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yamithediaperdork · 3 years

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Baby of the family OR Birthday wishes are tricky pt 1 (Power pack)

Baby of the family OR Birthday wishes are tricky

It was Alex's 15th birthday and while he found the party his parents were throwing him to be a little cheesy and childish. He did understand though at a certain level this party wasn't just for him even though it should of been. Being the oldest meant his needs were put on the back burner for Julie or Jack's or Katie's needs, and toss in Katie was STILL wetting the bed at 8 years old (and wearing pull ups for longer car trips) and well, he'd basically had to become a mini adult. it was Katie and Jack who drew his attention now, watching them run around the living room with Jack having apparently stolen Katie's stuffie again. 'You know, for someone who so desperately wants to be man of the house..he needs to stop being such a bully.' Alex thought and went to move over to stop him. "Don't worry Birthday boy, I got this." Julie said, holding up a hand and marching over. his oldest sister and still younger then him, Alex smirked as he watched Julie snag jack by the ear and march him over to say sorry to Katie. having a big sister like Katie would of been sooo cool growing up, he watched Julie interact with Katie and Jack lots and while her and Jack didn't always get along, she tried. "alright everyone, to the table. time for the birthday boy to blow out the candle!" Came Mr.Parker's voice. His parents just knew of him as a nice guy who had recently moved into the neighborhood to help look after his aunt but of course Alex and the others knew the truth. Mousey gentle Peter Parker was really spider-man. And he wasn't even the only superhero at the party! of course with the kids being the hero team known as power pack one would expect a few heroes to show up but mom and dad were actually STILL clueless about the powers. That said Jack being best friends with Franklin Richards, AKA the son of Reed and Sue Richards meant that not only Franklin but Johnny and Sue had a excuse to come over. (the thing while loving birthday party's had excused himself apparently upset when he was told he couldn't go in the bounce house this time, while reed who Alex had hoped would show up had gotten busy with a experiment.) Mix in the other kids who'd been invited and a whole lotta people were singing happy birthday to Alex as his barbie princess cake (He'd made the mistake of asking Katie to pick out a cake for him) was carried over and he closed his eyes and thought of a wish. 'I wish I could be the baby of the family for once. see what it's like to be like Katie.' he thought, then blew.

The party went on for awhile longer but soon guests were excused and some of the family had to get ready for bed. and by some of the family that meant Katie on her back in the living room, both hands on a sippy cup of warm milk and watching the last of a cartoon movie as Julie got her tapped up in her thick bed time diapers. Of course they didn't WANT to put the 8 year old back in diaper diapers, but without how much Katie flooded the bed there was no choice. heck, the car trip Pull up's were starting not to be enough. the sippy cup was because once it got close to her bed lately Katie seemed to zone out and as funny as seeing her dump a drink on her face was, the clean up was awful and she had started asking for warm milk before bed and no one wanted her to burn herself. "hey Alex, I know your the birthday boy and all, but my show is coming on and if I don't claim the tv now Jack will put it on something stupid and say he was there first just to tick me off...you mind?" Julie asked, scooping up the almost asleep now padded Katie and offering her to him. "heh, I got this." Alex said and took Katie who oddly..seemed heavier then normal. 'must be from all the sweets she packed away.' Alex thought and struggling to not show he was having a little bit of trouble, carried her up the stairs.

with Katie bear in bed, Alex yawned big time and headed for the bathroom. it was only going on 8 pm but he felt just wiped as he paused to look in the mirror. 'no bags under my eyes and I look ok..maybe it's just sugar crash.' Alex thought and shrugged. Normally one to put off his shower till right before bed, Alex started the water running and heating up as he stripped and answered natures call, then got in and started to wash himself. on a silly whim he made use of one of the pink extra soft cloths they used on Katie because of her baby soft skin and also used some of the fruity smelling princess shampoo she had, giggling and picturing a old bugs bunny cartoon as he lathered up his hair.

Downstairs Julie and Jack exchange puzzled faces as the water started up for a shower. Mom and dad were a few doors down meeting aunt May and Alex never went for a early shower unless forced too. heck, you could set a clock to his shower time! "..Maybe Katie sprung a leak already and he's cleaning her?" Jack suggest and shrugged a little. "no way! those new diapers are MASSIVE! even a little pee princess like her couldn't make them leak THIS fast." Julie said shaking her head. "welp, that's all I got. Maybe he just wanted to cover up the sound of his taking a massive dump. you KNOW how much he blushes when we tease him." Jack laughed. "Pffft yeah..mister gruntzilla. I think the whole block knows when he's going he grunts and whimpers so loud. " Julie snickered. "Remember when Katie knocked down the bathroom door convinced he was being attacked because he kept going..oh god..what was it.." "Oh! 'please god please god Oh oH oHHH!'" Julie said, mimicking Alex's whimpers of despair. "Bwhahahaha yeah! That was when he took too much diarrhea medicine because he had to give a speech to the whole school and kept getting the runs." "then couldn't unload for five days. yeah. Mom and Dad were gonna take him to the ER if he hadn't of gone when he did." the middle siblings laughed and shared more embarrassing stories about their respective roomies as the TV show was forgotten.

Alex was swaying back and forth on his feet, having fallen asleep standing up in the shower and only woken up when the cold water hit him. He was shivering a little from that but mostly moved as if drunk he was just sooo tired out of the blue and hauled himself out of the shower and turned it off and grabbed a large white towel and started to dry himself but was doing a worse job of it then Katie had when she was 5. shrugging it off he just wrapped it around him like a damp clock and made his way into his way into his and Jack's room, and headed for his dresser. deciding to go with a KISS solution since he was so tired, Alex just tugged on a pair of old white briefs (he'd been avoiding them lately despite liking their cut better then boxers because Jack kept calling them toddler pants) Tossing the wet towel in the hamper Alex stumbled over to his bed and plopped down, face first and was out like a light before he could even cover up.

around 9 was Jack's bed time and their parents where back, having asked where Alex was and Julie and Jack told them as far as they knew, he'd gone to bed. Making his way upstairs Jack had 'somehow' managed to put off taking his shower and gosh, would just have to get it in tomorrow. It wasn't that Jack didn't care for showers or liked being stinky, just there was ALWAYS something better to do then take a shower. Coming into the room he shared with his dweeb of a big brother, Jack noted that the light was still on which meant Alex had to of been super tired since he was super OCD about turning off lights if they weren't being used. Looking over Jack snorted at the site of Alex on his back, legs and left arm sprawled out in his bed while he was sucking on his right thumb, in just his toddler pants. 'what a doofus.' Jack thought and shook his head. Doofus or not, he was still his brother and Jack didn't want the dork to get a cold. with that in mind he tugged Alex's Blanket up over him, then as a after thought grabbed one of his own old stuffies (that he was keeping around because they'd be worth money some day. not that he still totally needed ot loved them!) and held out Mr. Fuzzy wuzzy , having it brush on the blonds arm. Alex reached out with his free arm in his sleep, coming out from under the blanket and whined around his thumb. "whoa..too much cake and pop and Alex goes baby brained! awesome!" Jack thought with a grin but then let the big toddler have the stuffie and huggle it. 'I'm going soft in old age.' Jack thought to himself then after changing into just his boxers got the lights and climbed into bed.

In a universe where a god of Myth fought alongside with a world war 2 hero, a man who had built his own battle armor and well, any number of different heroes and villains and forces exist, it was amazing that random wishes weren't picked up by more cosmic being's who might just answer them. and for the most part, it's a good thing that most of these are ignored because Alex was about to learn what happened when a simple wish can get granted, at least to a degree.

Alex hung his head in shame as he showed his parents what had happened the next morning. Having always told Julie, Jack and many many times Katie that they should be honest with their parents if they have accidents, it had been Alex's turn to practice what he preached when he'd woken up this morning in a very soggy bed. Thankfully it didn't smell THAT bad and mom and dad were going to open the windows and air out the mattress in the back yard, but Alex was still SUPER ashamed. He'd of course gone and gotten washed up but came back to find the others in his and Jack's room, and two out of three of them were being less then nice with no mom or dad in site to call them off. "Sheesh, and I thought I dodged having to deal with anything worse then you with a milkshake in you!" Jack said, holding his nose and waving a hand. "Oh puh-lkease. you think this is bad? try waking up in a diaper pail everyday because of pee princess here." Julie said, and jerked a thumb at Katie. "H-hey! don't be meanies!" Katie huffed and then turned to a mortified Alex, patting his leg. "It's OK Alex, accidents happen. but worse case you can come into my room. as Julie said..it uh..kinda smells.." "Kinda?" Julie asked and then shuddered. "and that's all i need, twin pee fountains going off in stereo." "I-it's not that bad!" Alex whined. "and really? Little miss farts rainbows is gonna start giving lip about sleeping arrangements!?!" Katie added as Julie's cheeks flared red now. "we talked about that,m you're not su-" "and YOUR not 'pose to complain about me either. fair's fair." Katie said and nodded her head. Alex gave Katie a weak smile. "heh, thanks for coming to my defense..kinda, Katie bear." Alex said and gave er a hug. He was sure this would prove to be a just one time thing, and as such, tried to put it out of his mind as much as he could when a look out the window showed his mattress being set up in the back yard.

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goose-books · 3 years

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goose-books productions: a 2020 review

view the image in higher quality here! (open the image in a new tab to zoom in.) thank you to my dearest @yvesdot for the template

transcripts and month-by-month details under the cut! for reference, you can find my projects here :-) overall, new and old followers, thank you for another good year over here! [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your h

january

i spent late 2019-early 2020 working on 2019’s nano project, quark, aka the speculative fiction thing about new york city and prophets and dissections of the chosen one trope and gay people. quark is my second-oldest project (five years!), but it’s also probably the most ambitious, so it’s been... difficult to wrangle into place, and i didn’t end up finishing a first draft. oh, well.

enjoy a snippet that is devastatingly emblematic of everything about quark. the tone. the homoerotic tension. the ensemble cast all talking over each other. the fact that caelum has spent pretty much this entire scene crying. fun autopsy report meeting.

Marble stares at the notebook in Shade’s hands. Or maybe he’s staring at Shade’s hands. Dawn feels a little voyeuristic, so she does what she does and says a dumb and unrelated thing: “Augustus, I think this pizza-on-the-floor thing is hurting my ass.”

Augustus flutters his hands. “Sometimes nonconformity is painful.”

“At least we’re originals,” Caelum mumbles into his sleeve.

“Exactly,” Augustus says.

“True originality doesn’t exist,” Marble says.

“Oh,” Shade deadpans, “it’s going to be a fun autopsy report meeting.”

It isn’t.

february

in january i stressed myself out trying to make the plot of quark work. so in february, i decided to take some time and write something Entirely For Fun. like, entirely for fun, no rules. and. my god. how do i explain the project i started calling “third eye for the bad guy.”

it was an unholy mashup of many of my past hyperfixations, including the gone series, a tale of two cities, warrior cats, and the left hand of darkness. one of the characters was a canon scalie and one was a canon fictionkinnie. it centered around a polycule of wannabe-evil-overlord high schoolers. i only wrote like three chapters but i was lost in the sauce for all of february and then i just… like… wiped it from my mind and moved on? somehow??? one character was a werewolf and that literally wasn’t relevant at ALL

Someone was going to die on these steps.

This had been Ivy Lee Palomo’s thought last year during the all-school photo, and it rose in her mind again now. The one hundred marble stairs leading up to the great double doors of Saint Constantine Academy were the school’s pride and glory, steep as the mountain, sharp as the blade under Ivy Lee’s skirt. With the cutting wind and snow glazing the stone more often than not, with the freshmen wild and wired on their first day of their first year, it was really only a matter of time before someone slipped and cracked their fucking head open.

It wasn’t going to be her. Not when she had Doc Martens and reflexes like an electric coil. Still. Ivy Lee didn’t want to watch someone die. She didn’t get along with dead people.

march

in march, i got back to the project i’d started in 2019 - AMT, my podcast! it’s a shakespeare retelling set in a modern high school; this excerpt is funnier and also more unnerving in context. (double, double, toil and trouble...)

INDRAJIT: What the hell are you doing?

[PAUSE.]

DEE (like she’s lying): Making pasta.

[ALL THREE OF THEM LAUGH.]

NONA: That’s right.

MORA: We have the keys to Mab’s office.

DEE: We’re using her stove.

NONA: To make pasta.

DEE: Do you want some?

[A TENSE PAUSE.]

INDRAJIT: No.

april

and darkling rears its head! all of my other projects have existed for at least a year; darkling (specfic king lear retelling) is... special. it was conceived in april, when i started hyperfixating on king lear, and i still managed to write an absolutely ridiculous amount of content for it. it was like the power of hyperfixation let me speedrun the entire process. which. okay.

iv: control

They say Cressida Stayer was nine years old when she turned her hair to gold. They laid her down in bed blonde, and the next morning, the waves cascading down her shoulders were solid metal, glinting harshly in the sunlight, weighing her down, creating that odd head-cocked expression she still wears now. Nine years old. Two or three years before most people develop enough magic skills to dye a single curl. Much less transfigure their hair into precious metal.

People also say Leovald Stayer’s immediate reaction was to hack it off her head and melt it down for cash. But generally they say that part a lot quieter.

may

in may i wrote AMT episode 15, by which i mean that in may there was a day when i sat in my room with the door shut for literally five straight hours listening to the same three songs on loop as i wrote the climax of one of the plotlines of AMT. so. that sure was… a day.

ISAAC: Do you want… do you want someone to drive you home? Hawk, you’re worrying me -

HAWK (almost cutting him off): Don’t. Don’t say that. I’m here to help. With your… thing.

ISAAC (quietly): I… don’t know if you should be here to see this.

HAWK (a little louder, more audibly upset): Well - what else am I going to do? Go home and - and have my dads talk at me and - and not be able to answer them? Because I can’t? I can’t. I don’t know what to say.

[PAUSE.]

ISAAC (V.O.): I wonder if this is what he feels like, on the outside, looking in at me. Watching someone else hurting. Helpless and afraid.

He still fits perfectly in my arms. I rest my chin on top of his head and pull him close to me, like I can stop him from shaking, like I can stop anything from happening the way I know it’s going to. I bury my face in his hair. He smells so familiar. He’s so warm.

God, Hawk. I love you so much. You shouldn’t be here to see this. Something bad’s gonna happen. And you’re not the kind of person who belongs in a tragedy.

june

okay, honestly, i should talk about “night shift” here, because in june i wrote a whole short story in one night (and then foamed over it for a week), but i am still in the process of submitting it places! so i am terrified to put even a sentence of it online. instead: the other thing i did this month was to finish AMT! (sixteen episodes and somewhere around 175k, iirc, but don’t quote me.) these lines are the opener to the final episode!

RAHMA (V.O.): The combined series of sophomore year disasters stretched through November. It’s June now. It’s taken me… a long time to get this all put together. I was going to make a vlog about it, initially - well, calling it a vlog sounds frivolous. I was going to make a video recounting the whole deal. All of it. From when I kissed Avery Fairchilde to the very last night. I scripted dozens of drafts; I put together dozens of bullet-pointed lists of what to cover… and it was never enough. Because Avery and I weren’t the only ones involved. Even if I was only focused on the two of us, it wasn’t just the two of us.

So… I gathered up everyone else. The whole town of Ellisburg is still talking about the week the town went crazy, but it wasn’t just a week. There was a lot leading up to it. And I think if anyone’s going to talk about it, it should be us. The people who lived it. So here we are. The most ambitious Rahma Ashiq production of all time - at least so far.

july

every july i pause whatever else i’m doing to celebrate the birthday of aurum & argentate, twins from my oldest and dearest WIP The Mortal Realm. july fifteenth! mark your calendars. they’re princes, though argentate would really rather not be; you can read the full birthday piece here.

“Do you… plan to get dressed?” A bit of the usual humor crept back into Aurum’s voice. “Although if you want to speak to the kingdom in your underthings, by all means, you have my full support.”

Argentate scrubbed at his face. He wasn’t dressed, no, but the usual malaise hung over his shoulders like a cloak. Guilt. Nerves. The sick sense that he hadn’t done something he was supposed to. The numb knowledge that it was too late to change a thing.

“I meant to,” he said. “Get dressed, I mean.” The rest went unsaid: I have just been sitting here. On the floor. Thinking about how I should get dressed.

“Ah,” Aurum said, extending his hand. “The traditional route. We’ll save the nude speeches for the future, then.”

Argentate took his hand, stumbling a little as Aurum pulled him to his feet. He steadied himself on the closest wall, taking a few deep breaths. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. His hands found their way to the cross, again and again.

august

this summer, i wrote an entire draft of Valentine Van Velt is Dead, AKA “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy,” AKA the weird little personal side project i keep tucked into my coat. interesting features include second-person narration from a narrator who doesn’t like the main character all that much. so reading it is kind of like the book wants to kill you? with an added dash of general melancholy.

You used to live here. That’s the thing that’s got you feeling so off.

You didn’t recognize your old house. I mean, you kind of did. You remembered that the road was on a hill. That hill felt like a goddamn forty-five degree angle when you were a kid. But if you didn’t have the address written down you wouldn’t have known it at all. It would have been just another little suburban house in rows of perfect little towns that make your skin crawl.

So now you’re in this diner looking out a gross smudgy window trying to block out the elevator music pumping through the speakers in the ceiling or whatever. I don’t know how speakers work. You’re trying to tune that shit out. The waitress comes over and catches you by surprise so you just point at some coffee thing on the menu so she’ll go away. For the record: you don’t drink coffee.

There’s a public library across the street. A little square building. You probably used to go there. The lady comes over and thunks your coffee on the table and gives you a kind of look, like she wants to know what in the goddamn hell you think you’re doing here and not at school. You sip your coffee and look out the window until she leaves you alone again. And then you spit it back into the cup because, for the record: you don’t drink coffee.

september

i spent september and october prepping for nano, so i was mostly working on darkling...

It’s late spring; still, at this time of night, on a rooftop, there’s a chill. The wind plays with the end of Ruby’s coat, with her hair. She hands the bottle off to Jasper, stares up at the fogged-over sky, wishes she were lying in Dany’s arms in Dany’s bed instead of here. Wishes, even, that Dany were the one on the roof with her. At least then they’d be cold together. At least then she wouldn’t have to imagine what Dany would say; she could just listen, and watch Dany’s flashing smile and her flinty eyes.

(She cuddles. This is another thing Dany does that Dany probably shouldn’t do, based on everything about Dany; it’s not like rattlesnakes cuddle. But Dany likes to nuzzle into Ruby’s side and rest her head on Ruby’s collarbones and toss an arm over Ruby’s chest, and hold her down like she’s worried she’ll float off somewhere. She’ll card her fingers through Ruby’s hair and hum. Even though they could get caught, even though she’s probably got better places to be - Dany cuddles.)

Ruby imagines it, momentarily, both of them on the roof together, sprawled like horrifyingly beautiful gargoyles, sharp teeth flashing, blood running hot. Up here - it’d be like they ruled the world.

But whatever. Jasper’s fun. He’s hot. He’s got a sharp tongue in a lot more ways than one. And she likes when he lets the mask down. She likes seeing the soft bits underneath. She wants to sink her teeth and nails into them so hard she draws blood. Masks don’t bleed. Ruby would know; that’s why she is what she is.

october

...though i was also in creative writing class in school, and thus ended up writing a bunch of poems of varying quality (my teacher had a real thing for poetry) and also one darklingverse short story where rory and cressida hold hands! which you can find here.

Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.

This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.

Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.

They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.

november

and then november of course was nano which was an adventure all the way through. (opening tumblr on the fifth day of nano to find out about d*stiel... was something.)

“Apologize to me. Or get out of my house.”

Gracen’s voice is very, very low. For a moment she thinks he hasn’t heard her at all. Then he spins, eyes blazing. “What did you say?”

Gracen watches her own chest heave. She pushes herself up off the desk, stands with the effort of pushing a mountain off of her back. Leovald is six-foot-four. Gracen is six-foot-two. In her heels, in the heels she must wear to be a professional woman, to be a lady - they are the same height.

Gracen wipes her nose. When she lowers her arm, there’s a streak of blood across the back of her hand. Fire shivers in her chest; her heart rings in her ears; her voice could cut steel.

“I said,” she says, low, slow, volume building, “apologize to me. Or get. Out. Of. My. House.”

december

and finally, the poem i posted this year! it’s called the beast sonnet, and you can find it in its own post over here (with commentary! how sexy.)

i kill the beast and drop down to my knees, my blade stained dark with blood of stygian hue, and for a moment these scarred hands shake free, and hold a world unfurled for me anew. but once-mourned victims, victors, vices find; fear winged me; now its absence strips me bare. my sword now dulls, my legs, my voice, my mind; the beast, pried from my throat, leaves no skill there. and still i hear it laugh, O DEVOTEE— O CHILD DEAR, NO GLORY WITHOUT ME.

i was quite productive this year; i have to think it was because i was avoiding things... the peak of my productivity happened over the summer and in november, AKA, college app hell. (almost done with the last applications! pray for me.)

a general breakdown of what occupied me this year:

(no, i don’t know why the “various other things” category ended up so large... i blame all the one-off projects i wrote a single page for, and also whatever the fuck happened in february. yes, i do know why it looks hideous; it’s because each of my WIPs has a theme color

thank you once again for spending some time at goose-books dot gov this year! what to expect for next year: well, i very much hope i can produce AMT... also hoping to get darkling ready for beta readers, so keep your eyes out!

#max.txt #and that's a wrap!!! what a goddamn year.#okay. breath in. tags:#quark tag #third eye tag #(i think there are like. two posts in that one?)#amt tag #darkling tag #tmr tag #vvvid tag #wow that was a lot of text. if you read all this... [blows you a kiss] thank you!#max actually writes #year in review

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hlupdate · 4 years

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Ask Louis Tomlinson to name his favourite song on Walls and he’ll change his mind several times. It could be the title track, on which he shares co-writing credits with an idol. Or irresistible current single Don’t Let It Break Your Heart, which boasts his most addictive chorus to date.

Lyrically, he’s rightly proud of all twelve tracks, most rooted in real life, but in particular those that dig deep on subjects ranging from relationships and family to the folly of youth and days of self-doubt. Live, he’s most looking forward to performing the songs that reflect the indie-rock he grew up on and still adores today.

In fact, it scarcely matters which songs Louis likes best because his fans are about to get the chance to choose for themselves. After two years spent honing his sound and sharpening his skills as a heart-on-sleeve songwriter, the 27 year old simply can’t wait to release his debut album and take it on tour.

“I feel like this is the start of my career, with so much to look forward to and all the plans in place,” says Louis. “Honestly, I’ve been through every emotion possible in the past few years and come out the other side stronger and more confident than I’ve ever been.

“I know I’ve made an album that my fans will like, one that sounds like me and has its own identity. There were times I wasn’t sure if this was what I should be doing. Now I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

2019 was the year that Louis found his feet as a solo artist. He followed his award-winning return in March with Two of Us, which took the tragic loss of his mother as a touchstone and connected with fans around the world, with a run of acclaimed singles – the raucous Kill My Mind, the reflective We Made It and the soaring pop perfection of Don’t Let It Break Your Heart.

2020 is the year that Louis goes live with a 50 date World Tour, his first as a solo artist, with many dates already sold out including all the UK shows. A recent date in Madrid was his first full gig since the demise of One Direction. From early March until late July, he’ll be on tour near nightly, crossing countries and continents with Walls.

“I don’t have long to get fit,” laughs Louis. “Seriously, I played football on a shoot the other day and ten minutes in I was wheezing. Don’t worry, I have plenty people telling me to get to the gym. That’s the only bit I’m dreading.” Walls’ collaborators include the L.A.-based Brit Jamie Hartman (Rag’n’Bone Man, James Bay) and Jamie Scott (One Direction, Bieber) If Walls recalls classic, ‘90s Oasis, it’s because Louis still listens to those early albums. “It really hit home when I was in the studio to hear the strings being recorded. There must have been 25 musicians in there, all for my song. It was a proper tear-jerking moment already and I’ve never felt a shiver like it.”

Fans will find plenty to tingle their spines on 12 songs that lyrically hark as far back as Louis’ 1D days, recall relationship ups and downs and relate the life lessons learnt on the way to 27.

The fabulous Habit is a message to fans and a reflection on fame steeped in gorgeous electric guitar, with a reference to Princess Park for 1D devotees.

“There was a time I felt like I was treading water with my career,” says Louis. “I wasn’t sure if I 100% wanted to carry on. It was frustrating and, of course, fame can feel intrusive when you’re unsure of yourself, but I tried to imagine myself not doing this job, not having the support of the fans and I couldn’t.

“Music is the habit that I keep coming back to. Forget feeling sorry for myself. Habit is a thank you to fans and a reminder to me to be grateful for being given this position.”

While We Made It recalled Louis’ pre-fame days, hanging out with his girlfriend Eleanor in her student halls and their teen dreams for the future, both Walls and the acoustic Too Young recount the break-ups that ultimately made the pair’s relationship stronger.

“Too Young is about meeting ‘the one’ aged 18 and, like a lot of blokes that age, not being equipped for it,” says Louis. “I found it hard to look that far ahead. I had to make a few mistakes and go down the wrong path to realise what I had and what I thought I’d lost.

“Walls is more specific. It’s about coming home having been on tour, soon after we’d split. I found some of my girlfriend’s clothes in the cupboard and it hit me what I’d done. I love the indie sound of the song and its circular nature – it opens and closes with the same lyric.”

That lyric – ‘Nothing wakes you up like waking up alone’ – is among several on Walls that shows Louis’ progression as a songwriter ready to reveal his vulnerable side. ‘The day you walked away was the day I became the man that I am now,’ is another.

“I pretend not to be romantic, but I am,” says Louis. “Two years ago, I couldn’t have written those lyrics. I would have felt too exposed. But that’s age for you, I suppose. It sounds daft because 27 isn’t old, but I think about ageing a lot these days.”

On Fearless, which opens and closes with children’s voices, Louis looks back at the peers he grew up with and ponders what ageing means.

“I’m at this crossroads age where I look at people from past and they seem so grown up to me now,” he says. “I won’t call them boring, but I do think people could take life less seriously. Have more fun while we’re still young because it doesn’t last.”

The oldest song on Walls is Almost You, the most recently recorded the album’s beautiful, stripped-back closer Only the Brave, which clocks in at a mere 1.44 minutes.

“The reason Always You stayed is that I teased 15 seconds of it on one of my socials years back and, ever since, the fans have been desperate to hear it,” says Louis. “I owed them that one.” “Only The Brave I think may have been written for Liam Gallagher. It’s the one song I didn’t write much on. It was played to me and I instantly adored it. There was talk of making it longer, but what’s great is that it’s so short, yet gets its message across so clearly.

“Plus, it’s the twelfth song. That’s more than enough of me in one sitting.”

#Louis tomlinson #stunt mention #270120 #walls

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dailytomlinson · 4 years

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Walls’ collaborators include the L.A.-based Brit Jamie Hartman (Rag’n’Bone Man, James Bay) and Jamie Scott (One Direction, Bieber)

If Walls recalls classic, ‘90s Oasis, it’s because Louis still listens to those early albums. “It really hit home when I was in the studio to hear the strings being recorded. There must have been 25 musicians in there, all for my song. It was a proper tear-jerking moment already and I’ve never felt a shiver like it.”

Fans will find plenty to tingle their spines on 12 songs that lyrically hark as far back as Louis’ 1D days, recall relationship ups and downs and relate the life lessons learnt on the way to 27.

The fabulous Habit is a message to fans and a reflection on fame steeped in gorgeous electric guitar, with a reference to Princess Park for 1D devotees. “There was a time I felt like I was treading water with my career,” says Louis. “I wasn’t sure if I 100% wanted to carry on. It was frustrating and, of course, fame can feel intrusive when you’re unsure of yourself, but I tried to imagine myself not doing this job, not having the support of the fans and I couldn’t.

“Music is the habit that I keep coming back to. Forget feeling sorry for myself. Habit is a thank you to fans and a reminder to me to be grateful for being given this position.”

“Walls is more specific. It’s about coming home having been on tour, soon after we’d split. I love the indie sound of the song and its circular nature – it opens and closes with the same lyric.”

On Fearless, which opens and closes with children’s voices, Louis looks back at the peers he grew up with and ponders what ageing means. “I’m at this crossroads age where I look at people from past and they seem so grown up to me now,” he says. “I won’t call them boring, but I do think people could take life less seriously. Have more fun while we’re still young because it doesn’t last.”

The oldest song on Walls is Almost You, the most recently recorded the album’s beautiful, stripped-back closer Only the Brave, which clocks in at a mere 1.44 minutes.

“The reason Always You stayed is that I teased 15 seconds of it on one of my socials years back and, ever since, the fans have been desperate to hear it,” says Louis. “I owed them that one.”

“Only The Brave I think may have been written for Liam Gallagher. It’s the one song I didn’t write much on. It was played to me and I instantly adored it. There was talk of making it longer, but what’s great is that it’s so short, yet gets its message across so clearly. “Plus, it’s the twelfth song. That’s more than enough of me in one sitting.”

#crash records #louis tomlinson #270120 #walls review #stunt mention #death tw #wpress

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loringj23 · 3 years

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The Days are Still Good

Today I woke up around 1 pm, not too early, not too late. My dad was waiting in his truck reading something. He harassed me for a second about being lazy. “No no don’t worry about me, Jubu, I know you have a busy schedule you don’t have to mind ol chop liver over here.” Chop liver? I think in this context it could be synonymous with that time you got picked last for the early morning kickball game before the bell rang for morning meeting. My dad makes me drive. I only got my license last year whereas my older siblings have had theirs for quite some time. I think he trusts me a bit more than them. Well, he also broke his back in a horseback riding accident. You remember as a kid being enamored by movies like Pirates of the Caribbean or Angelina Ballerina. Yall ever start wearing bandanas or tutus because it would’ve been really cool to be a pirate? Well, I think my dad got a little bit too attached to John Wayne’s character which manifested into what is his undying middle life crisis of the lone cowboy. And for the record, this wasn’t the first accident, or the second, or third. Hate to be insensitive but the guy has got to give it a rest. We drove to Scratch bakery where we ate bagels and drank coffee. Then we ran our routine errands; Home Depot, the dump, and his job sites. The entire time my dad gave us a vocal highlight reel and anecdotal narration of the drive. He does this every single time. We passed the local high school where my siblings and father all graduated. “The South Portland Penitentiary,” my dad yells out. My brother and I laugh in unison. Not because my dad is any sort of funny but because there’s a mutual understanding within our household that high school just sucked. We loop around a neighborhood where my dad has been revamping old single-family homes. I stop in front of a 1200 square foot bungalow sitting atop a newly seeded yard and a meticulously oriented walkway urging us inside. The house is fixed with dark blue shingles and a pastel yellow entrance. Simple and traditional yet rustic and patented with my dad’s creative touch. We passed the Christmas tree farm where we annually fight over who gets to pick out the Christmas tree because we always forget who did it the year before. Passing all the beautiful trees and untamed forests I remembered snip-it’s of our most lively years. We cruised through our favorite beachfront to watch the waves batter the rocky shores of the East Coast. Beyond the breathtaking dreaminess of the vast ocean was the number of my fellow townees out and about. Dogs fetching balls and kids escaping grasps of their worrisome parents. The beach was packed as if it were ninety degrees on the Fourth of July. They were all smiling. As we paralleled the beach from my dad’s truck, I even waved from the window to all the dog walkers and parents trying to wrangle their kids, I felt like a damn star. I circled back past the beach market and the inn and we pointed out all our favorite houses. Of course, the blissfulness of the drive was cut short when Jack, my brother, wouldn’t stop whining about being hungry. It was okay though; I think we all secretly had to go to the bathroom so no one complained. Coffee is a risky symptom of boredom. Upon circling back, my dad told me to pull into the farm. “You guys want to see the scene of the accident?” He refers to his cowboy antics. So, we drove down the winding back roads while my dad gave us an ESPN play-by-play of the event, successfully making us pee our pants laughing at his own demise. But that’s our humor. We stopped at the Italian market for sandwiches before returning to our bunker. Casey, my oldest sister, had to call in the order because she had the slowest reflex in the “nose game”. I grabbed 5 sandwiches, Cool Ranch Doritos, and a dumb amount of 20 oz. Red Bulls. I caught up with the family, cheffing it up in the back while Jack caught up with his buddy from high school. They asked how my dad was to which I responded with the usual sarcasm that infamously characterizes my family. They laughed and told me to give my father their best. Before walking out we ran into one of our old middle school teachers. She barely recognized us. Peering over her sunglasses trying to make out the 6’’7’ guy towering over my 5’’9’ self, she asks with bewilderment: “Is that Jack?” He’s tall we get it. She told us that her son was in good health and had started a family in Washington state. She introduced us to her husband, Larry. I didn’t even know she had a husband. I’m glad she has him. We exchange our regrets for the unfortunate circumstances and wished each other the best. She was stoked to have run into her old students. It probably feels cool knowing you made an imprint on another child’s life. And we drove the little ways back to choke down sandwiches and slug more caffeine. Our town isn’t dead. Our town isn’t asleep. We are alive. We hound our kids to come walk the dog with us. The roaring thrusts of the offshore winds don’t stop us. We storm the beaches to go surf. Suiting up in full winter wet suits to get kissed around by 2-inch waves like a little kid wading in a tide pool. We are still enthused. We happen to run into our sixth-grade science teacher. We reconnect and gush over the “good old days”. But we know the days are still good. We talk and chat and drink way too much coffee for, at the moment, no good or healthy reason at all. Perhaps we are sinning a tad bit too much (but then again, I may be speaking for myself; I’m an advocate for embracing indulgence). We tell our homies we miss them and send them old pictures from when you were a “4” with acne. But we love ourselves and each other anyway. We tell our family we love them. Because we do even if we aren’t around all the time. We smile and wave. And the days are still good.

#storytimewithMEVAseniors

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honeyrose-tea · 3 years

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are you doing anything for new years? if you could call any friend to talk to at midnight to enter the new year together, who would you choose? do you enjoy staying up late or going to bed early? do you like making new years resolutions? if so, what are some of your new years resolutions for 2021? did you have any for 2020? did you succeed at them? if you didn't, are you going to try again this year? what are your hopes for the upcoming year? your fears? your most ridiculous prediction? -🌙

no, I don't have any plans for new years. my parents will likely put on the tv and I might watch a bit of the festivities, or I may just go to bed and let the year come softly. either way, it won't be too eventful. but I don't mind

the past few years I've gone to my friend Syl's (@spice-ghouls) house to celebrate new years with them and a couple friends, and I've always enjoyed that. and they're basically my only friend at the moment, as well as being one of my oldest and best friends. so probably them. I love them very much

I hate waking up early. though I love the morning and think it's a beautiful time of day, I like waking up when my body tells me to and that rarely coincides with the morning. I especially hate alarms, no matter what tone they are it's always such an abrupt way to start the day. I'm excited for the day when my significant other (who is hopefully a lighter sleeper than I am) wakes up to a quiet alarm, rolls over, and gently wakes me up so we can start our day together. maybe then I wouldn't mind waking up early.

as for staying up late, I don't love it either. I do love the night, it has a peace that is similar to yet distinct from the morning. but staying up late is honestly almost a compulsion at this point and it definitely has negative effects on me. it's something I've been working to stop doing over the past year or two. I still do it (it's almost 1am as I type this) but I don't love it either. the best nights are when I go to sleep at a reasonable time (8-11pm) and wake up naturally, but still early enough not to feel as if the day is already wasted

I'm not big on resolutions, actually. I mean I don't mind them, I just don't usually don't have any. if I want to do something, I just start doing it right away, I don't wait for a certain time to start. if I get a whim in July or October or even December to start writing more poems or posting less on social media or whatever, I start immediately instead of making it a whole big new years resolution. part of that is because I'm very instrospective and goal-driven by nature so I'm always seeking out new ways to grow and improve. I think people in general don't think much about their goals until it's time for a milestone like the new year. I guess it's also because the new year just isn't that big of a deal for me. if anything I seem to reflect most on my growth around my birthday rather than new years

that said, I did have a resolution in 2019, simply because I happened to get a whim right around that time of year. the resoltion was to visit all the counties in my state. I had lived here my whole life and hadn't been very far outside the city I live in, I wasn't really familiar with the state's geography either, and that didn't sit right with me. I felt like I couldn't call myself a real resident until I really took ownership of the and got out into the state itself. so from January to July I visited 80+ counties, often with one or both of my parents, and it was incredible. it made me feel so much more connected to my region and we found so many hidden gems. I have tons of pictures and I've done some writing about it if you're ever interested. but yeah, since then it's been kinda hard to come up with new resolutions. I feel like I peaked with that one, I don't know how I'd top it.

I'm not planning on a resolution for 2021, but maybe something will pop into my head in the next couple days. I want to be more social after the vaccine, that I know for sure. it was kind of a wake-up call that the pandemic didn't change my social life hardly at all. I want to spend more time with friends and family and enjoy the little things like the ability to eat in a restaurant or cafe or go thrift shopping or go to the movies. I just think I should do more with my life, and I've been feeling that way for several years now. I've made some small steps, but post-quarantine I want to make bigger ones. my lifetime is finite. outside of that I don't know of anything big I hope to accomplish in 2021. good grades I guess, but that's kind of a given. I'm always aiming for good grades

I hope that the year is filled with love and warmth. I hope it is calm, joyful, and that I can live it out with all the people I love by my side. I hope that for everyone else too, that they can be closer to their loved ones. I hope for less death and sickness and that the virus is eradicated as soon as possible. I hope for more equality and progress, and though they are slow I do believe they're coming. I hope that life becomes more normal, and that people who are hurting are comforted. I hope things go well for my church, because it means a lot to me. selfishly I hope for a significant other, and I hope it's the last one. I'm so ready to be with the person I will spend my life with, I like the thought of stability and security, of building a life with someone. and even more selfishly I hope it's Eli. I hope my dog stays healthy, that my chickens live long lives as well, and that the weather is nice. I hope I get to spend more time outside. I hope that children get to see their friends, go to school, and that they are more carefree. though I don't have any siblings I do have some special kids in my life and I hated seeing how they've suffered this year. I just hope everything is better and happier for everyone, that we are all more successful and compassionate. I especially hope that we will carry our lessons from 2020 with us but leave behind the pain

I have a lot of fears. I am scared of the unknowns about the virus- the effectiveness of the vaccine on a massive population, the new strains, the long-term effects of the virus or even the vaccine that may crop up months or years from now, and much more. I am scared about the state of our society and how reforming it seems nearly impossible, I am scared that at some point this unsustainable system will fall apart, I am afraid of how and when that will happen and how many people will have to suffer and die amidst the collapse. I am afraid of a very lonely and uneventful year, I am afraid of a lonely year filled with bad events too. I am afraid for the health and safety of everyone, especially those I love. I know we aren't out of the woods yet, and the new year will not be a magical fix. I am a little afraid regarding how quickly my future is approaching, that in 2021 I will need to be looking at grad schools and applying to begin my graduate program in fall 2022. I am afraid I will lose my passion, I am afraid maybe I never had any passion to begin with. and as always, I am afraid of being forgotten, but also afraid of being known, deeply known, and still remaining unloved. I think we often forget the mortifying ordeal of being known is not guaranteed to result in love

still, I don't want to dwell on my fears, and though it has been tempting in the midst of all this chaos, I think I have managed to push them away most of the time. I think fear is rarely productive except sometimes as a motivator, and even then I would rather be motivated by love or hope or optimism than by fear. I will end with my absurd prediction, which is of course that Eli and I will get back together and it will be permanent. I hate to say it but I do honestly believe it, even though I know it's ridiculous. I have a deep sense that it will happen. I don't know why. it is just a divine knowing, one that I have only felt before on a couple occasions, both of which were definitely orchestrated by God, I have no doubt about either. but feelings aside, you can never predict the future, and I am excited to see what happens regardless. there is joy in not completely knowing, joy in knowing that you will get to live it out and watch it all unfold. all that I can do is learn and love and grow and work as hard as I can, and the universe will take care of the rest

thank you for this, my friend. your questions aid in my self-reflection and I always feel like I know myself better after writing to you. I hope you are well, and thank you again for taking an interest in me. it means a lot to me, more than I can say. I hope your holidays were/are well. are you doing anything for new years? talk you soon:) xoxo💞

#ask #pen pal #eli

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chrisemrysfics · 4 years

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That moment I can’t recall for sure when I first touched fanfics. And then you get this long post because I rambled about trying to recall and finding the clues.

Read more, but yeah if you’re curious, it’s pretty much my history with reading then writing fics, the fandoms and years, with one two little notes on what I was doing original writing wise.

Long story short: I first started reading fics in (most likely second half of) 2008 and first started writing by the end of 2009, 2009-2011 was a very productive time and it was in YGO GX fandom, then I had a burn out for multiple reason, and it’s by first half of 2013 that I finally had another good productive time with BBC Merlin (while I had mostly left YGO GX, with one fic I still open to finish in some ways), end of 2013 I started writing for Pokemon, and then for a few years I’ve picked up fandoms but never really went far, like I had short term burst of inspiration energy, and long term was just very slow updating because I didn’t wish to quit any of my fics, and then in 2017 I discovered DGM and by July 2017 I was writing for it and have been quite productive since then, especially the first year or so, a big part because it was like, the first big love I have had since BBC Merlin, and it grew as my all time favorite.

A big part of Assassin’s Light being easy to write for a period of time is because it’s half DGM, of course as you noticed things did need to slow down for me, but my love and inspiration for DGM has not lessened. MDZS did come and quickly made me fall so very deeply in love with it, I don’t hide that I love it a little bit more than DGM, but at present time, both DGM and MDZS are my focus, with a slightly easier time writing for MDZS.

(Everything else is still on-going, but very, very, very slow).

The problem is, my files for my fics, I moved them at some point, or copy paste, the oldest dates from 2014 which is two years after I stopped college, which is likely also due to how I changed laptop and such along the years. And the other problem is, I once left ffnet then came back, so I can’t see anymore the actual, initial publish dates.

The best I can use is the date of when I joined ffnet, which is in 2009, but this also places me at 17. I could have been writing my first fic before that, but I wouldn’t have been able to post it until then, and I don’t feel like I had multiple chapters to post, so it is likely that I started writing fics at 16/17. It was my second (of three) years of high school at that age range.

As I feel like I can recall I was reading fics in middle school, the best I can guess is that I started reading fics in my last year of middle school (14 to 15), probably toward the end of it, which kind of feels about right? But that means I spend around a year just reading, like if it’s at the end of middle school, it’s close to when I got to 15, so 2007 (as I would have had my 15th birthday in 2007).

Which sounds about right, I do feel “2007″ is the year I remember. In 2008 I would have had my 16th birthday, and it would have been a year or so since I’ve started reading fics, but the ffnet profile says I joined 11 December 2009, so that’s past my 17th birthday, and makes it easily two years since I started reading fics.

Which blows my mind a bit because I was convinced I started writing not long after, but apparently, not? Like I don’t recall having posted elsewhere before ffnet, so in all logic, it is in December 2009 that I made my account, and likely posted my first fic not long after. So however long I was reading, I was already 17 when I first wrote fics (or late 16 if I started writing a bit but didn’t post).

It is possible I have been mixing up my fic dates with original write, as in that case, I am certain I started writing my first novel in the end of middle school, so the “2007″ in my brain is quite likely when I started writing my first novel (it was end of middle school, so the last few months of being 14 and around being 15, which does all place the year as 2007). Which does make more sense, now that I’m trying to remember, I think I didn’t know yet fanfics when I started writing my original novel?

In short: 2007 aka 14-15, I was writing the start of my original novel (I didn’t finish back then), and somewhere 15-16 so in 2008 I started reading fics (and it was my first year of high school, which, actually does fit better the settings of the school library I vaguely recall). And roughly one year after, in 2009 when I was 17, I made my ffnet account and posted my first fic (which was written either on the spot, or started a few weeks before I made my account, but in any case I was 17 when I wrote my first fic).

For the record: that first fic was Angel and Sephirot in YGO GX, although Eventful Journey followed soon after, so both were completed somewhere in 2010 as I remember I was writing quickly back then, like it was already December 2009 so early 2010 I was very, very likely writing and posting for both fics, and by the end of 2010 I had completed Angel and Sephirot. I know my next multi chap was Hellish Chronicles, and I can find review reply from 2011 in my ffnet inbox. I do think I had some time between Angel and Sephirot and Hellish Chronicle, so that’s why I do feel I finished that first fic at most mid 2010 (and continued more slowly working on Eventful Journey).

I was writing other fics that I had adopted during/after my writing on Hellish Chronicle (which I haven’t put back as I lost contact with the original author, so out of respect I haven’t put them back up), and by September 2011 I can find messages where I mention I was working hard for the start of the second year of college, which does fit since I dropped college after I finished my second year in June 2012, and this also really slowed me down when it came to fics.

In December 2013, I can see the “oldest” fic is Always by your side in BBC Merlin, which is the first I had reposted, and my AO3 was made on February 2013, and I recall that I removed my fic from ffnet when there was some crackdown on fics, but only because I could post them on AO3, so this means I removed my fics from ffnet somewhere between february and december of 2013 (at most, from february to december, less if I didn’t remove them right away). And I started writing for BBC Merlin in 2013 (which seem to be end of 2013), which was after maybe one year or one and a half since I properly wrote anything multi chaptered (while some of the last YGO GX writing I did, one shots, were dated October 2013 so there were still months).

2007 (14-15) is first dabble in original novel, 2008 (15-16) is when I first started reading fics (and never stopped since then!), December 2009 (17) is when I created my ffnet account and so could post fics, first half of 2010 (still 17) is when I likely wrote and finished Angel and Sephirot, 2010-2011 (17-18) is when I was writing for YGO GX, end of 2001-first half of 2012 is when I had too much going on to write as much and so spent months either not writing, or like, writing one chapter every few weeks/months, but also it’s second half of 2012 that I started working again on my first novel, February 2013 I made my AO3 account, in July 2013 I first started writing for BBC Merlin, October 2013 I had written some one shots for YGO GX, but was mostly writing for BBC Merlin.

Let’s see for when I started dabbling in other fandoms. Pokemon is December 2013, December 2014 and early 2015 is when I touched KKM (didn’t go far back then in the fics though), end of 2015 is when I wrote a bit for FNAF (same, didn’t go far), March 2016 is when I started on White Collar fic (once more, didn’t go far), (and March 2016 was also when I first posted my first novel), August 2016 is when I started on Natsume Yuujinchou fic (went a few chapters with not too much time between updates), May 2017 is when I started working on Outlast fic (didn’t go far), and it’s in July of 2017 that I finally touched DGM, which soon became my focus.

Assassin’s Light was started in January 2019, or well, was posted then, I had started writing for it before, through end of 2018, but yeah early 2019 was Assassin’s Light, and in general since 2017 I have been mostly focused on DGM. And then October 2019 I posted Shadows Symphonie, and since then I mostly focused on MDZS while also working on my DGM fics when I can; and leaving everything else to work on whenever I have a higher dose of inspiration-energy. Which is rarer, but I haven’t quitted my other fics.

All in all, I was relatively able to be quick from 2009 to 2011, but college and personal stuff really burned me out, I lost interest in YGO GX especially as it felt different to how I came to write by 2013 (which is why my first two fics are the only one that I might rewrite one day), BBC Merlin stole my heart and brought me back to writing fics properly, I wrote more for it compared to all other fandoms that followed until DGM. All those other fandoms, I had a burst of inspiration, but the actual drive didn’t last, which I also suspect is because it did take me years to feel more, recovered. That and I was working on my original writing too, so. And then when I came into DGM, it brought me a large dose of inspiration, and I’ve wriiten more for it than any other fandom.

When you look at it, I have indeed the most fics in DGM (especially as I did events), then it’s BBC Merlin (which is still one of my all time favorite, alongside DGM and MDZS), and then it’s YGO GX (which is due to how I was more active very early on then the burn out hit me).

And while in number I don’t have as many MDZS fics, in spirit I certainly place it as same level as DGM.

#chrishere

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drtanstravels · 4 years

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We recently stayed in Tel Aviv, Israel for four days so Anna could attend a teaching seminar for the International Retinal Panel. During our stay we would take a tour of Jerusalem, travel along the West Bank while venturing into Palestine, visit the ancient village of Masada, and then float and get all muddy in the Dead Sea. All of the main events happened in the final two days of the trip so this will just be a relatively short post in comparison, covering the initial two days of our journey, both spent in Tel Aviv.

Friday, November 1, 2019 We had left Singapore at 11:30pm the previous night, took an 11.5-hour flight to Turkey, had a 90-minute layover in Istanbul Airport, and then took another two-hour flight to Tel Aviv. When we were in Seoul, South Korea recently we got chatting to some friends of mine who had traveled to Israel in the past and the nightmares they had faced going through immigration once they had reached Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. One of them even told us about how he got cavity-searched, so we were both prepared for the worst. Once we were off the plane and inside the airport I cringed a bit when the first security guard snapped on a pair of disposable gloves, but it turned out to be just for him to search through our hand luggage. After that the line at the passport counter was taking forever, but it turned out that the reason the queue was taking so long to move was because we just had a really talkative guy checking our passports and when he first saw my Australian document, he looked up, gave me a curious look, and asked, “Do you watch Home and Away?” I smiled and mentioned that my sister used to have it on every night back in the day and that was it. We had to ask for entry border crossing cards, a separate slip of paper to be put into our passports instead of a stamp, because having an Israeli passport stamp can cause quite a bit of trouble when traveling overseas. There are currently eight countries that won’t accept passports containing Israeli visas, the most notable one being Saudi Arabia, a country to which we may need to travel one day. There are also quite a few countries whose passport holders are forbidden entrance to Israel without official confirmation from the Israeli government, Malaysia being on that list, so one of Anna’s colleagues was unable to attend. In fact, if Anna hadn’t taken Singaporean citizenship after we got married, this journey would never have happened.

As has been a pattern over recent trips, we arrived in Tel Aviv early in the morning, well before our hotel room was available so we dumped our bags with the concierge and decided to have a look around town. We were staying at the Crowne Plaza, which had an attached shopping mall so that was our first stop, mainly for a much-needed coffee and a couple of pastries, and then we discovered that there was a park and shopping district nearby called Sarona, a place with an interesting history:

Sarona was a German Templer colony established in Ottoman Palestine in 1871. Sarona is now a neighbourhood of Tel Aviv, Israel. It was one of the earliest modern villages established by Europeans in Ottoman Palestine. In July 1941, the British Mandate authorities deported 188 residents of Sarona, who were considered hard-core Nazi sympathisers. By the 2000s, the area had fallen into disrepair and was a haven for drug addicts. However, since 2003, the area has undergone massive renovation, which involved moving and relocating historical buildings before their restoration. The area is now a popular shopping district, as well as housing museums, cultural artefacts centring on its history, and IDF complexes.

Walking around Sarona was really cool with its mix of shops, bars, and cafes, as well as the Sarona Market. When Anna was purchasing a ring in one of the stores she asked for some recommendations in the area and the first one immediately given was Anita, a boutique ice-cream store. We initially thought this was a one-off, but we ended up finding incredible ice-cream shops all over the city. Anyway, we ordered a cup with two flavours, Pavlova & Mix Berries and Salted Pretzel, before we continued walking around, visiting among other shops a handmade dreidel store called Draydel House, a place with some unique takes on the spinning tops, and then it was on to Sarona Market. The market had some great looking food and there were plenty of free samples, but as you will find out over the course of this post and the next, it wasn’t an accurate representation of kosher food. We walked around sampling different cheeses, pickles, and halva, possibly the driest substance on earth. Seriously, dust is more mouth-watering than halva. Another thing that Israel is known for is pomegranate juice, generally used for detoxing, so we ordered a large one each, a decision we would later deeply regret and one that would also put the pair of us off pomegranates for the foreseeable future, despite how nice it tasted. Once we were done with the market and walking around the gardens in Sarona, we were able to check into our room at the Crowne Plaza at around 2:00pm and take a nap for a bit. Our day up until that point (besides the awesome pickle store in the market that wouldn’t let me take photos):

Anna near the entrance of Sarona

The way Sarona is set up is really cool

Looking down a row of stores

A map of Sarona in Hebrew

Anna’s dreidel

The dreidel Anna would probably get for me

Some of the ice-cream flavours available at Anita

A few more

They also had a custom soft-serve yoghurt bar

Anna about to buy ours

Our sweet and salty combination was definitely a good mix

Halva inside the market

One of the food stall rows

There is a huge variety available in this market

Unfortunately, not all Israeli food is as good as this looks

Anna in the garden

Now in our room

After sleeping for a bit we caught a cab to the waterfront, which is split into two parts; Alma Beach, a modern seaside area, and the Old City area of Jaffa. Most modern beach areas are similar, whereas ancient cities are always fascinating so Jaffa was the obvious choice to spend some time exploring first. It would be nigh on impossible to summarise the history of a 3,800-year-old port city in the Middle East, but here’s the general background:

Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv–Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus, and later for its oranges. The city as such was established at the latest around 1800 BCE.

Modern Jaffa has a heterogeneous population of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Jaffa currently has 46,000 residents, of whom 30,000 are Jews and 16,000 are Arabs. The 2010 film Port of Memory explores these themes. Tabeetha School in Jaffa was founded in 1863. It is owned by the Church of Scotland. The school provides education in English to children from Christian, Jewish and Muslim backgrounds.

Our taxi driver was an elderly man who kept explaining to us along the way that Tel Aviv was a party city, that around 69% of people there were aged between 30-40, and that we’d be among the older people out that night. I wasn’t expecting that, but another thing we weren’t expecting was the fact that the sun sets in Tel Aviv before 5:00pm, it’s almost as if the city is in the entirely wrong timezone and is something that would throw our body clocks off for the duration of this trip. When it had been dark there for a few hours, you’d be led to think it was getting kind of late when in reality it was only about eight o’clock in the evening. So, despite the fact that we arrived at Jaffa at 4:30pm, the sun was already setting, but this just made the place that much more beautiful. We spent the evening wandering through the narrow streets and laneways of Jaffa, taking in all of the ancient buildings, towers, and structures, plus the major landmarks in the area such as Jaffa Lighthouse, Clock Square, and the coastal canons, all while the sun set over the ocean.

After all of that walking we were beginning to get hungry and the waterside restaurants at Alma Beach were supposed to be pretty decent so we chose one called Manta Ray for dinner where we sat outdoors with some drinks and feasted on some selections from their great meze platter, as well as a grilled fish. We were to meet the organisers and other attendees of Anna’s course at 9:30pm after everyone had arrived in town, but it was barely 7:30pm by the time we finished dinner so we found a nearby shisha bar for a few more drinks and a pipe. After a while we both began to bloat up, neither of us could stop farting, and I was burping constantly, feeling the need to vomit. It was too soon after dinner to be from the fish or the meze dishes we chose, I had already checked that the water was safe to drink so that wasn’t it, coffee, pastries, and ice-cream don’t have this effect on me, and nothing else we had tried had been a large enough sample to make us sick. Except for the pomegranate juice, that is. We had drunk about a litre (33.8 fl. oz.) each several hours ago and it now seemed like we were paying for it, however, we couldn’t be 100% certain. Whatever it was, we both wanted to go back to the hotel and let it all out, resulting in me violently throwing up for a few minutes once inside, but then we felt reasonably fine as soon as we were both empty.

We met up with Anna’s course-mates in the lobby of our hotel and we walked down to a pub in another nearby part of town where everyone chatted over some beers, while those who hadn’t eaten had dinner. It was a really fun night and Anna decided to ask one of the local organisers, Tamir, if it could’ve been the pomegranate juice that bloated us. He said it’s good for you, most people just take a small glass and share it. When she told him that we’d had a litre each he was gobsmacked. “That’s not detox, that’s just tox!” was the response. Here are a whole bunch of photos from around Jaffa that evening, plus a couple of our dinner and the shisha bar before we bloated up like a couple of non-embalmed corpses:

Hashan Square

Anna and and I on the peninsula

Part of Jaffa from a distance

Looking over the ocean

People washing their hands

One of the coastal canons, imported by the Ottoman government in the 18th century to protect Jaffa from Bedouin raids

Overlooking a mosque

You can even find cool bars in towns dating back to the bronze age

Walking down a wide thoroughfare

The sun setting over the ocean

A museum surrounded by shops

Walking down an avenue

Anna posing in an alley

One of many interesting sculptures in Jaffa

The view of Clock Square from a very narrow stairway

We were both wondering if this was the Jewish equivalent of leaving your tie on the door handle so your roommate knows you have a girl inside

Etzel House

Dinner is served

We chose a few dishes from this platter

Baked blue bream with Jerusalem artichokes

Smoking a shisha while we both rapidly expand

Saturday, November 2, 2019 Anna was going to her course so I was free to do my own thing for the bulk of the day, but there was one small problem — Saturday is the sabbath, also known as Shabbat in Judaism, and this would severely limit what I was able to do due to many actions being classed as melakhah and thus being prohibited on this day of rest or historically punishable by death! Here’s a better description of melakhah:

Jewish law (halakha) prohibits doing any form of melakhah (מְלָאכָה, plural melakhoth) on Shabbat, unless an urgent human or medical need is life-threatening. Though melakhah is commonly translated as “work” in English, a better definition is “deliberate activity” or “skill and craftmanship”. There are 39 categories of prohibited activities (melakhoth) listed in Mishnah Tractate Shabbat 7:2.

Some acts forbidden on Shabbat include:

Threshing/Extraction Definition: Removal of an undesirable outer from a desirable inner.

Dissection Definition: Reducing an earth-borne thing’s size for a productive purpose.

Kneading/Amalgamation Definition: Combining particles into a semi-solid or solid mass via liquid.

Cooking/Baking Definition for solids: Changing the properties of something via heat. Definition for liquids: Bringing a liquid’s temperature to the heat threshold. This threshold is known as yad soledet (lit. “A hand reflexively recoils [due to such heat]”). According to Igrot Moshe this temperature is 43 °C (110 °F).

Extinguishing a Fire Definition: Extinguishing a fire/flame, or diminishing its intensity.

Ignition: Definition: Igniting, fuelling or spreading a fire/flame.

Transferring Between Domains Definition: Transferring something from one domain type to another domain type, or transferring within a public thoroughfare.

Now, some of you reading this are probably thinking, “Why would you care, you’re not Jewish.” This is true, however, despite me seeing fewer Orthodox Jews in Israel than I did on any given day in New York City, prohibition of melakhah on Shabbat is enforced by law, although not to an extreme. Although no shops would be open, these restrictions would severely limit my food purchasing options. Because it had been powered down for Shabbat, I pushed my way through the revolving door to exit the hotel and hit the street. I was quite hungry due to the fact that I had vomited everything I had eaten the previous evening so I figured I might get lucky finding somewhere open to eat at Sarona. I saw a cafe with people all around it so that’s where I went and I ordered the egg white omelette on the menu, which came with some bread and a side salad. I guess the hotplate must’ve been kept burning from the previous day and eggs aren’t really a solid or liquid so changing their properties via heat would be fine. Salad was also okay because the form of the lettuce doesn’t change, only the size, and it was cut quite large so it wasn’t done to make it into a more usable, productive state. The bread had obviously been made the previous day and when it came to dissection of the food in order to eat, that was all on me, not the cafe. Juice wasn’t an option due to threshing/extraction, but it was when I ordered a latte that things got weird. The waiter told me that he could only offer me a “very weak coffee” which was the result of the water and milk only being heated to about 40°C in keeping with the law, a temperature that also isn’t really hot enough for the coffee to properly infuse the water, thus making it not very strong. It actually turned out to be infinitely easier to get a beer anywhere in town that morning than coffee. My order at the cafe was able to be brought from the kitchen to my table, and also to diners who were seated outside, without transferring between domains due to the installation of an eruv, described as:

An urban area enclosed by a wire boundary which symbolically extends the private domain of Jewish households into public areas, permitting activities within it that are normally forbidden in public on the Sabbath.

Although the Jewish community must strictly adhere to laws of prohibition on Shabbat, going to the effort of building eruvs and heating liquids to a slightly cooler temperature than normal seem like ways of pranking an almighty deity who is easily fooled by the loopholes in the rules he wrote. Then I remembered this scene from the documentary Religulous:

youtube

After eating I decided to have a look around the beach area, making my way there via the main shopping district en route, but obviously everything was closed except for bars, restaurants, and cafes and wouldn’t be opening again until late in the evening or within the next few days. I was also having trouble getting cash out of an ATM again and this time I wasn’t sure whether the machines weren’t accepting my card or were just unable to function in general. I arrived at the beach and it was quite nice with a bunch more seaside bars and restaurants, as well as plenty of entertainment, some of which was unintentionally funny. There was Israeli folk dancing that happens at Gordon Beach every Saturday, as well as a big outdoor gym area where meatheads could work out like in Venice Beach, California, all just grunting, flexing, and slapping butts. Instead, I walked out along the pier to a lighthouse, just taking in the sights. It was a nice walk, but I could feel myself getting sunburnt so I went back to a shaded area along the shore to sit down with a bunch of senior citizens for a bit and that’s where I got the biggest laugh of the day. There were three guys working out there, one was absolutely ripped and doing chin-ups and some other impressive feats on horizontal bars directly in front of us, another was doing push ups, all the while giving the third guy tips on capoeira moves. If you are unaware of what capoeira is, it’s a Brazilian martial art that combines acrobatics, dancing, and complex moves involving hand plants, kicks, and flips (that link is a video that will give you a decent idea). The only problem was that the guy trying to do it wasn’t particularly good at capoeira so I found myself sitting there with a bunch of confused older people who were innocently trying to figure out why a muscly dude was doing cartwheels in the sand in front of several other muscly guys. It was a hot day, a dry heat compared to the insane humidity of Singapore, but I had no cash for a drink so I had a sip out of the drinking fountain where people also washed the sand off their feet, and walked for forty minutes back to the hotel, passing a cheese shop that you could smell before you could see, despite it being closed, along the way. Once back I killed two birds with one stone, grabbing a bottle of sparkling water from the minibar and making an instant coffee in the room, which turned into mud when I added water, but it still gave me the caffeine fix I had been lacking. I also managed to get cash out of an ATM next our hotel and Anna was still going to be a while so I planted myself in a bar back in Sarona for a few hours until she was done.

My kosher Shabbat breakfast with very weak coffee

Walking into town

At the beach

Looking down the boardwalk and across the road

Some huts near the ocean

Now walking down the promenade

Was Banksy in town?

More art, this time honouring the older community

Israeli folk-dancing

Beanbags on the beach

One of many cafes along the promenade

Coming over a little cloudy

That’s better

Waves crashing along the pier

A lighthouse at the end

I’m still trying to figure out if this building had caught fire or was just art-deco

The cheese shop on the way home. I wish it was open

The bottom of my instant mud coffee

Anna was soon back from her teaching and we had a dinner that night with everyone else involved in the course. This meant taking a minibus with the International Retinal Panel crew back to a restaurant at the beach, Anna’s first venture into that area of Tel Aviv, so we had a look around the boardwalk and took a few photos first. It was nice to hang out with everyone while we were feeling 100%, they were really cool people and an interesting mix of nationalities, some local, others coming from Columbia, Italy, India, France, Argentina, China, and a multitude of other other countries. The restaurant we went to looked good, but the entire group, myself included, consisted of about 30 people, taking up two massive tables, and the platters we received, two per table, were to be shared. The problem with this system was that Anna, myself, and a few others were tucked away in a corner on the back table and our food and drinks kept failing to appear. Everyone else received a meze platter except us, we waited about 20 minutes and then had to ask for it, as well as remind the staff that we had also ordered drinks. When it finally arrived, the other areas of both tables were receiving a grilled fish that looked delicious, but when we finished our platter the fish never arrived, nor did the second drink I ordered. We asked about the fish and when it finally came ours was just what seemed like fish offcuts including several heads, all of which was deep-fried to the point that it was so crunchy it was pretty much inedible. We didn’t bother eating much of it, that second beer never came, and everyone that was there for the course had homework to do so we got back in the bus, the interior blue light making my Rick and Morty “Pickle Rick” shirt appear as if it were covered in turds, and we went back to the hotel, them to do group work and me to have a couple of drinks at the hotel bar until it closed.

Anna’s first stroll along this area of the beach

The boardwalk at night

All of the people involved in Anna’s course

A merry-go-round

Some of the food has arrived, but it also looks like others are asking for stuff that hasn’t

If our fish were pork, it would’ve been the parts that go into a sausage roll

Definitely looks like faeces

Tel Aviv is such a cool city and nothing like we expected, yet a completely hidden gem when it comes to traveling, but this was just the beginning! Stay tuned for the next instalment when we do all the cool stuff you would expect one to do while in Israel that in no way would fit into this post, like visiting Jerusalem and floating in the Dead Sea.

The first two days of our four-night trip to Israel We recently stayed in Tel Aviv, Israel for four days so Anna could attend a teaching seminar for the International Retinal Panel.

#beach #Jaffa #sabbath #Sarona #Shabbat #Tel Aviv

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qtakesams · 5 years

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Is Traveling Really Therapeutic?

For those of you who haven’t followed my social media this year (I really apologize for how showy I can be on Facebook), 2019 has been a really powerful year of my life.

In the first week of January, I took a weekend trip to Toronto with two of my best friends. We did everything from the driving to the hotel booking to the meal planning. It was intense and so, so much fun. Over my spring break, my dad and I took a week trip out to California, Nevada, and Arizona. We started in Vegas, worked our way the entire way through Death Valley into the Sierras, and back down to Willow Beach. In the span of four days, I fell in love with the Sierras, Joshua Tree, and flying in planes. It was right before this trip ended that I received an email, lying in bed as the sun poked through my window shades, that I had earned an internship in Edgewater, Maryland, with the Smithsonian. Directly after spring break ended, I headed back to school where I remained until May 16th. Over Memorial Day weekend, I moved down to Maryland, where I lived until August 2nd. Two weeks later, I hopped on a plane to move to Amsterdam for study abroad, where I currently sit writing this post.

If you aren’t a seasoned traveler or you don’t have excessive wanderlust, your head is probably spinning from reading that paragraph. I don’t blame you, because my head spun while I wrote it.

There have been summers of my life where I was barely home at all, usually because of a lengthy field trip in June and then vacations in July and August. Yet, this has been the first year of my life where I have truly been everywhere, up and down, side to side. Every minute of every day. Every month had a new place, a new adventure.

I’ve been in Amsterdam almost a full month now (more on this later). Yet, I’m still having the moments where I leave class or get off the tram or open my curtains in the morning and think holy shit, I live here. This city is one I’ve dreamt about visiting for my entire life. Nothing is more striking than walking down a narrow, brick street in Amsterdam West and realizing you’ve seen a picture of it in National Geographic.

I grew up watching Bindi Irwin, Malala Yousufzai, Malia Obama. These young women are all my age, women who started globetrotting before they started high school. Their shows, books, and photos have instilled in me dreams of journalism in the Middle East, making a difference in the animal kingdom, and kickstarting campaigns that work toward reducing sexual stigmas against women. If the amount of traveling and adventure I’ve had in 2019 had taught me anything, it taught me, finally, that the world is big, but I am bigger, and I can do the things I want to do.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how “The Year Quinn Goes Everywhere” ended up being the last year of this decade. In 2010, I was an annoying, awkward, anxiety-riddled fifth grader who had no idea where I stood in the world. In one single decade of the 2010’s, I battled middle school, high school, and over two years of college. I flew threw my teenage years directly into my early twenties where I am now. I changed a lot, in so many ways. Quite honestly, if I had a time machine, I might use it to return to that 2010 Quinn and show her what she’d turn into by 2020. That said, I’m not sure she’d believe me.

This rambling brings me to the purpose of this blog post: is traveling as educating and therapeutic as we are led to believe?

My first year of college, I didn’t do very much outside of academics. Multiple things were occurring in my life that I disliked strongly but didn’t have the courage to end because I didn’t think I could. This last year, a few major changes happened in my life that for once, I welcomed with open arms. Then the spring semester happened. My social life was awesome, and my grades stayed mostly decent, but I felt drained from the life changes and my mental health dipped a little. Not a lot, but enough to feel disappointed in myself. For about a month, (this is my first time admitting this), I strongly considered dropping out of college, not sure if I had what it took to keep going. I told myself to finish what I’d started, to prove to the world that average kids like me could still make something of themselves. I suppose, ultimately, I realized I needed to keep going because 2010 Quinn had kept going, and she’d made it. If I kept going, I would make it, even if it was a difficult journey.

A love of travel is something I think I love, partly, because it runs through my family’s blood. On my father’s side of the family, there are seven cousins. I am the youngest, and my oldest cousin is roughly eight years older than me. Between all of us, we’ve lived in different countries throughout Europe, South America, and North America. Between the cousins and the parents and the grandfather, the 16 of us or so have covered every continent on Earth, dozens of countries, and so, so many cultures. If I didn’t have excessive wanderlust, I’d be kicked out of my family.

I know I’ll get backlash for saying this, but I do not like the way our current governmental administration looks at the rest of the world. I don’t like “America First” or “Make America Great Again”. I dislike these phrases because they isolate us. They prohibit us from the ability to walk a mile in another’s shoes. They imply that we used to be something fantastic and then we weren’t, for a long time. Our administration tells migrants and refugees they are not welcome here or they should go home, when in fact our country is founded upon immigrants and the work, they do to keep themselves alive. It’s occurred to me several times that our administration focuses on these phrases because they have never worried about anything, or anyone, else but themselves.

This, my friend, is where traveling comes in. Just by visiting Toronto, Death Valley, and Amsterdam, I’ve seen ways of life that are entirely different from my own. There are differences in safety measures, environmental protection, and the way homeless people will react to your presence. Differences in grocery stores, the way people hold doors open, and food preparation. Mind-blowing little things you could possibly only notice if you travel to these different places.

In some ways, 2019 has been one giant therapy session for me so far. I’ve learned (thus far) how independent I can be—how well I can take care of myself when nobody else can do it for me. I’ve looked some of my greatest fears (more on these later) in the face and told them to fuck off. Traveling forces you to leave your comfort zone. It forces you to expose the raw parts of you to the literal, worldwide public audience that watches you navigate an airport or a new city.

I’ve cried a lot this year, sometimes from sadness and sometimes from being so happy I cannot contain it all. I’ve smiled so much that I think any wrinkles I started developing have dissipated. Until this year, when I started going on so many trips, I never realized how trapped I feel in my hometown. Of course, I love going home for a few weeks at a time, specifically during the holidays. Yet, whenever I return to the town I grew up in and I drive past my high school, I feel myself reverting back to who I was as a teenager. The overly introverted, shy kid who doesn’t know where she’s going. I don’t dislike this version of myself, but I’m still glad she’s gone, and I never want to return to her.

At the end of this year, I think I’m going to get to look back at my adventures and realize how much I’ve changed. Or at least, I hope so. I feel refreshed and new, and hopefully I’ll give off similar vibes when I come home in a few months. And, I’ll get to answer once and for all if this year was as therapeutic as it currently feels.

Mostly, I hope that somewhere out in space, wherever that fifth grade, 2010 Quinn is, that she can deem herself proud of me. I’m obscenely proud of her, and somehow, I think she knows that.

#studyAbroad #Amsterdam #change #travel #2019

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insideedensgate · 6 years

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Life can be so fickle (indeed)

character study (1/?); john seed

1790 words

John had always been afraid. He never wanted to admit it, but he always felt terrified in a way.

He understands it well, when people tell him of their fears.

He understands it well, how to let them face their fears.

He is no monster. He is more like a widow, fat and fed, waiting in her web. He is their biggest fear.

june 1986

John Seed was born on a sunny day mid June, birds chirping and the air inside the small bedroom was sticky and hot.

The labour has been problematic and the first thing he sees of the world, full of opportunities and love, are the cold eyes of his mother, starring down on him.

His cries flood the room and shake the house, his brothers impatiently waiting outside the closed door.

“I say it's girl”, his oldest brother whispers, ear pressed on the door, “Joseph? Joe, c'mere!”

John's older brother hastily slides down the window sill, the young couple from down the street who's wedding was today and who he was watching, long forgotten when they entered the room.

december 1990

Winter in the Seed household is cold, deadly even. John has learned that early in his life. Sometimes, the heater is broken. Sometimes, Old Man Seed is too drunk or too lazy to buy new gas. Thus, they freeze. They don't have any money left for warmer clothing.

“Stop complaining”, his mother says when her four year old son, blue lips and pale skin, tugs the end of her skirt slightly. His fingers hurt from the cold. It creeps into his bones, numbs his body. He should be afraid, afraid of dying or pneumonia. He isn't. He is used to the cold.

Jacob stopped going to school last month. John is glad, that he has someone to play with.

The couple that got married four years ago dies in a car accident that night. With them, all colour leaves John's world, dives it into ice cold blue.

march 1996

The air in the gym is sticky. John thinks it stinks, of greasy teenagers and sweaty shoes. He stands there, bare chest in front of his teacher.

“It is nothing, Mister. I just fell down the stairs, how often do I have to tell you this?”

He knows it is a lie. And for a mere second, he can see it in his teacher's eyes. They believe him. Trust him.

Then it's gone.

“I am going to call your parents, John.” He knows it, now he is lost.

january 2002

John doesn't know where they are. He misses them. It hurts.

“Tell me of your sin, my son”, Mister Duncan says, stroking his hair. It is no gentle touch. It burns.

There's no escape. Nowhere to run.

But John doesn't have to. He can lie, lie until the pages turn blank and the trees loose their leaves.

Until he seems them again.

“I got drunk in third period history.”

“With whom, my child?”

“Stephen and Mary Ann.”

“Then we should atone you, shall we?”

He has forgotten his own name. He has forgotten Georgia. They burning sun when he and his brother used to play on the streets, running through the woods.

He forgot it all, he lost it all.

He'll never forget them.

All that is left now, is the perfect shell of John Duncan.

He never wanted to kill someone so badly in years.

september 2006

He is drunk, third period, family law. He and Robert, one of his class mates, are sitting together. They have late lunch.

It is already cold outside, because it is always cold in Connecticut. Every winter, the cold burns in his bones and he curses Old, dead Man Seed for never buying new gas when they needed it. He takes another sip of the expensive liquor, feels it burn and sting in his throat.

It hurts so good. Robert snorts a line, hands the white powder over to John.

“And so she said to me “Do you really think you can fuck that girl -”, he tries to listen to the pathetic stories they tell him. Maybe Jessica and her affairs will have some use. He makes a mental note.

april 2010

“Mister Seed? It's Miss Watkins, secretary at Yale University Law School, New Haven, Connecticut. Mister Duncan asked me to contact you.”

The young lady smiles up at John, who is standing on the other side of the counter. The Duncan shell smiles back.

He hears his brother's voice muffled through the phone's speakers. It sounds rough and weary, vigilant in a way. It hurts him. For a second, he feels empathy again – real empathy tingling in his stomach. It hasn't for years and it makes him dizzy, his vision fading for a mere second. Or maybe it's just the cocaine.

“Jacob?”, he says as he holds the phone to his ear, “It's me, John.”

He doesn't want to be alone any longer. He doesn't know where Joseph is, God have mercy on him. He just wants his brother to be here, to be there when he graduates from college.

june 2010

Jacob did not come.

John tries to swallow the lump in his throat and braces himself with pride against the pain.

Jacob said he had no money to fly across the country.

John's offer to pay his flight and a hotel room has been left without answer.

He looks at his professor when he hands him his diploma and the Duncan shell smiles.

Smiles at Sarah, 28, sitting fourth row. She doesn't smile back.

John bets she only smiles when she sits on the cock of that old guy.

The shell's smile grows brighter, and John laughs.

may 2013

When he looks into the mirror, he doesn't know who he is looking at.

He reminds himself of a chameleon. Shape shifting. Concealing himself.

He not only learned how to do it, he knows how to do it. It has become a sort of an instinct.

Natural selection, evolution.

Did it already became a a part of him?

John doesn't know who he is.

Tick.

He has money.

A lot of it. Too much.

He hates what he is, what he stands for.

John doesn't know how to cure that.

Tick.

His skin itches.

He needs it.

The sex, the rush of cocaine pumping through his veins.

John doesn't know if he's strong enough to resist it.

Tick.

All he can hear is the thumb of his heart against his ribs and a clock ticking at the back of his head, reminding him of the time that is running through his fingers like sand.

It is like he's lost.

John doesn't know how to be found anymore.

august 2013

It is the first time he sees them again after so many years.

Well, not alive. He very much just sees their tomb stones.

He spits on their graves, he can't behave, doesn't want to.

He thinks back, at his first time in Georgia where he grew up, and suddenly he thinks of the young couple that lived down the road. He loved watching them sitting in their garden, so happy and so in love.

They were his age when they died. They had nothing and still were so euphoric. All things have to end some day.

He has it all and he desires the whole world to end.

In a way, all the pain came the year they passed away. He doesn't believe in a connection, he really doesn't – he's not that foolish, but he still searches for one. Just a few seconds.

There has to be a way for it all to makes sense again.

In the end, he always comes to that one conclusion. There isn't.

When they left, all the beauty he had ever been able to witness was ripped away. More ripped apart in the crashed van, blood and broken limbs. From that day on, there was silence and clouded skies. He envies them.

He spits again.

november 2013

At least he is back home now. Sunny Rome. Beautiful Georgia.

Joseph looks horrible, John thinks, dark circles under his eyes, a maddening calmness in his eyes.

Jacob shakes most of the times, sometimes he even screams without reason. He polishes his military decorations twice a day, pathetic, John thinks.

It hurts him. Badly.

Joseph often writes on the walls, some nights he can't stop himself.

Jacob vomits once a day, most nights he can't help himself. No one does.

But he loves them. Dearly.

The only bit of love he'll ever allow himself to feel again.

july 2014

As Joseph pulls her back out of the water, John can see it.

The thin material of her white dress clinging to her body, wet and transparent.

Holly is her name.

And John wants.

He takes. He always took and he will always take.

It is so much easier than giving.

He tells himself that it's nothing. No love. Nothing.

Love destroyed him, that woman wouldn't.

october 2015

It rushes through John's veins, like the substances he has so long forgotten about.

Yes.

He carves the next letter into the cultists back, making his flesh spring open and bleed onto the floor.

“We should atone you from your sins, shall we?”

His own voice rings in his head. It scares him, but it feels good.

He keeps going.

january 2018

Joseph says they're ready. Something is coming, The Collapse is close.

John anticipates it, he is prepared.

He wants it to end. He wants everything to end.

He wants the world red and burning and bright in the light of pure atonement.

He wants to see them suffer, choking on their lies and their disgusting lives.

He wants to see the world crumble before his toes.

He hates it so much, everything that is on the outside. He hopes Eden is better to them.

march 2018

Every breath burns and stings, it feels like his lungs are torn apart by the simple process of breathing.

There it is again, the ticking sound of the clock. Slow. Steady.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

He knows it is going to be pure, divine silence soon. He embraces it.

Thumb. Thumb. Thumb.

John is not afraid. John is not terrified. John has no fear of missing out, John is not clinging to his life. As he stares into their eyes, he can seem himself for the first time.

Ironic, he thinks, how eyes may be the mirrors to the soul. Who knew it would be mine I see, not theirs?

The thumbs stop, the clock stops ticking.

John Seed knows exactly who he is, as he takes his last breath.

#edenswork #john seed #far cry 5 #character study #john character study #jacob seed #joseph seed #old man seed #seed siblings #seed family #the duncans #duncan family #john duncan #holly #holly eden's gate

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alyjojo · 4 years

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Today is the story of how my pregnancies came to be, without the fun stuff. It plays a very large role in why I believe in God tbh.

So my ex. It’s a relevant start. Him and I were together four years, never used protection, dumb as that is. I bring that up at because, for much of that time, I just didn’t have periods. Like at all.

After about a year of waiting and taking pregnancy tests wondering what the hell, I went to the doctor (I hate doctors...back then fear won, a lot) and she gave me pills to force me to have one.

I would have one sporadically after, so I didn’t feel like a mutant, and I’d be like well okay...and didn’t go back to the doctor. But it was every few months.

PCOS seems to run in my family, my cousin has used years of fertility treatments to have children, and though it’s worked it’s been a hell of a struggle for her. I was always kind of afraid I couldn’t have kids.

July 2007, I felt a way that was different, didn’t have a period as usual, took a pregnancy test. This was a regular thing with the lack of periods. Positive. ....what?? Told him, and he lost his fn mind. I can’t describe just how stupid he acted, and I was lost. How I knew later he was a cheating pos. We went to Planned Parenthood to take their test. Negative. Idiot danced to his car, and something in me knew he was an idiot but I just let it go.

We broke up a few days later, he did, of course.

The day after we broke up, midst all my emotions yanno how that goes, I started on my own for the first time in...I couldn’t remember. And it stayed that way, regular, every month, ever since.

Mom said “it’s the guy”, who by that point she was kind of disgusted with too lol. Well. Yeah. It was? Seems so. Angry and blaming and rawr at God like I was and they were like nope sorry...not that one, and I just showed you that 🙏

He continuously plays a role in this story. Idk if he was A soulmate of some sort. I’m definitely one of his life lessons. It’s always been...deeper, even if we don’t even get along. At all.

Ok so hubby. Years later. Ex was long gone, didn’t talk didn’t nada, I lived with my boyfriend 😜 and his parents for a year, working on my car and saving money for a place. Which I did, we moved in August and September 18 (my late gmas bday), I hadn’t had a period and took a test like oh this crap again. Honestly didn’t think I could have kids...never had a scare in the year I’d already been with hubby.

Pregnant. Whaaat? So my EX sends me an email the next fn day. How? I have no idea. I had told hubby...that’s it. I don’t even remember what the email said, how are you or something idk, I avoided it like the plague before being like omg just answer and writing something quickly, send, delete. Never read it again. I’d gotten him out of my brain space tyvm bye. Well in my response was something like lol I’m pregnant. He was the 2nd person to know. And considering he flipped out and left over a baby...karma.

In my later belief system, and seeing my oldest’s chart, she has much Libra/Scorpio influencing her (10th, Saturn/Moon). I felt like initially that positive may have been her, just long enough to get him tf out. The timing of his message blew my mind. Didn’t speak again for like 10 years, baby daughter got the name I had always wanted, and gmas middle to honor her. I still see 9:18 periodically. Love u Gma ❤️

So next baby. After two years in our first apartment, we were bombarded with BEES 🐝 Like this was insane level of bees, you couldn’t leave the house without these threatening mfers chasing you to the car, management was shit, we moved.

Moved into a bigger nicer apartment in a nicer part of town. August again. Had a fun night with some drinks to celebrate the night we moved in...no protection, big fun, hubby joked drunk, there’s #2.

So September 11th...I bought it 😆 But I refused to do it on that day. September 12th...hello baby girl #2.

Years and years pass, we use condoms regularly. Very careful always. Idk how my son came to be and I’ll say it till I die. I went back to work, I had lost a bunch of weight lol, I was not in baby mode at all. I was 100% done. So much that for two months I didn’t even realize. Until my jeans stopped fitting and I was like WTF. Sure enough. Hello baby boy.

I had been playing the sure let’s be friends game 🙄 with some of my ex’s after hubby’s stupid bs. Nothing more trust & believe, hell no. And it just doesn’t work as friends either so idk why we ever tried. Will never get along. The other ones were just drama...was my Saturn return, that was a nightmare. Then we entered his, and that was also a nightmare. That’s as much as I’ll say about that 💯

The last thing I said to that same ex, 10 years later...I’m pregnant 😆 It’s a kind of karma somehow. Goodbye again, the same way it’ll always be. Like God was like I’m sorry, you need a reminder?

My children ❤️

I always blamed my husband for doing it on purpose. Because he was so happy when I was. He’ll always deny it, but the boy came out DADDY’S boy and I just let him take over because...well he wanted to. And for the first time, the baby wanted, demanded, him too. It was actually insanely sweet, still is.

I went to the doctor and said I guess I’m due in February? She’s like try Christmas. I literally threw away the whole doctor and got a new one because I thought she was lying to me 😆

So on Christmas DAY, 6pm, I’m making meatloaf bc I knew a baby would be coming soon and we didn’t want a fridge full of leftovers...water breaks. 7cm dialated by 7pm, they gave me meds to slow down while hubby dropped off the kids at gmas. Little Aries moon was OUT in four hours 🤣 My biggest baby.

Jane...we were again very careful. Condom flew off inside of me completely. Like flew. Idk how tf that happens and it was very uncomfortable to fix btw. We knew, and when it was positive, we knew. We were not in a good place at that time. It was bad.

She was due on my cousins bday, and down to the very signs they would’ve been similar, and my cousin has lost babies...kind of how we had our falling out. She was mad at me for having my boy, but she was petty and rude to me for months, it broke my heart, then her mom my aunt tells me how she and my mother just talk shit about us both, when I trusted her the most, I just...bye. Gtfo ur one of them. Cried.

Well Jane. I lost Jane. I’ll always be sad about it. Cap with Gemini moon (supposed to) ended up being a little lost Leo. Same middle name as my cousin.

It’s here I’ll mention our foster kids. Hubby’s niece by blood, nephew by marriage. They were hard, that situation was hard, the boy is on the spectrum (which I now know means dick all really, he’s incredibly normal despite his horrific early circumstances) and he alone needs a lot of care. And their parents broke up and his dads side wanted them...he’s not ours, how could we claim him first? Our niece fits like a glove, she is ours. His sisters. We felt it was taking away from our kids after awhile, having two more suddenly, with DFS and court and visits and phone calls. We were getting screamed at by the parents for trying to be good people...then my car broke down with this timing chain nightmare, his was totaled (fk u forever)...then came the positive with boy, and we gave the kids to their Dad’s mom. Who is a very nice lady, with money, sister in law be pissed or not. We all felt we just couldn’t do it.

The boy was a Christmas Eve boy. Hilarious and so smart and adorable and sweet, just a lot of work. Our niece, a Leo, born way too early (late Oct due date). Small, tiny, but healthy.

My son is Christmas Day. Hilarious and SO smart and adorable and so sweet...a lot of work. Can not look away for two seconds. Also breaks things. Also punches his sisters. Even looks kinda like our nephew. Its eerie.

I tell my husband we didn’t keep the kids...we had the kids 😞 Because I ended up losing my little Leo, born way too early 😢

These kids are why I believe everything, they’re why I have faith, they’re how I notice the funny little things others wave off as oh it’s coincidence. No, it’s not.

Whether there’s another in the future idk. With Covid it’s not something I want right now. I did have my heart set on 4, once Jane came into the picture.

Maybe someday. Maybe not. Besides #2, which hubby joked about, and she’s a silly sarcastic goose just like her Daddy 😆, it seems God has more say on that then I ever have. With everything.

Take charge types scold me like “you have the power”, and I’m like oh yeah watch this. Try to work or try to do anything, car tires burst or something, some emergency, hubby has some insane project he needs me with them for, a baby appears, or foster kids, something always happens to keep me home. They all need me here. Just how it works in my life.

Someday...who knows? For now, this year, I’m a homeschool teacher ❤️ We’re happy 😊

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therichlittlebunny · 4 years

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Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Okay I've been gone for a good hot minute so I'm not even sure where to begin????? Uuuuuuuuuuuum lets pretend I've been gone like the whole year since I can't remember where it all fell off. Lol

In January I got a tongue piercing...

My mom hates it. Grangie thinks I did it for the dick while I was completely dickless.

Started dating the Hubby Bear in February. (Got some dick Grangie.)

I can’t remember anything for March off the top of my head other than my beautiful cousin’s birthday and things were picking up between the Hubby and I.

April was the oldest munchkin Q’s birthday. It was then that I told both him and Boo Boo Jr that their gifts from me this year would be having an all ANIME WEEKEND with their fav person. Me. YOU’RE WELCOME lmfao

MAY! IT’S TIME FOR ANIME NORTH!!!!!!!!!

But first let’s blind side me with my estranged little sister at my Mother’s birthday & Mother’s Day dinner. (((((=

We say I love you at the end <3 And his mother hates me.

June, July, August... I’m stuck on bed rest because of an Anxiety induced back sprain. I was terrified of how much I loved the Hubby Bear so quickly. -_- And I also miss out on the huge opportunity to get my dream job as a childcare worker with YMCA. I absolutely bawl my heart out. Struggle to relax and not throw out my back again. =(

September!!!! I apply again to my dream job and a few other places. I refuse to give up and if it’s meant to be mine then another chance will come... Right? Avi and I are still fighting and I have come to the point where I let go. She has of course made it about herself. His mother has pretty much all but said she hates me.

October brings in MY DREAM JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOB!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am now a ECA or Early Childcare Assistant better known as a SUPPLY TEACHER!!!! Grangie comes for Thanksgiving and Hubby is officially invited!!!!! I have not spoken to Avi but have seen those beautiful munchkins.

NOVEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s my BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!! And since I turned 33, I felt like it was only appropriate to have THREE major birthday parties and lovely little dinners in between that end up being drunken telenovella with old besties. Avi comes. We are so definitely not friends anymore.

And that brings us all the way to December. Right now. Well not quite. The Hubby’s birthday was the 7th! By now we have long decided that we are moving in together this time next year. We’ve spoken about marriage. He has met my family and now has his own little rapport with them. My mother has offered us the condo to live in. He has tried his hand at naming our future children. This is perfection.

His mother and Aunt felt it was appropriate to change their minds well last minute after making his sister late to my Hubby’s birthday dinner. They then proceed to make the ENTIRE night about them. Berate and humiliate him in the name of protecting him, that he was a junkie, didn’t know how to behave as a son much less a man, all while blaming it entirely on me as to why he has changed as dramatically as he has. This is my first time meeting them.

And that’s what been happening with me so far.

The highlights of the year.

#personal #mental health #relationship #mother in law #monster in law #2019 #highlights #i love you

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just-me-15-blog1 · 5 years

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Today I spent a great deal with an accountant sorting out our finances. Although it was necessary I must say that at some point I felt frustration. Towards me really.. mostly because to some extent I allowed for this mess to happen. However, I am not 100% responsible for it. But, I do feel the need to fix it for the sake of my children!

I will find the strength I need to get through this.

I will find the right steps to get through this.

Once I remove us from this financial hole we will begin to actually heal.

Healing will help us in the future to not make the same mistakes.

We cannot afford more mistakes!

The financial rut we are in is a long story.. it's a story that begins in late 2017.. but before that we had a small financial rut in 2016.. I could begin with our little rut..

December 2016 my partner injures himself while playing the our son. He tears 3 ligaments! 😵 He slowly begins to turn blue.. I help him regain his "color" and help him with breathing techniques. He slowly returns to reality but is in severe pain... I get us a taxi to take us to the nearest clinic, hospital, red Cross.. whatever and whoever is available to see us. That night I'm making all the moves to help him so he doesn't put much "stress" on his ankle.. While he's at the local clinic I'm on my way to #walmart for some crutches. I'm making my way around town in public transportation on a hot winter night. Mind you, we live in a place where it's summer year round.. anyway, I'm sweating from every pore of my body.. I rush back to him and we go back home. The next day we pay a visit to the red Cross.. he gets treated and is put on rest for the next 12 weeks! That's three months btw.. in these three months work is flowing but not like before.. he can't do any work.. all he can do is answer messages, email and phone calls. Because he isn't physical able to work we hire a freelancer.. work is literally cut in half.

Half of the work is coming in

That half if the work is being distributed by 50%

Which means that the income that is coming in isn't all ours.. which means that our bills aren't getting covered.. which means that we have to use our credit cards.. by the time those 12 weeks are up and the Dr gives him the "ok" to return to work, we find ourselves in a financial rut!!! (Goes to mention that in those 12 weeks my partner does not say one word to me. He's angry at the world thus taking it out on me and our little kid.)

Anywho, I see that we are in a rut and here I go wanting to fix it! I feel it's my responsibility to fix it. Although I did not do anything to be in this position, I feel somewhat responsible for it.

By spring time I managed to get a credit card to help us out of the rut. We're able to pay for the ads, continue new ads and other work related items. Once the adds start going we are back in full business. With business blossoming again we are able to pay off the debts we accumulated in those 12 weeks and we are able to purchase a new car!!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼💅 From spring onwards things are flowing nicely. Work has a lot of positive energy ✨💫

Fast forward to winter...

By this time I'm almost at my due date.. which means my partner is going to be the sole keeper of the business.. my attention will be with the new baby, my oldest kid and healing from birth.

I don't know what happens but.... But.... Work literally drops like crazy!! We went from booking 2 sessions per day.. to booking that per week 😟 work again begins to decline.. mid January 2018 and we have to dip into our savings... Early February.. work is still slow... Mid February.. dipping some more into the savings.. March all savings are gone and work is super slow!!! 🤔 Once our savings are gone we have no choice but to use one credit card.. then it's two credit cards.. then three.. then a bank loan.. and here we are... We find ourselves in a financial rut yet again. But this time the amount of $$$ we owe has easily doubled!!! We use the bank loan to pay off the credit cards.. we use the majority of the remaining amount to pay back the loan and with the money left we use it to live off of. HUGE MISTAKE I MADE BY LISTENING TO MY PARTNER! HUGE.

And suddenly it's June and we are up to our throats. Goes to mention that by this time my partner makes a decision without my consent. And that decision is to rent out a photography studio in a hotel. The deal was for one month only (March 23- April 26) then he would be giving it back. But no, he thought it would be best to keep renting it.

And of course I'm against it. Well, mostly because I see the numbers and numbers don't lie. If the business isn't being profitable then why be somewhere that it's profit is that of 200 USD after utilities. Anyone with a head on his/ her/ it shoulder knows that 200 USD of profit is not rentable. Period.

Instead of giving back the consession stand to it's rightful owner, my partner thinks and feels that it would be a horrible non loyal thing to do... So instead he continues with it. July- December reflect negative numbers. By December 31 we stupidly find ourselves with another rut of debt. How wonderful!

January 2019 comes along and business is slow. I forgot to mention that in between the months of July- December 2018 we managed to use up all three credit cards again 🙄 therefore we aren't able to use them to buy food or to simply get by. Fast forward to mid May and that's when things begin to pick up again. Our business is having a flow 🍃 our numbers are reflecting nicely but we owe a shit load of $$$...

How in baby Jesus name are we gonna get out of this one? Well, today I sat with an accountant.. she walked me up to the first step of financial healing. We have homework to do by next Monday.. this homework will help us set the record straight in regards to how much $$$ we really owe. How much $$$ we produce. How much $$$ is being spent and lastly making BUDGET!!!

This financial toxic relationship of ours is disgusting. Maybe there are people who are off worse than us.. but I don't care about looking at other people's lane.. I care about mine. And I care about healing from it.

Thank you for reading me 🕊️💜

Much 💜 & ✨,

Just-Me-15

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westywrites · 7 years

Text

The Teller of Stories and Keeper of Secrets

Chapter 6 - Welcome!

First - Previous - Next

Now that all the introduction folly is over and you have become acquainted with our 5 little friends we get to move on to where the story gets very interesting. Though honestly the only reason I find it interesting is because it has me in it. Let's go to that first day in the late spring of 2013.

While on first sight the quaint little building with its colourful little sign would seem like a wonderful place to be, it truly is not. After the appearance sets in the first time every time after it's like sandpaper to the eyes, with its sandy yellow brick walls and bright red tin roof that reflects the sun on just the right angle that it blinds you no matter how you look at it. Even though the building is fairly new, it is very worn and the sign wasn't even designed to be that crooked, it's just falling apart. What little garden there is is maintained by a teenage boy who gets paid far too much and comes in far too little and honestly the large black iron fence takes away whatever joy they were trying to bring to the patients. The inside is even worse.

However you are picturing the outside, picture the inside a million times worse than that. Its walls are a teal-grey colour, at least I think they were at one point, but the paint is peeling in spots and there are suspicious looking stains on the walls and gross beige tiled floors. The floors are covered in various strips of coloured tape indicating where to go for which thing, but only half of the things have actually happened in the past 5 years. At the entrance way is a faded sign stating which colour means what. Finally you get to the little room that those poor teenagers were fated to meet within. At the end of a short hallway on the right, a door painted red like the line leading to it from the front door. Once inside, that room was the best kept in the building, with freshly painted pale mint walls and a clean tiled floor. 6 large beanbag chairs sat in a circle and one wall was covered in posters with cheery messages, another had a large window that looked out at the "garden".

It was a Friday, a Friday evening at 6 o'clock. That was when the first meeting was. A normal, quiet evening during which our 5 friends were brought to the ugly, overly cheery building and left there for 2 hours. They came in one by one, the first was Tanya, her aunt always far too early or far too late, she was followed soon after by Elise. Jacob and Nathanael both came in a few minutes after 6, out of breath and apologizing for being late, and Christopher was last, very much the last. In fact he didn't arrive until quarter after 6 when he flung the door open causing it to further dent the wall behind it. They all sat in the black beanbag chairs, waiting for the person who would fill the last seat. Waiting, and waiting. Of course the person to fill that seat would be the "therapist", the sole adult in a room of damaged teenagers. It was assumed that the therapist would be the one to arrive on time, if not early, but they were not there. After a while our 5 teenagers started questioning the presence of this therapist, if they were going to even arrive at all. Anyone experienced in dramatic entrances could tell you that this was close to the perfect time to barge in, and so the therapist did. So I did. Out of the closet in the back corner, I leapt with dramatic flourish, extending my arms and laughing as the children screamed. Even Christopher gave a little shout, followed by some cussing, though. That boy has a filthy tongue.

"Welcome!" I smiled taking a bow. "I am Dr. Demority, however you may call me Reggie." I plopped down into the empty bean bag chair. "I'm your therapist."

"You don't look like a therapist." Nathanael said, glancing over my messy appearance. It's true I definitely did not look like a therapist that day, I probably looked more like a kindergarten teacher. My long brown hair was thrown into a frizzy ponytail, my glasses were falling off my nose and I was wearing a floral summer dress with that fancy white coat they gave me draped over top.

"This is so stupid." Christopher moaned staring at the ceiling.

"We haven't even started yet." Tanya looked at him then at me. "Don't be rude."

"She's right, you don't even know each others' names." I could tell from all their faces that none of them wanted to be there, except maybe Nathanael. "Let's start with that!" Maintaining a cheery demeanor was very difficult with the looks of boredom and sadness they had painted on their faces. I sighed. "Here, we should go around the room and say our names, ages and at least one thing about ourselves." As I said that I was met with glares from both Jacob and Christopher. "I'll start. My name is Reggie, I'm 34 years old, and I love kids!" I paused looking at each of them. "You, how about you go." I was pointing at Nathanael who was sitting on my right.

She sighed, but a smile played at the edge of her lips. "My name is Nathanael, I'm 15, and no, I am not a boy." Christopher started laughing, the rudest laugh you can imagine.

"That is a girl?" He asked, pointing at Nathanael continuing his snide laughter. "That is the worst girl I have ever seen. It's like it's not even trying to be a girl." Nathanael bit her lip, anger growing in her eyes.

"Hey, stop that." Elise demanded, getting silence from Christopher immediately. Until he started grinning.

"Whoa, the black girl standing up for the he-she, how original." He snickered again.

Elise stood up. "You will not refer to me as 'the black girl', you pig." She took a step towards him. "My name is Elise and you will call me that or you will never see the light of day again. You got it?"

"Ok, ok. Chill." Even a small child would be able to see the blatant fear in Christopher's eyes as he sunk back into his beanbag chair, pulling his hair down over his face slightly. Elise sat back down, a small smile on her face.

"So, Elise. Do you want to say how old you are?" I asked sort of awkwardly.

"Oh, yeah sure. I'm 16. I'll be 17 in July." Elise smiled. "I'm probably the oldest one here, aren't I?"

"Nah, I'm 16 too." Christopher said from under his hair.

"Oh? And what's your name?" I asked grateful for the participation.

"Christopher." He crossed his legs. "Christopher Marcel, you probably know my dad."

"Didn't you like, murder two people or something?" Jacob asked quietly his mouth hanging open.

"Hey, shut up punk." Christopher sat up suddenly.

"Oh my god." Tanya's eyes were like a deer caught in headlights. "Are you a murderer?"

"Hey, bossy chick can you get these children to shut up?" Christopher was looking to Elise now.

"I am not bossy." Elise frowned as if wondering if she was and Nathanael laughed a little.

"Yeah, I'm sorry but you could definitely be mistaken for it." Nathanael let out another little laugh and Tanya nodded in agreement. "I like it though." Nathanael smiled at Elise.

"So what's your name?" I asked Jacob.

"Oh, uh." He turned bright red as everyone turned to look at him. "I'm, uh, I'm Jacob" His voice was so soft you could hardly hear him.

"What was that?" Christopher leaned towards Jacob a hand held up to his ear. "Did you say that you're a gay cob?"

"Chris." I glared at him. "You do not call people names like that. Besides, that doesn't even make any sense."

"It's Christopher." He looked very offended.

"Ok, well. Christopher, don't call people names." I nodded and turned to smile at Jacob. "Can you say that again, sweetie?"

"I said my name's Jacob." Jacob looked at his hands which he held on his lap. "I'm 14 as of last week."

"Happy birthday Jacob!" I smiled again and watched Christopher mocking me out of the corner of my eye.

"Where are you from?" Tanya tilted her head. "You sound funny."

"My family's from Russia." Jacob said, again in barely a whisper.

"That's so cool." Tanya stared at him like he was from outerspace.

"Who're you?" Jacob asked her still staring at his hands.

"I'm Tanya Armstrong. I'm 13 years old," She looked around at everyone, "and I can hear all your hearts beating right now."

"What the hell?" Christopher turned quickly to look at Tanya who was sitting two seats to his right. The looks on everyone's faces were a mix of confusion and just plain creeped out and the smile faded from Tanya's face.

"Well then, let's move on." I switched to conversation topic to more therapy related things and that's where it stayed for the rest of that week's session. Everything went very smoothly from there on, despite many wisecracks from Christopher followed by a few minutes of argument from everyone else. A lot was accomplished during that first two hour session and I felt I was really starting to get to know those kids. I couldn't wait to continue the next week and the week after that and so we did. It was many weeks before we get to the next interesting part of our little sessions but that will have to wait.

#west's words #writers on tumblr #original fiction #ya fiction #fantasy #TSKS #even though I edited it recently this story still feels kind of outdated in terms of my writing style #oh well it's still fun #do you think it's fun?#I know it may be a little childish #I started this when I was 13 #cut me some slack #things get a more intense later on

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gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years

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Two Navajo Sisters Who Were Inseparable Died of COVID Just Weeks Apart

Cheryl and Corrina Thinn were almost joined at the hip. The sisters, both members of the Navajo Nation, shared an office at Arizona’s Tuba City Regional Health Care. Cheryl conducted reviews to make sure patients were receiving adequate care. Corrina was a social worker. Their desks were just inches apart.

They lived together, with their mother, Mary Thinn. They helped raise each other’s children.

And they died just weeks apart, at ages 40 and 44, after falling ill with COVID-19.

Close friend Lynette Goldtooth, a registered nurse and case manager, won’t go near the area of the hospital where they worked, knowing she’ll break down if she sees their empty seats.

“That’s where I used to go to see Corrina every morning,” Goldtooth said. “I used to sit in Cheryl’s chair. Corrina and I would just start talking, catch up on what we did during our time off, laugh and joke.”

Cheryl and Corrina are among hundreds of U.S. health care workers who died after helping patients battle the virus. The Guardian and KHN are investigating more than 1,000 of these workers’ deaths in the Lost on the Frontline project.

The Navajo Nation was ravaged by COVID-19 this spring. In May, it reported the highest per capita infection rate in the United States. As of Aug. 21, the sisters were among 489 members of the reservation who had died of the virus, according to the Navajo Department of Health.

Experts attributed the spread to the prevalence of multigenerational housing and poor sanitation infrastructure — many homes lack running water. Like medical centers across the country, local hospitals across the Navajo Nation experienced shortages of personal protective gear.

In early March, Corrina, without personal protective equipment, saw a patient who was showing symptoms of COVID-19, according to her sister Chris. Corrina made sure the patient was comfortable and asked what else she could do to help. A couple of days later, that patient died, and a test for COVID-19 came back positive.

“Within days after that, she got sick really fast,” Chris said.

The sisters’ employer declined to comment for this story.

Corrina’s first concern was for Cheryl, who started showing symptoms of the virus around the same time that she did. Cheryl’s job as a utilization review technician required face-to-face interaction with patients to verify their insurance and discuss workers’ compensation. She had underlying health conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis.

“Corrina worked with people with RA when she was on Pima reservation, so she knows the effects of having it,” Mary, her mother, said. “I think that’s what worried her the most, because she thought it might make [Cheryl’s] immune system weaker.”

Chris remembers calling Cheryl on her 40th birthday, March 19. Cheryl joked about how, as the baby of the four siblings, she was “still young and pretty.” But she also complained that it was difficult for her to breathe. She was admitted to the Tuba City hospital the next day.

Corrina’s condition worsened as well, and she checked herself into the emergency room at Tuba City on March 21. Hospital staff tried assisted-breathing treatments on her, to no avail.

Cheryl was airlifted to Flagstaff Medical Center on March 24. She never knew that Corrina was briefly in the hospital with her.

Corrina was airlifted to Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale later that night.

Chris said that the last time she spoke with Corrina, she was still in the ER. “She just messaged us saying she was going to get flown out, that she loves us and that she was going to be back,” Chris said. “That was the last time we heard from her.”

Because of shortages, the sisters weren’t tested for COVID-19 until they were transferred out of Tuba City. They both tested positive and were then intubated at their respective hospitals. Cheryl died on April 11, and no family members were allowed to be with her.

“I couldn’t even hold my baby,” her mother said. “I couldn’t even hold her hand when she passed.”

The family had a small service before burying Cheryl next to their father, Navajo Police Sgt. Jimmie Thinn Sr., and Cheryl’s ex-husband, who died in January. Even after their marriage ended, the two remained close and co-parented Cheryl’s son, Kyle.

Chris said the whole experience felt “very lonely.”

Numbed by the pain of Cheryl’s death, the family shifted their focus to Corrina.

“You tell yourself that we just need to get her healthy enough to come home,” Chris said. “And then all of the sudden, she’s gone.”

Corrina died on April 29 — 18 days after her sister’s death and two weeks after her birthday, which she spent on a ventilator. Although she was unconscious, her nurse sang “Happy Birthday.”

Corrina’s oldest son, Gary Werito Jr., had tried for weeks to take leave from his Fort Bliss Army post in El Paso, Texas. His superiors declined his requests out of concerns he might contract the virus while on leave.

Separated from his mother by hundreds of miles, Werito tried to reach her through prayer.

“I would burn cedar,” he said. “I was trying to talk to my mom. I was telling her, ‘Mom, you’re going to get through this. You’re going to come home. You’re going to meet your granddaughter.'”

Werito and his wife were expecting their second child. The baby would have been Corrina’s first granddaughter.

Werito remembers his mother as a “model Navajo.”

“She left the reservation to get an education, and then she came home,” he said. “She could have worked anywhere else as a social worker, but she chose to help her own people.”

Before becoming a social worker, Corrina worked for the Tuba City Police District for more than 10 years. She ended her law enforcement career as a senior police officer.

Goldtooth, the sisters’ friend and colleague, said Corrina was particularly effective at the hospital because she spoke English and Navajo fluently. The Native language, which helped the U.S. win World War II as a secret code for communications, is not written down.

“A lot of people aren’t fluent in Navajo anymore,” she said. “When elderly people would come [to the hospital], they don’t speak a lot of English. She was there to talk with them. It would really surprise people.”

Cheryl was more soft-spoken than her sister. Mary remembers her as empathetic and insightful. Her siblings often sought her advice.

“That’s what we miss about her,” Mary said. “She might be the quiet one, but she always has important things to say to us.”

Both sisters left behind young sons. Corrina’s son Michael is 14, and Cheryl’s son just turned 12. The cousins are keeping each other company, reminding Mary of the way her daughters behaved.

Honoring her former service with the Tuba City Police District, law enforcement escorted Corrina’s body from Flagstaff to Tuba City. Her family was humbled by the outpouring.

“We had people lined up honoring her return,” Mary said. “They paid their respects, flying their flags. Some officers were standing along the road saluting her.”

Since June, the Navajo Department of Health has enforced strict curfews during the week and lockdowns over the weekend. Those measures have been effective, as they’ve seen cases decline over the past two months. The Navajo Nation began its first reopening phase in mid-August, allowing most businesses to operate at 25% capacity.

In late July, Werito left the Army for good and came home to Tuba City. His daughter was born on Aug. 5 in the same hospital where his mother and aunt worked. Her middle name is Lois, the same as Corrina’s.

Werito said he sometimes forgets his mother is gone and expects her to come home from work.

“My grandmother told me it’s a little peace of mind that I’m home now,” he said. “It kind of fills that void that my mom and my aunt left.”

This story is part of “Lost on the Frontline,” an ongoing project from The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who die from COVID-19, and to investigate why so many are victims of the disease. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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