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johnhawkens · 2 years

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AMERICAN STANDARD SIZE TUBS SUCK or: HOW I ALMOST DIDN'T SURVIVE MY BATH

(Quick CW: minor mention of blood and very minor injury, some description of depression/anxiety)

Okay strap yourselves in for this one:

It’s 0500 or 5am. I had just spent the last 12 hours in some sleep fugue state from some medication issues trying to get my brain back on track. Nevermind the extremely vivid dreams that included training to be a samurai in some dude’s house, stealing slushies from some labyrinthine cafeteria/buffet in the underground of a hotel, flying with my arms and meeting the cast of Good Omens (I still have yet to watch it yet), and trying to contact Lupin III for help while a family laughs at me for failure to eat some rapidly melting chocolate cup thing; (And those are just the ones I remember) my body feels like it just got run over a dozen times.

As I'm debating if consciousness is really worth it at this moment, my adorable cat Truffles decides that she is insulted that I ignored her all day by sleeping and wants my attention right MEOW. I'm too sluggish to want to move, so she gives me a defiant nip and runs off. Ouch.

(she's lucky she's so darn cute)

So I haul myself out of bed to make sure she has food and water and immediately bash my toe on my chair, partially breaking my nail.

Double ouch!

So by the time I'm done helping her, it's understandable that I am dizzy, shaky, my mind is still foggy, I'm in pain, am ravenously hungry and dehydrated, and completely resenting my existence at this moment. I almost just give up right there and toss my carcass back into bed, but thirst drives me to throw on my robes and shamble out of my room like the crypid I am.

(Mothman has nothing on me)

I get some water from the kitchen and debate if I want to warm up the food my BFF got for me while I was dead to the world, or if I just want to shuffle back to bed and ignore life for a few more hours. However, I've also just spent the last 12 or so hours sweating intermittently in bed. (my temp goes even more haywire when I'm having med issues) No matter what I end up doing, I really want to wash up. I still feel pretty miserable, but I know it'll be worse until I'm at least clean.

I debate a shower when the sudden idea of a bath springs into my mind unbidden. I haven't had a bath for years. I consider it when depression decides to try to rear its ugly head. I remember clumsy past baths, body image issues, etc. I almost give up entirely right here.

No! I grit my teeth and fight it. I have extremely bad depression and anxiety as of late but I know if I let it constantly win at all the small things, how can I get back on my feet with the big things?

Bath time it is.

So first of all, my BFF is asleep. Her door is just one away from the bathroom and while she has the weekend off and is usually good once asleep, I don't want to wake her up. That means pulling both her door mostly closed as well as the bathroom door mostly closed and hoping it won't be too loud. (Only partially because her cats need to reach their litterbox or food in different rooms, and Truffles will want to make sure I'm still alive with all that water noise.) Her husband and our other roomate are awake downstairs, so I don't need to worry about them.

I take some medicine for my headache, put bactine on my bite and toe and start up the bath. While it's filling, I go back to the kitchen to get water and the BAWLS energy drink I got earlier. (Probably not the best to do on an empty stomach, but whatever.)

(I love joking about the fact I have to get two every time we go grocery shopping because I am very mature)

I even remembered to get a plastic cup from the kitchen to wash my hair with! (I was proud of remembering this detail) Back to the bedroom to get my phone so I can relax and watch Youtube or read some fan fic and I hustle back to the tub.

Remember the title?

I just needed to set the stage first, right? Things had been rough for the little bit I had been conscious. And here I was, about to settle in and feel accomplished.

I sort of did at first even. Climbing in, I managed to find a decent bit of water to soak in. Most baths really don't fit me (more on that in a bit), but it was alright, and I was prepared to enjoy it anyway.

This is what a typical bathtub looks like here, though most I've seen have a slant in the back for "resting" though I have no idea why they bother. Perfect for a kid, and I'm sure some people can fit alright in these. I, however, cannot.

Look up tubs online and you will see some of the most magical things out there. Massive jacuzzi tubs, couples tubs with bubblers, beautiful giant tubs that look like they were carved out of stone, or super high tech looking ones with lights all over.

If I ever can save up enough money in my life, I am getting a nice tub, or at least a nice soaking tub.

Now I know that I am a larger gentleman, and that certainly doesn't help, but I can barely sit with my legs folded and I've never had a bath actually cover my whole body, or even most of it. More than anything, they feel like convenient driptrays for showers. They are also terrible at heat retention! (This is extra irritating since many studies have shown that hot soaks serve so many health benefits, it's not even funny) So if you want your water to stay warm for any length of time, you better crank that dial up so that you can cook for a while until it's something more pleasant. (I know I'm a little bit of a heat baby, but it's worse when half of you is boiling and the other half is freezing) And I'm not just talking a little bit warm, I'm talking let's try to resemble a sulfur pool (not the nice spa resort ones), or just cut straight to volcanic lava.

(hey at least I'd know I'd fit here!)

A lot of tongue and cheek, and a hefty bit of complaining was really to add emphasis to what happened only about 5 minutes into the bath.

The water was already growing cold.

Now part of this was totally my fault. It'd been so long since I'd last had a bath I forgot how fast it cooled. So when I set what was pretty warm to me for a shower, I was inviting disaster. It didn't help that I forgot to bring in a different kind of soap, so I was stuck in lukewarm water with little chunks of moisturizing, exfoliating soap faeries and two little blood clot faeries from the noosebleed I had, had right before I entered. Not at all the relaxing bubblebath I was planning on.

But this could be fixed! A quick drain and I could refill and grab a different soap!

So I shuffle painstakingly slowly so as to not accidentally soak the entire bathroom floor and discover that I am just a bit too chubby to completely reach the drain easily. Ahh well, I'll just get out and do it that way!

Then I realize I have no idea how to haul my handsome flub out of this tub. The next couple minutes are spent in what had to be the most hilarious slow-motion (can't flood the room!) gymnastics in which I contorted every which way and slowly filled with dread that I might need to call for help. The prospect was not just humiliating, it meant calling my BFF out of sleep, or texting the husband downstairs. I'm a trans man so while I know none of them would be rude, this was going to be awkward at best.

(actual footage of me contemplating my impending doom)

However, I was filled with great determination and managed to haul myself onto my knees with only the tiniest bit of splashing and was able to shuffle around to face the drain. Now able to reach it much more comfortably, I turned to pull it open.

Nothing happened.

Okay, maybe I just forgot which way I had turned it and it was more complicated than just pulling. I know shower dials are complicated affairs, so maybe this was similar.

Nothing happened again.

I tried turning all over, I tried yanking, I tried turning /and/ yanking, I tried thinking at it very strongly and tried yanking even harder!

Again nothing happened. My headache was returning...

I began to feel a sense of exhaustion and despair. I tried again and again and started to berate myself internally for even trying a bath. For five minutes of lukewarm soaking, I was now tired from my water ballet, sore, still not clean yet, (I forgot it's best to kind of shower first then soak when you're less grungy) and I was facing a half full tub while hungry and cranky.

I couldn't be on my knees any longer since they were getting to cramped. I had to perch on the edge of the tub and kept at it for another ten or so minutes. At a few points I swore I could see a little space under the drain head, so I figured that maybe it was just very slow and I marked an old scar on my leg to compare water level by and waited.

Still. Friggin'. Nothing.

I had a headache, was hungry, still slightly out of it from my day of recovery sleep, and was feeling pretty miserable at this point. I tried looking up some solutions on my phone. Oh! Maybe it was clogged! One guide recommended using a plunger. Welp, if I used that I certainly needed to be out. I tried the plunger a few times and nothing changed. Or rather one thing had! The water was now absolutely gross between the soap, blood, and now possibly some remnants of plunger waste. So if I was going to ask for help, I needed to get some of that water out so they didn't have to touch so much of it.

So I slap on my robes, shuffle out grumbling under my breath and found a big enough plastic tub to help. I shuffle back, heaving the quietest of heavy sighs (my roomate is still asleep), and I start scooping out the water into the toilet for the next 5 or so minutes.

Sweating, exhausted, I finally message the husband on discord and ask him if there's some magical trick to this tub. He admits it had been ages since he'd last used it as a tub and says he'll be right up.

(Oh you hellish little monster)

Husband arrives and starts trying everything I did. I may not have the greatest upper body strength, but it quickly proves that strength isn't the issue. He chuckles and says that he remembers having an issue like this when he attempted a bath about a year ago and had simply avoided baths in this tub ever since. Finally he asks for a butter knife from the kitchen and we strike up chatter while he pries.

"I had headphones on so I couldn't hear anything specific, but I kept hearing all these thuds upstairs." He chuckled. "I knew it wasn't from the kitchen and it didn't just sound like footsteps so I was beginning to wonder if you were okay."

I couldn't help but laugh at that. The idea of me flopping around like a seal out of water and then the dozen or so times the toilet automatically flushed as I poured water into it must have sounded quite confusing. Now we've both worked overnights, so the time wasn't that odd to us. But I've tried to stick to more daytime-ish living to make sure I didn't wake my BFF, could spend more time with people, and generally didn't try to tromple all over the house. He adds that American bathtubs just suck and I agree wholeheartedly with him.

And then, the sweetest music came to us. An unmistakable sound.

DRAINING WATER

Turns out the little plastic or rubbery rim of the drain cap had become hyper sealed to the bottom part. It was starting to lift, yes. But the water pressure was so powerful, it was preventing anything from going down the drain and additionally not allowing it up high enough to change the pressure so it /could/ drain. I don't know all the science, or even all the right words to use. But the fact is, it worked and the tub finally fucking drained.

We shared a laugh and he told me not to worry about it, that it was definitely something up with the drain and nothing I had done. (I think maybe I accidentally made it worse with the plunger, but I'm not sure and the problem was at least there before it) I thanked him, he headed out to wash and get back to gaming and I finally had a working drain.

So I took a fucking shower.

Struck by how amusing this ultimately was in retrospect and needing to sit for a few before I thought about food, I decided that I needed to write out this story so I could just link it to friends and let them laugh with me. At least that would soothe my frustration.

Just for good measure, I had a much better intro, but Tumblr erased it all somehow while I tried to move the window and I had to start all over.

TLDR: American standard sized bathtubs suck, medication snafus / depression / anxiety sucks, and butter knives are the heroes of the day.

I give you the hero of today, my good people

#John's writing #silly life shit #why do most tubs suck #slice of life #the real treasure was the butter knife who saved the day

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phobiadeficient · 4 years

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It Demo loving hours again✊😔💘. Scout talks like he is the Fuc-king boss, but when he n demo are gonna fuck, he admits hes a total virgin who hadnt even kissed no one yet, n he feels self conscious af and nervous cuz he rlly rlly rlly wants to do it but he dont wanna mess up and make a fool of himself. But Demo is Demo and the fucc is👌👌Oh and he discovers he likes Demo biting n nibling his sensitive spots, such as neck, ears thighs, even his wrists are sensible, and he feels in paradise™💘🐑

(packing the entirety of Expiration Date into a crate and nailing it shut) coming right up my dude

(no warnings)

“Never?”

“Never.”

“...As in never?”

“Fuckin’ never, Cyclops, jeez, how many times do I gotta say it?” Scout blustered, curling up a bit in his embarrassment, starting to pick at some loose stitch of the worn quilt he had as his blanket.

“I... I’m just surprised is all, lad,” Demo admitted, blinking, settling back as he processed the new information. “Thought... the way you tend to talk and all—“

“Fuckin’ duh, if any of the guys knew I was... not, y’know, experienced or whatever, they’d poke fun even more than they already do. I’d get eaten alive out there,” he mumbled, eyes falling.

Demo considered that. To be honest, he’d thought that Scout was probably exaggerating the number of people he tended to sleep with. That was what Scout did with so many other things—he talked a big game and tried to act more confident than he really was in a sort of “fake it ’til you make it” kind of way. That, combined with the way Scout immediately stumbled over his words when asked for any amount of detail, and the way he went red and flustered at the more raunchy jokes Demo and some of the rest of the team tended to make during the rowdier hours of the weekend, made Demo think maybe Scout was all lime, no tequila.

But Scout was also a fairly handsome young man in his prime. He figured at least someone would’ve fallen for that before him.

“Well…” Demo trailed hesitantly when the silence stretched a second too long and Scout started fidgeting. “…what all have you done?”

Scout’s face was going a bit red. He fiddled with his dog tags. “Dated some girls in high school, and, y’know, holding’ hands and bein’ cute and all, I… I’ve gotten little pecks on the cheek or whatever, but, but I barely count that as anything, y’know?”

Demo stared at him. “…Doll, you’re telling me you’d never kissed anyone before me?” he asked, shocked. He ran some mental math, scoured his memory. That meant that Scout had kissed someone four times in his entire life total, including a few moments previously. All chaste and quick and sweet.

Scout hid in his hat.

Demo considered that. “…Why? Why haven’t you?” he asked next.

“I just… I dunno, I, I put way too much stock in that kinda romantic bullshit and I just, I never had the balls to make the first move with anyone, and with kissin’ and—and anything else—I just…” Scout was red up to his ears. “…I wanted it to be special or whatever which is the girliest horseshit—“

Demo cut him off by taking and squeezing his hand, thinking hard on what to say. When he spoke, he worked hard to keep his tone gentle. “…So you want to do all that with me?” he asked, just for clarification.

Scout nodded.

Demo squeezed his hand again, laughing a little. “Well I’d be bloody honored,” he said, flicked the brim of the hat out of Scout’s face to get a look at him, to give him a reassuring smile. “Any idea what you’d…?”

“I… I dunno,” Scout murmured, visibly embarrassed by it, not quite able to hold eye contact. “I… what do people… usually do?”

“Well, you’d bloody, er, start with kissing usually, aye?” Demo suggested, pulling gently on Scout’s hand and guiding him forward, practically into his lap, and let Scout be the one to lean forward and close the distance.

He situated his back comfortably against the wall, and Scout did end up settling into his lap, relaxing slowly but surely over the course of long, unhurried minutes of kissing. Demo largely took control of things—partially because Scout was so nervous about making a fool of himself, he was sure. And he guided Scout through it as gently as he could, coaxed him into opening his mouth—minty, enough that Demo was sure he’d brushed his teeth just before Demo arrived, which was oddly flattering—and into letting Demo play with him. Nipping gently as his lip, making Scout’s breath hitch.

And when Scout had to pull back for air, starting to get overwhelmed, Demo shifted his focus, tilting his head to nip at Scout’s neck, light enough that it surely didn’t hurt in the slightest, just a new sensation that Scout had apparently never tried before. And his breath continued to hitch, and he started choking back little noises as Demo found a nice place further down his neck near his shoulder that would be covered by his uniform shirt and gave him a hickey.

Scout whimpered, and it felt so very incredibly good, the sound washing through him as satisfyingly as a cool breeze on a hot and humid day.

He tried to keep in mind that nobody had ever done these things with Scout before, and tried to show him all sorts of tricks he probably didn’t know. He showed Scout all sorts of sensitive places to kiss and nibble at—his neck, his earlobes, his wrists and the inside of his elbow—and drank in the noises he made, reveled in each reaction and tried to commit them to memory. His kisses were joined soon enough by touches, slipping his hands up beneath Scout’s shirt to meet bare skin, tracing slow lines against the very lean muscle of his lower back and stomach, one questing so far as to reach his chest to tweak at either nipple.

Scout jolted outright, gasped, moaned softly when he did it a second time, and lord, he was gorgeous.

And Tavish DeGroot had not been raised to keep quiet about exactly what he was thinking, so he said so, murmured against his cheek how gorgeous he was, how lovely he looked like this. And Scout practically trembled with it, clinging to Demo’s shoulders, eyes pressed shut tight and face bright red, flustered beyond bravado. And Demo couldn’t help but kiss him again, and again, and Scout kissed back, sloppy and unpracticed but earnest in every way, desperate, and it was as lovely as it was clumsy—more, even.

And when he pulled back he caught Scout by the chin before he could try and hide again, stroking down his hip to grip at his thigh like a promise. And he started to talk—oh, how he started to talk.

“Lovely, doll,” he murmured, eyes lingering on every detail of Scout’s face. “You’re a damn sight, ya ken. Lovely, lovely thing. Like getting pampered a bit, aye? Getting kissed at?”

Scout seemed torn between desperate and nervous, between leaning in and looking away, slightly overwhelmed but needy all the same. “Yeah,” he admitted anyways.

Demo shifted his hold on Scout’s thigh, thumb migrating nearly to his inseam, pressing gently and making a muscle in Scout’s thigh jump beneath his palm. “Ought to let me make a night of it, one of these days,” he mused, stroking at the underside of Scout’s chin and absorbing the way his lashes fluttered. “Just let me lie you out and kiss you all over. See how flustered I can get you before you beg for more. Won’t take much, I think. Haven’t even gotten your shirt off and you’re practically there.”

Scout’s expression shifted towards embarrassment, and he made an earnest attempt to look away, but Demo stopped him with a deep, long kiss, only pulled back when he’d coaxed out another little whimper.

“And that’s lovely too,” he said, hardly above a whisper, and Scout practically sobbed, leaning in towards him, grip tightening.

“Demo, please, fuck, how long are you gonna tease me?” he asked, distressed.

“You want me to touch you, doll?” he asked, direct and outright.

“Yes, fuck, yes, I want you to fucking touch me, c’mon—“ was as far as Scout could get before Demo had worked the button of his pants open and slipped a hand inside.

“Och,” Demo tutted, even as Scout’s hips jerked. “Look at you, you’re all atwitter.”

It really did surprise him a little how riled up Scout already was, but he reminded himself that he tended to have a considerable impact on people who weren’t virgins, and that it really wasn’t that surprising. And he realized within a moment’s thought that Scout surely wouldn’t last all that long, but that was alright—they’d have time to do more later.

And he was right—he didn’t even properly have time to get Scout’s pants down before his hips were jerking more insistently into Demo’s hand and he was yelping, spilling, throbbing under his palm and making sweet little whimpery noises as he returned to earth.

And then he was hiding, choking out apologies, because fuck, they barely did anything, he hadn’t even gotten to really touch Demo yet, and no time was wasted to start shushing him, showering him in assurances that it was alright, it was fine, he’d have plenty of time to learn, to build up endurance, all of that. They could take things slow. And hey, maybe they could talk more about it in the shower—Scout should really change his pants.

And they did talk in the shower, alongside other things. And Demo looked forward to making good on all his promises.

#//demoscout #//tenderness

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unfolded73 · 4 years

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Fiancés (1/1) -schitt’s creek ff

The fourth in the Labels series. David and Patrick visit the Brewers during their engagement. Also ended up being a sort of reaction fic to 6x08, at least partially. (ao3)

WARNING: This fic references a homophobic relative of Patrick's, and explores Patrick's fears about members of his extended family not accepting him. Also it explores some of the mistakes that Marcy may have made in the past, even though she's fully accepting now. In my headcanon, Patrick's reluctance to come out to his family had a reason.

Rated Teen, 3823 words. Previous fics in this Labels series: Boyfriends; “I Love You”, Partners

Other Season 6 reaction fics: 6x01, 6x02, 6x04, 6x06, 6x07, 6x13, 6x14

__________________________________

Fiancé, n. a man engaged to be married

He’d tried to prepare himself, but really nothing could have prepared Patrick for the incongruity of David Rose standing in the middle of the living room he’d grown up in, examining the pictures on the mantel with a crooked smile.

David was in an outfit that, for him, was toned down — a white sweatshirt and a simple pair of black jeans. Patrick wondered if his fiancé was consciously trying to round off his edges in front of Patrick’s family. After all, the last item of clothing he’d seen David buy off the internet was a skirt that looked like someone had partially disassembled a pair of jeans and called it a day, so in comparison, this ensemble was positively dull. It made Patrick sad, if that’s what was in David’s head. He didn’t want David to feel like he had to hide who he was. He wanted David to be as comfortable with the Brewers as he was at home.

Not that Patrick was feeling especially comfortable either. At least his skin was back to its normal pallid colour after the engagement picture debacle the previous week, but the whole thing had left him feeling a little off. On top of that, he and David had agreed to this weekend trip under duress. Patrick had a lot of family, some of whom wouldn’t be able to make it to the wedding, so Patrick’s parents had convinced them to squeeze in a weekend trip in spite of all the other things they were juggling: visits to caterers and florists and taking care of the store, plus they had the joint bachelor party that Stevie was planning for them coming up soon. It was a lot.

Not to mention, Patrick’s one request for the weekend — that a few members of the family do an escape room together, a recent family tradition that Patrick really adored — had been nixed by his parents because they couldn’t include everyone. He’d complained to Stevie about it until she got fed up and left the store while he was mid-rant.

So here they were, and in a few hours the entire extended Brewer clan would be congregated in the backyard, scarfing down hot dogs and judging his choice of a life partner.

“You were very cute,” David said, pointing to a picture of Patrick at around seven years old. “Look at those curls.”

“Yeah, my hair still does that if I let it grow too long,” Patrick said, joining him next to the fireplace.

David looked at the top of his head. “I’d like to see that. I bet it would be devastatingly sexy if you let it grow out a little bit.”

“It’s not, trust me.”

David pressed his lips together, visibly holding in his argument. “Okay.”

Patrick raised his eyebrows. “Okay? You’re not going to insist I grow it out before the wedding?”

“No,” David said, reaching out and petting Patrick’s hair a few times. “I was going to wait until after we’re married and then insist on it.”

“Hmm.” Patrick closed his eyes, David’s touch soothing as always. They’d driven all day yesterday, arriving at Patrick’s parents’ house too late to do more than say their hellos before collapsing into exhausted sleep in the guest bedroom, the room that used to be his. It was only upon waking that Patrick had given some thought to the teenage boy he’d been, and what he’d think to see Patrick now, in bed with a man in his childhood bedroom. He’d curled around David under the thick blankets and for several minutes just savored the fact that he was allowed to have this: a family who loved him and a man who wanted to share his life.

“Boys? Breakfast is ready!” his mother called, and David’s eyes lit up.

While they were eating, David and Marcy talked wedding details, and Patrick couldn’t help but remember similar conversations between his mother and Rachel. At least this time, listening to these discussions wasn’t giving him an anxiety stomach ache.

Patrick’s phone chimed, and he pulled it out to see a text from Stevie with a link to the spreadsheet where they were tracking RSVPs for the wedding. while you’re there can u get a final y/n from the rest of ur relatives? her accompanying message read. Patrick clicked to open the Google sheets app on his phone, scrolling through to see which names still didn’t have a reply marked.

“Hey, Mom? It looks like we haven’t gotten a reply for the wedding from Aunt Chrissy,” Patrick said.

His mother’s eyes widened a little, and then she looked down at his kitchen table. “Oh, I… I don’t think she’s feeling well enough to travel.”

Patrick frowned. “What do you mean, well enough? Is she sick?” It wouldn’t be the first time one of his relatives got seriously ill and his mother didn’t tell him right away. When he’d been at college, he’d gone days without being told that his grandfather was in hospice. To this day, he wondered how long his parents would have gone without telling him if one of his cousins hadn’t mentioned it in an email. Would they have kept it a secret through his death, and beyond, so that Patrick would have come home for Christmas and asked about granddad, with no idea that he was dead?

“Oh! No, she’s… um…” Marcy was looking anywhere but at Patrick. “She just can’t make it.”

“Will she be at the party today?” he asked, frowning at his mother’s demeanor.

“No. She won’t be here today,” Clint said, and there was something dark in his voice. Patrick sensed David tense up at his side.

“I mean, we didn’t even get an RSVP card from her, and she used to send me a birthday card every year without fail. It’s not like…” And then it dawned on him, and his stomach plummeted to the floor. He felt like an idiot. “This is about about me being gay, isn’t it?”

Marcy gave him a pained expression, and that was all he needed to know the truth.

Patrick picked up his breakfast plate and stood, his chair scraping the floor and making Marcy jump.

“The thing is,” Marcy said, “she’s gotten even more religious as she’s gotten older, and—”

“Uh huh.” He didn’t want to talk about this. “It’s fine.”

“Honey—” David started.

“It’s not fine. Believe me, we had a very heated discussion with her,” Marcy said.

The last thing Patrick wanted to think about was his mom defending him to her sister in a ‘heated discussion,’ but he couldn’t help picking at it a little more, like a scab before it had healed. “What did she say when she got the wedding invitation?” he asked, facing the sink. David came over and put a hand on his back, a hovering presence at his side.

“I don’t know. We haven’t spoken since before your invitations went out,” Marcy said.

Patrick spun around and gaped at his mother. “You haven’t spoken.” He could remember them talking on the phone constantly when he was a little boy, his mother with the house cordless phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder as she cooked, and then later, the little flip phone with the pull-out antenna that was his mom’s first cell phone. She talked to Chrissy all the time, and his father used to gently rib her about it. Marcy and Chrissy, two sisters only a year apart in age who had grown up thick as thieves in a house with two brothers.

“If she isn’t going to accept my son and his partner, then I can’t have a relationship with her,” Marcy said, suddenly fierce, a mother bear protecting her cub. “It’s as simple as that.”

“What did she say about us?” he asked, and he didn’t want to know, except he desperately did want to know what could have made his mother so angry.

She shook her head. “Just some ugly things. I don’t want to say any more about it.”

Ugly things, Patrick thought. He could imagine the gist of it. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Clint said.

“Nothing,” his mother confirmed.

Clint slapped his own knees and stood up from the table, an obvious ploy to pull the ripcord on this conversation. “I’m going to start getting things set up out back. David, can you give me a hand?”

David grimaced, looking to Patrick to see what he needed. “Go ahead,” Patrick said. “I’m fine.” David squeezed his arm, his eyes filled with worry and sympathy. “I’m fine,” Patrick assured him.

“Are you sure?” David asked, visibly torn between being a model son-in-law and doing as Clint asked, and staying by Patrick’s side.

“I’m sure.” Patrick forced a smile. “I know you want some input into the whole backyard barbecue aesthetic.”

“Okay.” David hesitated another second, then kissed his cheek and followed Clint outside.

At a loss for what else to do, Patrick started washing the breakfast dishes, but his mind was like a dog with a bone. This was exactly what he’d feared, what had kept him from coming out to his family for so long. He wasn’t that close with his aunt, but she and his mother had been two peas in a pod. Was it really possible that they’d diverged so completely in their thinking? Or was his mother just doing a really good job of pretending she accepted him and David together?

When he turned around and grabbed his mother’s plate, she took hold of his arm. “Patrick, you know we support you a hundred percent, right?”

“Yeah.” But something made him add, “I mean, I’m sure a part of you wishes that I’d stayed in town and married a nice girl and had a couple of kids.”

The hurt look in his mother’s eyes stabbed him in the heart. “Of course we don’t wish that. It’s your happiness that matters.”

Patrick knew he should drop it. He knew it. His engagement party was today; now was not the time to air out the effect of his upbringing on his sexuality. But it was like now that he’d cracked the door open, or maybe now that his Aunt Chrissy had cracked the door open, everything was going to spill out and he had no power to stop it.

“Do you remember my friend Karen from high school?” Patrick asked, looking at the plate in his hand without really seeing it.

“I… your lab partner in biology?” Marcy asked.

“Yeah. She came out as bisexual that year, and when I told you that her parents were giving her a hard time about it, do you remember what you said?”

Marcy’s eyes were wide. “What did I say?”

“You said, ‘surely it would be easier for her just to date boys.’”

His mother opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. “I don’t remember saying that.”

“I never forgot it,” Patrick said. He remembered questioning his sexuality at one point in college and then deciding it would be easier not to go down that road. That road led somewhere difficult.

“Sweetheart—”

“And look, you said plenty of tolerant things too. You watched Will & Grace, and you shook your head disapprovingly at hatred from others. But there was always a layer of what-a-shame, isn’t-that-sad… I don’t know, tragedy to it. Like being gay was an unfortunate disease that needed our support. Like it was cancer.”

Marcy looked positively stricken. “Patrick, I didn’t feel that way. Why would you think I felt that way?”

“Because you never said anything to make me think otherwise.”

Tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I never meant… Patrick, I’m so sorry. If I indicated any sadness about someone being gay, it was just because the world was such a hard place for gay people. But things have changed. I’ve changed.”

“I know.” He set the plate back on the table and rubbed his hands over his face. “God, I didn’t mean to stir all of this up now.” He swallowed around a lump in his throat, hoping David and his father wouldn’t come back inside to find them here like this.

“No, I’m glad you told me,” Marcy said, reaching out and squeezing his hand. “I know we made mistakes, that we didn’t give you the space to be who you are, and I’ve spent so many nights lying awake thinking about that—”

“I don’t want that. And I don’t want you to sever your relationship with your sister on my behalf. You don’t have to do that.”

“I do, sweetheart. Chrissy knows she’s welcome to reopen communication with me if she accepts my son for who he is.” She plucked up a napkin from the napkin holder in the center of the table, dabbing at her eyes. “Until then, I can’t have her in my life.” She took a deep breath. “Now,” she said, clapping her hands as if to dismiss their heavy conversation, “let’s get this kitchen cleaned up. I’ve got a million things to do to get ready for the party.”

Patrick nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

~~~

When he was sufficiently motivated, David Rose was quite capable of turning on the charm, Patrick thought, watching him presiding over a table of Patrick’s cousins.

He was already aware of that, of course. David was impolite when he didn’t care what people thought of him, but Patrick had seen this version of David emerge before, particularly with vendors. He imagined this must’ve been what David was like when he ran an art gallery in New York, full of sparkling conversation. Everyone seemed to adore David, but it bothered him that it was this fake version of David they adored, not the one Patrick knew.

Picking up his tongs, Patrick opened the grill and nudged all the sausages to flip over.

“Hey, Pat,” his cousin Dennis said, bumping his shoulder. “Want another beer?”

Draining the bottle he’d been holding, Patrick tossed it into a recycling bin. “Sure.”

He watched Dennis pull two bottles from a cooler and open them. Patrick and Dennis were the same age, same grade in school, played on the same hockey team growing up. There was a time when Dennis was the closest friend Patrick had. He felt a sudden pang of regret that he’d let the family gossip tree and a couple of Instagram posts do the job of coming out to the rest of his family, even to Dennis. It had just been too exhausting, after finally telling his parents, to think about having to do it all over again with everyone else. Now he wondered if that had been a mistake, at least in the case of his former best friend.

Dennis handed him one of the bottles and then clinked their bottles together. “Working the grill at your own party, huh?”

“Dad needed a break,” Patrick explained.

“How are you doing? You look good, man.”

Patrick glanced down at himself, at his ordinary jeans and t-shirt, wondering what Dennis was seeing. Well, perhaps he was in a tighter t-shirt than he used to wear, now that he thought about it. And he knew he was in the best shape of his life — David’s appreciation of his arms was a powerful motivator. Patrick adjusted the ballcap on his head. “Thanks. You too.”

“You still playing hockey?” Dennis asked.

“Yeah, there’s a league I play in,” Patrick said. “And baseball too.”

“Oh, cool. That’s cool.”

An awkward silence settled, and Patrick couldn’t help but notice that Dennis hadn’t congratulated him, or mentioned David at all. Maybe Dennis also wasn’t okay with who he was, and was just being polite and trying his best to ignore it. Maybe Dennis was looking at Patrick’s cosmopolitan, effeminate fiancé with his demonstrative hand movements, and thinking how tragic it all was. Their poor little Pat, being regularly sodomized. Patrick wasn’t going to delude himself into thinking that there weren’t other bigots among his aunts and uncles and cousins. That there wasn’t judgement hiding behind their polite smiles.

“You know, if you’d told me when we were kids that you were gay,” Dennis said, “I would’ve been in your corner.” Patrick’s eyes snapped to his cousin, and he was awkwardly scratching the back of his head. “I hope you know that.”

The hulking homophobic creature Patrick had been conjuring in his mind dissipated into smoke. “Dennis, I didn’t know I was gay when we were kids. It was a… much more recent discovery.”

Dennis looked relieved. “Oh. Okay, I was kind of imagining you suffering in silence all that time. I felt really bad about it, man.”

“I mean, I guess I was suffering, but I couldn’t have articulated why.” He opened the grill and stuck a probe thermometer in one of the sausages, then started putting them on a clean platter.

“Yeah.” He put a hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m really glad you’re happy now.”

Patrick smiled his first genuine smile all day. “Thanks. I really am.”

“I mean, you should be. Your fiancé is… how’d you pull a guy that hot, Pat? He’s way out of your league.”

“Okay,” Patrick grumbled, taking the platter over to the food table. “He’s not that far out of my league.”

~~~

“Your family is very nice,” David said as he returned from the bathroom, his face freshly scrubbed and moisturized, his coziest pajamas on.

Patrick looked up from where he was sitting at the foot of the bed, staring down at his hands, and he offered David a small smile. “Yeah.”

“Hey, are you okay?” David sat down at his side, and then wrinkled his nose. “You probably should go shower the charcoal smell off.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna…” Patrick took a shaky breath. His heart was racing for some reason. He couldn’t understand why. And why he couldn’t seem to haul enough air into his lungs. “I’m…” He heaved another breath, and a weird noise came out of his mouth along with it. Almost like a sob. “I…”

“Oh, honey,” David said, and Patrick felt his large, comforting hands on his shoulders, smoothing down his arms, his back. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Patrick managed, a tear splashing onto his jeans. Then another. “I don’t… I don’t cry.”

“No, I think we’ve established that I’m the crier in this relationship,” David said, his hands pulling Patrick into his chest. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“It’s just…” Patrick heaved another breath, shaky. “It’s all of it, the stress of the wedding planning and this trip… I’m just tired. I’m really tired. And the thing with my aunt, and it made me wonder… who else in the family thinks… thinks I’m…” More tears were falling, running down his cheeks and soaking into David’s sleep shirt.

“I don’t know the answer to that, but I know that I met a lot of people today who adore you and are genuinely happy for you.” David was rubbing comforting circles on his back. “And also, fuck your aunt.”

Patrick hiccuped out a small laugh. “Yeah.”

They sat there for a while, David rocking him and rubbing his back and it was so good, it was exactly what he needed, to have someone to lean on, to shoulder all of this because he just couldn’t fucking carry it all anymore.

“My mom and her sister aren’t speaking, and it’s because of me. Because of what I am,” Patrick whispered. His darkest thought. If he couldn’t say it to David, then he couldn’t say it to anyone.

“But you know that’s not your fault. It’s hers.”

“I know that intellectually, but deep down it still feels like… it feels like my fault.”

“Yeah, you should have just worked harder to not be gay,” David said.

“I know. It’s stupid.”

“No, it’s not stupid. It’s human to feel that way. You just have to keep telling yourself that you are who you are and that anyone who doesn’t like it can fuck off.”

“I’m not used to feeling this way. At home, it feels good, being gay. Like I know who I am, and that I can… I can be proud.” Patrick’s stomach twisted, uncertain if he should say the next part. “I think it’s why the spray tan thing bothered me so much. It made me feel like you weren’t…” Patrick sighed and pulled out of David’s arms.

“Honey—”

“Like you weren’t proud to be marrying me. That you wanted me to be someone I’m not.”

“Patrick.” David’s face was stricken. “You think I’m not proud to be marrying you?”

“I mean, my cousin Dennis did say you’re way out of my league,” Patrick said with a smile, trying to lighten things up with a joke.

“Patrick. I couldn’t be more proud to be marrying you. Look at you! You’re so fucking smart and talented at literally everything and you’re just stupid hot—”

“Okay, David.”

“I literally tripped over my own feet the other day because I was distracted by your arms, and… and you sing and play multiple instruments, and sports—”

“You don’t care about sports.”

“I don’t, but I love that you’re good at them. You’re the one that’s out of my league. Patrick. I want to shove you in the faces of everyone who ever thought I wasn’t good enough.” David’s eyes turned glassy, and he blinked rapidly. “I want to say, look, if this amazing man thinks I’m worthy of spending his life with, then I’m… then I’m not nothing.”

“David. You’re not—”

“I couldn’t be more proud that you want to marry me.” A tear slid down David’s cheek.

Patrick leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips. “Me too.” David put his arms around Patrick’s neck, and Patrick dragged his lips over to kiss his favorite spot on David’s neck before sinking more deeply into the hug.

After an amount of time that Patrick couldn’t quantify, they finally pulled apart. Patrick picked up David’s left hand, his fingers running over the gold rings.

“I figured planning a wedding with you would be better than planning one with Rachel and it is, but there are parts of it that are still stressful.”

David laughed. “Yes.”

“It’ll be a relief to just get to the part where we’re married already.”

David pulled his hand back. “You aren’t… looking forward to the wedding?”

“No, I am. I mean, not the stressful mad dash of it, not the logistics. Not whatever disaster we can’t predict that’s going to throw everything into chaos.” He took David’s hand again and looked up and smiled at the grimace on David’s face. “But standing up there and putting a ring on your finger? Saying our vows to each other? That part I’m looking forward to. And do you know why?”

“Why?”

Patrick squeezed David’s hand in his own. “Because I’m proud.”

#schitt's creek ff #schitt's creek fic #david x patrick fic #david x patrick ff #my fic

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webster70frazier-blog · 5 years

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weekendwarriorblog · 4 years

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30 Minute Experiment: Another Free-For-All #30ME

Boy, I wish I could make that damn watch smaller.... hello there and welcome to what might end up being the grumpiest 30 Minute Experiment yet. I’m just not in a great mood and didn’t really feel like coming up with a topic, although for anyone reading this far, I’m definitely looking for more subjects and topics to write about so I don’t go further down the wormhole as I’ve been in the last few days. Trust me, it’s hard to do this even when you think you have a topic to begin with. It’s even harder when you decide to do one of these “Free For Alls” and you’re hellbent on doing the 30 minutes as usual.

Right now I’m writing this while listening to a Mogwai record since that was one of the bands I first heard through the #TimsTwitterListeningParties that I’ve already mentioned a few times now. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll probably already realize that it’s what’s taking up my time most evenings from 4pm to 6pm Eastern. I’ve decided to take tonight off since the records being covered aren’t one I necessarily want to listen to right this moment. I also have a few other music-related things to watch/listen to today. I also probably should do some apartment-cleaning and that might be what I do right after this.

So why are you in such a bad mood, Ed, you ask? Well, I think I’ve almost reached my breaking point in this pandemic, and that’s only one month in. This is where I was at before Governor Cuomo announced earlier that we’ll be remaining in New York Pause until May 15... another month. It’s been a little over a month so far, and I’ve been damn good with all the rules... social distancing, washing hands, wearing a mask and gloves when you go out, etc etc etc. I’ve been doing this for a month whenever I go out which so far hasn’t really been for more than maybe 15 to 20 minutes on any particular day and rarely two days ago.

The problem is that I’ve never been a “walk around for the sake of walking around” type of guy. I go outside and walk around cause I have some place to go or somewhere to be or something to do. That’s it, and that’s why I get so irate at people who can just stand around bullshitting or just taking a nice leisurely stroll in the middle of rush hour in Times Square. It’s just the way I’m wired, and that’s been the case in the 30 years I’ve been in New York. It’s why I can get things done and seemingly be in two places or once or multi-tasking to the point where I can get a lot of work and writing done. It’s what makes me a valuable part of the work force, and it’s something that tends to be taken for granted because.... yeah, I can get moody at times. And this is most definitely one of those times.

I don’t know what happened but sometime before I went to sleep, I just took a look at my day-to-day and thought, “Well, my life before this pandemic wasn’t great but this, what I’m doing right now, is much MUCH worse.” Don’t get me wrong, I love what I love and I’ll continue watching and listening to and writing about as much as I possibly can before things get crazy again... and by crazy I mean, the three movie days where I’m literally going from where I live on the Lower East Side into midtown two or three times a day. I got a lot of exercise than cause I was walking a lot and going up a lot of flights of stairs (including my own). But I always had something to do or somewhere to be. Those days are gone now and not having that sort of motivation is really starting to grind me down.

You also have to understand that I live in New York City... by myself... in a fairly small studio apartment that’s so cluttered and full of crap I can never find a place to put that it’s tough to live here in the best of circumstances. I mean, I deal with it because the alternative is to actually stop everything and go through the entire apartment throwing things away, clearing out the clutter, cleaning, etc. Believe me, I understand the logic in why this is important. I’ve probably seen at least one episode of that Marie Kondo show on Netflix. I’ve already made the joke that if Marie Kondo saw my apartment, that ever-present smile would plummet and she’d run away screaming. Either that or she’d dedicated an entire season just to my apartment and the money I’d make from that would allow me to live in a much more comfortable place then where I’ve been the last few years.

Believe me, I’m getting the motivation and push and drive to tackle this from everyone in my family, almost all of my friends and most importantly, my landlord, who has been very patient about the constant tardiness in my rent paying. For those of you who don’t know, we had a pretty big legal battle about seven years ago (right around the time I was diagnosed with cancer) and we worked it out with the understanding that it wouldn’t get that bad again. It hasn’t gotten that bad again... but it isn’t great... and the little bit that I manage to do when I buckle down and do something, it just never seems to make that big a difference.

While I might do something really major in terms of trying to clean a certain area, anyone (like my landlord) who walked in the door wouldn’t notice a difference at all. I mean, I notice the difference when I throw out three bags of accumulated Chinese condiments that have been sitting on my stove top and slowly growing over the past few years. Would anyone else? Probably not. You would have to live here to notice these minor differences.

But yeah, it’s gotta get done and it will. I’m stuck in here for another month and it’s not like I have a ton of other things to do. Besides this 30 minutes of writing and some work on screenplays that have been gestating for years, I either get to just sitting her watching stuff, playing the two video games I have any interest in right now (Overwatch and the 2015 Magic the Gathering game on my Xbox that I just discovered) or catch up on any of a dozen to a hundred shows I’ve been meaning to watch.

Oh, yeah, there’s also the screener links that are always queued up so I’ll have something to write about in next week’s Weekend Warrior. If you think my apartment is cluttered, just imagine how my screener queue just keeps growing as I have no choice but to sit down and watch them.

Another thing you have to understand about my apartment, and I tell you this o may be you can make some comparison with your own domicile or living situation is that I live alone. I don’t have a typical bedroom, living room, kitchen situation as most people have. I have a futon that’s permanently in a “couch mode” where I sleep at night. When I wake up, I sit up and my laptop is on a small table by my bed surrounded by books, magazines, medicine and anything I might need. Next to this desk is my stove... it is about five feet from my head when I’m asleep. And that isn’t even the craziest and scariest part of my scenario. My gas heater, an old gas heater with a thermostat that’s never quite worked properly -- it’s wonderful on days where it’s 70 degrees outside where it kicks in mysterious as are the nights where it’s 20 degrees outside and only slightly warmer in my apartment because the thermostat has decided that the point of a heater is something other than to heat the apartment.

So imagine that situation and every day you wake up and have to decide, “Do I look at this awful place I’m living?” or “Do I sit at my computer and communicate with the outside world, do some writing, listening, watching and just try to get through the day until it’s time to put up my feet and go to sleep again in the exact same place I’ve been sitting all day?”

Think about that and now you may have some idea why in the last 24 hours or so, my mind just couldn’t deal with it anymore. Don’t worry... I’m not at the point where anyone needs to put me on suicide watch or anything. I have enough of a support system that when I get to that point, someone in my life will know about it, whether it’s my brother or any of my hundreds of close friends.

Oh! Speaking of friends, remember that earlier piece I wrote a few weeks ago about “friendship”? While writing about it, I began thinking of a guy who was one of my very best friends for decades, someone who I had a falling out with a few years back and had lost touch with. After writing that I thought to myself, “I probably should try to make right with this guy and see how he and his wife are doing” so I did. And we chatted briefly in Messenger agreeing to get on the phone sometime this week. I’m not going to go into details but something happened a few days ago where I commented on his FB feed, probably the first time I had done so in YEARS, and I get a message hours later criticizing my comment. Things didn’t go particularly well after that because mind you, I’m already on edge due to other things going on in the world right now.

But it basically ended with this guy blocking me on Facebook and me thinking, “Why the hell did I bother to get back in touch with this good friend of mine? Clearly, I had a reason to not be talking to him for four years...and I try to make right and work things out and this is what happens.”

So yeah, there’s definitely a lot of frustration and futility in my life right now and all these daily rituals I’ve been trying to do (including this one) are partially because it’s the only way I can get through this.

As I said, I have a pretty solid online support system and lots of my friends offered me advice on how to deal with my current mindset, and I certainly read every single word that was said and appreciated every bit of advice that was given... but again, I’m not sure that people out there really realize the situation that... and I take full credit and responsibility for all of it... I’ve put myself in.

There’s a common cliché about hindsight being 20/20 and if there’s nothing else I’ve learned from these 30 Minute Experiments, it’s that being able to recognize problems long after they’ve reached a breaking point as I have right now... it’s much easier when you recognize these problems before they happen. And believe me, I have, but for whatever reason I keep allowing these things (whether it’s the stress instigators or the clutter) keep building up to the point where it seems overwhelming to deal with them.

And with that, today’s time is up! If you have any ideas for subjects or topics you’d like me to ramble about, send them my way! (Just nothing about movies, please!) :)

#30ME #30MinuteExperiment #FreeForAll

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elisehu · 7 years

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In general, my experiences during these short bursts of time in the states are always memorable because they are so abbreviated, and therefore I have to really make the most of every moment. In my brief moments of downtime I a.) kept going to the Au Bon Pain next to my DC hotel to get giant iced teas and breakfast sandwiches and b.) watched some domestic cable news, which let’s face it, is pretty terrifying these days. The programming is interrupted by catheter and other medical device commercials, which are clues I should not be watching.

Highlights that I can piece together through the jet lag:

The Washington Half

Finally visited the Blacksonian — the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture — on the day I landed in DC. Eyes still bloodshot from the flight and jet lag setting in, Matt Thompson, his partner Bryan and I powered through and saw crazy amazing stuff like the Parliament Funkadelic MOTHERSHIP. Yes, yes we did.

Friend Claire came down from New York for a hang. We lingered over a three and a half hour dinner at a mezcal place, not because of the meal but because we had some epic catching up to do.

Hanson, you know, of mmmmbop fame from 20 years ago, played a Tiny Desk Concert on the first day I went back to work in DC. They actually played two, because they recorded their very special Christmas Tiny Desk, too. Taylor (the middle one) and I joked around a bit about how the dinosaur on his Christmas sweater was wearing the same sweater, creating some sort of ugly Christmas sweater matrix.

One of my ex-work spouses, Javaun, took a train up from Lynchburg (where he now lives) to spend Tuesday evening hanging out and eating barbecue and drinking beers together. I can’t even remember all the ground we covered because, beer.

Don Gonyea gave me advice about work and life, which is always much appreciated.

Finally ate at the State Department cafeteria in Foggy Bottom — a bucket list item.

Because I am support the notion of spending money to save time, I hired April Yvonne, friend of my always glam friend Angie Goff, to shop for me. She picked out racks of clothes in a few Georgetown shops in advance, so all I had to do was try things on and make decisions. The whole excursion only took two hours in total and I was hella wardrobed for the weekend and work by the end. Endorse.

The Austin Half

Met the following babies who have joined us since I’d last been in Austin: Baby Adaline. Baby Thomas. Baby Marcella. Baby EJ. Baby Franklin. Toddler Hattie. Toddler Emma. Missed Baby Sam, who is fattening up in a NICU right now, but boy was I overjoyed to see his parents.

Sam’s dad Jimmy is my ultimate favorite eating partner. He also cooks delicious food and personally catered my engagement party with Spanish tapas since he trained to be a chef in the kitchens of Spain and Charleston, SC. Because of serendipity, the weekend I was in Austin was also the Far East Food Festival, in which some sixty Austin restaurants served up healthy portions of various Asian creations and Jimmy was judging the food. He added me as a judge so we CHOWED DOWN until the heat and the food consumption did us in. I had to quit early because I just couldn’t eat anymore. Embarrassing, but true.

Due to the abbreviated time, there were extra meals sandwiched in. On Friday I had a cheeseburger appetizer at P Terry’s while en route to Cooper’s barbecue where we disappeared pounds of brisket, sausage and ribs plus jalapeno mac-and-cheese, potato salad and the standard vat of pickles plus white bread. (Also Cooper’s offers free beans!) This was my favorite meal because of the strong appetizer IN THE CAR ON THE WAY to BBQ and my reliable eating buddies, Blake and Justin, joined to work up some serious meat sweats. I probably could have recovered for third lunch after this but we had do disperse.

Reunited with the dim sum club on Saturday morning to eat our faces off.

Did not see my oracle, Harry Whittington (the guy Dick Cheney accidentally shot in the face) but did see Bachelor Brad, who we seem to run into in Austin pretty much all the time. Is he everywhere? Is it because he’s a twin?

Surprised my goddaughter Marion Cass at her school, which led to second graders drawing me a bunch of butterflies and teaching me how to play a game called Sleeping Queen (need to get this for my daughters). Marion Cass also had me over to her house Sunday afternoon where she showed me how she can do things like SPLITS IN THE AIR because, gymnastics and being seven.

The purpose of this Austin return was to attend Friend Todd’s wedding. Did it, and so glad, because I love weddings! I also get to take partial credit for this union in the butterfly-flaps-its-wings kind of way, because I brought Todd to the Texas Tribune in 2009 as we were starting it. Here’s what happened: He was a weirdo who was teaching me Final Cut Pro as a part of a class I took at Austin Film School. I decided he was adorable even though I’m pretty sure he didn’t wash his hair at the time and was always railing about the dangers of aspartame and fluoride. Started calling him Hot Toddy behind his back (he later confronted me about this and yep, guilty) and convinced our boss Evan to give him a job at the Tribune because we were in wild wild west days of throwing jobs around. It was through this job that he met Carsi, his bride.

Reeve and I ran the hike and bike trail and joked around the whole time, just like the good ol’ days.

Sent up a flare in DC, and again in Austin, for big group happy hours. Both led to the happiest reunions, predictably. In Austin, April, my BFF from those halcyon days of my partying/Texas lege-covering twenties in Austin, HAPPENED to also be back after moving away to Toronto a few years ago. We got to see each other for about twenty minutes. I’ll take it.

The last time I was in America, I was two people. This time it was just me and my pump, which had to be used every few hours for the duration of the nine-day trip, the bottles and bags of expressed milk piling up in my respective hotel freezers until I had so much that I paid $400 in heavy baggage fees to bring all that liquid gold home. In order to keep it frozen while flying, I snuck in a trip to Ace Hardware in DC and got a giant padded cooler bag, which ended up being perfect. Thanks, Ace Hardware.

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First stop upon getting home: Matt Thompson

Blacksonian.

Mothership!

Hanson’s Christmas sweaters.

Kevin and David at work

Tuesday night drinking club reunites

Javaun and Chris

Don Gonyea, everybody.

Nate Rott put this cooler together for my milk.

My work product after three days.

With my god baby, who’s so big now

Surprising second graders.

The girls liked the Korean crayons

Worth flying 8,000 miles, yknow?

We cleaned up for Todd.

Snack at Todd’s wedding

Just married

Watching Austin’s pride parade from the wedding venue

Baby EJ’s first dim sum.

Reeve meets baby Thomas at a brunch

Baby Adaline, one of many babies I met

Hotel room hang with Nurse and the brood

Hattie in my Austin shower.

First Time To Trump's America In general, my experiences during these short bursts of time in the states are always memorable because they are so abbreviated, and therefore I have to really make the most of every moment.

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