually leave this place. He had a big day tomorrow.

Hoseok knows that the sun is necessary for life and energy and whatever else, but waking up to it shining directly into his irises wasn't the plan. The universe just seemed to genuinely enjoy messing those up though, so who can really say that this wasn't expected anyway? The meeting was at 10, so he got up at 7, quickly regretting that decision as well; U.S time and Korean time were sworn enemies. But Hoseok prevails and tries his best: studying and trying to absorb every English word he could in the textbook he brought, he even got the mobile app so that his phone could speak to him while he fumbled with his tie. He practiced masking his accent — and evidently failed, but that's okay — and eventually said fuck it, grabbed his suitcase, and left his hotel room.

During the bus ride to the aquarium, he tries to mask his nervousness by continuing to study and attempting to make somewhat of a script for the meeting he had later. He tries to answer in his head any question that could possibly be asked — which shouldn't be many — until he's memorized just enough to get by. He's almost positive that he'll stutter more than necessary and say something incorrectly by default but he decided that was the best he could do.

After a long and almost unbearably bumpy bus ride, he finally arrived at the aquarium, and when he heard about the decrease in visitors, he didn't think it would've been this much. The aquarium was open for sure, but without looking inside, you would've thought it was during closing hours. No one was even remotely interested in the activities occurring outside; which was saying something, because it was a whopping 102 degrees today. The only people actually outside where the employees with the animals, feeding and bathing their assigned sea life.

The aquarium was huge. 2 long pillars held the building up from the sides, accompanied by the various games and activities surrounding it. An array of ticket booths stood outside as well, with less than about 15-20 pedestrians per line. Hoseok felt like he was at the entrance of a movie theater, much less a famous aquarium. Hoseok literally stops in his tracks; just standing to take it all in. admittedly, his father's aquariums were better, but this one was still something to admire. A shame, it was that it wasn't selling well. He knew his dad would fix that though.

As he entered the large building, he immediately makes eye contact with one too many sea creatures; they seem to literally stop and peer at what he's doing and silently ask why. His footsteps falter at his paranoia; was he serious right now?

Let's not make this visit longer than it has to be, Hoseok, he thinks to himself. Please don't.

Hoseok picks his head up, wipes his sweat with the sleeve of his blazer — unprofessional, but he doesn't care — and eventually just takes the jacket off. He wouldn't be forced to suffer anymore because he really couldn't feel the aquarium's supposed "air conditioning" at all. After doing this, he ignores the scrutinizing looks from the fish surrounding him, and begins his quest for the administrative's office to meet with the CEO. Not even five steps are completely taken before he's almost ran over by a woman with a box that definitely had no chance of lasting long in her hands. Way to not make this visit longer, huh?

The collision is heavy, but more so on his part; she actually remained standing, and the sound Hoseok made at his fall was too loud to simply apologize and not worry about potential injuries.

"Oh my God!” The woman exclaimed. “I'm so sorry-"

The box she held is safely placed on the ground before she reaches out to help pull her victim up — he hadn't even attempted getting up, but sprung up easily with her help.

"Thanks," he grunted, noting at how soft her hands were, and peeking at her white lab coat. Her eyes were a wide mahogany, matching her skin, and her hair was kept in a high and unruly bun. He decided that he had been irritated enough since he got here, and getting angry — angrier — would only slow him down.

"I'm fine," he inwardly grimaced at how his voice sounded, "I, uh. I think."

She kept rumbling off with apologies, because what a great way to end her last day here.

"I'm so, so, sorry! I was just moving out from my room and you were walking in front of my office and—" she blinked rapidly, taking in his appearance and then really looking for injuries, "wait, you look important, a-are you sure you're okay?" Her hands roamed his shoulders, head, and arms before he interrupted her with an embarrassed cough.

"Um." Immediately her hands left his arms, shooting behind her back and interlocking in embarrassment. She couldn't help it, he wore more than her rent and she was not about to get sued today. He felt his cheeks grow hot at her actions; he definitely wasn't used to that. He cleared his throat, loosening the collar of his shirt — was it hot in here? Significantly hotter than usual?

Eventually finding his composure, he directed his speech to her as carefully as he could. "You are okay." Her eyes met up to his, her heart was pounding too damn hard for a Tuesday morning. "Sorry, uh, my English isn't very good — I'm Korean. I'm trying though."

Her brows rose, and Hoseok had to stop himself from thinking the worst before she spoke, "Oh really? I studied marine biology in college, with Korean as my minor, I know the language, if that's easier for you?" She reached down and struggled to pick up her box completely; but Hoseok noticed and helped her to stand.

He couldn't even completely understand what she said, but he heard Korean and easier and put two and two together.

"Really? Yes!" he coughed, lowering his voice, "Ahem. Please. I have a meeting with your Ceo and I'm not sure how far I'll get." Pleading eyes bore into hers, trying to get his point across.

"I'm Jung Hoseok, by the way," he said, before she could reject him.

The woman's hands wrapped over the box tightly, and her lips turn to blow escaped hairs from in front of her eyes. Noting that he mentioned that Korean would be easier, she quickly remembered the honorifics.

"Hi Hoseok. I'm Solace. So, you need a translator?" She finally settled her box firmly in her hands and looked at him expectedly.

Solace. It was a beautiful name, it swelled nicely under his tongue when he repeated it. Her Korean was good; her accent was obviously apparent, but still understandable. "Yes," Hoseok answers hurriedly, "If you're not too busy."

Solace shook her head, "No it's fine, today was my last day anyway. Let me run this box to my car really quickly and I'll be right back." Hoseok can barely respond with his gratitude before her heels find their speed and she leaves the building.

When she returned, she also had to direct him to the administrative's office as well, he didn't exactly have a directory to the aquarium. While she was showing him the way, Hoseok had the opportunity to observe the aquarium fully; dwelling on how his father could fix this, and tweak that. And that was all before they even got to an elevator.

He tried small talk too. She was granting him a favor, so the least he could do was get to know her a little. Random questions that popped into his mind, he wanted them answered. He was still in need of a distraction; nerves were never something to be messed with.

"So," he raised his voice as he stepped in the elevator beside her, "did you quit? Is- is that why it's your last day? Or -" his eyes widened with interest, "were you fired?"

He saw her face turn to him quizzically, she couldn't possibly figure out how that was any of his business, but she let it slide. She clicked the circular 5 button for the fifth floor, and the elevator ascended upwards.

"No, not fired. I quit." she looked down at her fingers, "the reviews written about poor employee service weren't wrong."

"Oh."

Hoseok nodded, not exactly shocked by her answer; it only added to the things his dad could fix once he signed the contract. And maybe it was the close proximity of the elevator, but Hoseok knew the scent of a mango when he smelled it. There was something else in the air too — something tropical.

He didn't know if it was perfume or what, it just smelled amazing. So amazing that his body made decisions he probably shouldn't have; like leaning in towards the area of the smell — which was Solace. He only sacrificed a small sniff, but it was one sniff too many apparently — she tensed up immediately. Did he just? She didn't even see him do it; her attention was on the elevator door waiting to open.

Hoseok hasn't noticed her noticing him, and moved back to where he originally stood, unbothered. He realized that it was her hair that smelled as nice as it did, a dash of coconut and hibiscus scents accompanied the mango too; adding a nice, beachy smell. But Solace noticed, and didn't exactly know how to react either. Her head turned to him swiftly, an amused but weary expression residing in her eyebrow arch and smirking lips.

“Did you just smell me?"

Hoseok — looking embarrassed as ever and face so red he almost looks sick — Seriously debates acting as if her Korean was so accented he couldn't understand her. Too late for that, of course; but the suggestion still ran through his mind. He wonders if he should just lie, claim she was hearing things, but that would get him nowhere.

"I-I'm sorry! Something just smelled really good so I just-" his ears burn even more at the sound of her small laughter, she reached her hand to cover her smile.

"It's fine," she giggled some more, "does my hair smell that good?" Hoseok releases the breath he didn't realize he was holding when the elevator finally releases an anticipated ding and the doors separate from each other.

Solace disregards Hoseok’s small yes as an answer, and gracefully leads him to the Ceo's door. A closed door with a frosted window awaited Hoseok, who just stood in front of it beside her, frozen. Solace looked to him expectantly, but halted, realizing how nervous this guy really was. When she thought about it, she'd act just like him, let the roles be reversed. So reassuringly, she placed her hand on his shoulder, waiting until he turned to her.

"I got you, Hoseok. You've got this." She smiled, and Hoseok gulped. How embarrassing, Hoseok, really.

"Thanks," he said, before lifting his hand to knock.

"You did so good!" Solace smiled at him from across the dining booth. She was right; he greeted the Ceo and his associates with ease, Solace had to help him with just a few things. And after he signed the few documents he needed to, he took her out for lunch as an expression of his gratitude. And solace never says no to free food, so she happily obliged.

He had asked her what she wanted, so she went to the nearest restaurant that had chicken and waffles; she had been craving them, and Hoseok never had them. So she was in front of him now, indulging in her delicious chicken and dipping her waffles in maple syrup alongside it. Hoseok was watching what she was doing, trying to replicate her etiquette. He blushed for the nth time that day, hearing her bellows of praise. He wasn't complaining, though.

"Thank you," he beamed. "You were a really big help, I'm happy you were there today." He finally tasted his chicken with a syrupy waffle, and Solace watches his eyes widen with astonishment — that's almost everyone's reaction to the treat.

"Wow."

Solace looked knowingly back at her own plate. "I know."

After Hoseok drew himself back from waffle heaven, he asked curiously, "Wait, so where do you go now? Since it was your last day. Do you have like, a backup job? Something you're interested in?" He looked back at his plate, popping a piece of chicken in his mouth.

Solace chewed slowly, heeding his words while relishing in the simple calamity of the restaurant: the clinking plates and glasses, loud and quieted voices. This was a question she didn't necessarily have an answer to, so she silently searched for some sort of answer to tie him over.

She looked back up and him, frowning a little. "No, not really. I guess I'll just stay with my stepmom for a minute — like, literally a minute, the woman hates me — until I find something . . . else." She shied her face from Hoseok's worried gaze. She just couldn't stay at that aquarium, it payed fine enough, but damn, if it wasn't tiring.

Hoseok swallowed slowly after hearing what solace said about her job, and noting how uncomfortable she was talking about it. Great going, man. A thought crossed his mind — granted, it was a crazy, stupid thought, but a thought nonetheless — that consisted of inviting solace to her dad's aquarium back home.

He almost facepalms just for thinking it. In what world would that make sense? He finally removes it from his train of thought completely, but he sees her expression as she fell silent and looked outside the window beside her. She looked lonely, for a moment, although he was right there in front of her. He wished he couldn't relate so well. Maybe it would've kept his mouth from rambling off.

"You- you know, my dad just had a new aquarium built in the last, like six months. Since it's so new, we're a little short on employees, so if you want — since, you know you're fluent and all —" he gulps seeing her eyes widen, and her body suddenly becoming alert.

"Really?" Hoseok really wished he was kidding when he said she was fluent, just the way she said that one word made her sound like a native. "You are? I mean, it's a little far-fetched, but dammit I'll take just about anything." And he believes her, her heart had amplified it's beating, her excitement from his words noticeable like a star upon obsidian.

His face is burning roses, but his cheekbones raise in a smile; he wasn't lying, he just didn't even know she'd agree so fast — was she thinking this through at all?

No, just like your stupid ass, Hoseok.

Hoseok finds relief in the ice water that was placed next to him, he really couldn't let her down now. finally finding a voice, he breathes, "You sure about that? It might take a little while, but i'll see about getting you down there a little quicker. perks of being the director's son, heh. And you’re a nice enough girl." It was the least he could do. Literally. He won't allow himself to offer anything else.

Solace clutches her lab coat she didn't take off harshly, barely even believing his words. It would take a while, and who knows how long she'll actually be down there for? If she actually got the job? But she knew she wouldn't exactly miss being here. She wouldn't miss her stepmom, she wouldn't miss the loud, bustling people in L.A, and she definitely wouldn't miss that job. The only thing she might actually miss was these damn chicken and waffles. And she'd get to travel. The pros outweighed the cons, to her.

“It does sound nice, but where would I even stay? I’d be broke as soon as I got there," she said, sadly biting her nails.

He knew the answer a little too quickly. "I'm friends with a landlord in the heart of busan, right next to the beach. It's nice. Cheaper than most. I can’t promise anything, but maybe I could persuade him to lend you a room. If you'd like."

Music to her ears. "I'll take it."

Hello again! As I edit and prepare for the newer chapters of Fools, I decided to drop this one to hold you guys over. This is a Jimin fic, but I decided to start it off from Hoseok’s standpoint, because this is how Jimin and Solace’s stories begin, and that’s with Hoseok. At the beginning you will see the chapters fluctuate between the past and the present until they eventually meet up. I hope it’s not too confusing, but my inbox is always open if it is! As mentioned above, this story deals heavily with the themes of mental illnesses, but specifically borderline personality disorder, aka bpd. Jimin is the character with this disorder, so please be aware of that as you continue to read. I also want to point out that I absolutely do not condone romanticizing mental illnesses, so be assured that none of that will be included here. Thank you for reading, and I really hope you enjoy this!

#jimin angst #jimin fic #jimin #jimin ambw #hoseok fic #hoseok #hoseok ambw #bts #bts fic #bts ambw #kpop fanfiction #kpop poc

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hamminnam · 6 years

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Moving to Da Nang Part 4

Finding a motorbike

By this point you may be seeing a trend in my settling stories. Namely, I want to get something, I have trouble finding it, I eventually get it, there are problems, I solve them, but in the end, there are residual issues, yet to be figured out. I’m guessing you’re expecting me to say the next one is different. Well, good guess. But, I’m sorry. You’re wrong. BUYING A MOTORBIKE was essentially the same. That’s quite the twist on a lack of twist, now, isn’t it?!

As you can recall from posts #4 through #53, and #65 through #112, having a motorbike in Vietnam is both an absolute requirement, just like you’re required to cheers everybody at the table every time you want to take a sip of your beverage, just like rehydration is required after a day of sweating in 95% humidity, or the requirement of extra sugar in every dessert, drink or even dish (all true). Yes, you must have these things, just as you must have a bike. Now, a functioning bike, well that’s another story. The number of bikes on the road that awe you in their lack of proximity to even come close to being functional is astounding. Breaking down and getting pushed by another bike is a common occurrence, and having a bike that is one speed bump away from having every piece just falling off and drifting away into the abyss of traffic is totally normal. That said, this is not what I wanted. My one requirement (well, aside from looking really cool in my particular chosen style) was a bike that I could trust to start and take me where I wanted to go. Seem fair? I think so.

So, when I had moved on from my hotel, and was settled in my home, it was time for a bike. Now, Saigon is the place to get a bike. There are a number of types of options, great prices and expats/locals all eager to push their semi-functioning two-wheeler onto you. Hanoi is not a bad place to buy bikes either, but Da Nang lacked in viable options. As a result, I only found a few for sale within my price range and that were aesthetically acceptable. I test drove about 4 of these.

Bike 1: We called up a bike dealer whose address we found on the internet. He had a bike for us. It was a redone brown/white bike that had a cool look to it, a nice rack on the back, and enough room for two on the seat. What was not part of the cool look was the big oil stain on the top, nor the hanging wires and missing screws. I just figured that a dealer might want to fix up these simple things before a test drive. Apparently not. Of course it didn’t start for the first 20 minutes, but when it finally did, well, it was a fun little ride. I just insisted to dealer-man that I needed all the little things fixed before I could even consider it.

Bike 2: Guess what dealer-man knew of another mechanic-dude who might have something for me! Cool. We followed him to the new guy, and he had just the bike. The exact same kind that I had had before. My main issue with this one was that I wanted something different. It, too, was fun to ride, though I feel like it was always pulling me left when I drove it. As though it was some kind of socialist bike, always pulling (polling?) left. I decided to keep looking.

Bike 3: Some guy online had a nice bike that he had redone/dipped entirely in black paint. I don’t know where he got the vat of black paint, or how he managed to hold it up to dip it, but I’m sure that’s what had been done. Seat and all. Buddy-guy took a morning off work to meet us in some random place and let me drive it. It was way too low for me, and every little bump in the road (meaning, every quarter-inch of pavement, or so) made me feel like I was in a bouncy-castle. So, since I was not looking for a low rider or a trampoline, we passed, much to his off-day chagrin.

Bike 4: This one was out of my price range, but we took a look anyways. Some student-guy was selling it because it wasn’t practical for commuting, and he needed a different kind of bike. But, it was gorgeous. I took it for a test drive, just for 100 metres and back. But…unbelievably it started right away, didn’t shake or rattle (though it did roll). It was a winner, at a price too high.

Bike 5: Well, this is actually bike 1 again, after it had been fixed (*cough, cough, “fixed”). Dealer-man is in the business of renting bikes out for road trips, and he had rented this one out to somebody, saying it would be back on Tuesday at 5. So, when Wednesday at 7 rolled around, we finally tracked him and the bike down. I took it for a test drive, and it only stalled 4 or 5 times after the required 20 minute warm up period. After the drive I told guy that maybe I didn’t want a bike that I had to wait 20 minutes to use, or that may or may not get me to my destination. Maybe that’s me being picky, and not enjoying the surprises that life offers, but that’s just how I am. When I tried to explain that his bike just wasn’t reliable enough for me, he didn’t quite believe me. He told me to hop on while he drove, thinking I was just doing it wrong. Well, after the bouncy, rattling, stall-filled ride was over I thought I had proved my point. I said “see, I just can’t rely on a bike like that”. His response? “What do you mean, I thought everything on our drive was great.” Seems we had different standards.

In the end I decided it was worth it to pay for a reliable bike and I took bike 4 out again, and we felt a connection, the two of us. I bargained student-guy down and there we were. My bike and I, ready for some day-tripping and uncomfortable/impractical commutes. Great!

Unfortunately the story doesn’t end there (I know, you wished it did, too. But, you’ve read this far, so stick with it, okay?). A week or two later I noticed a small sputter in my bike, and I wanted to get it dealt with, since, after all this bike I was going to keep up on. Without launching into a mechanic-related diatribe, let’s just say…well…you ought to avoid all mechanics because you’ll just come away with something worse.

The next time Hà (my girlfriend – keep up!) came to visit, I utilized her translation skills to go to a good mechanic. Now, she doesn’t particularly see mechanics in the same light as me. Fair enough, but I showed her the sputter, and she did agree that there was a problem with the bike. Well, when we got to the mechanics, I knew right away these two guys were trouble. Not the mechanics for me. Hà did not see it, but it was my bike, so after they said there was no issue, and accused me of driving the bike wrong, we decided to move on. Well, guess what…as soon as we drove away, my bike did something it hadn’t done up until that point. It stalled. On the way out of the mechanics. It was almost as though it was throwing a tantrum at me for taking it to those two morons. This was the first instance where I was able to show Hà why I mistrust mechanics here.

Fortunately, I was able to troubleshoot some issues without having to bring it back to the two mechanics. The next day the clutch cable busted. Another new issue. I brought it to a different mechanic nearby, and he repaired it. It blew again the next day. This time I had it replaced. Then the gears weren’t working, and so I took it to a guy I had read good reviews about online. He worked on the sputter by cleaning the carborator. Two days later I had to have the carborator replaced after stalling and pushing my bike for 1.5 km in the 35 degree weather. I got that dealt with, and it sputters a bit less, but it still backfires loud like a shotgun and frequently like a decision to eat random street-meat in a Hanoi alley. The backfire came from the second-to-last mechanic. I will thank him personally next time I see him. So, now all of my issues are fixed. Well, all but two (did I mention I have no horn now?). The main problem with all of this is that the reason I took it in was for one small issue, and the problems I had fixed were created by the mechanics themselves. Now I understand why people don’t spend a lot for a ‘reliable’ bike, nor do they fix their issues. It’s just easier to drive it until all the pieces fall off, and that way you don’t have to fix those parts!

All this said, the Ox and I (bike name…) are still on good terms, don’t worry. Once I simply obtain my mechanic’s ticket, I can solve all her issues myself, and all will be well. Should happen soon.

(*Update, it turns out that the hair-knot of electrical wires on my bike that were tampered with to cause my defunct horn also affected my signals. All this time I have been driving with no signals. Sounds like a biggie, and yes, I’d prefer signals, but it’s not as bad as you think. Most people just leave them on all the time anyways, which can be very confusing when a person has the right flasher on while turning left. Fortunately, Vietnamese people have developed a method of letting people know when they intend to turn. They just wave their hand in an almost “upside-down come-here” motion int the direction they plan to go. It’s quite efficient, and until somebody comes up with a better method of letting people know when you plan to turn, I’m sure it will stick. Somebody should invent a light-signal or something...)

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humanintereststory · 6 years

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7: Make Good TV

After that torrent of raw emotion, John closed inward. He never wanted to say any of that and he couldn’t imagine that he would have said it to someone who at most was an acquaintance. Despite that, she still persisted and not in a way that would be considered a nuisance but instead a gentle prodding to the next necessary step. Fortunately for Mike, John had kept a slip of paper with his boss’ business number in his wallet. The remnants of his cell phone were now swept away by the cleaning crew and in the near future were scattered about in a nearby landfill. John had insisted to Michael Saint that he needed to speak with Mike as it was integral that she join him as his, and he knew that he was being self-depreciating but it was also possibly what management wanted to hear, his handler. From there, Mike had, within thirty minutes, a private meeting with the general manager and walked out with provisional terms for a contract of employment. Once John had started to leave again so he could slip away into the night - perhaps satisfied that he did his good deed for the day, Mike stopped him once again. Her employee, a young college student, had bailed as he had class in less than seven hours so it was just Mike McGuire now. His conscious thoughts told him to pull away and to go back into seclusion - it was always how it had been so why stop now? But something else, unbeknownst to him, prevailed and he turned to face her. “‘Ay, are you stayin’ anyplace tonight? Got a hotel room or somethin’?” The answer was no. John had abandoned his apartment lease over a month ago now and now technically had no place of residence or any real intention to stay in any more hotel rooms. “I’m just going to hit the road. I usually sleep on the way there. Not really sure yet.” “Well, if you wanted, you could crash at my place. Ain’t the Ritz, but I got a spare room and it beats sleepin’ in your car.” John’s eyes widened as if he had been found out. She pointed at the piled up blanket in the back seat of the car and from there asked if he was really living anywhere. He shook his head. At that point she insisted. One night turned in two nights. Two into a week. That week had become a crash course in the mundane realities of life. John had taken the basic functions for granted and was finding that he was slipping further and further in an attempt to replicate what he had before. John had decided to let go and let Mike light the way. Suddenly he had a bank account. He had a new cellphone with the proviso that this one shouldn’t be broken into a million pieces. He had plane tickets to future destinations because Mike had emphatically stated that his vehicle wouldn’t survive much more criss-crossing of this great nation. Some astute observers could draw the parallel of John waiting for that slot in his steel door to open three times a day but Mike always insisted that he was going to do it next time because she’s not his goddamn Mother. But it wasn’t just that because John concluded that Mike just wanted to talk to someone and she tried repeatedly to strike up conversations. The first couple of nights, John had been regaled of tales of her past. Sometimes it was about business but John didn’t want to talk about himself much so he just listened intently. It was like listening to a good book. Most of the time, though, John kept to himself by reading the book he had lifted at the motel. John, much to Mike’s excitement, had been successful in his last few contests. He had some momentum, she said, and people were starting to take notice. He had recoiled from that. People taking notice meant attracting unwanted attention. It was hard for him to explain. The ring was a sanctuary and despite the viewing audience, it was really just between him and the opposition. The cruelty and negativity were no longer part of the equation - it was now a battle of wits and strength. Two or more opposing forces moving against each other in a violent but beautiful struggle. It was Tuesday afternoon and last night, John had earned a defining victory over a former television champion. Mike, out of nowhere, said it’s time and beckoned him to join her in the backyard. It was time to get in ring shape, she proclaimed. They separated briefly to change into workout gear. John stepped through the open sliding glass door into a yard surrounded by a ten foot tall wooden fence. In the middle of the yard was a ring. It was in a state of disrepair. The ropes looked loose and frayed and some parts were wrapped in duct tape. The turnbuckles were mismatched in color and shape. The canvas was soiled and the branches of a maple tree hung over the ring casting its shadow and depositing leaves and twigs throughout. John couldn’t help to think about that place he’d visit when he started to see red. That ring was his garden. It was where he would grow. “I like it,” John said with complete sincerity. “Aw, it ain’t nothin’ special. Got the thing for a song on Craigslist. It’s fourth-hand. Maybe fifth. Fuck, thing might even be eighth-hand, but it’s a damn ring and that’s what’s important.” “Craig seems to have a lot of things you’ve acquired.” “It’s a website. Kinda like a giant garage sale, aw, never mind, that ain’t important right now,” she slid into the ring and hopped up to sit on a turnbuckle, “I’m supposed t’ debut on May 11th. Still can’t thank you enough for gettin’ my foot in the door.” John walked tentatively around the ring, his fingers tracing along the stained apron, “Gives you plenty of time to prepare, I suppose. As for the introduction, I believe this last week has more than made up for one phone call.” “You can stay as long as you want, y’know. I’ve kinda liked having someone to talk to b’sides Mr. Met,”chuckling, she leaned forward a bit, somewhat like a perched phoenix, “Y’know, Church, I’ve been thinking. That was smart, what you said to get Saint’s attention, but I don’t think you could use a handler. Without gettin’ into it, I think you’ve had enough of that. My opinion, what you could probably use better,” she gave that same impish grin he’d seen on her face plenty by now, “is a partner.” John pulled at the bottom rope and it had too much give, “Mike,” he cleared his throat nervously, “I’ve been alone for a long time now but we just met. I mean not just met but in the grand scheme of time and all…” She giggled and then caught her hands on the ropes so she didn’t fall off backwards, “Church, hon, you don’t gotta worry about that. You’re a swell guy but you ain’t my type. Got the wrong, assets, if you get my drift. Naw, dude, I’m talking about being my tag partner.” John wasn’t really catching any drifts at this point, “I’m not sure what is my type, am I my type?” he looked up to her, “I’ve never had a tag partner,” there was a long pause as John paced back and forth in front of the ring, he mumbled to himself, seemingly assessing a complicated algorithm but then suddenly he stated, “Okay. We’re a team now.” “Fuckin’ A!” she gave a bit of a whoop and jumped from the turnbuckle to the mat. The ring shook in a slightly concerning manner, “Trust me. This is gonna be awesome,” she then scratched the back of her head, wearing the sheepish look of someone who may have done something she shouldn’t have, “cuz when I said ‘my debut’ I maaaaay have kinda meant our debut.” John looked at her blankly, which was the default expression seemingly and Mike braced herself for an objection, “Okay. Fine with me.” She let out a relieved ‘phew!’ and shrugged her shoulders a bit, “Sorry for jumping the gun. I kinda got excited and I probably shoulda asked you first.” “It’s okay,” and in what some would consider emotionless, “I’m excited, too. I can barely contain myself.” “You being sarcastic, man? I mean, seriously, you ain’t mad at me, are you?” “I’m not. I’m just not in the way of … I don’t know, I just,” he stumbled over his words, “I’m just not good with showing what I mean. Last person who talked me on the regular just told me the same thing every night.” “Oh, ok. Fair enough. Mind if I ask about that?” John rolled into the ring and sat in the middle with his legs crossed. He stared up through the branches of the maple tree into the sky. “John, you and me have a lot in common, you know that right? Let me tell you why. You should have seen it. You would have been proud. They didn’t recognize her face after what I did. They said I done it twenty seven times, Johnny, but all I know is that hammer was so caked in the essence of her that it excited me. I got all in them guts that night and she was still warm, you believe that shit? It excites me just talking about it. Makes me feel good inside. I’m touching myself right now, how do you like that, boy? How’s it make you feel? I feel like this vent is a one-way but I know you likes it, Johnny. You and me is kindred spirits. She did me wrong, too, and I made her pay just like you made her pay. Oh, Johnny, I’m so close, why don’t you talk to me, help me finish and whisper sweet nothings into my ear.” John sighed, “I never helped him for fifteen years and then one day he was gone. Every night, he’d say that. And then it was his time. I kind of missed him because no one talked to me much anyway. So I hope you understand that I’m listening and I hear what you say but there just isn’t much to say right now. I like being in this ring right now. I love this sport. And so I think he was wrong in the terms of commonality. You and me share the same passion so I hope that is enough for now. I hope what I shared provides some context to that I mean what I mean and I’m all for this arrangement.” Her expression was odd, somewhere between sympathy (meant for him) and disgust (directed at the other guy), as if she could understand the need for staving off isolation but was no less grossed out by what that other, now dead fucker had subjected her new friend to on the nightly. Mike sighed a bit and shifted her face to something more neutral and finally she nodded in acknowledgment. At least he’d shared something. Progress. Baby steps. And if he said he meant what he said, she’d believe him,   “Alright. I read you. Anywho, I got a mini gym setup in the garage too. Nothing fancy. Some bags, weights, stuff like that. Mi casa es su casa, mi, fuckin’ train wreck of a training setup es su fuckin’ train wreck of a training setup. Which reminds me, you still got a single coming up. That Malice fucker, if I remember right. You got any idea what you’re gonna say?” “I don’t know. I’m not sure what to say right now. I really don’t want to talk to that guy anymore,”John meant Ace Heart - the lead interview man, “he doesn’t act like the way he does to anyone but me. He keeps asking questions he could answer himself.” “Hm. I don’t like the mustached fucker much either, but just to play devil’s advocate for a sec, maybe he’s frustrated that he’s not gettin’ nothin’ out of you. He’s nice to everybody else cuz they give him what he wants easy, but you’re not like everybody else. Which ain’t a bad thing but is driving him fuckin’ nuts,” she tapped her chin, and fiddled with the brim of her cap, “Got an idea. You don’t wanna deal with him, and I don’t want you dealing with fucking internet trolls. So, why don’t you talk to me instead? I got a phone with decent video. We could do a couple practice runs an’ then give ‘em the real goods. How’s that sound?” “Okay.” Mike directed him to stand in the middle of the ring. She stood on the apron with phone in hand and framed the video so one could see him from the waist up. She pinched in and out on the touch screen before she was satisfied with the shot. “Okay, tell me what you think about your opponent for Friday Night Rampage, Malice?” John looked directly into the camera lenses, “He seems nice.” She turned off the camera, her attempted veneer of professionalism falling by the wayside for the moment, “He’s not fuckin’ nice at all! He’s an asshole! And kind of a weirdo. I mean, I ain't no kinkshamer but I was waitin' for him and his chick to start suckin' on each other's toes or someshit. Eugh. ” “How do you know that? We never met them.” “Do you pay attention to other people’s video spots? He’s always going on about violence and suffering and shit. Not nice.” “I mean, yeah, but, okay, well, he’s not nice. I concede to that point.” She sighed once more, “Okay. Let’s try this again,” she pressed the button on the camera and started recording, repeating her previous question. “Malice …” She leaned forward a bit, a small look of anticipation on her face. “Did you know that an average person’s yearly fast food intake will contain 12 public hairs? I found that interesting.” “No, no!” she cut the camera off again, “Okay. I want you to please give me something fucking… real. Like, REAL real. Not random facts. Not goddamn touting of how nice your opponent is. Something real. You gave me something real in the parking lot. It was raw and uncomfortable but it was fucking REAL and that’s what I want. That’s what people’re wanting out of you. Fuck, it might even be cathartic. Can you do that, Church? Can you give me that?” John simply nodded. “Alright. Third time’s the fuckin’ charm. One, Two… MAKE GOOD TV,”   she flicked the camera on again. She followed him with the shot as he paced in what she was getting used to as thinking time for the big man. Nearly half a minute past and Mike was about to switch off the camera and call it a day when John finally spoke up. “I’ve been here for just over a month now. I’ve won some and I lost some if you happen to be keeping track. I’m not going away. I thought about it. It would be easy to succumb to what some expect of me. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, too.” John stopped the pacing and then raised a balled fist in front of him. He then raised up his index finger, “Thomas, I heard you loud and clear and maybe if I were inclined to care, I would be devastated that your client got one over me. In hindsight, your sermon on who I am and just what effect your inflammatory statements would have on me were just a little flat. Maybe it had the opposite intended outcome because you don’t know one thing about me other then what you read. But what do I know? I’m not a mind reader.” Two. “Warrior. I have no doubt on what you may not fear. You blustered and puffed out your chest and you emphatically stated what you are. I am a professional wrestler and you are a fighter. You remember who you are and you remember back to that night on what being a fighter did for you.” Three. “Former champion. You made ultimatums. You questioned my dedication to this sport. You underestimated me. And so you have been weighed on the scales and have been found wanting.” Four, however at this point, he closed his hand. Mike zoomed in the camera closer on John’s face. “That, I guess, brings us to the present. The intention to cause pain and suffering; to do evil; ill will. That is pretty accurate. You and me stand at the opposite ends of the spectrum. However, you do not stand before me for judgment. I will not don the white hat that evening. I do however want you to understand that I do not share your willingness to do harm unto others. This is a sport and with your intentions you are a man out of time. You are a ruthless mercenary and you’ll do anything to survive the day.” He snapped his fingers. “Wake up from that day dream. The darkness that permeates every fiber of your being does not make me falter. I got biblical a little earlier and so maybe I hope you can understand this,” he cleared his throat, “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance. I think someone like you believes in that whether you want to admit it or not. The wounds you accumulate and bestow are what you perhaps consider a character building experience. I’ve been stuck on it, too. The thing is, and believe me, I’m not entirely sold on the idea of a higher power but your idea of suffering is pointless. There is no reason to suffer if not for faith. Maybe not faith in a traditional sense but you know the idea of believing that there is a core set of values that tell you to love one another. That suffering eventually means something. I know what you bring and it amounts to nothing. So bring that value to a ring very much like this one.” He pointed down towards the canvas. “And get that if you go outside of the constraints of the rules, you will eventually lose and your suffering will be for nought. Glory is your God and you have repeatedly disappointed Him. Don’t take my unwillingness to live up to the moniker of this company as not being cut out for it. And on the flip side, don’t take as it a declaration of superiority. It’s just who I am. What I am capable of doing with my hands may be more than enough to sate just what defines you.” John looked past the camera and at Mike. She got the unvoiced cue and turned off the feed. “Something like that?” “Oh my fucking god, YES! Awesome! I’m gonna send that in as is, it’s absolutely perfect,” she grinned from ear to ear, obviously impressed, “Can you do that all the time?” “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t like the idea of just being awful to each other. I just wanted to let them know how I felt. Is that what they want?” “Well… it doesn’t matter what they want, exactly. I’m not asking you to be awful. Just honest.”  John stared at her blankly and then just slightly his mouth curved into a semblance of a smirk. “I can do that, partner.”

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jafreitag · 4 years

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Grateful Dead Monthly: Brendan Byrne Arena – East Rutherford, NJ 10/16/89

On Monday, October 16, 1989, the Grateful Dead played a concert at Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Brendan Byrne Arena, aka Meadowlands Arena, was built to accommodate the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, who were moving from the Rutgers University Athletic Center. The arena opened in 1981 across a highway from the old Giants Stadium, and eventually served as home for the Nets, the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, and the Seton Hall University men’s basketball team. The arena was also an event and concert venue that hosted local favorites Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, as well as a variety of other big-name acts. It ultimately closed to the public in 2015. According to the Wiki, “the vacant arena is [currently] used as a rehearsal venue for large-scale touring concert productions as well as a sound stage for video and television productions.”

The Dead played Brendan Byrne sixteen times from 1983-89. 10/16/89 was their last show there. LN Deaditor ECM was in attendance and offers this reflection:

This was a special show because it was my first Dark Star, but the band sure did make me sweat it out by waiting until the final night of a five-show run to play it – on a Monday night, too! But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up just a bit.

The previous week, the Grateful Dead opened the 1989 Fall East Coast tour with two shows at Hampton Coliseum. Those shows were billed as “Formerly the Warlocks” (a nod to the band’s original name) because there had been some trouble at the Dead’s Hampton shows in the past with ticketless people, gate crashing, and drug arrests. As I recall, these shows were not announced on the Dead’s hotline and were not available via mail order like the rest of the tour was. Instead, tickets were made available at only a few select Virginia locations, making them very difficult to get, if you lived out of state, as I did. Somehow, my friend Scott and his wife, Noelle, scored tickets, but I didn’t know it at the time. So imagine my surprise when Scott called me at around 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday October 10th to tell me what had just gone down in Hampton. I was a year out of college and had a real job so I was sound asleep. The ringing of the phone jolted me out of bed. I fumbled to find the phone in the darkness and clumsily answered it on the sixth or seventh ring. At first, I didn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the line because the caller was hysterically screaming with excitement. Eventually, I recognized the voice as Scott’s. He was calling from his car phone (very rare at the time), and he was talking so fast that I could barely understand him. There were broken words here and there that I recognized like “Hampton…Warlocks…Oh my God…best fuckin’ show I’ve ever seen….oh shit, I’d better pull over before I get in an accident!” After he pulled over, Scott told me all about the bust-outs: Help/Slip, Death Don’t Have No Mercy (neither of us knew it had been busted out the previous week at Shoreline, no internet), Dark Star, and Attics!!! I thought he was joking at first. Help/Slip and Dark Star, while both rare, were somewhat believable since they had both been played in the 80s with Brent. Attics and Death, on the other hand, were a horse of a different color. Both hadn’t been played since 1970, and most fans considered them retired for good. I must confess that it was a little difficult to be “happy” for Scott. I had missed “the show,” or so I thought.

The band rolled into lovely East Rutherford, New Jersey on October 11th for a five-show run at the Brendan Byrne Arena. I had secured mail order tickets for every show. There was definitely a buzz in the parking lot about what had gone down in Hampton. Everybody was hoping, praying, and wishing that the band would play some of the bust-outs again. Nobody dared to say the words “Dark Star” for fear of jinxing our chances of seeing it. The new album, Built To Last, was about to be released on Halloween, so there was great anticipation about that as well. Promo materials like the album artwork and the iconic deck of cards were floating around the parking lot. There was a sense that the band was on another creative peak which created an overall vibe of happiness and excitement among fans.

On a more somber note, this was also the run when the body of Adam Katz, a 19-year-old fan, was found by a motorist lying on a roadway outside the complex on October 14th. He died the next day from a single blow to the head with a ”blunt instrument.” His death was later ruled a homicide, but nobody was ever charged.

As I recall, the four shows leading up to October 16th were nothing to write home about. I am sure that there were highlights but the only memorable thing about those shows is what the band didn’t play – Dark Star.

On the afternoon of October 16th, Garcia made an appearance on WNEW-FM, New York’s big classic-rock radio station and when asked when Deadhead’s might get to enjoy the band play Dark Star again, he replied, “Sooner than you think.” Whoa! Did Jerry just signal Dark Star? If that wasn’t enough, October 16th happens to be Bob Weir’s birthday. There have been some memorable shows on October 16th – most notably Amsterdam in 1981, but also Winterland in 1974 and LSU in 1977. The planets seemed to be aligned for the makings of a great show.

The crowd roar was deafening with great anticipation when the house lights finally went down. The birthday boy opened the show with Picasso Moon. It was a curious choice because the band only played it three times since its debut on April 28th, and it hadn’t been played since May 7th (which coincidentally happened to be another band member’s birthday – Billy K). All three of those versions were very rough (to put it charitably), and many fans assumed that the song was DOA. The band must have spent time working on it in the studio because this performance is delivered with oodles of confidence and sounds the way it would on the album and all future performances. I was never a big fan of the song because it sounded like a pimped-out version of Hell In A Bucket, but boy does this version rock!

Next up is an upbeat Half-Step. Garcia is in fine form, and Brent’s piano is twinkling. In a surprising move, the band plays the instrumental part of the Rio Grande-O section, but skips the vocal part, making this a shorter version than usual. I’m not sure whether this was intentional or not. Garcia switches to his Mu-Tron effect, and the song kind of washes out with a brief pause of uncertainty. Maybe he realized that he forgot the vocal outro of Half-Step. Anyway, the band quickly recovers and forges right into Feel Like a Stranger, which makes for a nice transition since both songs are in the same key It’s a great choice that keeps the energy high and perhaps signals that things will indeed “get stranger” later as Brent growls, “It’s gonna be a long, long crazy, crazy night.” Garcia gets nice and funky in the jam to create a full-on dance party in the Meadowlands.

In another rare move, Bobby gives the “blues slot” to Brent this evening who leads the band through Good Times Blues (aka Never Trust A Woman). It’s an unrecorded song that debuted on 8/28/81 and was played less than 50 times ever. It was refreshing to hear something other than Rooster, Minglewood, Walkin’ Blues, and CC Rider. The change must have invigorated the band because they completely nail this version. Brent never wasted an opportunity to shine on his own songs and his vocals and B-3 organ solo are amazing. This is a stand-out performance of a song that would be played only 4 more times!

Jerry follows with Built To Last – another new song on the upcoming album. This is a great version, however, the song would be played only two times more before being retired forever. It makes one question the wisdom of choosing to name an album after a song that would not remain in their repertoire.

Another surprise awaits as the band breaks the usual song rotation between Jerry and Bob. Tonight the birthday boy gets to sing lead vocals on the next two songs. Memphis Blues Again fills the “Dylan slot” nicely. Bobby is all over this version with lots of exaggerated vocals. I love how versatile Brent is with his solo on Memphis Blues. Sometimes he uses his electric keyboard, sometimes he selects a MIDI sound, and other times, like this evening, he plays his B-3 organ. As soon as the band plays the last note, Bobby begins strumming the chords to Let It Grow. This is an exquisite performance. The “rise and fall” section is particularly gnarly with Garcia effortlessly switching his sounds and getting some nice guitar runs in.

“Let it Grow” was typically a first-set closer during this era, but the band gives us a bonus song with Deal. 1989 was a very good year for Deal, as exemplified by the versions on 6/21 (Shoreline), 7/19 (Alpine) and 7/4 (Buffalo), all of which fall within the top 10 rankings on the website, headyversion.com with the latter ranking #1 and #2 respectively. Tonight’s version doesn’t quite reach those amazing heights but still holds a respectable #12 rank, which is to say that it is quite the barn burner. With their jam chops sufficiently warmed-up, Bobby announces a break. What a great first set filled with jams, uptempo songs, and rarities.

The air was thick with anticipation when the band returned for the second set as everybody held their collective breath hoping…wishing…praying…for “IT.” Things got eerily quiet and then Jery played the first signature notes of Dark Star. The New York audience explodes with joy. Smiles, high-fives and hugs abounded everywhere. Euphoria. This starts out as a very melodic Star that doesn’t really stray from the usual pre-first verse theme. The first verse comes after about six minutes. Jerry’s voice sounds a little rough but the spirit is clearly there. The post-lyrics jam continues with the melodic theme but starts to show signs of weirdness at around the 9 1/2 minute mark. If you listen carefully you can hear Jerry switch the key signature from A to D to set up the transition into Playing In The Band. He blasts off some rapid, spacey runs at around the 11 minute mark, which land on the introduction of Playing. Now it becomes clear that the band is treating us to a set that is similar to Hampton, except in a different sequence.

At 8 minutes, this is a relatively short Playing, but the band flexes its spacey muscles very concisely. Here, Jerry explores his MIDI library more than he did in Dark Star. I especially love his use of the pan flute at the 3:40 minute mark. So trippy!! The jam becomes melodic again as Jerry leads the way into a super-kind Uncle John’s Band. This is a very upbeat version with strong vocals by everybody. The D-minor jams in the middle and end of the song are spectacular – more cerebral than rocking. Garcia briefly re-states the Playing theme, and then goes off into the cosmos of deeper and deeper space until finally there is nowhere else to go except surrender the stage to the dummers, where we were treated to the Beam.

I must admit that hearing the opening strains of I Will Take You Home was disappointing because it did not seem to fit with the spacey theme the band created. But, once again, Brent puts on a stellar performance, which is accompanied by the lovely accents of Jerry’s MIDI french horn. Brent holds the last line, “I willllllllllllll….take you home.” This is followed by a swell of feedback out of which Bobby slams into I Need A Miracle. The loud, thrashing music is jarring and at odds with the overall vibe of the set thus far. It is perhaps the only possible misstep of the entire evening, but thankfully it is short and leads back into a reprise of Dark Star, which at this point feels like “home base.” All is quickly forgiven. Jerry stays on the melodic theme for almost four minutes of blissful serenity before delivering the second verse. A few descending notes later Jerry starts Attics of My Life. These two magical songs were combined only once before – the famous Capitol Theater show on 6/24/70!!! What a treat! This was the first time most of us had heard a live performance of Attics, and the audience stood in almost complete silence hanging on every lyric. This was church!!! The band delivers the lyrics tenderly like a fragile prayer, and the all-important harmonies are gorgeously sung.

The show could have ended right there as far as I was concerned but the band cleverly segues into Playing to complete the reprise the same way they did with Dark Star. First there was chaos in the universe, and now there is symmetry. Damn, this band is good.

Jerry, Bob, Phil and Brent returned without instruments to end this epically throw-back show the only way possible – with a gospel-infused version of And We Bid You Goodnight. It remains one of the most memorable shows I have ever seen.

10/16/89 was memorialized as the live album Nightfall of Diamonds. Here’s the Spotify widget.

More soon.

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lettersfromitaly · 7 years

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10/14/17-10/27/17

so many days to go over and I don’t even remember half of them.

So saturday i went to this museum that was super boring and over priced. There was literally one room and i also found out after i went that i was going there with my class on tuesday rip. But under the museum was a special traveling exhibit that held works from Hokusai and his students. Seeing Japanese art was just a really nice break from all the old renaissance art I had been seeing. There were a lot of people there because it was opening weekend but i got to skip the line because i bought my ticket somewhere else. After that I went back to school and made dinner with a few friends.

monday was a really boring day. All i did was go to class and do some homework

tuesday I went to class at the museum i went to on saturday. i got my exam back and i did well on it. During that class we went to the Pantheon as well. I couldn’t go to dinner that night because I had the night shift so i stayed in and made dinner by myself.

On wednesday i had class then i feel like i did something after that but i can’t remember but i did FaceTime Brittany and Luna.

Thursday i went to St. Peter’s Basilica and had class there. It is a really amazing place to be in and everything was so pretty. Also normally my religion class is on campus but that day was at a church which we tour then we went to dinner with our professor which was weird but also nice. I got an omelet and fries lol.

Friday i had to get up at 7 to leave for this Eat Love Pray excursion. We went to the region Umbria. There were only 20 of us who went. On friday we hunted fro truffles through the forest with this old and his dog. It was really fun and cute. Then we went to his house where his wife and friends made us lunch and it had like four course and every single on had truffles in it. And let me tell you i was very grateful for it but i freaking hate truffles RIP. It was a real struggle but i ate everything. Then drive for about an hour and got to this woman’s bed and breakfast where we stayed. It was on this giant hill and i almost died on the drive up. We stayed in mini apartments with four people to an apartment. It was just really relaxing and peaceful. That night the woman did a cooking class for us and it was lot of fun. We got to cook everything we ate. Also she has two dogs and couple cats and they are all adorable. Then six of us in the group played cards until like 1 in the morning.

Saturday we got to sleep in until lunch which was at 12. And of course my roommates had to wake me up at 1130 so we wouldnt be late. They were all surprised I could sleep that long i dont know why people underestimate my sleeping abilities. Then the woman made us all lunch which was pasta and salad. Then we left for the chocolate festival which was about 30 minutes away. There was SO much chocolate because we were able to get free samples. There were so many people there too and there was this giant piano made out of chocolate. We were there for like 5 hours which is way too long lol. Then we went to this restaurant which was probably my least favorite restaurant we have been to so far. The food wasn’t that great and the people who i was sitting next to were really trying my nerves. Then we got back to the bed and breakfast and played more cards.

Sunday we had to get up early to leave for Assisi. It was really cold and rainy that day and we were on a hill so the wind was blowing hard so it was a bit of struggle to pay attention during our tour but the city/town/lol i don’t know but was so cute and really unnecessarily hilly. We went to mass at St. Francis Basilica where we had our own room and the priests who went on this trip with us gave the mass. Then we just wondered around Assisi. We got lunch and gelato and gossiped lol. Then on our bus ride back i noticed we were moving really slow. And we found out that they told our chaperones that the bus was broken the moment we got on the bus but all their buses were booked so we would have to use the broken bus. But in the last hour of our trip we got on a new bus at a rest stop. When we got back to school i did some homework then went to bed.

Monday I think all i did was go to class and do homework. I got a midterm back that i also did well on.

Tuesday was just a MESSSS. First i had work in the morning so that was just startling and boring. We had a class off campus that day and we ended up being 45 minutes to class because i was stupid and listened to people who had no idea where they were going. I listened to them because they said they knew where they were going and i figured it was better to stay in a group. But eventually i ended up calling the professor to figure out where she was and then people started to argue with me about if we were waiting for her in the right place. I WAS SO DONE. It was definitely one of the worst days so far. But for the end of class we went inside the Colosseum and the sun was setting so everything was so pretty. Then we went out to dinner that night.

Wednesday wasn’t the best day either. Our italian partners came to visit and it was really frustrating because we have to do this project with them but only my school’s students were given the worksheet and directions so everything was in English and none of partners did any work at all. They were on their phones the whole time. Even the other girl in my group from my school randomly stopped doing work and i was just so ready to fight someone it was awful. But then they left and my friend dragged me out of my room and we went shopping together. I was really happy she did that because its a nice reminder that we are living in ROME and i just can’t let people like that ruin part of my time here. Then that night i ate dinner and played cards.

Thursday wasn’t better either lol. It really wasn’t my week. I had been studying and practicing this presentation i had to give on Thursday since Sunday. Like I was so ready for it but also nervous because the class it was for is really hard and i needed all the good grades i could get. So our class that day was at the Vatican Museums and my professor changed the time of the class from 830 to 800 which mean that i had to get up in the five o'clock hour in order to be there on time. We get there and my professor is talking about what we are specifically doing during that class but she doesnt mention anything about going to the building where my painting is in so I’m getting a little nervous but i try not to make it a big deal. Eventually after our break we made our way to that building and long story short everyone gets to do their presentation but me because we were already a half an hour over class time and apparently staying for 7 extra minutes wasn’t an option. I was really upset and honestly I’m still upset because i will have to do it next week when i already have another presentation to do that same day. We got back to campus had lunch and went to class. It was boring we watched a movie. Then my friends and i sprinted to dinner after class because i had to work the night shift. I tried to go to dinner once before when i had to work the night shift and i ended up being late for work so trying to go to dinner is always a gamble. But it was an awful day and i just wanted some decent food so I decided to go with them. I ended up having to come back to school by myself because everyone was still eating but i made it back in time. A few of my friends came down to my desk and we talked and made the time pass a little quicker.

Friday i didnt do anything because ALL transportation within in the city was shut down so i just stayed in with some friends. I watched netflix and played cards. Then we made dinner together.

#october #italy #masterlist

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asterinjapan · 7 years

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Hello from Ikebukuro, Tokyo!

It’s been quite a long – two days? I barely even remember, I skipped a night. Anyway, lots done today, so let’s start at the beginning: departure from Schiphol Airport!

Would you believe it was actually faster than last year in October? In the middle of the summer holidays! Maybe all the warnings in advance did help. I went through customs just as smoothly and went to Starbucks for a brunch, looking out over the departing planes until it was time for mine.

It appears my fear of flying just gets worse with every flight I take, because I was nauseated from the nerves and started getting panicky at every slight movement of the plane. Hitting turbulence half an hour into the 11 hour ride didn’t help, either. I skipped out on watching movies and tried to sleep, but that was kind of hard with a child right behind me asking his mother a million questions and screaming and just not. Shutting. Up. The entire flight. Ear plugs only block so much. Oh well, I did get some eye shut, but I had trouble with the meals and felt kinda queazy upon landing.

Luckily, customs in Japan also went smoothly, and within an hour I was out of the airport already! I took my jetlagged brain for a test run and actually pretty decently managed to exchange the voucher for my train pass and order a train to Ikebukuro in Japanese. (Ikebukuro is the part of Tokyo I’ll be staying in these 3 weeks.) I took the Narita Express, which is slightly slower and yet more expensive than the Keisei Skyliner, but the Narita Express had Ikebukuro as final stop while the Keisei Skyliner required a transfer. I prefer ease and comfort then, and that was just as well, because I dozed off a couple of times and only woke up in time to see the enormous Tokyo Sky Tree tower over the skyline. (The Sky Tree is 634 metres tall and the second tallest building in the world, so yeah, not easily overlooked.) And then I hit Ikebukuro!

My main advantage is that I’m staying in the same hotel as the past three times, so jetlag or not, I could find it on auto pilot, haha. I dropped off my luggage and went into Ikebukuro station until I got to check in at 3 PM.

Into the station because whoa, it is HOT in Japan. I mean, I knew it, but the Netherlands were lik 17 C when I left. 32 C is quite a shock then. Long live airco!

I have zero self-constraint, so I spent about half the yen I’d brought with me on books and CDs (CDs are expensive in Japan, help) and had a matcha frappuccino at Starbucks since I was still queasy and I prescribed myself green-tea-everything to counter that. (I mean, no idea if it works, but I like the solution.) I also had a taiyaki (fish shaped pancake cookie with a filling that’s traditionally red bean paste) made with green tea powder as well, because I’ve missed them and they’re so good. I eat and drink everything matcha, haha.

Back in the hotel, I got my key – it’s a non-smoking room this time with 3 windows, so that’s nice! I have yet to try if all 3 open, because it’s so hot outside that I might as well just turn on the airco instead. Which is exactly what I did before jumping under the shower, because I was quite sticky at that point.

I almost fell asleep at 4:30 PM, which is a bit early to go to bed, so off I went again! This time I took the train to Shibuya station, some 15 minutes by Yamanote-line, or ‘that one train line I take for everything’ because it runs in a circle through central Tokyo and it departs every other minute or so. I went to school in Shibuya for 6 weeks back in 2010, so I know this part of Tokyo pretty well. Time to spend some more money! Aside from some practicalities (a much needed fan), I also got tickets for a theme cafe and a museum/exhibition dedicated to an animated series. You have to order these tickets with a specific machine that you can only find at the Lawson convenience stores. Every single street corner of Tokyo has a convenience store (conbini), but of course, good luck finding a Lawson when you need one! I did track it down eventually and worked my way through the Japanese menu, jetlagged and all, I’m proud, haha. I also got a ticket for Disneyland, so basically today was a ‘buy all the things in advance’ kind of day. At least that does mean I spent the bulk of my money right on day one?

I did some more things, though. Disneyland is by now tradition, but so is a picture of the statue of Hachiko (you might know him as Hachi from that movie with Richard Gere – same dog), as well as a picture of the scramble crossing of Shibuya. So I took those and then went to find a tiny shrine I’d read about. It’s super close to the station (a 5 minute walk, even I found it in one go and that is saying something), but you have to know you’re looking for it. You stumble across a concrete entrance gate right in the middle of the tall business buildings, and then you climb some stairs to find a pretty much desolated shrine. I was the only one here! That’s quite the contrast to say, Meiji shrine. This shrine is special, because instead of two lions or foxes, it is guarded by two wolves. Wolves are extinct in Japan, so this shrine is a bit of a mystery from what I gathered. Anyway, it was a nice break from the noise that is Shibuya, and I definitely recommend it as a short visit if you’re in the area! Super close and a nice breather.

My last stop for today was inside Shibuya station, because there was a poster up there for a stage play I’m a fan of. It took me half an hour to track it down (all I knew was floor B2, and Shibuya station is HUGE), and then another while to take a picture without eighty people walking into view, but I did it! it probably helped a couple of girls also tried to take a picture, haha, people were more likely to keep out of view then.

And that was it for today! Tomorrow I’m keeing it calm – I’ll try to reserve the trains for my later trips, but I can use my train pass for those, so I won’t have to pay for them, haha. I might visit Tokyo station and the imperial gardens or another part of Tokyo, we’ll see, but I’ll be taking it easy, because Thursday I’ll meet with my friend at 7 AM to go to Hakone near Mount Fuji. I’ve planned on Hakone for 4 years now, so I’m super excited I’m finally going there! After that, there’s the fireworks festival on Saturday, which I’ll attend with the same friend. Monday will be Disneyland, Tuesday is the theme cafe, and starting August 2, my train pass is valid, so I’ll be taking some longer trips.

Not such a quiet holidays after all, but I’m super excited! Now time to sleep off that jetlag, haha. See you tomorrow!

#report #report: travel #report: japan 2017 #japan 2017

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ecoorganic · 4 years

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Mailbag: Future Changes to NFL's TV Packages, Impact of Canceled College Games

Plus, the impact a canceled college season has on the NFL, what to expect from Gardner Minshew in Year 2, whether this season will be seen as legitimate and more.

It’s a sad day in the football world. Blue-blood programs that are 41 (Michigan), 33 (Penn State), 32 (USC) and 30 (Ohio State and Nebraska) years older than the NFL itself won’t be playing this fall. And no matter who you blame, it’s a shame that

we’re here.

The slow death march college football seems to be on will absolute reverberate in the NFL world. We’re going to get to that, and a whole lot more, in this week’s mailbag. …

From Brock Ascher (@BrockAscher): What happens to NFL TV rights in the near future? Will I ever be able to get rid of DirecTV? Will I ever be able to buy a one-team out of market package?

Brock, my guess is the over-the-air packages will probably remain the same. I think Thursday night is the one variable in all this, with the potential Disney snaps it up so it can put either MNF or TNF on ABC, with the other staying on ESPN, ideal for them for cable-fee reasons. (My guess is Fox is finished with TNF.) The biggest difference you’d notice could come in structure. I was told by two execs that the NFL has discussed jettisoning the divvying up of Sunday afternoons by conference (the cross-flex would be a precursor to that).

It’d give the NFL more flexibility and, in this scenario, you could have Fox and CBS simply split up the games, via some sort of “draft.”

After that, we can dive into how streaming (where the younger audience lives) plays into all of this, and how the Sunday Ticket package you’re referencing factors into that. AT&T now owns DirecTV, which has the Ticket through 2022. The Ticket is vital to DirecTV's survival. How much does AT&T care about that? We’ll see, because the NFL has discussed the idea of moving the Ticket to a streaming service, where a younger audience lives.

You can imagine what the Ticket would be worth to ESPN-Plus, Peacock, HBO Max, DAZN or Amazon Prime. How many people would jump on those services if the Ticket was there? Based on DirecTV’s numbers, the answer is a lot. And part of the NFL’s concern about production quality in doing something like this may have been alleviated with how smoothly Amazon Prime’s venture into creating such a product for the Premier League over in the UK went.

As for the a la carte end of this, we’ll see. I think that’s coming, but it might be further down the line, and whoever were to win the Ticket rights would be involved in all of that. The bottom line here: Media’s changing fast, and the NFL is preparing for that.

From Jonathan Barakat (@jonathanbarakat): How do you think Gardner Minshew will play this year? Will he exceed expectations? Also what do you think of D.J. Chark coming into his third year?

Jonathan, I’ll give you what I like and what I don’t like about Gardner Minshew’s situation.

What I like: Minshew gets to play for Jay Gruden, who’s immediately made a big difference for young quarterbacks in both his previous NFL homes (Kirk Cousins in D.C. and Andy Dalton in Cincinnati), and in one of those cases actually did it with a rookie coming off the lockout, which is somewhat analogous to this situation. Also, D.J. Chark gives Minshew a strong No. 1 target, and Doug Marrone will use the run game to support him.

What I don’t like: It’s pretty clear where Jacksonville stands on Cam Robinson, and having an issue at left tackle isn’t great—particularly in a year when it’s going to be tough to work out offensive line issues on the fly. Also, the viability of the run game rides largely on Leonard Fournette, who hasn’t been the most reliable guy over his first three NFL seasons. And beyond Chark, there are question marks at receiver and tight end.

So all in all, it’s not a complete mess, but not really setup for Minshew to have a breakthrough sophomore campaign.

From Roberta Wears A Mask You Should Too (@AceandJasper): How will the teams take care of season ticket holders who won't get to sit in their front row seats even for a game or two?

Most teams are rolling payments over or refunding—and I can’t imagine any haven’t already given their season-ticket holders the choice to opt out and hold on to the rights to their seats in 2021. I think, at this point, we know that the season isn’t going to start with full stadiums anywhere. How will it end? That’s four months from now. And I think the last four months should be enough to keep anyone from making predictions that far ahead.

From Erik Ghirarduzzi (@eghirarduzzi): Given the circumstance around this season, currently known and ones yet to come, how legit would a SB winner be? There are teams at a competitive disadvantage, through no fault of their own, already and the season hasn't started.

Erik, this is a great question—I do believe this year will be remembered, if it’s completed, like the strike years of 1982 and ’87. In ’82, teams played nine games, the divisions were temporarily abolished, and a 16-team playoff was staged. In ’87, just six quarterbacks broke 3,000 yards passing, and just two backs reached 1,000 yards rushing. In both years, interestingly enough, Joe Gibbs led Washington to a championship.

Now, I don’t think the season necessarily will be cut to nine games (as ’82 was), nor will you have the oddity of replacement players en masse (like ’87 had). But I do think there’ll be aspects of the season that will go sideways, and the NFL, to its credit, knows it and is preparing for that.

So how are ’82 and ’87 remembered? I think most people who didn’t live it (I was way too young, 2, to remember the former, and have faint memories of the latter) probably wouldn’t look at championships or accolades from that year (John Elway was MVP and Reggie White DPOY in ’87) much differently. But it doesn’t take much Google acumen to discover how weird all the numbers from those seasons look.

To me, that feels like the likely result of this year.

From Dan Heiserman (@HeisermanDan): Has any player in history ever been on more teams than Josh McCown?

Speaking of Google, Dan, I didn’t know the answer to this and was legitimately interested, so I looked and found that legend-of-the-aughts J.T. O’Sullivan was on 11 (!) different NFL teams (Saints, Packers, Bears, Vikings, Patriots, Panthers, Lions, Niners, Bengals, Chargers, Raiders), which unbelievably matches McCown’s number (Cardinals, Lions, Raiders, Dolphins, Panthers, Niners, Bears, Bucs, Browns, Jets, Eagles).

A little more bumping around the internet showed that kicker Bill Cundiff was, at one point or another, with 13 different NFL teams (Cowboys, Bucs, Packers, Saints, Falcons, Chiefs, Lions, Browns, Ravens, Washington, Niners, Jets, Bills). And I’m sure there are other backup quarterbacks and kickers—playing positions where careers are longer, which facilitates this sort of movement—out there like these guys.

All of them must have pretty cool jersey displays in their basements.

From SUPER BOWL SUPER BROWNS HELL YEAH!!! (@WAH3rd): Should I still go back to the party barn and start drinking at 7 a.m. and yell at people on Saturdays this fall like I used to?

This is a very specific message just for me and a lot of other people who were in legit mourning on Tuesday night—and this will be absolutely be one of the Lane Avenue casualties (right there with the Varsity Club) of the depressing news we all got. It’s hard to describe the Party Barn if you don’t know what it is already, so I won’t try.

And the answer is yes.

From Skeeter6265 (@skeeter6265): Do you think Ohio will beat Michigan?

I was very excited for Michigan to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its last win in Columbus—that was in the fall of my junior year—this November. Maybe that team can have a Zoom reunion to commemorate it now.

From FootballFan64 (@FFan64): With college coaches out of the running for NFL openings since their season is moving to the spring, which NFL coordinators do you expect to be coveted for any newly vacated HC positions? Who is this year’s Matt Rhule?

Well, Football Fan, I’m not sure that colleges playing in the spring (if that even happens) would prevent NFL teams from making runs at coaches at that level. If, and again it’s a big if, college football goes in the spring semester, my guess would be the season would start in February (you can’t just start the season the minute kids get back to campus). The NFL coaching carousel is spinning at the beginning of January. So there’d be time.

The NFL coordinator names you’ll hear most are some of the usual suspects from the last couple cycles—Patriots OC Josh McDaniels, Chiefs OC Eric Bieniemy, Ravens coordinators Greg Roman and Wink Martindale, 49ers DC Robert Saleh and Saints DC Dennis Allen would be on that list. I’d also just keep an eye on Falcons DC Raheem Morris, Chiefs pass-game coordinator Mike Kafka and Titans OC Arthur Smith as names that could pop up.

As for the next Matt Rhule, the NFL will continue to have interest in Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley, and Ohio State’s Ryan Day is beginning to be held in that sort of regard among those in the pros. But both those guys have jobs that are very well-paying and, in reality, better than the majority of jobs they’d find in the NFL. Stanford’s David Shaw and Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald have long been on the radar of the league, but haven’t shown much appetite for leaving their alma maters. And Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck is a fun name to keep an eye on.

From Shawn Tangen (@SMTangen): How is Kevin Warren viewed within NFL circles?

Shawn, I’d say it’s pretty mixed. And I got some pretty strong reaction from certain corners of the NFL about the Big Ten commissioner (and former Vikings executive) after the conference canceled its season on Tuesday.

Warren was a polarizing figure inside the Minnesota locker room during the Adrian Peterson scandal of 2014—Peterson felt like Warren betrayed him to the point where Warren’s promotion to COO was a sticking point in the star’s contract negotiation. That was a situation that coach Mike Zimmer had to manage, and ultimately defuse, on the ground with the players, and it’s just one example in his NFL past where he’s rankled co-workers.

On top of that, many NFL people felt like Warren’s move to the Big 10 was with designs on eventually making a run at becoming NFL commissioner down the line. In that regard, the final result of his management of the last week (a result we won’t have for a while) will probably go a long way in determining whether those aspirations are realistic or not. I’d just hope his decisions here weren’t made with that in mind.

From Brycen Papp (@BrycenPapp): Do you think this season will be a massive shift in the way the draft process works? Will the NFL lower the requirements for college players to be draft eligible to two years instead of three?

Brycen, I think there will be a shift to the draft process to a degree, and we’re going to get into that in the GamePlan on Thursday. But I do want to get into your question on the NFL’s age requirement, because it’s a fascinating one—and something we covered extensively on the podcast this week.

I believe many of the best players in the Big 10 and Pac-12, from places like Ohio State, Oregon, USC, Penn State and Michigan, will sign with agents now, and go into draft prep. Because of that, and how the Big 10/Pac-12 shutdown devalues this college season, I think we’ll also see some attrition from the other conferences. That could lead to some players who only played two years of college football and skipped the required third year out of high school, going high in next April’s draft.

That, in turn, could open the door in the future for players with two good years on their resume skipping their junior year to protect themselves and prepare for the draft—in the same way Christian McCaffrey skipping his bowl game in 2016 gave others cover to do the same. At that point, the idea that players need three years of development to be NFL-ready gets broken down, and now you have guys taking a “gap year” instead.

Which isn’t good for the players, for college football or for the NFL.

It’s important to remember here too that it’s not college football keeping guys in school for three years. It’s pro football. The three-year rule is an NFL rule. And when Maurice Clarett and Mike Williams sued to become eligible for the draft in 2004, it wasn’t a school, a conference or the NCAA they sued. It was the NFL. So the ball would be in the NFL’s court on this one, if the situation comes to a head.

From Sam Perrone (@samjp33): Do you think the NFL would be willing to move the draft if the college football season bleeds into the spring?

I think, Sam, the NFL will do whatever it needs to in order to support the golden goose that is college football. Why? College football is very good for the NFL. And primarily for three reasons.

1) It’s a free minor league. The NFL, unlike the other sports, doesn’t have to fund a complex minor-league system to develop college-aged players. The expense of doing so in a sport like football would be astronomical and the opportunity to monetize it, as we’ve seen with other start-up leagues in the past, would be pretty limited.

2) It’s a marketing monster for star players coming in. Say what you will about Tim Tebow and Johnny Manziel—they were legit sports-world celebrities before they lifted a single dumbbell in preparation for the draft. Everyone knows who Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovialoa and Chase Young are. Ezekiel Elliott and Saquon Barkley were household names as collegians. And all of that is great for the NFL on so many different levels.

3) College football is the foundation for the NFL’s tentpole offseason event. The draft is The Draft because of college football. We’ve been watching most of the top players for years. It marries two wildly popular entertainment entities. The draft itself wouldn’t be nearly the event it is without college football.

So, in order to protect the sanctity of a spring college football season (as much of a sham as it might be) would the NFL be willing to move the draft back a few weeks? Well, of course it would be.

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nzingaain · 5 years

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I have been on a hiatus, I haven’t felt like writing, Even when I DID feel like writing I couldn’t muster up the motivation to get started…I just haven’t been present in almost half a year… But I’m back, yay! And I recently had my 23rd birthday (recently as in April lol) and for that birthday I decided I wanted to travel. Settling on Havana, Cuba… here’s how it happened.

The Decision Process

I just took, the best birthday trip I have ever experienced. Months before my birthday I knew I wanted to go somewhere, and it was largely based off price on where I decided to go. My criteria for picking a place was:

Warm

Out of the country

Under $500 round trip

Easy to get there and back AND experience things within a week

So. Some of the places I was looking at were Paris, Tokyo, Mexico, Cuba and Hawaii.

Paris was excluded because of the political unrest going on there, also price. Tickets to paris were about 500-600 roundtrip.

Tokyo was excluded because of price and how long it takes to get there. (I don’t even know why I thought it would be an option).

Mexico was in. Cuba was in.

And Hawaii was a little bit too expensive (plus technically not out of the country).

I settled on Cuba over Mexico because, well honestly it was cheaper. I was surprised how cheap it was to get to Cuba. The tickets were only $240 roundtrip. PLUS the ones I chose included an overnight in Panama and then an eight-hour layover on the way back in Panama.

So I was sold. For reasons unbeknownst to me I’ve always had a strange obsession with Panama and I was really excited to be there, even if it was only for a day or two.

And luckily my borfriend was all in to go, so I had the perfect travelbuddy! ❤

Getting Into the Country

As I’m sure you know, it’s way more difficult for Americans to get to Cuba than it was when we had our beloved Obama as president. But to be honest it isn’t very hard at all.

I entirely overthought and overworried while planning my trip. I read all these blogs that said I needed x, y and z in order to make it in. They said that customs would interrogate me and that my itinerary needed to be flawless and blahblahblah. It isn’t true. I do have some tips for making it in and out smoothly (and cheaply).

Unless you happen to live in Miami, you probably will need more than one flight to make it into Cuba. I strongly suggest that you take a flight from your homecity to another city in Central/South America and then fly into Cuba from there.

This is mainly becausee to get a visa to enter the country from America is doubly more expensive and complicated than getting one from practically anywhere else.

American visas to Cuba are $80 + shipping and handling fees.

My visa to Cuba from Panama was only $20 dollars and they just gave it to me as I boarded my flight to Cuba.

It’s said that you need Cuban traveling insurance, and for some people this is true. You get this when you land in Cuba before exiting customs. However, when I brought it up to the Cuban custom officers they said I was fine and didn’t need it.

To be honest it appeared they said that because of my age, older travellers they tend to make you get it. If you’re in doubt and don’t want to spend the money (it’s apparently $7/day more or less) just wait till you’re almost out of customs and ask them if you need to go buy it or not. They’ll be sure to let you know.

And honestly that’s it! I made a very loose itinerary, I didn’t stick to it, and not a single person asked me about it on the way there or back.

Panama City, Panama

My first stop on the trip was Panama City. (But honestly it was just the Tocumen/Panama City Airport and the Riande Aeropuerto Hotel).

It was a lovely hotel. It ran at about $70/night and the amenities were amazing!

https://riandehoteles.com/en/aeropuerto/amenities/

They had a free shuttle that ran every 30mins from the airport to the hotel. There was paintball, multiple pools, free breakfast buffet, bars, restaurants, a spa, a boutique, a casino AND it was entirely pet-friendly.

Alas I didn’t bring my pet bunny…

My Pet Giant Flemish Rabbit

But I don’t think he would have liked the heat anyways. Plus my parents said he really enjoyed the stay at my housee… I question the truth of that statement (my parents have a cat that dislikes him and a dog that refuses to let him do ANYTHING in peace) but he’s back home and happy again regardless!

My favorite part of the hotel was the outdoors restaurant, the bar (lol), and the giant chessboard by the pool!

Our stay at the hotel was short and sweet. The rooms were nice and airconditioned, the bathroom was pretty amazing (hello rainfall showerhead) and the food was good overall!

Tip: I highly suggest you try their bbq grill platter for dinner, it feeds two easily and it was so delicious I wish I could go back tonight and have some more…

Havana, Cuba

Cuba was amazing. As soon as I set foot into our Airbnb I felt like I was at home. The food, music, living quuarters, people, pretty much everything except the language reminded me of my haitian family in Miami. It was entirely natural being there and I would go back in a heartbeat given the opportunity.

Our Airbnb host was Helmo and his mother. They were so super helpful and sweet and I would absolutely stay with them again and recommend people to them for any travels to Havana.

Their Airbnb was in the neighborhood of Vedado, so not in the heart of Old Havana or Central Havana but instead 10-15mins away by the sea. It had a King sized bed, a nicely sized bathroom, a kitchen and eating area as well as a living room and balcony.

The balcony was our favorite spot in the apartment. We eneded every night on there and started most of our morning up there as well.

Helmo’s mother made us breakfast every morning at $5/person. Totalling to $10/day and $30 for the entire stay (Wednesday morning we overslept and ended up skipping breakfast and Friday morning we left very early for the airport and decided to forgo breakfast).

Her breakfast was AMAZING. If I could have packed her up and kept her with me forever and learned all her cooking recipes I would have. Alas, she only spoke Spanish and my Spanish is so slow and painful we didn’t get to communicate much outside of me thanking her everyday and her telling us breakfast was ready.

Each day was packed with things to do. It WAS some months ago, so I’ll try my best to remember everything. But forgive me if I miss some things.

Day One

We got into Havana around 8pm and made it to our Airbnb by 9ish. They gave us a tour of the house and then recommended Karma for dinner.

I ADORED KARMA.

We went back there literally everyother night for dinner. Their food was impeccable, their prices were great and their flan!!! Omg. I didn’t even know I liked flan. It turns out I love flan. Especially theirs.

Tip: their mojitos are great and only $2…be careful. I definitely had one or two too many and lived to regret it.

This was the night going into my birthday. I actually almost died that night (don’t tell my parents).

The story is… I was drunk (remember those mojitos I was talking about) and Thaddeus and I walked to the sea to get a look at it. I saw this 500 Habana sign and decided I should take a picture by it and… well underneath it was a very large gap that fell into the highway. And right before it was a large, but hidden, metal bar.

I tripped on that metal bar and almost fell into the gap… Luckily I grabbed onto the sign last minute and managed not to kill myself three minutes into my 23rd birthday.

Here is the photo evidence.

Habana Sign….Almost died getting this photo

Shortly after we headed over to a club, but didn’t go inside. This is where we experience our first attempt at being scammed.

My lovely, friendly, sweet boyfriend cannot resist talking to everyone he meets. Regardless of me telling him that people in Cuba are out to scam the tourists and that we just have to walk away if we hear any of the classic scamming schemes.

The one that night was the “it’s my birthday buy us all drinks!” scam. And they were entirely thrown off by the fact that it was ALSO MY BIRTHDAY.

They almost lost face until they decided to take it into stride and say “even more reason for us all to get drinks! Yay!” And then the woman tried to kiss my boyfriend and then hug me. At that point I was naturally entirely done with the situation and I grabbed him and pulled the both of us away from her.

Right after a cab driver tried to insist on taking us home…which we nicely declined because our Airbnb was just a few blocks away.

Ending the night we tried to go to sleep but those mojitos said no and I threw up for a good chunk of the night. Oh well.

Day Two

We started the day with breakfast, and then had an 8hr tour of Havana, Cuba. And omg it was so packed.

The tour whipped back and forth between Verdado, Central Havana and Skirted through Old Havana.

There was actually an hour of the tour we decided to skip, which was a walking tour through Old Havana at the end. But I was so tired by the time we got to it I asked to just go home instead and we did the walking tour on our own Wednesday.

Our tour guide was Julio and he was so kind, so well-informed and just a pleasure to be around for 8+ hours two days in a row!

Day Three

We spent all of Tuesday in Viñales.

It. Was. Beautiful.

The scenery was so gorgeous it felt unreal. I looked at the photos after and could only believe I took them because I experienced it.

The drive up to Viñales was about 3 hours. Half an hour in Havana, two hours on the highway and then another half hour or so on country roads.

While we’re speaking about roads, I saw a lot of blog posts before I went saying how their road are in terrible condition and bumpy and awful. This is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE. Their roads are literally the same as ours. If anything better than Chicago’s at least because they don’t have many potholes since they don’t experience Winter.

The only reason the roads feel rough at all is because the cars are old. The newer cars they have there (sometimes we took a taxi or coconut-cab) I didn’t feel a single bump or rough ride. But the older cars, the ones you see in the photos and wonder at, those simply don’t have the shocks and mechanics put into place to have a smooth ride. It’s as simple as that.

If you want to experience a non-bumpy car ride then take a newer car. If you want to get a true Havana (tourist) experience and be in the cars from the 50’s then stop complaining about the bumps because that’s a part of the ride.

Also, speaking on the cars, the EXHAUST omg. I couldn’t breathe while on busy city streets if I was in the backseat of the car. The exhuast is just so much more potent than what I’m used to from modern day cars.

I eventually got used to it/stopped sitting in the backseat and opening windows. But wow that first day or two was rough. It literally made me nauseous.

Okay. Back to Viñales.

Our daytrip was to a family-owned tobacco farm, where we would learn the cigar making process as well as ride horses and attempt to pet goats! The family was very upfront and transparent about their tobacco making secrets. I won’t spill them past saying each farm in Cuba has their own special recipe for boiling the tobacco leaves. And that secret recipe is how you get different flavors and smells when smoking a cigar.

I am not really a smoker. But I did have a few puffs of one of the freshly-rolled cigars! They dipped it into their own home-made (bee-made…whatever) honey and IT. WAS. AMAZING. Really I think I just liked tasting the honey more than smoking the cigar.

Viñales was a whole day of trip. By the time we got back I don’t think we did much more than find some dinner and head home.

Day Four

We took a day out into the city! We went to the marketplace area of Havana (that was the walking part of the tour that we missed on my birthday because I was too overwhelmed). And I adored it. Blocks and blocks of little shops with art and food and books and just anything you could ever want.

Our little coconut cab dropped us outside of the square and we walked for probably hours up and down.

I think the best part of Cuba was that as long as we were quiet and didn’t speak English we were mistaken as Cubans. Which, as a tourist, is great. However, as soon as we spoke Cubans would immediately try to sell us things or tell us stories to get us to give them money. So do keep in mind, you will lose all your money and be scammed into many things if you’re too naive as a tourist there (as a tourist anywhere if we’re being truthful).

We ended the day at Karma again. More flan, more mojitos. No throwing up this time.

Day Five

The last day. We turned it into a beach day and it was fantastic.

The beaches are about 45-60mins outside of the city. I suggest getting a shared car there because the ride will be faster than the bus, but much cheaper than getting your own taxi.

This best way to get a shared ride is to go to the bus that heads to the beach then find a taxi driver (or let them find you) and he’ll offer you a price of 10ish dollars per person if he has a full car. Which is a great deal for him but an even better deal for you, because it includes both ways.

DO NOT miss the time to get back if you do get a shared driver though. Because you WILL be stuck at the beach. The bus stop drops you off about a half mile from the beach and there will be no choice but to walk that walk if you want to get home. Plus the buses stop running fairly early… so be careful.

We didn’t miss our driver, but two girls we went down with did.

At the beach it’s almost like a summer beach-house town. There are restaurants and bars and shops but it all is rather relaxed with a “no pressure” vibe. The restaurants are expensive in comparison to the rest of the city,, but do give generous amounts of food. They will even bring food to you on the beach!

The bar is rather cheap, and the drinks are delicious (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic).

Pro tip: BRING SUNSCREEN!! And I don’t just mean to the beach. I mean to Cuba. They don’t have ANY in the country. It is not for sale there you cannot get it.

I give you that tip because I got BURNT. And then I got red. And then I peeled. And it hurt. It was not plesant at all. Just remember to pack sunscreen.

The next day

At the crack of dawn (before dawn truly) we left! Our AirBnb host set up the taxi for us and it was a quick hop over to the airport.

A favorite trip of mine. Especially now that I have been to another island (be on the look out for my post on Jamaica). And I honestly would love to go back… If only w could get rid of Trump then maybe I’ll be able to 🤷🏽‍♀️

Birthday In Cuba (plus Panama!) I have been on a hiatus, I haven't felt like writing, Even when I DID feel like writing I couldn't muster up the motivation to get started...I just haven't been present in almost half a year...

#african-american #airports #Beach #birthday #Cuba #flights #focus #friendship #happiness #Havana #Island #love #Me #overseas #pets #positivity #quality time #travel #traveling

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omgnsfwisnsfw-blog · 5 years

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7: Make Good TV

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biofunmy · 5 years

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Sonya and Dell Curry Mastered Cheering for Their Sons. But Not at the Same Time.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Stephen Curry curled around Draymond Green into open space, comfortably separated himself from Portland’s Seth Curry and sank a 3-pointer from the left wing to stake the Golden State Warriors to an early 10-point lead.

In the first conference finals game in N.B.A. history to feature two brothers, there was only one thing left for Stephen to do on his trot back to the other end: He directed the sort of mischievous gaze he has been known to flash at opponents’ benches up into the stands instead — right at his father, Dell Curry, and mother, Sonya Curry.

“Why is Steph looking up here?” Sonya said to her seatmates in Row 8 of Section 101 at Oracle Arena, breaking into a big smile in response to her son’s showmanship.

Sonya didn’t get the full explanation until after the Warriors completed a 116-94 rout of the Trail Blazers on Tuesday night in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. Deep down, though, she knew. Stephen’s instigator side was actively seeking her attention.

As Stephen later clarified on his walk to the postgame interview room: “I saw her up there cheering. I usually look up there, but it caught me off guard because I saw her Blazers jersey. She obviously didn’t know what I was saying, but I was yelling, ‘Who you with?’ after that shot.”

The answer, of course, is that Dell and Sonya were with both the Warriors and the Blazers on this first-of-its-kind evening — at least that was the plan. Immense pride tinged with a fear of the unknown was the prevailing emotion for the Currys as they uneasily tried to work out on the fly how to root for two teams at once with so much at stake for their sons.

Deciding what to wear to watch Stephen, 31, and Seth, 28, square off one series away from the N.B.A. finals, knowing fans worldwide were waiting to see their sartorial choices, proved to be one of the easier hurdles. Michelle Brink, one of Sonya’s closest friends and a Portland resident, furnished the parents with half-and-half jerseys from both teams stitched together.

Sonya’s jersey had a Portland front adorned with Seth’s No. 31 and a Golden State back featuring Stephen’s No. 30. Dell’s was the inverse. Stephen and Seth autographed their side on each.

Everything else, though? It was new territory for the quartet sitting together: Dell; Sonya; Stephen’s wife, Ayesha Curry; and the boys’ sister, Sydel Curry-Lee, 24, who is married to Golden State guard Damion Lee. (Callie Rivers, Seth’s fiancée and the daughter of Los Angeles Clippers Coach Doc Rivers, was seated in a different location but is expected to sit with Dell and Sonya when the series shifts to Portland for Game 3.)

“I normally don’t get nervous at all,” Dell said on the half-hour drive to the arena. “Playing 16 years in the league, I thought all my nerves were gone. But this has changed that. I’m nervous.”

The Game Before the Game

Hours before tipoff, as the uneasiness was starting to set in, 54-year-old Dell was introduced to a new game. Sonya decided that a lunchtime round of rock-paper-scissors at Curry-Lee’s house in nearby Hayward, rather than a simple coin toss, was the fairest means to decide which hybrid jersey each parent would wear, since they both had two.

Only one problem. “That was the first time I ever played rock-paper-scissors,” Dell said.

After a false start or two, Sonya went rock. Dell opted for scissors. Curry-Lee then flipped a coin she prepared by taping a W on one side for Warriors and a P on the other side for Portland. When the coin landed on P, Sonya “won” the right to wear the jersey featuring the Blazers on the front.

Yet it wasn’t until the second half of the actual game that the mood in the Currys’ row began to noticeably lighten. The family members spent the first half working through all sorts of emotions and imagined restrictions, especially once Seth checked in for the final 2 minutes 55 seconds of the first quarter and frequently guarded his brother.

Dell noted that it was the first time in their sons’ basketball lives that he and Sonya could not go “all-in for both kids,” who never played in a competitive game against each other until both were in the N.B.A. Sonya wondered aloud how strained the postgame conversations might be when “you can’t critique the other team because then you’re critiquing one of your sons.” Curry-Lee described the dynamic as “the whole world is watching and critiquing about who we’re favoring.”

“We love the game, too,” Sonya said. “We like being spectators. When I go to a game, I like to get into the game. But now I’m like, ‘How do I get into the game when I’m trying to cheer for both teams?’”

Celebrations were thus on the muted side while Stephen was taking advantage of Portland’s spotty pick-and-roll defense to amass 19 of his game-high 36 points before intermission. Seth missed all three shots he attempted in the opening half in nearly eight minutes off the bench, as he continued to try to establish himself in the Blazers’ rotation after losing the entire 2017-18 season to a stress reaction in his left leg.

Seth and Stephen are only the seventh set of brothers to meet in the N.B.A. playoffs. This is also the first time Seth, in his sixth season as a pro, has reached the postseason, while Stephen, in his 10th season with the Warriors, is chasing his fourth championship in five years.

“I think they agree with me that the idea of it was amazing — and it is amazing,” Curry-Lee, a former college volleyball player, said of her parents. “It’s a blessing that Stephen and Seth are on the court against each other like this. But then once it gets here, you have to deal with the other feelings that come with it.”

The N.B.A.’s ‘Royal Family’

Sitting near the Currys, especially for a game like this, means getting used to photographers suddenly appearing and posting up in the aisle next to Dell’s end seat to snap pictures of the family.

Warriors Coach Steve Kerr referred to the Currys as “the royal family of the N.B.A.” this week. Mike and Ellen Wallau, of Palo Alto, Calif., who sit in Row 7 of Section 101, have been coming to Oracle for 23 years as season-ticket holders and marvel at their neighbors’ patience given all the attention they generate. “They’re the nicest people you’d ever meet,” Mike Wallau said.

Dell may be a broadcaster with the Charlotte Hornets in retirement, but he watches his sons’ games quietly — almost silently. What you notice most with Sonya, beyond her more vocal encouragement, is how often her sons seek to make eye contact with her during live play.

During pregame introductions, Sonya turned toward the Blazers’ bench and clapped in that direction, then tapped her heart and pointed to the sky when she and Stephen spotted each other. In the game’s first timeout, halfway through the opening quarter and before Seth had even entered the game, he strolled to midcourt and looked up at his mother to offer a firm “I’m here” head nod.

Stephen said: “Any time my family is in the building — my wife, dad, mom, sister — it’s just the kind of interaction that we have.”

When Seth rattled in a 3-pointer from the corner with 1:32 to play in the third quarter to briefly draw the Blazers within 8 points at 75-67, Sonya and Curry-Lee rose in sync to shout their approval. It was Seth’s only conversion on a 1-for-7 shooting night, but by that point much of the occasion’s earlier tension had faded.

The three Curry women had a good laugh at themselves when a multiple-choice quiz on the video board overhead during a third-quarter timeout posed the question: How many 3-pointers did Stephen Curry make this season? The choices were 263, 298, 327 and (the correct answer) 354. None of them guessed right.

Golden State pulled away in the fourth quarter with ball movement and fancy playmaking reminiscent of 2015, when it won the first championship in this run. Stephen finished with nine 3-pointers to tie his single-game playoff career high. Seth managed just 3 points in 19 minutes but had already won his parents’ admiration by getting here after last season’s injury.

“One of our sons won’t be happy with what happens, but I don’t know what they feel like,” said Dell, noting that his various teams never advanced past the second round of the N.B.A. playoffs.

Sonya said: “It was wonderful. I got to see my oldest son do what he does and be himself. I got to see my younger son in his first playoffs, going for a championship and filling his role. I feel like he did great.”

Asked how she coped, Sonya added, “I did better than I thought I would.”

Seth was predictably hard on himself afterward — “I wish I played better,” he said — but he managed a smile of his own as he walked away from a big family huddle postgame in the bowels of Oracle. Stephen, meanwhile, said that he had an idea how “nerve-racking” it was for his parents “to get settled into what this series is going to mean,” yet he insisted they were not alone.

“A different light goes off,” Stephen Curry said, “when you see your brother across from you.”

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flauntpage · 5 years

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Utterly Meaningless – Observations from Mavericks 122, Sixers 102

No Embiid, no Butler, no Doncic, no real point in watching that game.

But if you did watch, good on you, because I’m sure most people probably lost interest as soon as they realized that three of the most interesting dudes on the floor would not actually be on the floor.

There’s a Type O Negative song called “Less Than Zero,” and I think that’s a good way to describe how much this game meant in the big picture. It meant less than zero, as in it was utterly meaningless and has absolutely no effect on the landing of the playoff plane as we approach mid-April. I’m not saying that Chesley Sullenberger is piloting the aircraft, but some Sixers fans make it seem like Ted Striker is at the controls:

Airplane! (1980, Paramount Pictures)

It’s all good. Trust me.

The Sixers will be the three seed. They were never catching Toronto and Milwaukee, since both of those teams were blessed with relatively easy back-end schedules. Even if the Sixers do win next week against the Bucks, there aren’t enough remaining games to pull even and pip them via tiebreaker.

Likewise, Philly is up 3.5 games on both Indy and Boston with a game in hand while holding the tiebreaker against the former.

Here’s how each team finishes the season:

Sixers: at Hawks, vs Bucks, at Bulls, at Heat, vs Bulls

Pacers: at Pistons, vs Celtics, vs Nets, at Hawks

Celtics: at Heat, at Pacers, vs Magic, at Wizards

For the purposes of our exercise, say Indy and Boston both go 3-1. The Pacers lose to the Celts.

They would finish:

Pacers: 49-33

Celtics: 49-33

The Sixers are currently 49-28, so they’d really only have to go 1-4 or 2-3 down the stretch here to finish in 3rd place. Even then, they have not lost three straight games this year and they will not lose three in a row in April. Philly has that game in hand and will be returning Joel Embiid against the Bucks or Bulls, then you’re closing with a handful of winnable games to hopefully build some momentum heading into the postseason.

For what it’s worth, FiveThirtyEight projects the following finish in the Eastern Conference:

Bucks (61-21)

Raptors (58-24)

Sixers (53-29)

Celtics (49-33)

Pacers (48-34)

Pistons (42-40)

Magic (40-42)

Heat (40-42)

Nets (40-42)

Most projections out there have the Sixers meeting the Pistons in the first round, which is favorable. Embiid can win the Andre Drummond battle and Philly just has more talent across the board. People talk about “physicality” and whatever, but Miami played that type of game last year and the Sixers didn’t have a lot of problems. They simply out-talented them on both sides of the floor.

Should there be a three-way tie, as 538 suggests, this is the tiebreaker criteria:

Division winner (this criterion is applied regardless of whether the tied teams are in the same division)

Best head-to-head winning percentage among all teams tied

Highest winning percentage within division (if teams are in the same division)

Highest winning percentage in conference games

Highest winning percentage against playoff teams in own conference

Highest point differential between points scored and points allowed

Believe it or not, one of Miami or Orlando is going to win the Southeast Division with what looks to be a losing record. The Nets need to find a way to beat one of Milwaukee, Toronto, or Indy in the next three games, or else their season finale against the Heat looks pretty damn important. Keep an eye on that jockeying as we hit the end of this week.

I honestly should just end the article right here, since everything else is just dreck at this point. Some teams are tanking, some are on autopilot until the postseason starts, and others are jockeying for lower seeds at the bottom half of the conference table.

But here are some actual observations from last night:

2-14 shooting last night from Jonah Bolden, Shake Milton, Haywood Highsmith, and Zhaire Smith. I know a huge chunk of those combined minutes for the latter three players came in extended garbage time, but Bolden especially had a disappointing night after a wonderful game in Minnesota. It’s games like this one that make you understand why he’s unlikely to be a part of the rotation in the playoffs, or at least in the second round. As for the other guys, you’re just looking for glimmers here and there, glimpses of what they might be able to provide to a really iffy bench heading into next season.

Tobias Harris hasn’t had a great three-point shooting game in some time. He was 1-6 last night, and 3-8 in Minnesota is 37.5%, which is fine, but he went 0-2, 0-2, 1-4, 2-5, and 1-5 in the five games prior. He’s been a much better deep shooter this season, but he’s only shooting 30.2% in March, which is way down from the 43% he shot in February.

Beyond his three-point shooting, Harris had a nice 25/6/3 game on 10-19 shooting. Ben Simmons went for 17/7/5 despite only hitting 5-15 from the floor. JJ Redick started out well from the floor before the team bottomed out, so if there’s a silver lining in the loss, at least those three starters looked like they’re going to be in good shape for the playoffs.

I wouldn’t have played that trio as many minutes as they did last night. Harris played 34 minutes and Simmons 32. You’ve got a tricky back-to-back coming up Weds/Thurs.

This team went 8:22 without a field goal last night.

The following Mavericks shot 50% or better from the floor: Jalen Brunson, Justin Jackson, Dwight Powell, Maxi Kleber, Salah Mejri, Dorian Finney-Smith. That’s more than half the damn team.

The Sixers really need their starting five to carry them in the playoffs. This squad is just so top-heavy that there is little margin for error within the starting unit, because you look down the bench and there’s nobody who can come in to cover for a Redick or Harris off night. James Ennis might grab a few buckets here and there, but Boston and Toronto and Milwaukee have legitimate sixth men on their rosters.

Bolden can be a solid defender if someone works with him this summer on his positional discipline. His energy and movement is great, I just think that sometimes he’s overzealous, and that results in unneeded fouls and other actions that pull him out of position.

If you don’t like these meaningless games where starters are rested or whatever, your real complaint should be the NBA schedule, which is too long and too bloated. I’d love to shrink it to 70-some games and remove all back-to-backs, but I know that affects gambling and concessions and ticket revenue and all of that stuff. That’s a conversation for another time, I guess.

Happy Tuesday.

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marielledownunder · 7 years

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Bundaberg

The last night of Rainbow beach ended with having a dinner with the last people from Fraser Island. Afterwards we were having a drink and some good guitar music (of course I took the microphone again haha). So what to do after Fraser Island? Well Kayleigh and I decided to do some farmwork.

We realised that we would split up after 2 months with Imke. We contacted the working-hostel about our arrival and we also contacted Loka to get a train ticket. The 1st of August we went from Rainbow beach to Noosa, to Cooroy and finally taking the train to Bundaberg. As we would arrive late, we were forced to find an Airbnb, which we quickly found.

We had our first KFC lunch with Imke and some other people from Fraser island. In the late afternoon we said goodbye to Imke. It has been two months, and our paths will be separated, but fortunately we will meet eachother in Sydney around New Year’s Eve. We took our bus and we nearly hopped off the wrong place haha. Luckily I wandered on the right moment when we should get out. Yes, an annoying thing about the bus system in Australia, is that you cannot see which stop would be the next one. Then we got into the train and I’ve never had such a luxury train! You had a screen to watch movies etc. and lots of space. You could even take a shower in that train!

After 2 hours we reached Bundaberg. How would our life be here for the coming next weeks? I had not the best feeling about it, especially not after some comments on Facebook “don’t go there”. The next day we left our Airbnb and we came to the DingoBlue hostel. This is a working-hostel which provides you (farm)work. DingoBlue, DingoBase (Cellblock) and Queenslander are all in the same organisation but different hostels and places. As Dingoblue was full, we were sent to DingoBase, also known as “Cellblock”. We met Peter again and he showed us where Cellblock is and explained a bit about the jobs. After Peter’s information, I started to think “shit, why did I come to this place…” But I still had faith in an hourly paid job because Britt told me once she got a better job after 5 days. Everyone is in Bundaberg because of the farmdays for the Second year VISA, but I’m the only crazy girl who’s not interested in that. Why? First of all, my boyfriend can’t miss me for another year. Secondly, because I couldn’t find a job in within 4 weeks and I don’t have time to work more than that and I cannot spend another thousands of dollars like the last two months. So my two reasons were (1)playing quitte or even saving and (2) the experience of course.

So we finally arrived in Cellblock and we got our room. A room with 10 persons, and all of them have different shifts. The hostel was not the cleanest either. I’m okay with that, especially compared to some friends of mine haha, but I was not happy with not having lockers. Besides, the kitchen is annoying: they have no sponges and some cookplates didn’t work.The first day we just bought stuff for cooking and working. Yes. We had to buy those things.

The next day we started with cherry tomatoes picking. One bucket is $5,00 and it takes forever to fill it. I had 5 buckets on the first day, from 6.00-11.00. The next days were better: 10 buckets and 10,5 buckets. The job is fine but the payment is shit and my back hurts. I promised myself if I wouldn’t get a better job after 1,5 week, then I would leave Bundaberg. During picking I met few new people and we talked during working. We talked and listened to the music. I met a Tibetian/French girl named Jammy. She has a lot of energy and is always happy, even at 4.00 in the morning. I also met Jessica from Brazil and Madelaine from France. Back at the hostel I also met other people, like Vitor and Wallace from Brazil and Liam from the Uk. After three days, Kayleigh and I asked if there was a new job, and yes there was! They even put us together on the “Ginger cutting” job. We would know more about it the next week.

As the week reached Friday, we texted Britt to come to their hostel. We cold meet their friends and we can bring our own drinks. It’s not possible to drink in our hostel though, unless you pay at the bar. So normally you could do pre drinks over there. There were so many other people and also different from our hostel, more laid back I’d say. Britt introduced us to Anatole (From France/Columbia), Chris and Claire (from Londen), Josh (from Londen), Andreas (from Sweden), Alex (from France), Ramon (from the Netherlands) and many other names I don’t even remember. I told about my plans and Josh responded as he always directly talks “You came here to the wrong place”. Haha well we’’ll see about that, I won’t give up. Then they invited us to go to the beach the next day. Kayleigh and I weren’t sure yet, because we wanted our money to pay the rent. But in the end, we decided to join. Josh and Britt kinda persuaded us haha. The next day we enjoyed our day at “Burnettheads beach”.

Kayleigh and I skipped the barbecue at the beach because we had a big dinner (60 persons) in the Indian restaurant with the people of Cellblock. The good thing about the dinner was that we could bring our own booze. Awesome. I had something with chicken and it was delicious, vooral omdat we niks betaalden. shhht. I didn’t say anything Dutch haha. So Saturday night was a lot more crowded than the Friday before at Cellblock. I recognised some people from the Cherry tomatoes and Anatole and Josh from DingoBlue. At midnight you have to leave Cellblock and everyone goes to Club hotel. It’s a place where we weekly went out. Inside you had R&B, dance and other music I don’t remember, and you have the outside part where you have the live band. I loved it, and felt like a secondary school rock chick again haha :)

The first weekend ended and we started with our new job: Ginger cutting. We were with a team of 8: Marie from Germany, Pyry (Puru) from Finland, Madelaine, Jessica and Jammy which I met from the cherry tomatoes, Abi from the Uk, Kayleigh and I. We had to start at 5 and it was 7 hours just cutting ginger into smaller pieces, without any music. In the end the boss told me that I shouldn’t talk because I was too slow. Abi got fired and Jammy nearly… I was scared the next day haha…

Luckily my back didn’t hurt anymore, but my hand got damaged every day. Fortunately we made progress, as I became quicker with cutting. One crate is $4,80 and you can reach 6 in one hour, which means you can earn $28 in an hour if you’re quick. The second day I gained $125 and I was so happy haha. After work Kayleigh and I went many times to the WIFI park, as we didn’t have WIFI at our hostel. We watched Game of Thrones on Mondays in the Commonroom and we once played the Tuesday pubquiz with Kayleigh, Josh and Joey.

On Wednesday we decided with our ginger team to go to the Hungry Tum: It’s an snackbar and always open. As the week passed we wanted to have a drink at DingoBlue on Friday, to celebrate our first week with the Ginger team.

We heard that you could also ask for a room at DingoBlue, because it seemed a better hostel than ours at Cellblock: You could drink and the rooms aren’t bigger than 4 persons. We asked Vicky the manager and it was possible to change hostels. We could change the next day so we moved our stuff with a supermarket trolley haha.

That night we did the same ritual again: predrinks, cellblock and club hotel. As that live band was present again, I enjoyed myself again a lot. Only difference is that I was drinking a bit too much haha.

Every week became the same ritual, one week we worked from 5-12 and the other week 12-5. We worked hard but had also fun by singing and talking. Jammy sings a lot and Pyry always tries to stop her singing haha. “Shut up! and he trows a ginger to her” She responded singing “shut up and driveee!” They’re funny together. After work you go to Coles (supermarket) or just relax at the park or watch Netflix at the hostel, or playing pool (and yes I am really bad at it).

On Wednesday I went to the karaoke at Queenslander with some girls and Pyry from the ginger team and some friends from Jessica. We were the only ones but we still had a lot of fun haha. On our way back we wanted to go to the McDrive, but they wouldn’t accept us without a car. Ridiculous! We got a day off on Friday so we decided to have pizza with our ginger team on Thursday after work. $6 for a pizza, not bad!

The next day Kayleigh, Jammy and her roommates and me decided to go to the Riverfeast. It’s a place where you have live music and eating food in a nice atmosphere. I ordered a shared plate with sweet potato fries, a sandwich and quesadillas. I was the happiest girl at that moment. As we got back we got predrinks and went to cellblock again. I also went to club hotel but it was shitty on Fridays so I went back to my hostel after 10 minutes.

The next Saturday was a themed party at Cellblock: Every hostel has to wear a different costume. Our hostel’s theme was superheroes and Kayleigh and I decided to be a bit creative on our day off and we dressed up as the Ninja Turtles. Nobody did something with the costumes in the end, but we made effort so we still wanted to show how awesome we are haha. That night was also a pretty drunk night… I dropped my phone and it died haha. Oh and I tried for the first time fries with cheese and gravy at the Hungry Tum. My first reaction was “wow wtf this is so weird”

Then I realised I didn’t have much time left. I started to love the place with the people around me.. actually it reminded me of my Erasmus time in Germany. We all lived together in the same place and you go out with all the same people you know. You go to work (in stead of school) and when you’re back you just still out with your friends and during the weekends you drink and have some crazy nights haha. During the second last week we had dinner together with our ginger team, so Pyry made a really good chicken with vegetables for the wrap. He also prepared corn and it was delicious. I made nachos and guacemole with Kayleigh and everyone loved it :)

The rest of the week passed quickly. I said goodbye to Britt. She would go to Indonesia and when she comes back I wouldn’t see her anymore. During my last weekend, a lot was going on at our hostel. A few guys got lots of day offs and they were drinking from Thursday till Sunday. Lots of music and drunk people and the hostel was a mess ;) Pyry got also pretty drunk. He even jumped in the swimming pool at Cellblock with his passport in his pocket haha! Then again I went to club hotel to rock again for the last time. The next day everyone went to the famous boxing match but unfortunately we couldn’t go because we had to work on Sunday…

I finally reached the next week and I started to realise I would leave soon. Unfortunately I worked only the Monday and Tuesday. I hoped for 2 more days but well, I shouldn’t complain. Wednesday was my last dinner with my lovely ginger team. We all made tapas together and had drinks afterwards. Pyry got drunk again together with Jammy and they were having a Garlic aioli sauce fight haha! Afterwards I went to the karaoke with them and Josh joined us with Daniel and Joe On our way home, I ordered for the last time the fries with cheese and gravy again. This time it tasted better.

The last day of Bundy. What did I do? well buying some snacks at Coles, packing my stuff, jumping for the first time in the pool at Base and saying goodbye to everyone. In the beginning I was not sure about getting here but in the end I was happy that I made this choice. I had a lot of fun and even saved money! Of course I spend already for my accommodation and phone and food, but I think I still saved more than I lost, which was my main goal. This will be the first time that I’m finally travelling alone. I’ve travelled with Kayleigh for 3 months and we said goodbye. Big chance I will see her and I might see some of the rest in Sydney or Melbourne :)

At 5.20pm I took the train and I joined a new group of the Loka tour until Cairns. Next stop will be Rockhampton and Airlie Beach!

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