#why did saving as draft give everything double tags will that show up when I post

[pit-and-the-pen]

Chapter 4

 Just a short chapter to kick off my ideas for this series! Hope you enjoy! 

        A knock on Fred’s door interrupted him from a rather pleasant dream, the smell of apples faintly being chased away as he stirred awake. “Go away” He grumbled as loudly as he could muster before pulling a spare pillow over his head and rolling over onto his stomach. 

       “You’re late for training.” George calls from the other side of the door. Fred just groaned loudly and swore. He’d never hear the end of this from the guys. Trudging out of bed, he threw on whatever clothes he touched first. Deciding he could put together a better outfit later. His training gear would cover it anyways. 

     Walking out of the door, George whistles lowley when Fred passes him. A cup of warm coffee was shoved into his hands by George. Fred’s not normally a coffee drinker, but grimaces and downs the small cup anyways.  “Boy, you would think you stayed up the whole night.” George laughed at Fred’s disheveled appearance. “She even got you home at a reasonable time and everything.” He laughs a little louder at the slightly starstruck look that takes over his brother's face at the mention of last night. He claps his brother over the shoulder.  “Look at you, losing sleep over a pretty face.” 

Fred winds up to argue back before George holds his hands up. “Mate, it’s a good look on you. Well not right now obviously but overall.” George winks at his brother as they start to walk down the pathway outside to the training arena. “I haven’t seen you that lively since Bill was crowned.” Fred really wants to argue but he can’t, he knows he became a stiff the moment he became next in line. 

He remembers how him and George used to run rampant through the castle, pulling as many pranks as they possibly could. Minerva or even their mother yelling after them. The thought brings a smile to Fred’s face. How much of a simpler time that was. Back before they were looking face down at a war. Before his father’s problems we’re thrown into his lap because, in all reality, Bill wants nothing to do with them. The same way that Charlie had wriggled out under the guise of helping peace relations in Romania. The same way that Percy left the weight on Fred’s shoulders by being a royal face on the front and getting so good at raising morale that they decided to keep him exactly where he was. 

Plus, as much as everyone loved Percy, he cared too much about how he was perceived to make a great king. He would be too powerful in the wrong hands and the family had its fair share of people that would take full advantage of that fact before the crown even touched his head. He. realized he had been silent for a little too long and just sighed. 

“Sorry George. I know I’m no fun anymore.” His brother nudged him in the ribs.

“Whoever said you were fun in the first place eh?” George said in such a serious tone it made Fred pause. He saw the look on his brother's face and realized the joke had gone right over his head. I really do need to lighten up. He thought to himself and chuckled at his brother. 

Running a hand through his hair a small pang of sadness hits him harder than he thought it would’ve. He’s really just lost so much of himself by the prospect of being king someday. And he really knows it’s just a matter of time. The entire family is waiting with baited breath for Bill to finally run off with Fleur. They keep getting closer every day and it’s only a matter of time until the couple run off to the hills of France. Fred mentally curses at the thought. Bill isn’t doing it to be selfish, he knows that but Fred will be damned if he lets George suffer through everything he’s going through. If it becomes Fred’s turn he’s bringing them through a war and he’s never been more terrified at that idea.

 Fred walks down to the arena in a bit of haze. His thoughts run all over the place. Worse case scenario, one after the other, plays in his mind. How they don’t have enough bodies to fight a war. About how everyone will hate him when he has to draft. The kingdom falling because Fred couldn’t make the important calls at the right time. It’s enough to make him wish that he had stayed in bed. 

Before he realizes it, he’s stepping onto the gravel rink of the training arena. Trying to clear his head with a small shake, he realizes he can spiral later. Right now, he’s doing what he can. Everything else for now can wait. This is what he needs to do to play his part. Keep an eye out for who has leadership potential. 

With the Triwizard tournament coming up, currently being worked up and finalized as he stands here, he needs to keep a clear head. Does he think that right now is not the time for all the usual pageantry? Of course, but for now, it’s not his call to make and he’s grateful for that. He just falls in line and takes his orders when they are given. George gives him a firm pat on his back as he takes his usual spot on the bleachers, pulling out a large book and a quill. Ready to take notes down to report back to Bill. As he expected, there are a few lears and teases about his tardiness, comments he brushes off with a shrug. A few comments on seeing him with someone last night and he quickly shuts down that line of thinking. 

He pairs the men off into their small sparing groups. Deciding that he didn’t trust his own reflexes today, he informs them he wants to work on non-wand fighting. 

“Why would we do that when we have wands?” A voice calls out from the crowd. He sighs heavily. Of course these knob heads would think that. 

“What are you going to do if your wand gets lost, or heaven forbid, were to break in the middle of a fight?” He squints at the man that questioned him. “Are you going to run in the middle of a fight because of that? No. That’s why this is just as an important skill as dueling.” Fred pats the longsword currently resting on his hip. A few people from the crowd chuckle. They just assume it’s for show. He notices a few of the men looking behind him as he’s speaking. He sends a glance over his shoulder and he wants to curse from the sight in front of him. None other than Draco Malfoy. Loud and proud, standing like he owns the damn place. 

He bites back the eye roll and gestures to his men. “Work amongst yourselves for a moment.” He looks at the defiant faces. “With wands if it’s that damn important to you.” He says dismissively but with a tone that says this isn’t the last of that conversation. 

The relationship with the Malfoy family and the Royal family is rocky to say the least. They were part of the group that broke off and tried to become important in the Dark Lord's personal court, before it crumbled, of course. They were also some of the loudest opponents for the Weasley family to become the ruling family and decided to let that little detail fuel every one of their actions for the last fifty years. They did all of this while trying to worm their way into the most powerful positions. Much to Fred’s displeasure to admit, Lucius had managed to redeem himself quite well and from that Draco grew up just as good as a prince would have. 

“To what do I owe the displeasure of your presence Draco?” Fred sighed out. Not bother to care about diplomacy. There was something about the boy that just made his blood boil, too many smart comments aimed at his fathers competency when they were in school together he reckons. Malfoy just scoffs, pointing his head high in the air as he always does. 

“I was sent from the castle to come and get you. Important meeting apparently.” His voice full of discontent, obviously not liking being sent to run errands. 

“And why are you even in the kingdom again?” Fred taunts. “Front line too scary for you?” 

Once again Malofy scoffs. “They pulled Potter and I both out last week. That’s all that I know. Sent in replacements and everything.” Draco raises an eyebrow at Fred’s shocked expression. “Do you not even know what’s going on in your own kingdom? I thought they would be filling you in before him at this point.” He laughs and Fred lunges forward. Grabbing the shiny armor that Draco is wearing. Proof of how little he actually had seen of battle. 

“Woah. Not here Freddie” George says, coming to pry Malfoy out of Fred’s grip. Fred looks back at the group of men currently inspecting every detail of this interaction. 

“Better watch that temper, your majesty.” Malfoy spits out before Fred lets him go, giving him a large shove to get some distance between the two of them. He watches with a small smirk as the blond stumbles back and takes a second to regain his footing.

 Fred turns to the crowd, not even bothering to pretend they haven't just seen the interaction. “Well looks like you have been saved from a boring day.” Fred addresses them. “You’re dismissed but we’re doing double training to make up for this interruption.” He calls and claps his hands, letting everyone know they’re dismissed. 

There are a few groans from among the crowd but after the little show Fred put on no one thinks it smart to try to test his patience at the moment. 

I’ve tried to get this up three times and tumblr has decided to hate me so sorry if the formating is a little off. I tried to fix it but I’m terrible at editing if you havent noticed already.

Taglist: (some wont tag so if you changed urls and still want to be tagged please let me know!) @they-write-once-in-a-while @magical-spit @birdie-writes @ickle-ronniekins @heart-of-tempered-steel @wand3ringr0s3​ @thoseofgreatambition @things-that-start-with-f @elf-punk @bitchywhisperswizard @a-little-too-much @izzytheninja @kpopgirlbtssvt @shadowsinger11 @harrysweasleys 

#dont underestimate me #royal harry potter #ROYAL AU #royal!au #oc character #harry potter oc #fred weasley #george weasley

[thegirlwholied]

ten faves

Rules: name ten favorite characters from ten different things (tv, movies, books, etc.). 

Thanks for tagging me @bibliophileiz ; exactly the sort of distraction I both needed (and that my current concentration-level is capable of) at the moment! Hard choices ~ especially as many of my favorites come in pairs! ~ but my top ten today...

...after draft error #97 or so, sorry in advance for the scroll, and for anyone else who winds up responding, do not draft on your phone take my word for it... 

Princess Bride: Inigo Montoya

Which character don't I love in Princess Bride? Even Humperdink is such a pitch-perfect villain. But while I'd choose Westley if I was picking a date... Inigo's the one who captures me, every time. It's not the desire for revenge itself that's compelling; it's the love for his father - the heartbreak, the dedication, even the defeat and the rise again (the "you told me to go back to the beginning scene" comes to mind as one that stays with me and is probably a huge influence on things I think of but haven't really written yet...)

Harry Potter: Sirius Black

Yes, that's a gif of Midnight Mark from Pirate Radio, because I very much mean the book version (sorry, Gary Oldman!). Is anyone following me surprised by this one?

I'm so fascinated by all of the Marauder era characters, both as they are on the page and the hinted-at aspects of them explored in fandom; love Lily/James... but Sirius is the Harry Potter character I think of first (honorable mention to non-HP Edmond Dantès, as I love Count of Monte Cristo and think much of Sirius' plotline owes that a clear debt). Aside from being a tragedy, aside from all his great lines, what a *fascinating* character and twist, in a way, on the fairy godmother plot in his first book 3 appearance (getting Harry the Firebolt, his permission slip, etc). I could say SO much more but will avoid writing an essay.

Smallville/Superman comics/adaptations: Lois Lane

Always a favorite character for me, but Erica Durance in Smallville is my favorite version. I feel like they gave her a bit of Marian Ravenwood (specifically in the outdrinking the frat boys scene) and leaned into the modern comics "army brat" angle so well.

Anne of Green Gables: Anne Shirley.

With honorable mentions to of course Jo March, other fellow aspiring writer Emily of New Moon, and Pippi Longstocking, other fun redhead of my childhood reading... Anne, and all her drama and dreams and mishaps, wins out as most relatable for me. Book heroine of my heart.

Speaking of childhood book heroines...

Star Wars: Jaina Solo.

Look, this is partly to save me between picking a favorite between Leia and Han (a dilemma which has haunted me since childhood, in part because, guiltily, it's Han), and serious honorable mentions to Mara Jade and especially Jyn Erso here... but Jaina was *everything* I wanted in a heroine as a girl. We're talking about the Young Jedi Knights series here... though I actually started with Junior Jedi Knights featuring Anakin Solo (oh Anakin Solo 💙💔)... going into the New Jedi Order, as I stopped following the EU so passionately around there.

Jaina, who is brash and so her father's daughter but has a harder time seeing she's also her mother's, the Rogue Squadron pilot, the wielder of a purple lightsaber, the mechanic... my inner little girl will never quite forgive the sequels for failing to give me a Solo daughter (sorry, Rey; I still think Daisey Ridley was pitch-perfect Jaina Solo casting... and honestly part of me considers the sequels the "weirdest Jacen & Jaina fan fiction ever" 🤷🏻‍♀️)

BtVS (out of the whole Whedonverse really): Buffy

My other favorites in the show are really also doubles/foils for Buffy: Cordelia Chase & Faith. But the first episode of the show I ever saw was "Anne" and so I've always known I would watch an entire show with just Buffy (... I would also watch an entire show of her friends dealing with her absence, but that's more about *plot* than character). I love the concept alone of Buffy's character - overturning the blonde damsel in distress trope by making her what monsters fear - but I mostly just love her; favorite Chosen One ever. “No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away, and what's left?"/"Me."

...and now it gets very hard, where my early choices were more instinctive and now I keep thinking of others and can't decide. Tempted to make a bracket (I feel like Sirius and Inigo have some crossover, but how could I put them against each other)?

But ("if you had to choose, if you had to choose") to get at some of my other favorite character types and embodiments thereof...

2010-me would never believe I'm going to say this, but: Jaime Lannister.

I'm usually not a villain girl... but of course, he isn't a villain, though he starts out cast in that light. Slightly annoyed I’m picking Game of Thrones (yes, even grouping the books in that, as post Storm of Swords, I remember thinking "this could really benefit from the tightening the show will likely give it" ahahahahahahaha whoops). And yet. Where did that "came for the Starks; stayed for the Lannisters" quote come from? I feel very attacked by it.

"The things I do for love". The boy who wanted to be Arthur Dayne and somewhere along the way became the Smiling Knight. The reveal that he's not (or at least so much MORE than) who he seemed : perhaps not the comparison you'd expect but ah yes that Mr. Darcy twist always does it for me. So much character development (let's not speak of how the show ended, but still). 

The motives, in particular:  I love the Spike backstory reveal in Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Fool for Love, and in many ways I think Spike and Jaime hit the same note for me. He’s definitely a character that stays with me. Also, he hits that "golden boy" type I also like but in a *very* interesting way (and oh no now mentioning golden boy is making me think of Aron and Cal in East of Eden, I don't have room to even consider them on this list but know I love them both...)

Speaking of golden boys (also I cannot believe this is the only character from a musical I'm choosing, and Eponine’s a character that haunts me too, but...)

Enjolras.

Michael Maguire is not a golden Enjolras but was my introduction to the character and still a (the?) favorite. Love both book & musical Enjolras in different ways. But inspiring idealists with the light of rebellion abalaze in their eyes...? Facing death & despair still waving the flag? Ah yes. Top ten, 10/10.

Favorite detective out of all mysteries really, but especially from the Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys Super Mysteries: Nancy Drew.

An icon. Why is it so hard to have a good Nancy Drew adaptation? (The new TV series lost me with going with actual ghosts - I love my supernatural shows, but I don't need that with Nancy Drew.) Detective characters tend to be some of my favorites; honorable mention to Shawn Spencer from Psych here, but I was reminded in watching that recently (as Maggie Lawson, Jules on Psych, had once played Nancy Drew in a Disney movie! ... that I need to find and rewatch as I remember almost nothing about it) a) how much I love a good mystery and b) that Nancy is the OG.

Speaking of icons... out of all the folklore & mythology I love, it’s clear what character I love best: Robin Hood.

Oh, I love my Arthurian knights, but I love all Robin Hoods more. Trickster heroes, rob-from-the-rich-and-give-to-the-poor-justice, true love... cheeky 1952-movie Robin Hood is my favorite - both favorite Robin and favorite Marian, and their childhood-friends-to-lovers romance is the epitome of that trope for me! - but I also love the fox version...and am very alarmed at the prospect of a CGI remake of that; I'm sorry but that is not live action... and also Errol Flynn! It has to be Robin. If this was a ranked list (it’s not) he’d probably take #1. 

My ten slots won out to other characters, but also I love every Tamora Pierce character and if I had to pick one, it would be Daine Sarrasri, YA fantasy heroine out of all magical girls (and yes over the lady knights; sorry Alanna and Kel; Daine had wolves for friends). Also shout out that I love a LOT of characters named Marian, aside the already-mentioned Maid Marian -- Marian Ravenwood (& Indy!), Marian ‘the Librarian’ Paroo (& Harold Hill!), X-Men’s Rogue (usually named Anna Marie when a name’s revealed, but a Marian in at least one version, & her own thief Gambit)... to quote Thin Man, “You got types?”

I’ve got types. 

If you’re reading this and have types yourself, please @ me them! But tagging, if you’d like, @conniecorleone​ @aliform​ @aurorawest​ @vivacephoenix @justkeeponthegrass

#top ten characters #robin hood #buffy #jaina solo #jaime lannister #enjolras #inigo montoya #sirius black #nancy drew #lois lane #anne shirley #i feel like this says a lot about what i love really #if you would have liked a tag and i did not I am sorry I was going to try to tag a full ten folks #switched from phone and then my computer crashed #so this is it #throwing up my hands #and posting the darn thing #¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[in-the-bookish-dark]

Light of Day - Chapter 1 - RL

The morning was wet.  It wasn't humid or muggy. Just plain wet. Everything was wet. The rains had swept through town the night before at ten and two, but since then, no water had fallen. It just hung heavy in the air and gave every surface in the house a misting of earth sweat.

Miles padded through the house.  Derek, transient houseguest, was gone. Windows were open. Kids were down the street, already squealing.  They always played tag between the cars on either side of the block.  In the mornings, it was okay.  Then, when things got busy, lunchtime or after, they'd find a back yard to congregate in.  Fun was fun, but getting run over was not.  Ten or twelve years ago, he'd have been out there with them. Right now, he'd give his right hand, or part of it, to be out there playing in the new day.  New day or old day, just a different fucking day.

He went through the motions with the coffee.  Muscle memory, they called it.  He sat at the dinette and shook out a cigarette as the percolator started to rumble.  At the first drag, he wanted a shot of Jack, but he'd start with coffee.

When he came in the day before, the letter was buried between two magazines and grocery store flyers in the mailbox.  He'd done the physical a month ago. Clean bill. Son of a bitch.  He didn't have to read this letter to know what it said.  He did anyway. He needed to know his drop-dead date.

He mentioned it over dinner - Chelsea had come over and made spaghetti.  He drank most of the Riunite and two beers.  It was right at the end of the second beer. They cleaned the table. She had questions and a deer in the headlights look. He said he was tired. Then he ushered her out by picking a small fight and poking and prodding until the room and the house were too small for more than him. They'd talked about her moving in, but they still both liked to have some space.  He sat on his front porch and smoked two joints and drank the rest of the sixer.  He didn't care who smelled the bud that night.

Maybe he'd call her this morning, after he had some cleansing coffee. Maybe he's walk 'round to her place. When he poured his coffee, he went ahead and poured a shot. Why wait? He threw it back and poured another. Why wait? Time's burning. The Jack burned going down and he liked it.  He needed something burning inside at that moment.  Everything was burning, and he wanted to feel it inside like he felt it outside.

They did the draft lottery in December. His number came up in the first half hour. His birthday was July 9th, so his number was 1. Couldn't be much more in the crosshairs than that. Can't even pretend to hope. It burned going through his mind.  He didn't hear anything after the number showed on the tv, just helicopters.  Waves - no, fleets - of helicopters, slicing through the humidity of Vietnam.  What felt like their rotors pounding the air, though was his heart trying to escape his chest.  Chels was with him that night. She asked what was wrong.  He took a while before he said "Nothing."  It was a big nothing growing in the pit of his stomach. He remembered Polyphemus and Odysseus.  "Who is killing you, Polyphemus?"  "Nobody. Nobody is killing me." Then shut the fuck up, they probably said.  He did soon enough, and then he was silent for all ages.

Odysseus pretended to be mad in order to get out of war.  It didn't work.  They put a baby - his son - in front of the plow, in front of the plow he was turning the field with, dressed as a woman. If he was really mad, which they knew he wasn't, he'd have plowed on through Telemachus, on through his legacy. He stopped, though, then accepted his fate and went off to death and Troy.

Dressing as a woman, (was Odysseus actually the world's first cross-dresser?), wasn't going to get him anywhere.  It had been done.  Done to death. Canada?  It was 1000 miles up the Mississippi and then some.  A hell of a trek to a place where he knew nobody.  Did he know anyone in the movement ... surely someone ... but nobody came to mind.  He sympathized - sympathized like crazy, but music kept him busy.  Maybe Kyle or Kenny knew someone.  Practice was at two and their gig at nine.  Maybe they knew someone.  He'd see. And maybe he'd ask someone.  It seemed right but maybe it was someone else, like Achilles or someone. But that was back in Dec., even before the order for physicals came in.

His coffee cooled when he stared toward the window.  Not at the window or out of it, just roughly that general direction.  He padded back into the living room and grabbed some vinyl.  "In a Silent Way" by his namesake.  He sprayed and wiped and blew little flecks of lint off the disk before cueing it up.  Mademoiselle Mabry started up as he sat down.

There was a smear of vinyl cleaner on his fingertip and he flicked it off before reaching for another cigarette.

He looked and rubbed the tip, spreading the little bit of moisture that was left.  His finger.  His cousin Greg had found his own answer.  Two weeks before he was supposed to do his physical, he managed to get his index and middle finger yanked off at the second knuckle at the [steel mill.]  He was always careful, except the one time when he wasn't.  Without both fingers, there was a lot he couldn't do, including things like filling out forms, firing machine guns, throwing grenades, and whatever else fit the job description of a grunt in 'Nam.

He rubbed slowly around the finger tip, imagining its absence.  There he was at Cafe du Monde, dipping his beignets left-handed. Or he was claw-lifting them with his right.  Pool.  He could still handle his stick with those fingers gone.  Grip the stick tighter.  Maybe that angle would even be better. It could start a trend. Everyone would start lifting their fingers off the stick just so they could play like him.  Albums. Could he get them out of the sleeve with "the claw?" Could he cup Chel's face with his hands the way she likes with the claw?  Down at the rec center, could he play pickup b-ball with the claw? Where would his control go?  Two fingers isn't a lot when it comes to a basketball. Four fingers weren't that much to start with.  But he'd be playing ball at home, and not on some muddy clearing outside Saigon or wherever the hell they would send him. No b-ball deep in the jungle where Charlie is waiting around to shoot it - and you - out of the air in the middle of your jump shot. Two finger b-ball is always better than dead.

He picked up the spoon for his coffee.  Rolled it finger-to-finger with his left hand.  Dropped it six times. Didn't even try it with his right.  Couldn't imagine how. So maybe he's stop putting cream in his fucking coffee. If I can take a finger or two off, I can drink my damn coffee black. He went back to staring toward the window.  He drummed those two fingers on the table.  Might be his last chance, better take it.

Maybe two other fingers.  Left hand?  Nah. He'd be double screwed. Lamed up and still in 'Nam.  What do they care about your left hand if you're a rightie?  Ring and pinkie?  Still useless.

He called his mom, then he called his dad.  They both didn't know what to say. Literally. "I don't know what to say, it's ..." his mom said.  "I don't know what you want me to say ..." came from his father.

After he finished the calls, he sat on the couch.  Then he laid on the couch.  Then he methodically spooled his phone cord in one hand, until it was snug between wall and phone.  He tugged both ends, then he yanked the cord from the biscuit jack on the wall in one clean jerk.  His elbow nudged the casement window open and he flung the phone out into the yard, as far as he could.

At La Casa, forty-five minutes later, he was already on his third boilermaker.  Maybe he should pace himself. Maybe he didn't care because in less than three weeks, he was going downtown to the induction center.  He got another shot.  Still working on the second beer, but then he was already ahead of the game.  Whatever the game was.  A shadow came in through the Decatur side door, and walked up behind him.

"Hey, Miles,  what's the haps?" It had to be Carl, from the old band. The rasp and Irish Channel accent was unmistakable.  He and Chelsea grew up together.

"Hey, Carl, where y'at?"

"So?"

He shrugged. 'So ' what??

"Talked to Chelsea."

"Jesus.  And?"

"What's goin' on, man?"

"I got mail yesterday."

"From?"

"Uncle Sam."

"Shit, man."

"Yeah. Order to report."

"When?"

"The 23rd."

"Whatcha gonna do?"

"Exactly."

"No, I mean, really, what are you gonna do?"

"Man, I don't fucking know."

Neither of them said anything.

Carl glanced at the setup.  He flagged the bartender and waved two fingers at their glasses and bottles.

"Thanks, man."

"Hey, least I can do."

"So, what's going on with Chelsea?"

"Nothing, man, I just wasn't in a mood.  If we started on it as soon as I got the letter, she'd freak, and then we'd go around and around, and I just wasn't going to deal with it then.  I don't have an answer; how the fuck am I supposed to give her an answer."

"Answer about what?"

"About ... how I felt, what I was going to do, what about us, shit like that.  I wasn't thinking. I was just falling down this long, dark hole, man.  I don't think I've still hit bottom.  When I was first on the draw, I knew my number was up - literally.  Then I got the physical exam letter a month ago, and I knew they didn't find shit that was going to save me.  I'm not an athlete, but I'm healthy."

'Well, listen, guy, Amy has a connection to Canada ~'

'Canada.' Heavy. Not interested. Dropping it on the floor.

'Hang on, buddy.'

Carl walked off. Miles sat there, rocking his empty shot glass back and forth. After a while or two or three, Carl came back.

'Uppers, man.'

'What?'

'Take a bunch of uppers the day before your physical, and then one the day of, and your blood pressure will be off the charts.  They won't take you for that. Maria ~' he shrugged back where he'd come from ' ~ she can hook you up good, compadre.'

Miles flicked the shot glass.  It slid across the bar and hung over the edge before dropping.  There was no crash, so it must've landed on something. 'Goddamit, Carl, I already took the fucking physical. How the hell does that help me?'

'Oh yeah, shit, man. I'm sorry.  Little high.  Good fucking buzz, actually. I forgot.'

Miles tried to rub away the tension in his skull, but it wasn't going anywhere.

'Anyway, man ' hey, let's get together before you have to go in.  Get totally wasted and strung out. My tab.  Least I can do.'  Carl slapped his shoulder, then wandered.  Somewhere.  Miles didn't see.

He finished his drink.  He finished the drink Carl left behind.  He waved for another shot and threw it back, then paid out.

Chelsea was waiting on the front step when he got to the house. She had a beer beside her, sweating on the concrete, and her cigarettes, untouched, as well.

He sat back to back with her. "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"We can talk. I just couldn't do it then."

She picked at a single thread sticking up from the knee of her jeans.  "Yeah, well ..."

"I'm sorry."

She nodded.  He put out his hand and she took it. She reached across her body for her beer and took a long draw.

"Want to go inside?"

He wanted one of her cigarettes.  He reached, but then stopped.  "Yeah, hey - how about I cook tonight?"

"In a bit."

She walked him into the shotgun house; walked him straight back to the bedroom.  She held him and he held her.  They didn't manage sex.  The alcohol and the draft board saw to that.  They did have spaghetti again, his way, with wine in the sauce and big chunks of meat.  Almost meatballs, but smaller and ragged, and no breading or seasoning.

She got up in the middle of the night and found him by himself in the living room.  He was passed out, a dry bottle of vodka next to him.  His index and middle fingers were folded down and taped together.  Layers and layers of masking tape.  She turned off the snowy tv and threw her grandma's quilt over him and went back to the bedroom.

When she got up the next morning, long after dawn, he'd been up for a while.  A corner of the quilt was soaking in the sink.  He was at the dinette.  "I, uh, threw up a little.  Cleaned it up, but some got on it.  I'll hang it out in a bit."

She nodded and took a cigarette from the pack on the table. His were stronger and they burned, but she didn't care just then.  She took his mug of coffee and pointed him to the cabinets.  The steam told her it was fresh.

He poured a new one for himself and sat across from her.  She remembered and looked at his hand.  No tape, but some redness from where it was yanked off.

"What were you doing with the tape?"

"Nothing.  I was just drunk and wanted to see what it would be like."

"Kinda odd."

He shrugged. "Drunk guys do odd fucking things, Chels."

"What do you th~"

"I don't fucking know."  He stood and walked to the sink. "Honestly, Chels - I don't know.  I'm not trying to be an asshole. I don't know what to say yet, don't know what to do."

She blew out smoke and fiddled with the lighter. "I'll finish up the quilt."

"Nah, I got it, babe.  Hey, let's get dressed and go down to the park.  We'll grab po-boys and watch the kids on the flying horses."

She nodded.  He squeezed the excess water out of the quilt corner, then smoothed it.  The screen door banged behind him, taking it out to the line.

They got out there on the streetcar just as the lunch wagon rolled in. Miles went over to get the po-boys. Chelsea found a Magnolia with a grassy patch underneath.  The breeze was soft but refreshing.  They couldn't see the carousel from there, but they could hear it when the wind shifted.  It was the most relaxing thing they'd done in days.  She gathered their sandwich trash.  He reached into the bag for two Hubig's pies.  Cherry and lemon.  She took lemon.  He finished the cherry in half the time she spent on hers, but it was all good.

By the flying horses, there was a Coke machine.  Coke for him and Tab for her.  He folded up the pull tabs and stuck them in the coin pocket of his jeans til they found a trash can.  They leaned on the rail around the carousel and watched the squealing kids.  Their cans sweated and dripped down. A little cluster of droplets formed under hers.  His drips were all over the place.

It really was the best afternoon. They had laughing kids in front of them, surrounded by wide greens, greens without snipers or tripwires or landmines or flamethrowers, and somehow, he managed not to think of them.  Southeast Asia was somewhere on the far side of Mars.

There was a bench nearby, close, but not right on the main paths.  She kissed him and he kissed back.  Her hand rested on his thigh; he glanced around, then slid one hand up her shirt to her bra-less tit.  His hand was still cold from the Coke can.  She jumped, but didn't complain.

Back at the house, they again went straight back to the bedroom.  Windows were open, but windows didn't matter.  She laid him back and straddled him, riding him face-to-face.  His wood was weak, but it firmed up inside her.  She rocked until his hardness filled her, then leaned down and let him thrust.  She had little bruises on her thighs the next morning, but it didn't matter.  They rode together, and her tits dragged back and forth over his chest.  She panicked a little when he came - they hadn't stopped for a rubber - but she was too close herself to think too hard.  She douched after, though, as he laid, catching his breath.  Don't take too much of a risk.  Nine months on, he was going to be in the jungles or worse.  They hadn't talked marriage before, and she wasn't going to talk it now.  She also wasn't going to be a single mother.  If the douche didn't take care of things, there were other ways.

They skipped dinner and had popcorn and beer in bed.  The little tv set wavered and wobbled, but they saw most of the Saturday night line-up.

Around 2am, storms woke them.  He rolled her over, again without preamble, and glided deep into her.  She was wet from his cum and wet from the douche.  Lightning snapped around them. Thunder shook the windows.  Winds slapped the blinds back and forth.  All the rage outside was inside, too.  This was a fuck.  His cock pounded in; her ankles met behind his ass.  He reached a hand behind her neck and pulled her up to him.  Every thrust, he grunted; every thrust, she gasped.  The angle worked for her, and she came and came.  Hard orgasms from far inside, like they'd been waiting for a dark summoning.  They liked it a little rough sometimes, and they'd cum with fireworks and cannons.  She came hard like that.  Angry orgasms.  She fucked back against him as hard as he fucked down into her.  She would hold him there and fight to keep him home inside of her.  He fucked like he never planned to leave, or planned never to leave.  She couldn't cum anymore. She just shuddered around and under him.  She keened and clutched and scratched.  Her nails sank in and Miles himself went over the edge.  The last thrust, he didn't want to stop there.  He wanted his whole fucking body inside her cunt, swallowed up by her.  He squirmed, like that would help, but in twenty seconds, it was all over.  His cock was still hard, but it was the only muscle with any strength.  He sagged down on her, and they both wept, then faded out.

He woke and he was face down, naked, and alone.  His cock was slimy and sticky, but alone.  She was in the bathroom, running water for minutes on end, then going into the kitchen.  She came back and shut the door again.  The water came back on.  He drifted in and out, but noticed when the water cut off again.  The light under the door flickered like she was walking back and forth. He drifted in and out more.  By the time he got his head around checking on her, she snapped the light off and came out.  Chels sat on the bed and ran her fingers through his damp hair, then walked out.  His first thought was she was walking home at 4am.  He was about to roust himself to stop her.  He heard the chain on the door and the couch creak, and knew she wasn't going anywhere.

In the morning, he made coffee. He poured mugs for both and set hers on the coffee table.  Close enough to reach from the couch, but not so close she'd knock it over.  He drank his on the way to the corner for a paper.

He got the paper and kept walking, wondering about the night.  He'd cum in her twice without protection. Did it mean something more than convenience?  Chels was good about keeping condoms on hand for them.  His place, her place, her purse, just in case.  Didn't even bother last night.  She was always in charge of protection, the condom cop.  Just was.  Except last night.  He didn't know what it meant. Something? Nothing?

When he came in, the couch was empty.  She called from the kitchen "Hey!"

He went in and she was scrubbing down the countertop.  The stove shined as much as that old shitpile would shine.  This confused him more.  Was she nesting or working off tension?

"Hey, Chels."

"... hey."

This was fucking reading tea leaf time.  She only half-glanced at him.

He walked up behind her.  His hand landed on her shoulder. She kept scrubbing.  Not scrubbing harder. Not scrubbing any less. Not leaning back, and not trying to escape.  Just not engaging.  He stepped back and she slowed.  Two strands of hair had escaped her cleaning scarf, and she brushed them back.

"I've been thinking ... Miles ..."

"Yeah, Chels?"

" ... I don't know."

"About?"

" ... I don't even know that."

He touched her one more time on the shoulder. Light touch. Lighter even than before, and just for a second.  He walked toward the dinette, then changed his mind.  He yanked hard on the paper towel roll and eight or ten spooled off.  He ran them under the tap and smeared the water around the front of the fridge, avoiding anything that was taped or clipped to it. The wad of paper dripped water down the fridge to the floor.

She glanced over.  "Goddammit, Miles ..."

He froze.  Yeah. He couldn't - or wouldn't - clean for shit. Bad time to remind her.

He stepped back and they stood stock still for a moment.

She slapped her rag down on the counter.  "Here comes the shit storm" he thought.  One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four M~ ... and she hugged his side. She kissed his shoulder.  She said, "It's okay, babe. I got this. You go do something." She pointed outside, so he went outside.

He sat on the stump of the old Magnolia that had snapped apart six years ago when Betsy blew through.  He was surrounded by dandelions a foot high, and those nasty, milkweed kind of weeds even higher, so that's what he did.  Probably snapped off more than he yanked out of the soft soil, but it was something, maybe.

He fucked around, making a mess, for about half an hour. After that, he got shame, and he got serious.  Instead of throwing them around the yard, he stacked the weeds.  Instead of yanking, he dug with the fingers he while he had, and pulled them by the root.  Thirty more minutes and he was rolling a joint from the stash in the roof of the shed.  At least he'd done something, though.  He tapped on the kitchen window and she glanced over.  Ten seconds later, they were sharing the joint.  She was leaning in to him.  They were pulling down the beers she'd brought out and taking their time on the doob.  Their little time machine where everything stops. That Twilight Zone episode with the guy and the stop watch.  They had their own.

Their eyelids got heavy.  They rocked back and forth. He sang "Brown Eyed Girl" to her, or what he could remember.  They went to the bedroom and rocked against each other.  The condoms never left the drawer again, and the afternoon passed before either of them stirred.

He heated up leftover spaghetti in foil in the stove and she douched again.  Twice. Salt and vinegar, until it burned.  They sat on the stoop with paper plates and ate dried out spaghetti, with burn-brown ends, and watched kids ride by on their bikes in the twilight.

The next morning, he had to do something.  He didn't know what, but he couldn't sit still.  It could be the wrong thing, as long as it was something.  Between 5 and when he got up at 6, he rolled in and out of dreams.  Asians in black pajamas chasing him through the Garden District and into the Quarter.  The Greek sailors at the Acropolis bought him glasses of Ouzo, then tried to shove him into a tiger trap with big, sharpened bamboo stakes.  He took one through the thigh, but still managed to run down Dauphine to Bourbon, then around to the Old Absinthe House.  They poured a schooner of green liquid and told him he'd be fine - and that he'd be better off without any of his fingers, and when he looked down, his right arm was a stump ending just below his wrist.  He crossed the levee and jumped into the Mississippi.  When he came up, he was surrounded by screaming GI's in rat cages half-under the water.

He flung himself out of bed; every inch of him, pooled in sweat.  Chelsea didn't stir.  He wanted to scream her awake, but what good would that do?  He just needed someone to hear him.  The phone was still fucked, and laying in the yard.  He could go to [pirate place?].  They were always open to people they knew.  A drink would help. Two, three drinks would help. Maybe.  They were down to four joints, but he took one from the house stash and slipped out the front screen door.  He left the front door barely latched, so she wouldn't hear.

Jerry pegged him as soon as he walked in. "What the fuck, man?  Are you on acid?"

Miles explained the past three days, jittering as he did so.  Jerry poured him a big glass of something brown.  "On the house, dude."

Miles fired up and they passed the doob back and forth until it was too small even for a roach clip.

"What are my options, man?"

"You could fake going nuts, man, but there's a price.  You could claim you were a fag, also a price.  You could run off to Canada~"

"No. Ain't going anywhere."  Funny, the option with the least price was the one he ruled out immediately.  But there was a price.  It was the fact that it didn't cost him anything.  He might not want to fight or die, but he didn't want to run, either.  He'd take the consequences, but the one consequence he couldn't take was nothing."

"Conscientious objector?" Jerry said it, then shook his head.

"Yeah. I'd still go.  I just wouldn't get to shoot back.  That's assuming I convinced them of my 'longstanding beliefs' of the past two days."

Jerry nodded. "You could kill somebody, man."

They held their breaths.  The words filtered down out of the air.  When they were on the floor, still and safe, they went on.

"I ever tell you about my cousin? Greg?"

"Pineda?  Down at the garage?"

"One and only.  He got his letter a year and a half ago."  He held up a hand, two fingers folded down.

"Shit. So that's what happened to them ...?"

Miles nodded.

"I actually thought it was an accident."

"Maybe it was on purpose, maybe not. He had fucking great timing, though. Day after he got his letter to report for physicals, bam!  He still had the stitches in when he reported.  Doc didn't even want to look under his bandages.  Checked a couple of boxes and told him to put his fucking pants back on and go home."

Jerry nodded.  A moment later, Miles' glass was full again.  He reached for his wallet.  Jerry waved for him to put it away, eyes out the window, squinting at the sun that wasn't there yet.  The next joint was Jerry's. Big fat blunt. Twice as big as the one Miles shared.  By 8am, Miles was toasted.  Jerry moved him to a booth and brought a bag of Fritos for him to munch on.  Around 1, he walked home.

The day was as wasted as he was.

Next day, he had to have a plan.  Getting fried was no plan.  The clock was running, and in another seventeen days, his ass would be on its way to wherever the fuck they do basic, and then he'd be hopping through the jungle with a target on his head.

Chelsea was off at work by the time he woke up at 7.  The bakery started at 4 and she would get in at 5, and run solid to 5 that afternoon.  He was off til tomorrow, and had promised to clean up more shit in the yard. That's what she said.  Banquet TV dinners on trays in the living room last night, which he fell asleep on.  Salisbury steak and potatoes spilled all over the floor.  "Can you at least do something with the yard tomorrow?"  She went to bed.  Around 2 he woke up enough to clean up his mess.  He crashed on the couch.

The big Bradford pear in the back, past the magnolia stump, near the sagging back fence, needed trimming.  The branches dragged toward the ground. When the wind blew, the pears skittered and thunked along the ground. Some were already falling off and rotting. Chelsea hated walking around back there.  They had lawn chairs for sitting in the shade. "I might as well have to walk through a maze of dog crap, though."  She hated it.  They ended up sitting at the stump, in the sun, most of the time.

He dug the bow saw out of the shed.  He stared at the tree, not sure where to start.  Cut off the heavy parts at the end, the part with all the pears?  That didn't seem right.  Maybe the ones that were way overloaded.  No, start back by the trunk, where the problem started.  He cut of a couple of middle size branches, long, but not too heavy.  That gave him confidence.  Next, he went for a branch half way out on a bigger one.  It had to have 50 pears of different sizes.  He held the baby branch and started sawing.  He was half way through when things twisted.  There was a little crack-crack and the whole branch rolled forward.  The saw blade was trapped. On the in-stroke, it jumped and grazed his thumb nail.

"Son of a bitch!"  He threw the saw down and jumped back.  The branch crackled more and sagged to the ground. It didn't break. Just hung.  He checked his thumb. There was a long gash, and a little glow of pink, turning to red, showing through. He picked up the saw and banged on the branch, hammering until the back of the bow was dented.

"Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch.  I coulda lost my thumb.  Son of a bitch."  Even as he said it, even as he was angry of the near miss, he was getting angry over the missed opportunity. A thumb was probably worth two fingers.  He should have taped his goddamn thumb down the other night.  What would that have been like?  What the fuck can you do without a thumb?  He picked the saw up again.  He swung it at the trunk like a hatchet. It bent in two and the blade popped out of its anchors and warbled across the yard.

Then he sat down in the grass and stared at the thumbnail. His eyes swept the thumb from the nail down to the joint and back up, again and again.  The saw was fucked, but ... maybe there was a way to salvage this without being obvious.  Maybe if he ... fuck. Wrong goddamn fucking thumb.  Shit. He almost lost a thumb and it would have been the wrong goddamn thumb. He was halfway through a plan to get it done anyway. It still would've been useless. He berated himself. "You cut off a thumb, you cut off the right one, fuckass.  Not the left.  The left won't get you off a fucking bowling team, much less off a plane to 'Nam." He picked up the saw blade and the bow.He flung them. They tumbled end over end as they swirled high in the air.  Two, maybe three houses away, he heard the clang.  Then a dog went crazy barking.  Someone's mutt must've got the piss scared out of him.  Good. Fuck him and fuck his owners.

He came in, washed the thumbnail in peroxide, then put on the smallest bandaid he could find.  It barely covered the nail, though the edges easily overlapped across his thumbprint.  On his way out, he thought about leaving a note for Chelsea, but he was in a mood for niceties for himself or for anyone else.

He took the streetcar back to the Quarter and drank all his cash away at La Casa.  His buddy Ivan walked him back to the house at 2am. Chelsea had come and gone long ago.  There was a plate of food in the sink, filled up with water. The peas and corn just floated in it. The meatloaf was soggy and gray by then, just a ring of oozed Ketchup . No note. No hello; no goodbye; no "kiss my ass."

It pissed him off. He hated it, but he knew he deserved it.

She didn't come by the next day and she didn't call. Not that she could, actually.  The phone and its cord was still sprawled across the lawn on the side of the house.  He laid on the couch most of the day, watching who knows what wobble across the screen.  There was Dialing for Dollars, random soap operas, a couple of news breaks with updates from 'Nam.  There were dozens of furniture store commercials.  Some guy named Crazy Larry who windmilled his arms as he talked and talked and talked.  He would've gotten his ass off the couch, but every time he seriously considered it, he decided he didn't give a tinker's fuck, so he settled back down, grabbed another warm beer out of the four six-packs in the crate on the floor, and relit the joint that kept going out on him.  Shadows came and shadows ran off to the east, and then abandoned him completely.

The door was open, a breeze blowing through the screen.  The only light in the house was the tv.  Saying something.  After the six o'clock news, [carol bernett] came on. He thought it was her, anyway.  People ran around in dumb-ass costumes.  Now and then the audience would laugh and applaud.  Now and then he would, too, though he was only vaguely aware of why.  A lot of it was probably no more than laughing because others were laughing.  He muttered to nobody but himself, "Dumb-ass ... yeah, laugh because they're laughing.  Why don't you get your ass on a fucking plane for Saigon just because everyone else is doing it? We'll see how fucking funny that turns out to be."

He closed his eyes and rolled that thought around in his head. Getting on a plane.  Getting off in whatever fucking base everybody lands in when they get sent to Vietnam.  Laughing and laughing about the horrible humor of it. Him. Vietnam. Wanting to survive.  Not just his body, but who he is.  Coming back intact.  How funny it is that he's thinking about avoiding 'Nam by becoming not intact. Maybe he'd mail his fingers Vietnam.   They'd be casualties.  They'd belong there, right?  He imagined.  Getting a box.  Packing it with excelsior.  Maybe straw.  Straw seemed more appropriate.  They could throw the whole goddamn thing into a field and let a water buffalo eat it.  Did he know anyone over there?  Someone he could send them to?  Someone who would do him a dark and disgusting favor?  "Hey, man, is it okay if I send you two of my fingers? Nah, it's just because I want you to throw them out somewhere.  Field, road, rice paddy, land mine, shove 'em up a VC ass for all I care.  Yeah, that's pretty much it. Huh? Yeah, I cut them off so I wouldn't have to go, so it only seemed fair that they go anyway. Right. Ok, my man, have a good day and come back safe. Love to your wife, if she hasn't left you."

That would go great. Oh yeah. He played it a couple of times in his head. Two or three or ten or more. Maybe not the whole thing, but the bones.  He savored it.  Wanted it right.  Do you say it pissed off or calm?  Do you say it all twisted up, or safely from behind the mask?  He mulled, wanting to come up with a version that didn't openly offend anyone, but would be clear.

He mulled, and when he opened his eyes, it was already morning.  Had he really mulled for six or eight hours?  From the light and shadows, it had to be easily 10am, which would mean that they whole night had passed as he moved each word, each thought, from one side to the others.

Chelsea came in at noon and he was still glazed, still red-eyed and in his own hash fog.  She came in and touched his forehead.  He stirred.  Another hour or so, and he'd have sat up on the couch.  He stayed down. She might be gone before he managed to prop himself up.  She walked through the house.  He could see into the kitchen, and a little way down the hall.  She touched things.  She ran her fingers across the back of her usual chair;  she looked out of the window she could count on seeing a bird's nest from.  Down the hall, she stopped and adjusted a picture of them riding the paddlewheel steamboat.  She swayed for a bit, like she could hear the calliope calling them aboard.  She walked on down to the bedroom.  He heard the bed squeak.  Minutes later, his eyes followed her up the hall. She disappeared in the other side of the kitchen, then came out again, and stood in the hall for a moment. She adjusted another picture.  Tapped the frame three times.  She glanced his direction.  He thought his hand went up in a wave.  He wasn't sure.  It probably didn't, though. After glancing his way, she picked her purse off the kitchen counter and walked back out the front door.

Two hours later, he was focused enough to realize he was hungry.  Thirty minutes later, he was sprawled over the kitchen table.  He had three of four hot dogs to go. A mountain of ruffles spread across the tabletop.  He scooped chips onto the hot dogs. He worked his way through them, barely propping himself up.

His pitcher full of iced tea was almost gone.  No glass, just the pitcher.  When everything on the table had been eaten or drunk, he leaned back.  Restless.  Now that he had energy and a slightly clearer head, he was restless.

He grabbed a hat from the table and headed back out to Finnegan's.  It was a cave in there, dark and wooded, and the a/c was powerful enough to store beef.  For locals, the dark and quiet were the biggest draws; for tourists, it was the cold.

Trish was tending bar.  He liked Trish.  She always had a smile for him.  She had on a loose tie-died halter top and a big fake sunflower in her hair.  She shimmied.  That was one of his favorite things about her, even better than the smile.  She looked over her wire rim, yellow lenses and said, "You look like shit."

She slid him a beer and he told her the whole story.  He wasn't trying to stare at her cleavage, but his head wasn't doing much of anything else.  It was heavy from four days of heavy drinking and smoking.  And he liked the view.

"Y'know, you have to be square with her, if you really care.  She just wants to know what's going on.  She's not expecting you to be Johnny Hero. She just wants you to be you.  That's what she signed up for."

He nodded and finished off his beer.

"Hey," she put her hand on his. It was warm, despite the icicles hanging off everything else.  "Y'all should come hang out with me and my old man tonight. My sister will be there. Rap, smoke some. It'll be good."

He went by Chelsea's.  He knocked and knocked, went from window to window. After ten minutes of no response, he saw her old lady neighbor out picking shit in her garden.  'Hey, Mrs., uhhh ~ have you seen Chels?  I mean, Miss Jackson?'  She wobbled up to one knee, grabbing air.  Her cane had fallen over.  He grabbed the cane and boosted her up.  The dirt on her hand was warm and soft.  The skin on her hand was cold and dry.  She dusted her hands, swaying a little without any anchor.  He thought about reaching over and taking her elbow or shoulder, but he was afraid.  His hand was still cold from touching her.  He imagined the cold spreading all the way down his arm to his chest.  Worse, he considered the possibility that he'd accidentally touch her breast.  He shuddered.  Just the thought chilled him.  'Uh ''

Her eyes snapped to him.  She took the cane and inspected it, as if he might have tampered with it. Only then did she put her weight on it. 'She's gone, cher. Didn't say where. I didn't ask, me.'

He looked back at Chelsea's house, like it had more clues. 'Did you notice anyone with her, ma'am?'

'They was ' hmm ' no, that was the other day.' She eyed him up and down. Her glasses slipped down her nose, following a drop of sweat that just hung at the tip. She smelled of Ben Gay and chewing tobacco. Maybe a little like his grandmother and her perfume, L'air du Temps.  'Might-a been you, young man.  That other day, I mean.  No, they wasn't anyone with her.'  She patted his arm and wobbled away.

She stopped at her back door, hand on the screen door.  'Do you know anything about water bugs?'  He shook his head.  'It's hot out here.'  She shook her head and disappeared through the door.  He picked up her basket, half full of something that looked like squash, and dropped it on her back door.  She was right. It was hot out there.  Hot out everywhere.

He went by Chelsea's mom's house.  Barbara didn't even open the screen door.  That was fine. He didn't need to go inside with her and her tits down around her knees. "She's not here. Ain't seen her since day before yesterday." He started to ask another question, but the words didn't make it through the screen before she shut the door.  "Damn bitch stinks of rum.'  He kicked the screen door.  It rattled in its frame.  It wasn't satisfying. What was the point in breaking something that was already broken?

She never liked him.  She always compared him to Chelsea's last boyfriend who was a football player.  Unfortunately, he was also a dirtbag who almost got her arrested by hiding three lids of pot in her purse. They'd been at some party in Algiers and the cops stopped them just this side of the Connection for speeding and not maintaining a lane.  Fortunately, the cops got another call before they got a good whiff of the pot they'd already smoked at the party, or the fifth of whiskey on his breath.  He laughed as they drove off, then fished the bag back out of her purse.  The next morning, after she'd sobered up, she dumped him.  Barbara didn't care, though.  She was always talking about how Roger could have gotten an NFL contract with the right woman supporting him.  Chelsea was supposed to be the right woman.  More to the point, Barbara was supposed to be the right mother-in-law.  That was her whole thing.

He stopped by Anna Marie's apartment.  No dice there, either.  At least Anna Marie liked him. sometimes, she even flirted just a bit, and just for fun, not with any intent to go further.  But she hadn't seen her best friend in over a week. Hadn't talked to her since yesterday.

That was it.  He knew she wasn't at work. The two people who always had an idea where she was, had no clue.  He wasn't going to try to track her down house-to-house among half a million people.

He stopped at a random place in the Irish channel and had two beers, killing time until he was about ready to go to Trish's place.  He checked the piece of paper he had scribbled the address on.

When he got there, a double shotgun out along Magazine, there must've already been about a hundred people there.  That was good.  He wanted a party.  He wanted to get outside of his head for a while, but he also wanted to get lost.  He worked his way past the two flimsy grills in the front yard. They were loaded down with enough hot dogs and burgers, they should have collapsed.  The beer had to be in the back yard.  He brushed past Trish's old man, but the dude didn't recognize him. The guy's eyes were red and watery.  Miles was a little surprised the man was even standing.  He made his way down a little sidewalk, between groups of couples who were making out against the fence.  There wasn't any fucking ' yet ' but there were lots of hands already in clothes.  At one of these parties, by the end of the night, you were either totally wasted, or if you were lucky, you were fucked and wasted.

That made him a little annoyed that Chelsea wasn't there, but he got over it quick.  No point in bitching and moaning about something you can't change. He was almost to the back side of the house when some crazy bitch with a hurricane glass spun around hard.  She and her girlfriend were dancing to 'Bang a Gong.'  There was a lot of slow swaying, but they were already on round heels.  He couldn't tell how much was them and how much was the shoes.  Either way, her hurricane came out of her hands and bounced off his chest.  He now had a very wet and sticky chest and whole right sleeve.   'Oh, goddamn, man.  Wheredju come from?  I soooooo sorry!'  She mopped with the hem of her dress, lifted up over her waist, until he grabbed her hands to stop her.

Her, he didn't know.  The woman with her, though, was Trish.  'Hey, luv.' She dragged it out, letting it float on the wind. She was higher than a kite. The wind was about the only thing carrying her or her words anywhere.  She tucked herself under his right arm.  Her elbow length, loose hair immediately stuck to his shirt.  That was a hell of a sticky hurricane. Probably not a mix, but then what New Orleans native would use a mix?

Trish grabbed his sticky hand and took him back. The other woman bobbed along behind in their wake. When they turned to stop at the back stoop, the woman kept going, through the waves of people.  Probably got stuck against the back fence, walking, walking, walking until she passed out.  Trish reached between her wobbly tits and pulled out a decent-sized doob. She looked around for someone she didn't recognize, someone who looked like a narc.  She must not have seen anyone.

They passed it back and forth for a while, let two others take a hit, and pretty soon it was gone.  He was pretty gone, too.  Good weed.  Better than he could usually afford.  One minute he was in the clear, then as the smoke cloud encircled them, he was drifting in a fog.  That woman had come back.  She was yapping at Trish about their dog. How big he was, and how fast he could eat her little chihuahua. To be fair, Trish listened for longer then he could pay attention. Out of the blue, though, she put her hand on the woman's lips. "Shhhhh... sh-sh-sh-sh." She wobbled a little and her hand dropped. That crazy bitch just picked up where she was. Whatever she was saying.  Trish took her face in both hands and said, "Shut the fuck up, Marissa. If you don't shut up, Miles here is going to take you inside and fuck your brains out.  Seriously."

Marissa's eyes floated over to Miles'. Bobbed some.  She was wasted.  She tried to smile, but her face just hung there.  Maybe it was supposed to be a bluff, because all of a sudden her face got serious.  She had enough muscle control for that, evidently. She shook her head side to side, and nearly toppled over on one swing.  She slid down the rail and landed hard on the stair.

Trish smirked at him.  "All it took was making her take a breath, and she blew herself over."

She leaned in.  "Hey, what I said there ..."  He thought she was going to apologized. He was wrong.  "Clearly, Marissa isn't up for it, but ..." She slid her hand down to his waist and hooked her fingers under his belt, an arrow straight toward his dick.  "I'm not doing anything right now."  Her lips reached up and drew his down.  They were good lips.  Soft and moist, and she knew how to use them.  Miles immediately started getting hard.  The moment his dick realized how good her lips were, it was talking loud to him, begging to let her use them on him.

She stood slowly.  His lips followed, and the rest of the body with them. When she turned and latched her hand around his belt buckle, he gave no resistance.  Up the steps and straight through the kitchen into her bedroom.  Their bedroom.  She spun him backward and he flopped on the bed, right between a pile of laundry and a damp beach towel.  She poured herself on top of Miles' torso. He could feel the heat and moisture of her pussy grinding into his thigh.  She was driving - grinding herself against his thigh, Frenching him, with a fist full of his hair. With her other hand, she was undoing his belt.  She unzipped and fished his cock out, pumping it right from the start.  Definitely better than Chelsea - better with her hand, better with her mouth, and over the top with passion.  He convinced himself easily. Clearly, wasn't at fault.  How was he supposed to resist someone better than Chels on every level?  he scooped one hand into her top.  Her tits were the perfect size.  Her nipple was already erect, poking itself into his palm. She moaned when he squeezed, so he squeezed harder. He kneaded her tit and thrust his tongue almost to her throat.  He took a fist full of her hair with his other hand, tightened and twisted.  She moaned louder and clamped her legs around his thigh.  When she shuddered, he tightened his fist in her hair.  She shuddered again in a way that announced loudly that she was coming.  Little hip thrusts that tapped out on his thigh said she was losing control for a moment. She just laid there, panting for a moment.  She'd stopped stroking him while she came. She picked up stroking and slid herself down Miles' body.  Again, something she must have done thousands of times until she had the move down perfectly.

She slid down and with no adjustments to her glide path, took his dick into her mouth. Definitely well-practiced.  He held her hair as she bobbed up and down. She made slurpy sounds and yummy sounds, and stroked the exposed part of his cock with her hand. Every now and then, she'd look right up into his eyes.  When she did, she would flutter her tongue on the underside.  He'd read about that somewhere, but couldn't remember where.  Playboy, some paperback ... didn't remember.  He said "I'm gonna cum" and she didn't even slow down. More than that, she moved her hand away and tried again and again to take him all the way.  She would gag and then pop back up, then try again. The very last stroke, the head popped into her throat, and that's all it took. Boom. He went off like a fire hose.  He must have pumped ten shots right into her throat.  She bobbed up after the first two, then forced herself back down for the rest. He didn't have to do anything. He couldn't remember ever cumming that much or that hard with Chels.  Granted, he wasn't exactly in the habit of taking notes while he fucked.   She licked him clean after he finished, fished two pubes off her tongue and cheek, then slid back up and under his right arm. They laid there. She played with his chest hair. He squeezed her tit and rolled her nipple between thumb and finger.

"Jesus fuck, Ch~Trish ... Marcus is a very lucky son of a bitch."

She laughed, "Miles, I haven't been with Marcus in ... what, four months, I think.  My old man's name is Reince."

"Rench?"

"Reince. Like ... rents."

"Ok, he's the lucky bastard then.  Where did you learn that tongue thing?"

"On the underside? The flutter?" Miles nodded.  "I read it in an old dirty paperback my folks had.  Sounded like fun."

"Hell fucking yeah, it's fun."

"Been using it since I was fourteen, no complaints so far. Hey ... umm ... so how does Chelsea feel about girls - or couples?"

"When she was in college, she fooled around a little bit with her dorm mate." He could've said more, but didn't.  He wanted to hear what was behind the question.

"Hmm, so, she might be interested in a threesome? Or some girl-on-girl? Swapping? An orgy?"

"Damn. That's like a hard sell."

"No, I'm just wondering.  I haven't said anything to Reince.  Just curious.  I don't know her well, but Chels seems fun.  You're definitely fun, and y'know, Reince and me, we like fun people."

Suddenly, he felt miles from Chelsea.  Were they broken up officially? Hard to say. Certainly felt like it.

"Y'know, lemme feel her out, see if she might be cool with it.  Ya never know, right?"

Her answer was to french him.  That must've been an "Ok." She patted his chest and said, let's get back out there.  She left her pants behind, and they walked out of there with her in just her long peasant top, no pants, no panties, no bra.  He could dig that - dig that very well.

He tried to think about Chels, but couldn't seem to get his head to go there, aside from vague visions of two women fighting over his cock.

When they were back outside in the crowd, by the beer keg, it was back to reality.  The pot hadn't lasted near long enough.  Here he was at a party where he knew only two people. He was three weeks from induction. He'd just fucked this chick and might or might not be cheating on the girlfriend he might or might not still have.  He had about thirty minutes of escape, then it was back in the box. That made him think of Cool Hand Luke. "Man, what we have here is failure to communicate." He said it out loud before he even realized.

Trish turned around.  He hadn't even noticed until she did so, that she'd leaned across the keg to French kiss some beardy freak in a Grateful Dead t-shirt.

She said, "Huh?" and slipped her tongue in his mouth. He tried to figure out if he tasted only her, or that other dude, or even lingering traces of his cum. Next, she reached inside his pants deep enough to cup his balls. "I think we communicated pretty well."

"Huh? Yeah, no, babe.  I was thinking of something else."

She laughed at him and shook her head. She didn't get it, and she couldn't care less. Her fingers dipped into her cleavage and she pulled out another joint.  He thought, holy Christ, where'd that come from.  It hadn't been between her tits when they were screwing, that's for sure.  Somewhere between the bedroom and the keg, it had just magically gotten deposited in her top.

He frowned down at nowhere, for no particular reason than his own moodiness.  In seconds, she leaned in for another kiss.  When he opened his mouth for her tongue, she breathed smoke into his mouth and down into his lungs.  Knowing that wouldn't quite do it, she then passed the doob to him.  He took a deep drag, then pulled her in and returned the favor.  She was ready, and breathed him in deep.  Thirty seconds earlier, he was down, and the war was racing toward him.  Suddenly, it was all very cool and copacetic again.  The war would wait.  He didn't care whether her old man was there, or if he was watching, or if he cared.  He doubted he would. If Trish was telling the truth, he was good with whatever she got them into.

Trish wandered off when the joint was done.  She pointed his way from across the back yard. The older couple she was talking to made their way to him.  They introduced themselves as Hank Something and Junebug.  They stood close and looked around.  Junebug had great tits. Big and full, but not enormous. Well-rounded and just the tiniest bit of sag. She didn't seem to mind him noticing. Maybe that was part of their game. Maybe they thought he was carrying weed and she thought a little jiggle and wiggle would get some free samples. Their cautious glances around, though, seemed excessive given the company. If they wanted weed, nobody within a hundred feet was going to narc them out.

"Listen, Trish says you might be in need of a favor."

Miles didn't respond, so Hank continued .  "She says you've got your back up against a date with induction, and you might could stand some help finding some options."

He couldn't remember words, but he did nod.  Sure could use options.  That's what the word was.

Hank was explaining - without excessive detail - that he might have some strings he could pull. A favor for a favor. A string here and there, a package delivered here and there. While he talked, Junebug dug a a little foil packet from his shirt pocket.  She took out a little yellow pill and washed it down with a mouthful of beer, then took a beat and popped a second yellow pill into her mouth. No beer this time, just a swallow.  She picked a third out and offered it to Hank.  He shook his head and reached up to stroke her cheek.  Junebug looked for a moment like she was going to offer him one. Maybe she decided he was too far gone to really profit from whatever the pill was.

Hank handed him a business card and said, "Come by or give me a call - but soon."  Miles held it close enough to read.  Hank walked off as he focused on the words.  Junebug trailed behind Hank, their hands connected by fingertips.  He could have sworn she dragged her hand across his crotch, lingering on the zipper.  As soon as it registered with him, both of them were gone.  He had to have imagined it.

Things faded just a moment later.  When he woke, he was seated on one of the stumps, leaning against a garbage bin, with a cat licking his pounding forehead.  The moon was low in the east, but there was just enough light in the yard to see half a dozen others also snoozing in random spots.  It must have been around three o'clock.  He could check his watch, but that would've been work.  Too early for such exertion.  When he opened his eyes again, the sun was just topping the roofs.  The humidity was starting to simmer.  He was warm and clammy, as much from the partying as from the humidity.

Time to go home.

He got up and stepped over and between the litter, the bottles and cans and paper plates soaked by food and the morning dew.  Up by the gate, there was a cowboy in a buckskin joe hat sprawled up against the fence. More like on his buckskin joe hat.  It was crumpled up under his head, a crude pillow.  It was either that or the half gallon of Jack Daniels a foot away, with a slow trickle out of its mouth.

He was a mile down the road, two pair of sunglasses on his head.  They barely blocked the sun enough for him to wobble down the road, but barely was still enough.  He got home and laid down on the living room floor, wrapping his arm around a pillow from the couch, pinning it under his head.

Later, much later, but not nearly late enough, he woke enough to notice something different about the room.  He wasn't alone.  The room sounded different.  It was quiet, but the silence sounded angry, sullen, and sad.

"Chelsea ...?"

"Miles ... I see you've been ... having adventures."

"Listen, I ... I'm sorry I haven't gotten hold of you.  I tried this morning (no, that wasn't right) - I mean yesterday morning.  Your mom's, Anne Marie's, somebody else's ... " he couldn't remember who else, but surely there was."

He rolled to his side, facing her.  He found her face, her gaze pointed up and toward the window.  There wasn't a lot of warmth there.  He could understand that.

"Listen, Chels ..."

She stood up, towering over him.  "Miles, I'm going to give you some space, give you time to clear your head or purge your soul or whatever it is you're doing.  I want to talk, I want us to talk, but I can see that's not happening today."

She stepped over his legs, "I'm going to grab what laundry I have here and get out of your hair.  Please ... don't get up."

He felt like shit, but heard the sarcasm in her voice.  It was a warm, damp rag across the back of his neck, not soothing but unsettling, down in the pit of his  stomach.  He might have been able to get up, if he used up all his energy reserves, but it was a solid maybe.  More likely, he'd get five feet, fall over, and throw up.

He drifted away again as the living room wobbled into the dark.  He woke past dusk, another day in the toilet.  It was half past 9 when he made it as far as the kitchen.  He leaned against the refrigerator, then leaned inside, surrounding himself with the cool air.  He rubbed a big glass bottle of Coke on the side of his head.  He knew it was throbbing, but only realized then just how much it was pounding.  The left side was cool and nicely numb, the right side pulsing like a neutron star.

He sat at the table and dug at a carton of chocolate ice cream with the first spoon he found.  Spoon after spoon, without stopping or slowing. In time, by 10 or so, the cold had soaked its way into his upper body, blanketing the ache in his head.  He chased it with glass after glass of water, and when he was done, grabbed the Playboy from the end table by the sofa and worked his way to the bedroom.  He fell asleep with the open magazine covering his face and dreamt of escaping to Amsterdam with the Girls of Holland. It was a good dream, full of sex, alcohol, and pot, and spiced up with the repeated motif of nearly falling into one of the canals.  It seemed wherever he went without a handful of girls, he was in danger of falling into the water ways.  He never actually fell in, but came close plenty of times.

* Wednesday. 7am. His eyes opened and he was done sleeping.  Mind clear; eyes clear; even his goddamn sinuses were clear, and they never were.  He'd been in New Orleans since he was six and his family moved from Lake Charles.  He couldn't remember going more than a week at an stretch without antihistamine or decongestant. Given how much alcohol and pot he'd consumed in the past several days, he couldn't believe how alert and sober he was.  Had the last week even taken place?

Wednesday was Chelsea's day off.  She usually slept in until ten or so, then went off for lunch with friends.  He wanted to see her.  He felt like shit for how he'd been acting.  Childish, self-absorbed.  Chels was always talking about some sex therapist and her opinions.  Not just sex but relationships, too.  Being self absorbed and selfish were right up there at the top of the danger sign list.  Things were going to sort themselves out, though.  They always did.  With him and Chels, anyway, they always worked out in the end.  He'd talk to her and they'd get things trued up.

He'd go see that guy who gave him the card.  He'd do what he needed to, make whatever deal.  He'd stay here.  He'd stay with Chelsea.  They'd get married. Maybe. Or, she'd move in. They'd talk about it.

Suddenly, he wasn't as sober any more.  He sat up and put his head between his knees - or as close as it would go.  His eyes watered. His throat was dry and tight.

Start with the coffee, a couple of mugs, and think out the situation.  Find Hank's business card and stop by to see him. Or call or whatever.  Get things rolling.  While he was waiting for the coffee to perk, he got the phone from the yard and crudely reattached it to the biscuit jack.  When he was done, he tried it.  There was a little static, but it worked.

The coffee got him going.  He was out the door as soon as the second mug was done, business card in hand. Hank's office was on the edge of the quarter, down by the French Market.  First there, then to Chelsea's. He'd talk her down like he always did, she'd be happy again, and then to celebrate they'd have lunch at Galatoire's. Or Antoine's, if was later. Maybe just hang out at the Famous Door and have some drinks and list to music. At any rate, it would be a whole new start for them. G's was always the perfect place to start something new. Oh, right. Antoine's. Or the Famous Door.  Things were tight at the moment, yeah, maybe they'd just go to the Door.  Or she might want to stay in and cook.  He could go out and get them a fifth of Jack.  Anyway, new beginning, that was the thing to focus on.

He started the car, set the radio to WWOZ, and was starting to pull out, when a guy with a beard and a bald head popped up from around the front of the car parked at the neighbor's.  He looked familiar, but he couldn't place him.  Someone recent.  Whoever he was, he wasn't happy.  Very not happy, actually, and probably high as a fucking kite.  He lurched side to side as he walked.  He came around to the window and reached to pound on it, but the glass was down, so he just flailed a couple of times.  Very high not to figure it out on the first try.

"Hey, fucker. Shit, man. Hey, are you Miles?"

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Trish's old man."

"What's your problem, man?"

"You son of a bitch, you knocked her up!"

"What the hell, man? You have no way of knowing ..."

"... fuck, man, I got no sperm. No swimmers, you hear what I'm saying?  Aint no baby comin' out of this cock, hombre."

"Oh, shit, man ... I ... wait ... I know y'all's score.  Y'all swing all over town, you might as well have vines hanging from the trees.  Are you trying to tell me ~" he paused as he popped the door ajar, and the guy jumped back like he was being attacked. "Calm down, dude, I'm just getting out to talk about this." The car lurched forward - he hadn't remembered to take it out of drive. He shifted gears, slapping the knob into place, and snapped the key off.

"Calm down and back away a little - " he leaned against the front fender - "... you're telling me that there's no way anyone else can have knocked that bitch up?"

The guy, whatever his name was looked bewildered, and staggered back again. His red face screamed back, "I know what you're trying to do, you son of a bitch, and it ain't gonna work. You have a responsibility and you are going to fucking pay.  The last motherfucker did, and the other guy before, and the same fucking shit is going to happen to you.  We ain't having no baby, so you know what that means. You're going to cough up $200 for an abortion and we'll get this shit taken care of before it gets too far."  As his speech played out, he slowly walked toward Miles, his head tilted, jabbing with a finger, until the finger was actually jabbing into Miles' chest.

"Don't do that man. Gimme space. I'm asking you."  His ears were pounding. It was like he was under water, no under six feet of red jello. Everything was dark and tinted and sluggish, like that time his uncle Fidelio had come after him.

The finger kept jabbing. He didn't see anything but the finger making brief ripples across his shirt. He couldn't see as far as the end of the arm. Everything was dark and red and starting to slant to the left.

His own hand moved across his chest.  It locked on the man's finger and twisted, which brought his body to just the right angle to take Miles' knee in the groin. Twice, and then again for good measure.  Something cracked. It had to be the guy's finger. Or fingers.

Reds turned to greys, and the pounding in his ears was replaced with the ocean.  His stomach wanted to vomit, but his throat told it to shut up.  [Frank] or whoever the hell he was, laid on the verge next to the sidewalk.  One hand was cupping his balls. The other was waving in the air like a flag, trying to keep that pain as far from the other as possible.

It was time to go.  He had to go and meet ... that guy... the card... from the party. With the hot wife.  Jesus, what was his name?  He couldn't concentrate.  Then there was Chels. He wanted to talk to her about something.  It would come back. That guy was still screaming and cursing. He wasn't going to figure out a goddamn thing with all that racket.

Time to go. Go see that guy with the card. He turned back to the door. As he was stepping around it, he slapped the guy's hand out of the air, "Shut the goddamn fuck up! Do you fucking thin you're the only fucking goddamn fucker who has any goddamn fucking problems!?" The other guy might've been loud, but people in Algiers probably heard that.

The guy choked on his curses and choked on the flashing surge of pain.  Once Miles was in the car and pulling out of his space, he was just a memory buried inside the massive flaming cottony headache he now had.

Despite his hurry to get moving, when he got to Hank's office, he sat outside for a good thirty minutes.  The car would warm up; he would start it up and run the A/C for a few minutes, blowing ice cold in his face. It was a losing game. He'd start to drip sweat, then blast himself with iced air. In moments, the sweat would chill and he would shiver.

At ten thirty, he decided it was time.  He'd get out of the car and either go in to Hank's office, or walk down Decatur and grab a beer.  At least he was doing something.

He walked past Hank's door, and was a good ten feet further down the sidewalk when he pivoted.  That's how he worked, stress, stress, stress about something, then the moment he decided not to do it, he was relaxed and could carry through with it.

The receptionist was an older women, slight and slender and easily in her sixties, but kind of steely. She was probably a good screen for Hank, and had a look in her eye that said she probably played for the Packers. "I'm here to see Hank. Mr. ..." he had to dig the card out of his pocket to get the last name. "... Sinclair."  He turned the business card to her - Mrs. Prideaux, her desk sign said - and handed it to her like a movie ticket.  The eyebrow that arched when he stumbled over the last name, came back down.  It knotted with the other for a second, then they both went back to neutral.

"And your name, Mister ... ?"

"Miles. Mikes Parker"

She didn't seen to regard the name well. Maybe she wasn't the jazz fan that his mother was.  She asked "And he will know what this in regard to?" Her tone was solicitous but skeptical.

"This is regarding ... " not exactly a job "... an opportunity. I ran into him and Junebug recently and he suggested, requested, that I come see him at my earliest convenience." He could tell she didn't like the reference to Junebug.  That was a mistake. The rest of it seemed to ease her annoyance just enough to maybe open the door.

She set the card down and centered it on her blotter.  She sighed. Then she reached for her phone and punched the intercom button.

"Mr. Sinclair, I have a Miles Parker out here with one of your business cards.  He'd like a few minutes of your time."  She threw her glance up and down him as she said it.

"Miles ... oh, yes ... from the other day.  Would you buzz him back through, Miz Emma."

She punched the intercom off, then pressed a button on the side of her desk.  A buzz told him that something was unlocked for the next couple of seconds, and he'd best be moving.  He reached for his card, but she'd spirited it away in the half-second he'd looked off.

He didn't even have to turn the knob on the door. All it took was a push and it swung wide. Medium sized office. Nice, hundred year old desk that took up half the room. Must've been goddam oak and probably weighed two hundred pounds.  He couldn't imagine how it came through the door, but it did. The rest of the office, eh. Crappy, warped wood paneling. A window behind the desk, no blinds, curtains, nothing.

He looked up, over the rim of his glasses, and said "Miles."  He looked back down and slid something into a grey folder and tossed it to the corner of his desk. He pointed at one of the $20 armchairs.

Miles took the offer.  Neither spoke.  He grabbed a pen from his desk and crossed his legs, turning sideways a quarter.  "So, how's the weather out there?"

Miles stumbled through a confused explanation of current meteorological phenomena, then fell silent again.  Sinclair nodded.

"So, anyway. I'm glad you stopped by.  We've got some things going on you might be able to help with." He glanced at the door. Miles pushed it shut.

Sinclair reached for another folder buried underneath three other folders.  This one had the words "Parker, Miles" on the tab.  It wasn't empty, or anywhere close  He glanced through it.  One, two, three sheets, then skipped down to pages that were paperclipped together. He glanced at the top sheet, then closed the folder. "You've got a little bit of a record, my friend."

"I, uhh ... yeah ... like what are you talking about?"

"DWI, public intoxication, a gram of weed, trespassing ..." he glanced into the folder.  "... one hot check? Just one? Nothing big, just a lot of fucking around, really."

Miles nodded and relaxed a little.  It was all good.

Sinclair tossed the folder on top of the gray one.

He smiled and tapped the desk like he was trying to remember a funny story.  Miles smiled, waiting for it.

"Anyway - tell me about the Mexican jail."

Fuck. The goddamn Mexican jail. It wasn't on his NOPD rap sheet. He knew that. What the hell?

"You've been watching me for a while ...?"

"Aw, nah, Miles. I had this stuff sent in this morning just in case you showed up straight off."

"But you invited me in ... for ... because you could tell ..."

"Hey, buddy, you're at a yard party being thrown by someone who has his finger on half the pot and heroin coming across the border or across the Gulf up to Orleans Parish. You disappear for thirty minutes to fuck the guy's wife, do some dope, then vanish."  He shrugged. "So, that generates some interest. You're not a big player. Sorry, no disrespect, but you just don't have that elan. On the one hand, sure, we've got a certain leverage we can use on you - it's what we do, the stick, but at the same, you've got enough scruples that ... you're not going to go rogue.  For that, at the end of the day, we’ll be happy to throw you some carrots."

Miles just sat there. It was an insult and a compliment. It was also precursor to a threat. He was brought in to be worked.  Not only that, just by looking at him that night, the guy, whoever he was, could tell that he was ripe for working.

Sinclair handed him a folder. He read through it and handed it back. By the time it left his hand, though, he’d forgotten everything it said.  He was a little distracted.

Sinclair walked him through it, as though he’d never glanced at the folder, which was just as well, since as far as he could tell, he hadn’t.  There was a guy, mob connected, maybe even a made man, that they were wanting to get a finger on.  He was the main drug conduit as well as the buddy of several prominent, established businessmen and a couple of up-and-coming politicians in Orleans Parish.  Plan A was to hook him. Plan B was to hook him and implicate his important patrons.

There was an interruption when some skinny guy in a narrow-tie suit and a lot of Brylcreme came in and whispered into Sinclair’s ear.  They both looked at him and then Sinclair looked at his watch and back at him. There was a smirk that blossomed, then he waved tie-boy off.  When the door was closed, he just smiled and said “You sure don’t lack for drama, do you?” before resuming.  Had news of his little event with Trish’s old man already trickled in to him?  It was at most an hour, hour and a half ago.

Sinclair could manage to get him on a bartending gig at one of Gianolo’s regular haunts, the Napoleon House, and boost an introduction, but it was Miles’ job to work his way in further.  He could take all the time he wanted, as long as it didn’t take more than two weeks, after which they expected him to be ass-deep in Gianolo’s pocket.  They’d feed him information to help him become an asset, but it was still up to him to sell it in a way that it wasn’t obvious to Gianolo and his crowd.

There was more, but he’d get that when he came back in two days for his briefing session with the ops guys.  Until then, it was his job to keep his nose clean and his mouth shut.

There was still a tight fog wrapping around his body when Sinclair got up, grabbed his shoulder, lifted him, and walked him to the door as if it had been his decision to leave at that moment.  “Remember, Thursday at 1pm. You won’t make us come looking for you, would you?”

Miles tried to shake his head reassuringly, but it didn’t much care to move. Sinclair was probably past being reassured by anything anyone else said, anyway. Instead, he made a little wave with his left hand, said “Later,” and clipped the door frame as he passed through.  At least he didn’t drop the sealed envelope Sinclair had given him.  Just more embarrassment under the bridge.

He didn't open the envelope until he was someplace safe.  The chair at Lafitte's, however, wasn't even warming when he ripped the end off.  He expected a new identity. Some cool spy shit like that, maybe a passport in case things went tits up, like the british spies in the books say. Nothing like that. He had to stay Miles Parker. He just got some backstory written for him, filling in gaps here and there. Made sense, he guessed. Not like it was happening in a town where nobody would know him.  Just sweetened his history a little.

The plan was to go next to Chelsea's, but one drink became six drinks at Lafitte's, and by the time he got back to his car on Esplanade, he smoked a joint and took a little nap.  It was good shit.  The dreams he had were all about fucking big tit redheads over and over, and having them fight over his cock - and some weed.  When he finally woke up, the sun was hanging over the business district.  He didn't feel like doing much more that day, so he got on St. Claude and headed home.  She was probably still pissed anyway.  Give her more time to cool down.  He'd go fetch her the next day and bring her back to the house for burgers and beer and they'd split a joint and fuck, and everything would be back to normal again, and they'd be fine.  Besides, if Sinclair could really get him off the hook for Vietnam, he didn't have a big fucking deadline hanging over him. He had all the time in the world to square things with Chels.

When he got back to his house, he laid on the living room floor, smoked his last joint, and drifted off to sleep until six the next morning.

He had eggs and boudain for breakfast, and then realizing he hadn't eaten since breakfast the previous day, ate twice as much.  He flipped through the envelope Sinclair had given him, doodling in the margins as he moved front to back.  Devils and large breasted women mostly. His default doodle.  Blocks of squiggly lines in random spots.

He went out and talked to his mechanic.  He'd had two tours in 'Nam and came back with a shattered knee and pelvis from a mine.  Why, exactly, he was consulting him, he didn't know.  He liked the guy. He trusted the guy's instincts. He also bought half his dope from the guy.  He danced around the idea of working for the feds.  Didn't ask him outright, but told him a story about a guy he'd known who'd gotten pressured into working as a mole.  The guy winced and drank his beers twice as fast, and got red-faced as Miles unwound the story, but he was more angry at the government for using people than he was at Miles' "friend" for taking the deal and giving in to being used.  Miles felt better when he left the garage.  Yes, he was high, but there was also a certain weight off his shoulders.

He went back to the house, found a note from Chels on the door, asking where he was. Actually, what it said was "Where the hell are you hiding? C" He got a glass of water from the sink,  sat down at the table to call her, and didn't wake up until midnight.

When he called her at 12:30, her mother answered ... the phone cut in and out, due to his crappy repair job, but he managed to hear her say, very clearly, "I'm sure she's not in for you, but I will take a peek."  She came back in twenty seconds. "She's dead asleep.  Maybe you'll have better luck tomorrow."  The click and dial tone made it clear that she was done talking.

He phoned in sick the next morning.  He got up at 6 and worked his throat up unto a gravelly rasp just to make it more interesting.  He needed to get back on the crew, 'Nam or no 'Nam, but he also realized he needed to stop stalling with Chelsea.  He didn't bother calling. He just went over and camped out on her front stoop. He  had no way, short of knocking and waking someone up, of finding out whether they were up yet, so he did the next most logical thing.  They always, both Chels and her mom, always came out to the front porch for a cigarette first thing.  They'd drag themselves out of bed, grab a mug of coffee and a pack of Winstons, then sit out on the glider and rock until they were awake or the coffee was out, whichever came last.  He'd wait.  If nobody showed up in 30 min, he'd assume they'd already been up and had their morning porch smoke.  Otherwise, it was just a matter of time.

He only had to wait ten minutes.  The knob on the front door rattle, then quit, then rattled again for longer.  It turned and the door gaped several inches, then came to an abrupt and thudding halt. It closed again so someone could remove the chain, then swung full open on its creaky hinges.  A housecoat backed through.  The cigarette hand reached for the screen door frame, just in case there was a gust. What he expected in the drink hand was a mug of coffee.  What was actually there was a Coors fat boy.  He looked at it, then up at the face of the woman holding everything. It wasn't Chelsea, but her mother, Berniece.  She gave a start when he came into view.  She looked in his eyes, then down at the beer, then back up at him.  She said "Aww, hell ..." and set the beer on the railing and went back inside.  It was ten seconds before the door slammed.  She must'v'e done it as an afterthought.

Two minutes later, Chelsea peeked through the curtain, then came out to join him on the porch, holding a pack of Winstons and an oversized coffee mug.  They were several minutes into saying hello, slowly and cautiously, the way sumo wrestlers squared off with each other, Berniece came out in due time to retrieve her beer, pausing long enough to eyeball him and make a sniffing sound.  Eventually, they both came to agree that he'd been an ass the past several days.  He admitted to her everything a reasonably cautious male would admit to. Indiscretions that had come uncovered, admit everything. Where questionable, ask questions. Where fishing, feign laughable innocence.  All she knew was that he was getting high as fuck and avoiding anything and everything, completely bailing out on her and the whole Vietnam thing.  That was close enough to reality for him to own sincerely, without excuses.  She didn't mention any rumors of anything else and he didn't ask.

Two hours later, all was good, or good enough for now, her mom had gone off to work, they'd gone back to Chels' room for a make-up fuck, and then she shooed him out so she could start the restaurant set up for lunch opening.

[kittenshift-17]

Hey Kitten! I was wondering if you're majoring in writing? I'm a high school student who's applying to college right now and am also really interested in writing (potentially to the point of considering it as a career), and was wondering if you had any tips ^^

Goodness.... How do I answer this without sounding terribly cynical and crushing your hopes and dreams and ideals about the world?

I’m actually already finished studying, myself. I graduated with a BA majoring in Writing and Publishing 3 years ago. And without blowing holes in all of your plans, I’ve got to be honest as I tell you about how useful I’ve found my degree.... which is to say that it was completely useless and a waste of money. 

Maybe it’s my country’s outlook, but having a BA isn’t really the big deal it used to be and everyone I know who got an Art Degree basically wasted their money. I mean, those in productive arts and theatre and such find them handy due to the practical classes, but a writing degree is..... Well, it’s a lot like high school English/Literature classes. You get given texts and articles and asked to dissect them and write essays about them. It’s.... god, it’s boring. The books are about as interesting in college as there were in high school and the teachers aren’t that much more competent on the grasp of what they want in the essay, and tend to have a biased and ridiculous analysis of the stories. Sometimes the author writes the curtains as being blue just because we like blue, not because the character is depressed, ya know?

When you say you want to consider writing for a career, I assume you mean that you’d like to be an author, and if so then my advice to you would definitely be to forget about majoring in writing for a university level degree. They don’t teach you how to write in those classes. They teach you how to draft essays, and unless you want to take after George Orwell, you don’t want an essay style of writing if you’ve aspirations to be an author. 

If, on the other hand, you mean you want to look at writing as a career option for other fields than fiction or non-fiction writing, then it can definitely be useful. If you wanted to get into writing as someone who drafts up those silly example stories you see in school textbooks (you know the ones, where Sally has five apples and sells Billy three before turning purple) then they come in handy because the classes teach your how to dissect such a story for meaning and the language tool you’re focusing on, and you work backwards (which is why those things rarely makes sense).

The point is, college is expensive. And so you have to weight the options of how much you’ll get out of a degree against how much money goes into paying for it and how much real-world use it will be to you once you’ve graduated. 

Me? I have a Bachelor of Media and Communication, majoring in Writing and Publishing. 

Do you know what I use it for?  Nothing. I don’t use my degree at all. I work as an Administration Manager for a Commercial Laundry and spend my days inputting data and trading polite, yet curt emails with clients regarding their linen hire. The only useful part of my degree is my grasp on the English language that allows me to very professionally tell someone to go fuck themselves without once cursing, or even crossing the line into being rude.

Look, of everyone I know who went to college that got a BA, do you know which ones are doing well? The ones who did a double major, one is business, law, or science, and the other in languages. Seriously, if you can major in languages, do it. Pick a core language and study it like your life depends on it. Two of my friends who studied language (both of them studied Mandarin) now have some super cool jobs. One is a high level special intelligence officer for the military. The other is a financial advisor for a Chinese conglomerate and, I believe, is currently living the high life in China. 

Everyone else I know who got an Art degree, either in writing, music, communication, advertising, history, social studies or anything else pretty much had to go back to uni after they graduated, do a Diploma in education, and use their skills to become school teachers. Seriously, all of them. I know talented musicians, talented writers, history-buffs, and more, and they’re all teachers now. Teachers, or doing what I’m doing and wasting their degree by working in a job where the degree has no meaning beyond showing an ability to commit to something for 3 years. 

At the risk of sounding condescending, and potentially confusing you all the more when you’re already at a place where all of life’s big decisions seem laid at your door, I’m going to give you a list of the things I wish I’d known when I was in high school.

TIPS:

1. Be single. Seriously, if you’re currently in a relationship, I urge you to end it. I don’t care how in love you think you are, or how painful the idea of breaking up might be, you WILL regret being in a relationship when you’re in college. And I don’t just mean because you’ll be meeting new people and could be bouncing into bed with some sexy stranger(s). There are so many things that I didn’t do in college because I was too busy trying to make things work with my boyfriend (whom I dated for 6 years before we broke up, by the way). I mean, I missed out on a bunch of college events because instead of being on campus, I was driving home to my small-town to see him. I missed out on so many life experiences, ranging from skinny dipping with strangers, to wild parties, to experiencing life WITHOUT worrying about someone else and how they would react to my actions. I cannot tell you how much I regret not just ending things with him and figuring out who the hell I was because I was too busy focusing on who WE were. 

2. If you’re going to study something, pick something that will give you practical experience, not just theoretical experience. Pick something that will give you life experiences. Study a language - hell, spend a semester abroad if you can. Study something that has a real-world use. If I could go back to being in high school, do you know what I’d do rather than studying a BA? I’d become a Veterinarian. Or a doctor. Or maybe a scientist of some kind. Hell, I might even forgo college and get an apprenticeship as an electrician or a hairdresser, or maybe even a builder. I reckon I’d have made a kick ass engineer, actually.

3. Push yourself. Don’t rest on your laurels and coast through the course. Go to every class. If you go, and you consistently find it boring, or awful, then you’re probably in the wrong course and should drop it for something else. I mean it. I have a BA. I spent 3 years studying it. Do you know how much actual course-work I engaged with? Roughly 50 hours worth. Total. I never went to class. I holed up in my dorm writing fanfic whenever I wasn’t partying, hungover, or feasting. I literally went to about 5 classes throughout my final year, despite having been enrolled in courses that asked for 10 hours a week minimum face-time in the classroom and living on campus. And I still graduated. It was way too easy and I wish I could go back and pick a different course - one that would make me WANT to go to class every day.

4. Recognize the fact that, no matter how it seems like you’ve got to figure everything out RIGHT NOW, you really don’t. Be decisive, and if you have a career goal in mind, work toward it, but please, PLEASE approach a company that offers that career and ask them if you can observe for the day. They might say no, but they might not. Tell them you’re in high school and you’re thinking about angling toward a career in that field and you’d like to get a look into what that career is like. Ask if you can shadow them for a day, or a week, or even a month. Ask them questions. Don’t just tag along if they let you observe. Ask for their motivations. Ask how it all works. Ask if they’re happy. Find out what the drawbacks of that career are. You’re at the age where you can find out who you are and who you want to be. 

Me? When I first enrolled in college I was training to become a Registered Nurse. I spent a buttload of money on books and uniforms and courses to be a Nurse and then I did a practical-training stint and do you know what happened? I found out I fucking HATED it. I couldn’t deal with all the bodily fluids, and showering old people, and being coughed on and struggled against, and bossed around by doctors. And I quit. I called my parents and I told them how studying it was exciting in theory, and that I enjoyed the course-work for my essays, but I couldn’t stand the practical part. And I told them that it was fucking me up and that I’d stick it out if they wanted me to, because they were paying my accommodation for living on campus. But I found out what it was like, and I hated it. And if I’d gone to my local hospital and volunteered BEFORE applying to be a nurse, I’d have known it wasn’t for me. You haven’t got to get it right the first time, you know? You can make a mistake. But they’re expensive. If you can do things BEFORE money gets involved and figure out what you like and don’t like, do it. Always do it. Go to you local hospital and ask if they need an AIN for the week. Go to your local shelter and volunteer. Volunteer in a soup kitchen, or at your local library or youth centre. Ask companies if you can help them out for a few days and be willing to do it WITHOUT being paid. If you expect money, most will turn you down, but if you paint it as them helping you figure out who the hell you’re going to be and saving you from making potentially the worst mistake of your life if you pick the wrong course, most people are decent enough to give you a go.

5. Travel. I mean it. If you can afford to travel, and it won’t cost you a scholarship, take a year off between high school and college, and travel. See the world. Take a bestie, or go alone, but travel. I would be a completely different person if I’d travelled before college, and gone alone, rather than waiting until the summer between my 2nd and 3rd year and going with a boyfriend. Your perspective on life will change, I guarantee it. Hell, take a working holiday and work bar-jobs or cafe-jobs, or anything to pay the bills while you see the world, but for the love of god, get out of your home-town or your city. Meet new people. See new things. Learn how things work in another country by experiencing it first hand. I can’t stress this one enough because my number one biggest regret in life is that when I was in high school, I was offered a place in an exchange program to live and study in a country of my choice for a year, and I turned it down because I was in a relationship that was “going to last forever”. It didn’t last, and I was an idiot, and I insist that anyone who can travel MUST do so. I don’t care if you’ve got to backpack your way across Europe on $10 a day, if you can do it, PLEASE do it.

6. Learn how to take advice and criticism without seeing it as a challenge and without immediately being spiteful and doing the opposite. Listen to people who know better. If I’d listened to my parents, I’d have ditched the boyfriend, travelled, seen the world, and been a whole different person. If I’d listened to my Aunt, I’d have known that nursing was going to be horrible and that I’d hate it and quit. If I’d listened to family friends who ran local businesses in my town, I’d have been able to take them up on offers of things that, at the time, sounded awful, but things I’d have likely really enjoyed. 

7. Don’t listen to your friends. They don’t know what’s best for you, no matter how well they know you or how close you are. If they’re your age, then they’re as clueless as you right now and they don’t have any idea how to offer you actual advice that will help change your life for the better. If you want to try something, and your friends disagree, do it anyway. Learn to be independent of them. One day, all too soon, that bestie you’re so close with will be someone you see or speak to once or twice a year and - here’s the kicker - you’ll be okay with that. You might even PREFER that. The point is, you need to grow as a person and you need to figure out exactly who you are. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and it’s not always as rewarding as you might hope, but it’s important that you do it. And I know that being told to figure out who you are tends to bamboozle teens. Hell, it confused the hell outta me because I was all, “I know exactly who I am.”

I didn’t.

Ask yourself the hard questions. Figure out where you stand politically. Figure out what matters to you. Do you care about religion? Current Events? Does the opinion of your peers matter to you? Does it really? At the end of the day, when you go to bed, do you CARE if you offended someone who deserved it? Do you prefer chicken or beef or vegetarian? What would you look like with a nose ring? A shaved head? A tattoo you can regret later? Do you like boys, or girls, or something in between? Both? Neither? Are you a wool sweaters girl, or velvet jumpsuit girl? Sneakers or scuffs? Dyed hair or natural? Tea of Coffee? Boy or girl? Do you want to help the environment or end world hunger or fix the economy? Do you want to hide under a rock and never talk to anyone again? Do you want to make a name for yourself? It’s all relevant and it sounds silly, but if you’re aspiring to be a writer, find a character questionnaire of all the things you’d want or need to know about a character to write about them in a book. Fill it out about you. You might be shocked by what you learn. 

8. Don’t give terribly long winded answers like this one.

9. Never settle. You’re more than settling. Don’t settle for a partner, don’t settle for a job, don’t settle for a town, or a city, or a friend, or a life that you’re not happy with. If you aren’t happy, figure out why and make changes. You’re allowed. No one is going to stop you, and if they try, direct them to me so I can lecture them on how to be a better person. *winks*

10. Use your imagination. If you want to be an author, you’re not going to learn how in a classroom. You’ll learn by diving into a book and entering a whole new world. Practice your writing. Write fanfiction and share it to see what people make of it. Listen to the suggestions of those offering constructive criticism. PRACTICE. Read. For the love of god, read everything. Push yourself to learn how to write better, not in the classroom, but in the real world. Write whenever you can. Every day. I mean it. Literally, every day. If you don’t write, you won’t improve. You’ve got to do it. Set a goal. Tell yourself you’ll write 100 words a day, build on it from there. Be like me and write thousands of words a day, when you’re up for it. If you don’t keep your imagination alive and trying to think of new ways to tell the same story, you’ll struggle and you’ll fizzle. 

xx-Kitten

[lindyhunt]

19 Google Doc Features You Didn't Know Existed (But Totally Should)

A few years ago, as I was scrolling mindlessly through my Facebook News Feed, I found an article that told me I was using paper ketchup cups all wrong.

It turns out you're supposed to fan out the sides of the cup to increase ketchup capacity, like this. Who knew? Well, I recently applied that sense of adventure to another thing I love -- Google Docs. And what I found was just as life-changing.

Sure, you may have been using Google Docs for years, but just as I found, there are likely several useful features you have yet to uncover. For example, did you know you can look at a document's entire revision history to figure out what was changed and when?

Here are 19 sweet features Google Docs has to offer that aren't on many people's radar.

19 Hidden Google Doc Features

1. Add Fonts

When you create a new document, Google Docs starts you off with nearly two dozen native fonts you can choose from using the dropdown list on your top editing toolbar. But, there are dozens more fonts and typefaces available to you in that same dropdown.

To add additional Google Doc fonts, open your document and click the fonts dropdown third box from the left on your editing toolbar. Your default font should be Arial, as shown in the screenshot below.

When your starting font list appears, click the "More fonts..." option -- the first option down, as shown in the screenshot above. This will open a window of additional fonts, as shown below.

From the window that appears, shown above, check off the fonts you want to add to your starting dropdown list of fonts. Then select "OK" at the bottom. You can even explore new fonts by their general theme and appearance using the "Show" dropdown.

When you return to your document view, you should see your selected fonts included in the fonts dropdown.

2. Templates

Why start from scratch when you could use a template? Whether you're using Google Docs to write your resume, draft a project proposal, craft a business letter, formalize meeting notes, or design a brochure, you can bet there's a template for that. In fact, there are templates for almost all your business needs. And for every category, you'll find multiple templates to choose from.

This feature isn't exactly hidden, but it's often overlooked. You'll find all these templates at the top of your Google Doc homepage. Click More at the top right to browse through all the options.

3. Table of Contents

Writing a long document with a lot of subsections that readers may want to jump to? The handy "Table of Contents" add-on automatically creates a navigation sidebar. Simply click through the headers and subheaders in the sidebar to easily jump from place to place in your document. It can be a little slow if your document's really long, but it does the trick -- and it's still better than scrolling.

To find the add-on, click here or open your document and click Add-ons from the menu at the top of the page. Choose Get add-ons... and search for "Table of Contents."

4. Create or Remove Header

Headers and footers are particularly useful when creating a Google Doc that has many pages. You can create a header that includes the document title, each page number, or both on every page all at once.

To Create a Header

To create a header on Google Docs, double-click on the very top of one of your pages and begin typing your header text. You can also select "Insert" from the top navigation toolbar, then hover your cursor over "Header & page number" for a slide-out option that allows you to order your pages by increasing numerals.

Using either process, you'll create a header that looks like the screenshot below. This will appear on every page.

To Remove a Header

But removing this header once you've created it isn't as obvious of an option. To remove a header from Google Docs, simply remove the text included in the header, then click out of the header space and back into the document's body text.

To Change the Header Size

To shrink the size of a header from a Google Doc and use this space for more body text, change the margins of the page. To do so, click "File" in your top navigation bar, then "page setup..."

From here, you can narrow the page margins to a custom size, or using a preset "Paper size" from the options shown in the screenshot below. This will enable you to pull in or push out the header margins to your liking.

5. Clear Formatting

If you've ever pasted text into a Google Doc from another location, you've probably encountered formatting issues. It can happen for a variety of other reasons, too. Instead of editing that text manually to fit into the correct formatting, you can simply highlight the offending text and go to Format > Clear Formatting right in the toolbar. Boom: It'll format the foreign text to fit with the rest of your document.

6. Create a Folder

Because Google Drive stores your documents on the cloud, multiple people often use the same Drive account for sharing files with one another. Over time, this can make it difficult to organize your own documents. To store them all in a neat, safe place, make a Google Docs folder just for you or your team.

To create a new folder for your Google Docs, select the blue "New" button on the top left of your Drive account. This is also where you go to create a Google Doc, as shown below.

From the options that appear, select "Folder" and title your folder with a label you'll remember. This folder will then appear under the "Folders" section of "My Drive," as shown below.

7. The Research Tool

The Research tool is a godsend for anyone writing something in Google Docs that requires online research. Why? It allows you to research and refer to information and images online without every having to leave the document. That means no more clicking back and forth endlessly between tabs.

You can open the Research tool on a computer in one of three ways:

Open your document and open the Tools menu at the top of your screen, then click Research from the dropdown menu.

Right-click on a specific word and select Research.

Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + I (Mac) or Ctrl + Alt + Shift + I (PC).

Here's what it looks like when I right-click the phrase "Welsh corgi" in my document:

When I choose "Research 'Welsh Corgi,'" the Research tool appears on the right-hand side of my document. It looks like this:

When you first open the Research tool, it might show you topics related to what it thinks you're working on based on what you've written already. You can either research those suggested topics by clicking on them, or you can type in your own search terms in the search bar.

You can also choose what type of content you want the tool to spit back when you search a term. Use the dropdown menu next to the search bar to see the different types of information for that topic.

Here's what each type means, according to Google Support:

Everything: Text and images related to your topic from any source.

Images: Images related to your topic found on the web.

Scholar: Educational information related to your topic that you can read, add to your file, or cite in a footnote.

Quotes: Quotes related to your topic that you can add to your file.

Dictionary: Definitions, synonyms, and antonyms related to your topic.

Personal: Results from your personal documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and photos that you can open, cite, or link to from your file.

Tables: Data presented in tables related to your topic that you can open, cite, or export.

Right now, the Research tool is only available on computers and Android mobile devices. (Learn how to use the tool on Android devices here.)

8. Suggesting Mode

While the capability to edit and make changes in a document is great, there are times when you only want to suggest changes -- without actually making any. That's where "Suggesting" mode in Google Docs comes in handy.

It works a lot like Comments in Microsoft Word. First, switch from "Editing" mode to "Suggesting" mode by clicking the pencil icon at the top right of an open document, and then choosing "Suggesting."

From there, anything you add, delete, or otherwise change will show up as colored marks in the document, accompanied by details on the righthand side such as the name of the suggestor and a timestamp.

Image Credit: Google Support

9. Comments

If you want to ask questions about, make notes in, or highlight changes you've made in a Google Doc you're working on, you can leave comments directly in the document. The comments can act as a conversation thread, as people can reply to them and carry on a conversation. You can close the comment thread when it's done. You can also edit or delete your comments at any time, or others' comments if you own the document.

To add a comment, highlight the text or image you'd like to comment on. Then, choose Insert from the menu at the top of your screen, and choose Comment from the dropdown menu.

From there, a blank comment will appear on the right-hand side of your screen.

Tag People in Comments

Want to comment on a document and get a specific person's attention? You can do that by tagging them in your comment. All you have to do is add an @ or a + sign, and then begin typing their name or email address. Google Docs will give you a couple options based on your Gmail contacts, and once you've submitted the comment, it'll notify that person you mentioned by sending them an email.

If that person doesn't already have access to the document, you'll be asked to choose permission levels for them.

10. Footnotes

Footnotes are quick and easy things to add to your Google Docs, but not many people know about them. To add a footnote, put the cursor in the part of the document you want the footnote to appear, and go to Insert > Footnote. From there, simply type in to your footnote whatever you'd like, and click onto the document to save it.

11. Find and Replace

Did you ever want to locate multiple instances of an error in a text document and correct them all at the same time? Google has heeded your call with this nifty shortcut.

If you've ever used "Find and Replace" in Microsoft Word, you're in luck: Google Docs makes it just as easy.

To find something specific in your document, select "Edit" in your top navigation bar and click "Find and replace" at the bottom of the dropdown menu. You can also type Command + F on an Apple keyboard (or Ctrl + F on a Windows keyboard), then click the "..." icon in the box that appears to the top right of your Google Doc.

Either process will call up the window shown below, where you can type in the text you'd like to find and replace it with corrected text. If the error appears more than once, click "Replace all."

12. Revision History

Speaking of revising content ... have you ever wanted to see all of the changes you (or someone else) made in a Google Doc? Better yet, have you ever wanted to go back in time and revert to an earlier version of your document? Thanks to the Revision History feature, you can. And it's awesome.

All you have to do is open the document and go to File > View Revision History. A panel will appear on the right-hand side of your screen showing an overview of who made changes and when. For a more in-depth view of the changes that were made, click the detailed revisions button below the overview list.

13. Voice Typing

Have Google Chrome as your browser? Have a working microphone either built in to your device or connected externally? Then you can "type" in a Google Doc using just your voice. To indicate a punctuation mark, simply say the name of it out loud, like "period," "comma," "exclamation point," or "question mark." To begin a new line or a new paragraph, say "new line" or "new paragraph" out loud.

To get to voice typing, open a document and click Tools from the menu at the top of the page. Choose Voice typing... from the dropdown menu. When you're ready to speak your text, click the microphone or press Cmd + Shift + S (on a Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + S (on a PC) to begin recording.

Want to voice type in Google Docs on your phone? Voice typing only works for computers, but many iOS and Android mobile devices have built-in microphones you can use with a document.

14. Keyboard Shortcuts

There's something so satisfying about knowing the keyboard shortcuts for whatever application you're using, and Google Docs has a ton of them to choose from. A lot of them are the same as in other applications, such as Cmd + C (Mac) or Ctrl + C (PC) to paste, or Cmd + B (Mac) or Ctrl + B (PC) to bold something. But it has a few unique ones, too. Here are a few of my favorites:

Shift + T = Create a new document.

Ctrl + Alt + M = Insert a comment.

Alt + I (in Google Chrome) or Alt + Shift + I (in other browsers) = Open the "Insert" menu.

Hold Ctrl + Alt, press N then H = Move to the next heading.

See the full list here.

To display the list of commonly used shortcuts while you're working in a document, press Cmd + / on a Mac, and Shift + / or Ctrl + / on Chrome OS or Windows. You can also just click the gear icon in the upper left hand corner of your screen and choose "Keyboard Shortcuts" from the dropdown menu.

15. Create Your Own Shortcuts

Google Docs may have a lot of shortcuts available to us, but what if we want to make a few of our very own? To create custom shortcuts, go to Tools > Preferences > Automatic Substition. You might find there are a few in there already (like changing 1/2 to ½), but feel free to add in some of your own.

16. Conference Calls

Google Docs is a collaborative platform -- and the "UberConference" add-on makes it even more collaborative by letting you conduct an audio conference call right from the document. All you have to do is turn on the add-on and invite your friends or colleagues. When they accept, everyone will be able to view and edit the document while participating in a conference call.

To find the add-on, click here or open your document and click Add-ons from the menu at the top of the page. Choose Get add-ons... and search for "UberConference."

17. Image Editing

Once you've inserted an image into your document, you can still edit it within the document. Click the image in your document, and the toolbar at the top will change to all the tools you can use to edit your image. Crop it, mask it, add borders to it ... there are a lot of possibilities in there.

Below are two examples of great image editing tricks: cropping and adding a border. (And if you ever want to reset an image back to its original form, simply select the image and click the "Reset Image" icon in your toolbar.)

Cropping Tool

Select an image in your document and click the crop icon in your toolbar. From there, drag and drop the blue handles until you've cropped the image to your liking. To save it, click "Enter" on your keyboard or just click back into your document.

Borders

To add a black or colored border to any image, select the image and click the line color icon in your toolbar (which looks like a pencil). Select the color you want the border to be, and voilà! To save it, simply click off of the image.

18. Dictionary

Ever written a word and wanted to double-check you're using it correctly? What about writing a word that you want to find a synonym for? Instead of opening up a new browser window, you can look up the definition for that word right inside your document -- as well as get synonym suggestions.

All you have to do is highlight the word, right-click on it, and choose Define. The Research tool will look up the word on the internet for you, and its definition will appear on the right-hand side of your screen.

19. Language Accent Buttons

Gone are the days of memorizing accent shortcuts (and getting them wrong), opening up international keyboards and clicking keys manually, and copy/pasting from other documents. If you ever find yourself writing in a language other than English, the "Easy Accents" add-on could save you a lot of time. It lets you insert accents for 20 different languages directly from a sidebar in your document.

To find the add-on, click here or open your document and click Add-ons from the menu at the top of the page. Choose Get add-ons... and search for "Easy Accents."

I'll bet you didn't know at least a handful of these ... Now that you do, put them to good use in your next Google Doc. Want more ways to use Google to create an effective marketing campaign? Download the free guide below.

[hoidn]

AO3 Writer Meme! copied right from @sarking (thank you!), who said:

Thirty-three questions and answers under the cut, along with a handy list of the questions so you don’t have to delete my answers when you write your own. Because I care, dammit.

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

i’m sorry to say that it’s a very boring origin story. i love trees. that’s it. tree started as my username on livejournal in 2001; five years later when i began writing fic, it made sense to use the same name because that’s how people already knew me. it was the name i used when i began volunteering for the OTW, and so it was the name i joined the archive with. the end.

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback (bookmarks, subscriptions, hits, kudos)?

[what she said:] I somewhat object to calling anything other than kudos or comments feedback, but:

Most bookmarks: Hearing Light (124, wow) [this is the number on my stats page, although the number on the work is 89, so idk.]

Most subscriptions: if you came this way (17)

Most hits: A Wild and Distant Shore (21,944 HOLY SHIT) [it took me three tries to figure out how to see my hit counts; also my top 5 are now all pride and prejudice fics, heh.]

Most kudos: A Wild and Distant Shore (629)

3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

it’s a photo of a bookshelf with the text “take me to the library. it is urgent.” i chose it because it’s very ‘me’ in the sense that i love books, i love libraries, and i have been known to have urgent library needs. also it just amuses me.

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

um, no? i mostly write in small fandoms, or larger fandoms that are no longer very active, and i write infrequently, and i rarely write long fics, all of which combined means that there’s not much consistency in the comments.

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

i mean, i have thousands of fics saved, and i’ve read them all at least twice. at least.

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

i have 21 subscriptions to works and, looking at them, i realise i don’t have any idea what most of them are. i’ve got 287 bookmarks.

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

i’ve written a grand total of one. based on that: sex worker AU!

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

User Subscriptions: 65 (wow, really? i bet they’re very disappointed. sorry, folks!)

Bookmarks: 1064

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

not other people; it’s more about me judging myself. like, i started writing a luke/lorelai alpha/omega fic? i’m somewhat horrified?

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

i feel like any answer to this question would require me to just... be someone else. for example, i’d like to be better at replying to comments and i’d like to write more consistently. but both of those things are constrained by the state of my brain. so either someone invents a drug to “cure” me, or i have to somehow magically become not-mentally-ill. while i’m not opposed to either of those things happening, they don’t seem very likely.

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

the thing is, a lot of my fandoms are small (or tiny), and in them the popular ships are still rarepairs in a larger sense. (right now, for example, there are 62 works tagged with walt/vic at the archive, and that’s across both the book and tv show fandoms.) so from my perspective those two things are not mutually exclusive. that said, it appears i generally write ships that are popular within the context of an individual fandom.

12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

66.

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

why do you hurt me this way? is it really necessary to flaunt my inadequacies, meme writer? is it?! between the old stuff i haven’t migrated over from scrivener and what i’ve got in bean it’s... more than 50, less than 100? 

[what she said #2:] PS. Thank you to whoever originally wrote these questions for saying “writing program” and not “AO3 Drafts.” DON’T WRITE YOUR SHIT ON AO3, KIDS. I BEG YOU, SUPPORT BEGS YOU, THE POSTING FORM BEGS YOU.

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

both. that is, i keep them in my head until i can’t stand it anymore. then i write them down.

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

no. the closest i’ve come is when i betad a story for an xf writer and in the course of that she asked me to write a parallel version from scully’s pov (as a complement to hers, which was from mulder’s).

16. How did you discover AO3?

i remember being aware of something being developed through discussions linked from metafandom at livejournal. then i think i lost track of it a bit, until a friend mentioned they were volunteering for the OTW and the org was looking for more volunteers and i signed up. i did documentation for a while, maybe a year? volunteers got an automatic invite to AO3 and i moved into tag wrangling then.

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3?

ahahahahahahaha no. i am neither popular nor famous. anywhere.

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

[what she said #3:] That… that is a thing people do?

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

no. i’ve been writing since i learned how to do it as a wee bairn. i started writing fic because one day i just had an idea that hadn’t been there the day before. that’s basically how it’s always worked. which is not to say that i haven’t received meaningful encouragement from other people, or that there aren’t writers who i admire so much i’d give up a kidney to have half their abilities, but even without that i’d still be writing. it’s the way my brain is wired, alas.

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

learn

what

words

mean

i honestly cannot emphasise this enough. it’s gotten to the point that i’ve begun finding trends as i go through different fandoms where it’s clear people are just copying the use of words as they’ve seen others do, without any awareness of what they actually mean. i am not exaggerating when i say that it makes me want to cry.

here’s a very common example: bemused. friends, this is not a synonym for amused. it means puzzled or confused. but you wouldn’t know that from reading a lot of fic.

there’s nothing wrong with not knowing what a word means when you encounter it for the first time. no one knows every single word in a given language. when you come across a word you don’t know, or even just don’t entirely recall the meaning of, look it up! the dictionary is your friend. it’s also a magical resource where you can make connections between words and learn stuff! if you use a mac, you already have an excellent in-built dictionary which includes a thesaurus and etymological details. if you don’t have a mac it’s still very easy to get access to a dictionary. i recommend the OED above everything and there’s a phone app for that which is free.

as a writer, words are your tools. don’t be afraid of them. but as with any tool, you need to learn how to use it before you can create something good. 

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

what is this ‘plot’ of which you speak? it’s a bit of both. sometimes i’m writing towards an ending i already know and i’m just not sure how i’m going to get there. sometimes i start with the idea of something i want to achieve thematically or in terms of character and the story forms the ending itself as it progresses.

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

i’m not sure what a bad comment means in this context. i’ve never gotten any hardcore flames or anything. i’ve gotten comments that i found personally offensive or upsetting but that i doubt most other writers would. i’m an outlier and shouldn’t be counted.

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

all of them? i don’t know; different scenes present different challenges. i don’t think any of them are harder than the others, just hard in different ways.

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

my brain exploded with bits of a longmire fic less than twelve hours after finishing season 6. that’s now ballooned to two i’ve started writing, and like three more buzzing around in my head and being annoying. but also i’m supposed to be working on gilmore girls fic. and voyager fic. and xf fic. &etc.

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

please define ‘plan’. given my answer to #13, i believe the answer is obvious.

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

that sound you hear is my bitter laughter. short answer: no. longer answer: goals usually end up feeding into my mental illness. didn’t meet today’s goal? it’s because you’re worthless! and tomorrow you’ll be behind and the burden of the goal will be doubled and you won’t make it and you’ll be even more worthless! just punish yourself now and save time! 

additionally, i’ve learned over the course of multiple nanowrimo and big bang challenges that writing now and editing later doesn’t work for me. i can’t successfully progress with a story if the bulk of it isn’t already complete. when we had to turn in rough drafts of papers in school, i always had to write the complete paper, then go back and create a fake draft. basically it takes me a lot longer to revise words that i’ve just blurted out in order to meet a word count than it would take me to just write and revise at the same time.

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

(i’m choosing to answer this wrt fic writing only, since otherwise the answer would be yes of course because i’m not four years old anymore. so) yes and no. i believe i’ve become a better prose writer; that i’m better at dialogue and moving scenes forward. but i also feel like i’ve lost something as well; it’s as if, in exchange for what i’ve gained, i’ve had to give something away. i might be wrong. or it might just be a natural evolution of style. i really don’t know.

28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written?

right now i’d have to say if you came this way. there is a lot of me in there, though in ways i don’t believe anyone else would recognise, and so it’s a very personal fic. writing it was also probably the most joyful writing experience i’ve ever had--at least for the first two thirds. so it reminds me of that giddy, wonderful feeling.

29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written?

Camera Lucida I: Latency. because it’s not really my story. all i did was write another perspective of the story someone else had already written. and not in a remix-y way. i literally just replaced the narrative sections she had written and slotted scully’s internal pov into it in place of mulder’s.

30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

all things being equal, in exactly the same place as now. i mean, i’d like to say that in five years i’ll have finished writing my giant backlog of things-in-various-stages-of-being-written, and writing regularly, and all that good stuff. but i might not even be alive in five years. and even if i am, the likelihood of a magical transformation is, as i said before, unlikely.

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

thinking about it. if there were a way to get thoughts directly into text, i’d have written a hell of a lot more. also, research. i love research! it’s a great means of procrastination because you still get the sense of accomplishing something.

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

the part where you actually have to write. it’s pulling-teeth, blood-from-a-stone hard and i honestly wish i didn’t need to do it, but i always get to a point where i simply can’t not write. like, it gets painful? in a particular way in my brain. it’s like pressure and an incessant song lyric you can’t get out of your head combined and it gets worse and worse until you finally just give up and write down whatever the hell it is that’s in there. unfortunately, the whatever-the-hell-that’s-in-there is never a complete story, so then begins the struggle of trying to make it one. 

33. Why do you write?

like i said, it’s the way my brain is wired. i can’t not. and humans are a storytelling species. the very means by which we construct the idea of our individual selves is through the stories we tell ourselves. every memory, every conversation, every piece of our life is a story; we are stories within stories. i always think the question should be: why doesn’t everyone write?

Question list:

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean? 2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback (bookmarks, subscriptions, hits, kudos)? 3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it? 4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters? 5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again? 6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked? 7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most? 8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page) 9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!) 10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc. 11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often? 12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)? 13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program? 14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head? 15. Have you ever co-authored a story? 16. How did you discover AO3? 17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3? 18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers? 19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write? 20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author? 21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go? 22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do? 23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..) 24. What story(s) are you working on now? 25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)? 26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself? 27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started? 28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written? 29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written? 30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years? 31. What is the easiest thing about writing? 32. What is the hardest thing about writing? 33. Why do you write?

#writing is more surprise than certainty #me and my charms #words are my life

[vioncentral-blog]

The Tony Romo Experiment: Rookie TV Analyst Reflects on First Two Months in CBS Booth

https://www.vionafrica.cf/the-tony-romo-experiment-rookie-tv-analyst-reflects-on-first-two-months-in-cbs-booth/

The Tony Romo Experiment: Rookie TV Analyst Reflects on First Two Months in CBS Booth

So we’re seven weeks into the great Tony Romo Experiment at CBS. What have we learned?

1. He’s really good. 2. He predicts several plays a game, or where the ball is going, before the snap. 3. He knows when to be excitable and when to be analytical. 4. He can speak in the five- to eight-second bites that a game analyst must be able to do, because often that’s all the time you have between plays.

We spoke late Saturday night, before Romo did Cincinnati-Pittsburgh on Sunday. Romo was Romo. This is the way I’d describe him: He loves football. He loves talking about football. He loves opining about football. He loves putting himself in the shoes of the defense and trying to figure out what the defensive coordinator is going to call. He’s been like this for years—just listen to my 2016 podcast with him to find out how he thinks. When you’re done with that, you’ll believe he had the chops for TV, and the only thing you’d wonder is whether he could be economical with his language, and could he speak to those who don’t know football as well. So far, he’s done both.

“I know how to get ready for a football game,” Romo said. “I always knew how to prepare. Preparation for this has not been hard—I love doing it. What it comes down to is, I think about the game a lot. Even when I was playing, I was trying to figure the game out.”

Tony Romo is in his first year as a broadcaster after a 13-year career with the Cowboys. John Lamparski/WireImage

The latest example: With 41 seconds left Thursday night in Oakland, the Chiefs led 30-24. Fourth-and-11 at the Kansas City 42. Listen to Romo from the broadcast.

“It’s the game. Fourth-and-11. I suspect Kansas City’s gonna run what they like to do, which is to rush three … at the most four, play two-man super-wide. [The two safeties deep, playing wide to try to limit the throws Derek Carr can make to either sideline.] You [the Raiders] gotta go to the middle of the field.”

Pause. Slight chuckle, looking at the Chiefs’ front. “They don’t pressure here, do they? First time all game?” Carr calling signals from the shotgun. Safeties very wide, outside each hashmark. “It’s man-to-man. Two high guys [safeties].”

Romo telestrates in yellow how wide the safeties are. Then he draws a circle around the middle of the field, with the center right around the 31-yard line—where the Raiders must reach for the first down. The area is empty. Totally devoid of Chiefs.

“The area to throw to is right here in the middle!” Romo says, voice rising to the importance of the game, the season, for Oakland.

The amount of time it takes to go from “They don’t pressure here, do they?” to “The area to throw to is right here in the middle!”: 7.34 seconds.

Jim Nantz: “Here we go, everything on the line …” Carr throws to Jared Cook, right where the center of that Romo circle was. Right there. Nantz: “Right at the spot, Tony!”​ Gain of 13. First down, Oakland.

Romo: “They need to attack that every time on each play with different plays right there … Then, as soon as that safety comes down, you take your shot outside the numbers.”

NFL The Derek Carr Throws That Saved the Oakland Raiders’ Season

​

What I liked about the sequence is Romo made it sound so simple, so that even sportswriters can understand it. On Saturday night, asked about calling plays before they happen: “That’s a tough question to answer. I don’t think I do it that often. I know the viral sensation of the world we live in, with social media everywhere. But I only do it maybe three times a game. I’m just trying to think along with the game, to say what I see. It comes down to years of experience, knowing the defense as well as the offense. It’s been natural for me to feel what the quarterback is thinking and feeling at the moment.

“As far as what I say … I want people to feel when the game’s on the line how important the play is. It’s like, you’re at dinner or in the bar with your buddy, and you look up at the game on TV and say, ‘You gotta see this!’ That’s the way I want do the games.”

Some of what Romo was told before his TV life started has been right on the money. Other things, not so much. Like this: He hasn’t struggled with the amount of time he needs to make his points. “The thing coming in, what everybody was talking about, was you can’t educate, you can’t communicate everything you need to do. Not enough time,” he said. “I get the point, but I’m not sure about that. You gotta be symbiotic with the play-by-play guy, and Jim [Nantz] is so good at his job. Jim has the ability to exactly understand the situation and how much time he needs, and how much time that leaves. To me, it’s been far easier to understand the subtleties of timing.”

And about being too complex in his explanations? “People want to learn football,” Romo said. “People are passionate about their teams, and they want to know exactly why something just happened. So I try to tell them. I don’t think it’s that tough to tell them in a way they can fathom.”

NFL The Fog, the Flag and the Football

“You miss playing?” I asked. “Ever think about playing again?”

“I don’t really think about that,” he said. “When I make a choice—and I bet it was the same with [Cris] Collinsworth and [Troy] Aikman—you know how much effort goes into it. You gotta give everything you got to this. You can’t fake things. You gotta be yourself. You always hope people enjoy it. The goal is to talk to the guy having a beer next to you, just explain the game. And if I can do that, I’ve done my job.”

So far, so good. Now for your email…

Though seven games this season, Jared Goff has nine touchdown passes, nearly double his total of five as a rookie in seven starts. Mitchell Gunn/Getty Images

GOFF FOR MVP Although you were more restrained, the rest of the NFL intelligentsia left Rams QB Jared Goff dead and buried after last season even though he was playing under the offensive albatross that is Jeff Fisher. If Goff gets the Rams to a double-digit win record and into the playoffs, he's the league MVP, regardless of whatever any other player does this season. —G.M., Silver Spring, Md.

Goff is an incredible turnaround story. I truly appreciate it, because I had little regard for him at the end of his 0-7 rookie season, and the distance the Rams have traveled is great. But my MVP through seven weeks is Carson Wentz. More accurate, more yards, more touchdowns (17 to 8), better yards per attempt, better rating (by 13.7), more wins.

NFL Everybody Believes in Carson Wentz Now

THE EFFECT OF THE FOG CAMERA ANGLES I turned on the Pats-Falcons game in the third quarter and was confused why they were showing the game from one camera angle (behind the offensive line 10 feet above/behind the QB). I found out the reason a minute later when they showed the fog. I watched and found the new angle interesting (not the usual sideline view) but I really was surprised at how much more violent the game looked. Did you notice this too? —Jay T., Green Bay

Interesting point, Jay. When I have been on the field for games, I always think: How is that guy going to get up after that collision? It’s a ferocious game, and it looks ever rougher when you’re watching up-close, which the NBC cameras were able to show Sunday night. On Monday night, I was down on the field in Philadelphia before the game and ran into Ross Tucker, the former NFL offensive lineman, who was there doing the game for Westwood One. When I asked him if he wished he was playing in the game, he looked out at the field to mammoth Fletcher Cox warming up, and said, basically, HECK NO!!!!

CLEVELAND’S QB CARNAGE We're nearing the mid-point of another Browns campaign tormented by atrocious quarterback play, which means it's time to start thinking of who will be the next name on that stupid jersey. I understand your point in this week's MMQB column about needing more time to assess the college QBs. Let's assume the Browns are not sold on any of them after doing their due diligence. The Browns should trade the Texans' picks (Cleveland has their 1st and 2nd rounders) to the Patriots for Jimmy Garoppolo. The Browns could throw in the Eagles’ second-rounder if they must in order to ensure the deal happens. Then, the Browns could hold an auction for the first overall pick. What are your thoughts? Would the Pats make this deal? —Kovacs, Santa Barbara, Calif.

Kovacs, I’m glad you asked about whether the Pats would make the deal. You could have offered them the moon last offseason and they would not have traded Garoppolo. So I have no idea, nor does anyone, if they’d do anything with him going forward. Keep this in mind: Garoppolo is going to be a free agent in March. The Pats could franchise or transition-tag him, or let him walk, or sign-and-trade. If they didn’t deal with Cleveland for the 12th overall pick last year, I question whether they’d do anything this year if they really want to keep him. Bill Belichick doesn’t value high draft choices the way most of the league does. Why should he? Of the 11 offensive players on the field during the fourth-quarter drive for the tying touchdown in the Super Bowl, only one was either a first- or second-round draft pick. (It was Nate Solder, first-rounder in 2011, and he was not having a great game.)

NFL The Search for Franchise Players in the 2018 NFL Draft Class

THE STEELERS ARE THE BEST TEAM RIGHT NOW There is a best team in the league right now. The Steelers are coming around on all areas. Ben Roethlisberger is throwing touchdowns instead of picks. Le’Veon Bell ran for 130-plus yards Sunday. The defense had four sacks and two picks … in the best rivalry in the NFL right now. And not 1 peep about them. —Don, Pittsburgh

The Eagles might beg to differ, Don. But I’m sure you wouldn’t mind a Philly-Pittsburgh Super Bowl.

NFL APPEALS PROCESS It seems that players have nothing to lose by appealing even the most obviously correct rulings. Given that a player can still be eligible to play while the appeals process is ongoing, why isn’t a mandatory appeal just built into the process? Allowing a player who has been hit with a suspension to look at their upcoming opponents and then use the appeals process to manipulate which game they would sit out seems to take some of the teeth out of the disciplinary penalty. — Steve M.

Most of the disciplinary hearings occur before the next game, such as this week with the Marshawn Lynch appeal. I would agree that in baseball the process can be manipulated to choose which games to miss, but that’s not often the case in the NFL.

JEFF HEATH, WOW As a Dallas fan, I don’t have a lot of love for Jeff Heath, the safety. But, Jeff Heath showed the kind of football player he is over the weekend. With Dan Bailey out, Heath steps in and goes 2-for-3 on PATs and adds couple of touchbacks. He is the team’s starting strong safety, for crying out loud! Tremendous. Figure he deserves a little more recognition this week. —Teddy C.

You’re right. I owe Heath his due. That was a big miss by me Monday.

CAL RIPKEN AND JOE THOMAS The Joe Thomas streak is amazing. You mentioned Ripken’s incredible consecutive games streak; however, I think his consecutive innings streak may be even more impressive. He played in 8,264 consecutive innings from June 5, 1982 to Sept 14, 1987. Given the brutality of the NFL I think Thomas’ streak may be even more impressive than either of Ripken’s. —Brian C., Richmond, Va.

Agreed.

YES! ON OUR WASHINGTON-PHILADELPHIA GAME STORY PODCAST Mr. King: Yes, more of the game-story podcasts. I really enjoy them and they bring a unique depth to The MMQB’s offerings. —Ross S.

NO! ON OUR WASHINGTON-PHILADELPHIA GAME STORY PODCAST More writing instead of pods. 10 Things w/Gary and Andy is a must listen but I’d rather read about a game than listen to another pod. —Dana

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GARY GRAMLING IS GOLDARN GREAT Just sayin’, Gary is hilarious—with great football insight. Sorry, Peter, but Gary is my favorite MMQB read now. And I bet he drinks good ol' GMO-corn-syrup-boosted PBR—hipsters and high triglycerides be damned—not limp-wristed saisons or shandies, or 1st-degree-felony-assault-on-tastebuds IPAs. Just love his twisted take on covering the NFL, right up my deranged yet dedicated alley. —Kris K., North Yarmouth, Maine

I happily cede my crown to the maestro of the pre-game column, Mr. Gramling. I love it too. It’s so different, and so necessarily cynical when need be. Couldn’t be happier to have him on our team. He’s the most versatile man in the biz.

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