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thekitschdiet · 3 years

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my take on the literary masterpiece, the chic diet

Firstly, I am no one. It’s part of my charm. My fifteen minutes of fame was years ago, when I had an instagram niche meme page. I didn’t even take any brand deals! And my posts averaged six thousand likes! Anyhow. I am hardly literate and well hydrated and carry a small sephora-CVS-hybrid worth in my mini tote bag. Here is my guide on how to live like me, the intermediate kitsch-rat, aspiring influencer. But like, in an apathetic, somewhat dissonant, ironic way. I like saying I live by dogmatic principles. But a lot of it, um, is just eating disorder rituals. But that’s not really important. You’re as hot as you say you are, and as much an authority on what you write so long as you say it with, you know, conviction. It’s kind of venerable how fucking delusional I am, actually. Giving any sort of advice like I’m anywhere close to the ritzy ideal of the amphetamine-areyouami label-american. New York, ideally. West Village, preferably. But I guess the kind of guide I can write is better suited to someone living in a suburb, in a house with the twelve-paned windows. I always thought those were so chic. SO quaint, in a somewhat luxe way. Like, Connecticut vibes. My parents used to drive me up there as a child to buy books and ice cream. Nowadays I’d opt for a matcha latte with novelty ice cubes, but I guess at the time it was pretty sweet.

Because I popped a Vyvanse at like, 10pm, this next little bit could go one of two ways. I will write the most articulate, brilliant piece of literature of my life. Magnum opus, if there was a skinnier word for it. Or, I will get wrapped up doing something like folding all my last-season knits (which is part of my look, okay! I don’t have a job!) and fixating on a paragraph on how a girl’s collarbones are almost as identifying as a fingerprint, or a signature. I’m not a graphologist, but if you write your A’s with the little tail on top (like on a computer), you’re probably a snake. Nothing personal, just an observation. Also, I do have a biology final to study for. Not that I’m super anal, or even particularly committed to academia, but even in my precariously manicured (read that as separate terms; I did a good job on my nail polish, okay? But I happen to also be teetering on the brink of an epiphany or a collapse. Hence the use of the word precarious.) state, I know it’s important enough I can let one of my countless side-quests sit idle for a couple more days.

The first section seems only natural to be about hydration. And the whole idea of drinking things, really. There was a section in The Chic Diet about Adderall dry-mouth, which deeply resonated with me. Once I bit off a chunk of a Nivea Strawberry Shine (my favorite lip balm, more on that later) and swished it around my mouth. Didn’t help. Really, really didn’t. Anyway, I suppose that even if it served no purpose for combatting my prevacatingly ingenious cottonmouth solution, I was able to milk a sentence or two out of the experience. “Do it for the Vine”, all grown up! And wearing bananapapaya resin hoops too. Side note, that Etsy shop is a parasocial enemy of mine. It stems from jealousy, which sucks, but hating from inside a club I’m adjacent to is much healthier than being a hateful individual towards people I would, you know, interact with. Daily. Or something. I stopped going to therapy because I felt stupid about going and I don’t live in the right kind of town to warrant vacuous $300 hours. Bitching about my well-adjusted parents and how desperately I wished my anxiety would just “go away” was plainly gross, and a waste. Like, pretty sure almost every problem I have could be solved by a couple painful conversations taking place during a hurricane. Such a shame it doesn’t rain much here. Anyhow, I digress.

Staying hydrated. It is essential to my character, my persona, if you will; to never be without either an elegant metal bottle (I’m loyal to the smooth enamelled S’well ones, printed to look like marble or a semi holographic solid) or a little 16oz tumbler with a metal straw. Hydroflasks were some of the worst things to happen to society. I want to preface this claim with the fact that I wanted one in the same way a teenage girl wants a new iPhone so she can keep up appearances with her dermatologist-dad friends who still have the XR, by the way. But I ended up spending the money on like, a minidress at Brandy Melville before it fled my city. Or maybe a Fresh Sugar tinted lipbalm. For the better, even though the dress has a busted zipper now and the lipbalm tube has inevitably gotten dinged and dented by the other contents of my mini-totebag. Unlike a car, though, a couple scuffs on your laptop or your luxury lipbalm tube looks kind of cool. Like, you’re not someone who values the pristine, unused quality of an item that was ambiguously intended to be used versus displayed on Instagram. Now, I’m wondering why this paragraph about hydration is so fucking impossible to stay on track for. I literally drink several litres of water a day, and more tea on top of that. And sometimes an almond milk latte if I can budget it in. Not that I’m so anorexic I can’t afford a 45cal latte. They’re just not that important to me. Anyhow. Drinking lukewarm (on the cool side) water is better than ice-cold. Partially because I just get it out of the tap of my ensuite and I can’t be bothered to wait for it to run cold enough every time, and it just seems wasteful. Plus, there is something so.. skinny about drinking water at an “obscure” temperature. Trust me, I want to know why my thought process is like this too. My favorite tea is blueberry tea foraged in a side aisle at my local supermarket. I love a good commercial, high-end steep or fruit infusion as much as the next girl. Maybe more. My pantry is filled with tins labelled with things like “emerald jade organic” and “magic potion”, which is really just currants and butterfly pea flowers. But there is a necessary glamor about drinking dirt-cheap tea on the daily. Seriously, a box of 25 sachets is like, $3. At a higher point with my, um, Adderall problem, I spent like several times that on pills. I didn’t really need to include that, and could have linked the price point to the cost of a drugstore lipbalm, but I wrote it in. And I’m married to it, stubbornly, as all amateur writers should be when they wittle in a somewhat indecorous little joke. This tea is sooo good because it has a strong fruit-reminiscent taste (not as sweet as a fresh blueberry, but who wants that anyway?), it’s zero-calorie, it’s the most GORGEOUS color ever. The latte, the third drink in my little trifecta, is nothing special. But necessary. The trick is to use a milk frother to whip up sugar free syrup with instant coffee and a little bit of hot water in a glass. It’ll make the most luscious foam.. Top it off with almond milk. My dad is a coffee purist, owning both an upstairs keurig AND a downstairs one (among other more analogue methods, but I can’t name-drop, so what’s the point?), so he hates this drink. Now, calling oneself a plebian is so unglamorous and teetering on self-deprecating territory, dangerously close to insecurity. But I can use it here because I am at least posh enough to have a different pair of earrings for every outfit I could possibly come up with, and I only wear Patagonia if I am in a situation where I just have to wear fleece. Like I was saying. It’s such a simple drink, certainly not a delicacy, and… I had a joke about the word plebian but I keep getting up to refill my water and I fear I have forgotten about it.

Next section; the importance of a good tinted balm

In the intro I alluded to how a girl’s collarbones function essentially as an identifier, the way a signature or fingerprint does. This is a lie, or at least an exaggeration. But one’s ultimate tinted lipbalm is actually extremely indicative about who you are, as a person, as a member of society, even…

If you are loyal to Dior Lipglow, I have a couple questions. One; did you shoplift one tube, once, and refill it with cheaper stuff afterwards? I did that. I consider it one of my better-kept secrets, but now you know. Might as well explain the catalyst for my parent’s first separation now, and the horrifying experience that was meeting my dad’s Manhattan sugar baby (?) at the age of thirteen, wearing an overalls dress from, like, Topshop or something else equally embarrassing. .. Kidding. I digress. It’s such a fancy lipbalm, and good too! It smells like thin mints! But I could just never justify cell phone monthly installation payment money on something I will inevitably talk off. I do own three, but two I stole (before I lost the nerve, somewhat unfortunately) and one, a boy(not)friend bought for me. This is not something I feel any remorse about, because his house was easily four thousand square feet and his sisters had a dedicated all-glass room for their shared peloton. Oil money. Ugh!

My personal favorite lip balm, and I have tried a frightening amount, has got to be the Nivea Fruit Shine collection. The frosted one is shit-ugly. Hideous. But the strawberry one is the love of my life. It’s such a pleasant red, looking healthy and rejuvenated and really completes any look. Only downside is it will always, hopefully not always, remind me of Charles. Kissing Charles, specifically. And him asking me what lipbalm it was, because he knew I was somewhat frivolous and definitive and would have a very long answer. But for whatever reason, I simply stated it was from “out of town”. Not really sure why I said that, but it plagues me (minorly) to this day. Of all the things to make up.. .. The peach one is a perfectly demure spring classic shade. Cherry exists too, but the only tube I have ever had the fortune of owning was purchased in Costa Rica and lost somewhere on the way home. Honestly tragic, it was the juiciest shade. Blackberry is perfect too, but I have to layer it with either peach or untinted lipbalm to avoid what I imagine TooPoor would choose if she believed in tinted lipbalm. I don’t mean this hatefully, I think she’s a queen, but super dark, smudgy makeup suits the eyes better in my opinion. Or something. Or something.

Afraid to bore the reader, I have to move on now. Maybe at a later date I will release an addendum on my ultimate lipbalm buying guide. But also, that is so deeply personal (and everyone needs the excuse of “hunting for the perfect staple shade!!”), so it is really not my place to have any authority on something so intimate and subjective. Etcetera.

Moving on; Decorating your room

Here is a section I lifted out of my memoir document. It fits, because as enigmatic as I hope I am, I am also quite unchanging.

I just pushed three hangers and two tiny strappy tops with the tags still on, off my bed. Most nights, all, these days, actually; I spend in my large but cluttered bedroom. I have a little ensuite with a jetted tub I’ve never used because I just never get around to it. There’s a plush grey rug, spanning the expanse of the room (covering an ugly cherry wood that doesn’t match the rest of the house; no clue why. I never asked, and the previous owners were eager to sell so they could finally ditch this town and retire in Montreal for the bagels, or Hawaii for the monk seals. Point is, I’ll never know) with loose beads and loose pills and little shards of glass from plier-crushed beads. I vacuum every day. The whole room tells you exactly the kind of person I am; the clutter I possess, the encapsulation of the projects I start, start, start and the hours I don’t sleep for and the clothes I tried on (these to sell, these to cut up with kitchen scissors; thrifted lululemon and aritzia and heaps of knits and plaid fabric..) I would not say the room is a mess. Lived in, maybe. Chopsticks and mugs and gum wrappers. Single dangle earrings. I just finished the last of my Creme Brulee eos lipbalm; disguised as a relic of 2015, I was gifted it Christmas of ‘20. I think my next waxy conquest will be a tinted Burt’s one I palmed a while back, before I lost the nerve. Peering around the room you will see shopping bags strewn about the mouth of my walk-in closet. Every surface has something shiny or colorful stacked up on it. Cluttered, busy, but intentional. Except for the walls, which are bare. Bare and gray and miles-tall when I lie flat on my back, high out of my mind, willing things to change but knowing I’m responsible for a first step I will always be too scared for. Bare, pristine, no gumtack. Empty, Like they’re waiting. I wait around a lot. It makes sense. That was an awful lot of words about my stupid blank walls when truly it does not bother me that much; I really just don’t get around to it. I have other things on the ground to tend to, like post-email nausea, addressing envelopes, marrying wire and bead. Writing a document I care about because I am determined and I am alive, alive, alive, goddammit.

Excerpt over. The memoir is coming out when I get famous, or something earth shattering happens. Like I become the world’s least remarkable entrepreneur, and I get retweeted by Colorpop. I don’t want to be the next Elizabeth Wurtzel. I read two of her memoirs one restless night, absorbing it to make up for the nutrients I didn’t that day (you can laugh. I think that is pretty clever), heart breaking a little bit. She writes about her struggles so intrinsically, you either get it, or you don’t. Anyway. She had the books and the fame from it, and she wrote more memoirs than I think a single person should. That is admirable. Aspirational, even. But I do not want to be like her. Where was I? Oh. Yes. Decorating/adorning/filling your room. Your room should serve as the kind of place to watch a movie (if you believe in film. I don’t) and put on ridiculous glittery eye makeup, or smoke an ~artistic cigarette~ or stay up all night on the phone, which is different from staying up all night simply on your phone. Chatting with someone you are tepidly in love with is much more exciting. Not chic as the whole affair is so juvenile, but fun regardless. It’s somewhere to keep your worldly possessions, too. I know I have a lot! Also, it is kind of thrilling to hide things in your room in little crevices only you know about. Now, unfortunately, everyone reading this will know too. But, like, I trust you not to really.. do anything about it. I keep my extra juul pods in the sliding box my apple pencil came in. That box is almost more useful than the pencil itself. I’m somewhat morally opposed to the iPad. Whole culture is so embarrassing! I have a tea tin with an ounce of golden teacher shrums in it. This is tossed in my closet among tins filled with other things, like lace trim and buttons. Which makes it actually a pretty terrible hiding spot, I see now… Anyhow. Keeping benign little secrets like that is so fun. You can tell I don’t have siblings. I sort of wish I did, but it is easier to believe there is something aristocratic about being an only child. Not sure if older-sister me would be egalitarian enough to share things. But that’s prophesying, which is kind of a waste of time. I live in the now, in a room positively cluttered with meaningless things that mean the world to me, chewing on my lip because my mouth is just so dry and 5gum is just not an after-8 indulgence. To live truly kitschly, you have to have somewhat hideous decor. Now, do not confuse dissonant, or incoherent, with what I mean by “hideous decor”. The kitsch room has as many surfaces to look at as possible, while also shying away from too many shelving units. Then you risk your room looking like a storage unit or something. When my mom renovated (re: paid someone to do it) our New York house so we could sell it, all our stuff was stacked up in a Cubesmart self storage. It was sort of horrifying, seeing my childhood home reduced to plastic storage tubs piled what felt like thirty feet high. Anyway. It’s just not an inviting way to store things; I imagine it makes your room look like your stuff is all trapped in gelatin. The more fussy, tiny things you have out in the open, the better. Nail polish. Earring trees. Bowls full of rings and lighters and water color pans perched on your windowsill. A rack with the tackiest assortment of knits and bucket hats and baguette bags. And so forth.. Quickly surveying someone’s room is so telling. Bonus points if all your books are spine-in, except for your favorite ones, because you don’t want people to get the wrong idea. (that you read).

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r3b3lgrrrrrrrl · 4 years

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A LunaTic and Her Gunn (Part 115 2Xs2) "True Intentions"

@crystalbaby12 @backoftheroomandnotbelonging @5sosfam1dlover @rosefilledhearts-blog

"I've got different colored sticky tabs for the different spaces." Luna announces as she enters her storage unit.

Jackie and Sam are there with The Movers. Luna goes through picking out which pieces will go to The Brownstone, her Studio Apartment and the Recording Studio she just bought. She had signed the closing paperwork electronically with Monica and Ben earlier this week on the latter properties. The Apartment is ready but the Recording Studio needs a contractor for the equipment installation. Jackie being on top of that, they start the gutting process next week. Everything else is being moved out today.

"Whoah!!! Be carful with that!!" Sam cries out in concern as she watches The Movers roughly handle an original, stretched Mapplethorpe.

"What the FUUUUUCK." Luna groans as she rubs her forehead. "Why wasn't that crated?" She asks no one in particular as her phone rings. "Hello?" She sighs into the receiver.

It's Kylie. Luna's therapist. Calling because it's 2P on every other Thursday. Luna excuses herself, trusting Sam and Jackie while she finds an empty stairwell.

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"It's just conflicting, Ky... " Luna let's out with an annoyed sigh and a cloud of smoke from her pen while playing with Colson's padlock around her neck.

She's been on the phone with Kylie for the last 45mins talking about everything and anything. Colson, Justin, trust, feeling over exposed, setting up the lable. Her therapist advising her to breathe as always and to make a Pros and Cons list regarding marrying Colson. Knowing there is no option, Luna humors her with an Okay before they get off the phone.

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"How do we look?" Luna asks after coming back in from the stairwell.

"Good." Jackie begins to reassure her. "Everything you want is loaded into the two trucks. I'm gonna ride to The Brownstone and Sam to The Apartment... Uhm, Lee said you're good to go at Electric Lady Land around 7P... "

"And I talked to Mikey, he'll be there no problem." Sam chimes in.

"You guys are fucking AWESOME. Thank you." Luna pulls them in for a three way hug. "I gotta go meet Petey." She informs them once they release. "You guys good without me?" She asks.

Both women nod. Giving promises of phones calls if there's any problems as Luna heads back towards the stairwell; popping another XR and two 30s during her descent. It shouldn't be THAT hard... They're only responsible for moving half of her life.

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Colson gets in touch with The Boys and heads to Amsterdam Billiards for pool and beers. Popping his own handful of Adderall along the way. Stepping out of the cab, Mod greets him with an excited hug.

"What up, Kid!" He squeezes his unhappy friend. "Aww, come on... Don't be like that, you know Luna'll come around. She always does." Mod tells him with a slap on the back as they walk inside.

Benny, Baze, AJ, Rook and Slim have a table racked up. Mod grabs more beers as Colson joins them. They're all talking about the GMA performance. Agreeing it was killer. While Rook also can't stop talking about Jackie.

"Good luck with that, Rookie. I don't think Loons is doing any of us any favors right now." Colson sighs as he leans down to break.

"Shit. Speak for yourself, that's my homie, Dawg." Rook disagrees with him as he swigs his beer.

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Luna meets Pete on The Delancey's rooftop bar. He's already sat when she walks in. Noticing her, he stands for them to hug Hello. His normal excitement clearly missing as she orders a drink.

"I heard you and Colson got into it after I left." Luna cuts right to the core.

"Yeah. He wants to blame me for him running his mouth." Pete starts to complain to Luna's silence. "Like I started all this shit."

"You kinda did... I love you Petey but whether I cheated on Colson or Justin, like I told you last night, it's none of your business. My betrayal didn't land on you or even Colson so really the two of you are fighting over some shit that doesn't even concern you. It's that simple." Luna explains.

"So you did cheat on Beebs?" Pete asks her, ignoring everything else she had said.

"Yeah, Petey. I told you last night that I had an affair. I'm not proud of it but it happened." Luna shrugs as she fights back tears of guilt.

"Who was it?" He pries.

"What? No. You don't get to ask questions like that... Like, I don't understand why this feels like you're mad at me for some reason. I didn't do ANYTHING to you." Luna furrows her eyebrows at him as she takes a sip of her drink.

"Yeah but you did do something to my friend that he never did to you." Pete looks into his beer and then up at Luna.

"You didn't know Justin and I's relationship as well as you think you did. Just like you don't know nearly as much about me and Colson as you think you may. My turn? Your judgmental attitude towards me is really disappointing and if you're so worried about your FRIENDS than go make up with the one that's still in town. I'm outta here though." Luna swallows the rest of her Old Fashioned with two gulps. "Hit me up when you're done being a dick." She calls over her shoulder as she walks out of the bar.

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Mike's sitting alone outside of Electric Lady Land when Luna arrives. Lighting a cigarette, he looks up. Green eyes taking her in as he stands to grab her guitar case from her.

"What's goin' on, Luna?" He asks as he sits back down and takes a drag from his Marlboro.

Luna fishes around in her bag for her joint box and flask. Finding them both, she takes a swig before offering it over to his acceptance. Lighting a joint, she sighs out a cloud of smoke as they sit in silence. Sometimes no talking is good.

After a while Sam shows up. The three of them head inside to meet up with Lee. Thanking him, he tells Luna no one was even booked as they begin to set up in Studio A.

Realizing they need producers, Luna calls Slim. Then Snaps Colson. Setting her bag on the table, she pulls out supplies. Weed, whiskey, cigarettes and more weed. Popping another few 30s before laying her guitar back onto her body.

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"Yeah! No problem, we'll be down there ASAP." Slim says into his phone. "That was LunaTic, she wants us to come produce the track." He says excitedly to Baze once he hangs up. "Dawg! We gonna make some music in Jimi Hendrix's fucking spot, Yo!!" He exclaims as they slap hands across the pool table.

Colson's just about to put his two sense in when his phone goes off. Digging in his pocket, it's not the message he was expecting. It's a Snap from Luna.

"If I want? What kind of fucking shit is that?" He scoffs in his mind. "Why's she so fucking hot even while she's being such a fucking a bitch." He finds himself becoming annoyed with how much he wants her and her resistance towards him. He shoves his phone back in his pocket without responding.

The Boys are getting ready to head to Greenwich Village when Colson's phone goes off again. It's the message he's been waiting for. Telling The Boys he'll meet up with them later, he's out the door before they pay the tab.

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Luna's leaned towards Mike in the booth when Colson walks in. He can't hear them but he doesn't like that he can see him making her laugh. Mike's a little to comfortable in his interactions with Luna in Colson's personal opinion. Luna catches the back of his blonde hair and significant tattoo as she looks up, watching as he walks out of the room. He quickly heads down the hall towards the bathroom, promptly pulling out the quarter ounce of cocaine he'd grabbed from Nipple.

Colson walks back into the studio just as Luna, Sam and Mike begin recording. Sitting with Slim and Baze at the soundboard, he grabs a pair of headphones and slips them on. Listening and watching intently. Luna can feel his eyes burning straight into her soul.

Nailing it on the third full take, they leave it alone. Luna doesn't want it mixed. Layered, yes but not mixed. She's always preferred the gritty, garage rock sound over studio polish any day. Coming out of the booth, she approaches Colson as he stands up.

"You came." She purrs with a drunken slur to her sentence as she wraps her arms around his waist.

"I go where you go, Kitten. Always." He promises her before lifting her chin to kiss her deeply; enjoying their first real kiss of the day but opening his eyes half way through to stare down Mike from around the side of the top of her head.

Hanging out afterwards, they celebrate with beers and lines. Luna declining as everyone else partakes in Colson's party favor. Having done enough other drugs all day, she's still buzzing from earlier so she's solid without it. Preferring to burn and drink instead.

"What do you have recorded so far?" Mike asks Luna about her upcoming album.

"I think maybe three out of an ambitious twenty!" Luna laughs softly at herself.

"I'm down to help with anything you need." Mike offers as he passes her a joint.

"Thanks... I'm probably gonna take you up on that." Luna answers. "I don't really have a band right now and we... "

"That's why you got us." Rook interrupts her while plunking down on the couch beside her and tossing an arm around her shoulders; he doesn't like the way Mike has been hanging around Luna either.

"That I do." Luna giggles as she kisses his cheek.

"We backed her on Nightmare and I produced Outlaw." Rook declares proudly while studying to the musician.

"That's cool, Little Man." Mike responds unfazed by Rook as he stands up. "Luna, you got my number if you wanna use it for anything. I gotta run though." He smirks at Rook as he leans down to peck her cheek.

"You want me to walk you out?" She offers.

"Nah, I'm good... I'll catch you around though." Mike smiles at her before heading for the door.

Watching the entire interaction, Colson follows behind him. Calling out his name, he catches him in the hallway right at the front door. Mike turns around unamused.

"You know we're engaged, right?" Colson questions him with an irritated tone.

"Yeah... And?" Mike cuts back while cocking his lip.

"AND? And I don't like the way you fucking act around her so back the fuck up." Colson snaps at him.

"Gonna be kinda hard since it seems that SHE wants ME as her new bassists." Mike laughs at him while slapping him on the shoulder.

"Gonna be kinda hard to play ANYTHING when I snap your fucking fingers." Colson warns him as he shoves Mike up against the wall; Mike's 6'2 so there's not much of a height difference between them.

"Try it, My Man." Mike chuckles, unimpressed by Colson's threat.

"You know what, you're right... " Colson let's him off of the wall. "Maybe I overreacted." He says as he opens the door for Mike and he begins to walk through. "Or maybe I FUCKING didn't!" Colson growls as he grabs Mike's right hand and jerks him back.

Slamming it with the door, in between the frame. One. Two. Three. Four times. Most likely breaking it.

"YOU PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT!" Mike screams as he grasps his mangled hand.

"You can walk away right now or you can crawl away with two broken legs also." Colson advises as he props the door open again.

"You're gonna FUCKING regret this." Mike snarls to Colson's emotionless stare as he holds his hand and turns to leave. "That was a bad fucking move, My Man." He calls out from the sidewalk.

"Maybe it was... Maybe it wasn't... But DAMN if it didn't feel good." Colson walks back to the studio with a pep in his step for the first time today; having released a majority of his stress. "I never liked that motherfucker anyway." He thinks as he opens the door, looking to locate only Luna. Knowing in the back of his mind that her and Sam are gonna probably fuck him up for what he just did but he doesn't care. Fuck that Dude, he doesn't want him around Luna regardless of the cost.

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"There's stuff!!" Rook exclaims pointing at the large, round arial rug, crates and boxes in The Living Room as they return to The Brownstone. Everyone but Luna is zooted, even Sam. "Yo!!" Check out these fucking chairs!" Rook continues to holler, now from The Study.

It's also stacked with boxes of Luna's books and vinyls. Having one wall with floor to ceiling bookshelves, she's looking forward to using them. Walking in, she finds Rook lounging on one of the two highback, purple velvet chairs she owns along with the exposed Mapplethorpe.

"What's up with that picture?" Rook asks as he accepts a beer from Luna.

"My grandfather shot it." She tells him proudly as they clink their beers together.

"It's really cool. Like the two flowers are reaching out for each other. Like death grasping for life." He says thoughtfully.

"I think that's what he was going for." Luna smiles to herself, admiring the exceptional piece.

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Luna makes her way upstairs to the shower. Turning Fletcher on, she lights up a joint as she cuts up another two 30s and swallows two Xanax bars. It's been a long day, she hasn't been to sleep in almost 48hrs and she's incredibly shaky from all the Adderall. Wanting to simply wash everything away and knock the fuck out.

"Hey... " Colson's sitting on the bed when she comes out of the bathroom.

"Hi." She answers as she stops and looks at him with a sigh.

"Please come're, Luna." He asks for her as he reaches his arms out yet again.

This time she does. Sitting on his lap in her towel, she wraps her arms around him and nuzzles her head into her spot in the crook of his neck. Resting his chin on her head, Colson and Luna hold each other silently besides his constant sniffling.

"Loons, I'm sorry." Colson speaks first. "I shouldn't... "

"Please. I'm SO tired." Luna whines. "But, Colson, it's not the secret that you told. I would've told Justin had he cared to notice or ask. It's that you told A secret because I've got bigger ones than that. You have no idea." She sighs sadly.

"Like what, Kitty?" Colson pries with concern.

"Seriously, I am so fucking tired, Col. Can I please just sleep. I promise I'll tell you everything." She pleads with him as the Xanax begins to take over.

"Okay... " Colson agrees as he kisses her forehead. "Lay with you?" He asks.

"There's no way you can lay down right now... Just come to bed eventually, please." Luna requests.

"Yeah." He promises "I love you." He tells her before taking her face in his hands and kissing her passionately.

"I love you too." She kisses him lightly on the lips again once they release before crawling off of his lap.

Dropping her towel, Luna climbs into their bed. Wrapping herself in the warm, custom blanket, she snuggles into the pillow with heavy exhaustion. Colson leans down and kisses her cheek. Dropping another I love you into her ear as she mumbles the same. She's out before he closes the door.

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Colson, Sam, Baze, Rook, AJ, Benny, Mod and Slim are downstairs for the next few hours. Jamming, talking uncontrollably and bouncing in and out off the front stoop to smoke cigarettes as they blow through the bag of coke.

The house is still bare so they decide it's a good idea to start setting Luna's books up on the shelves. They're all high as fuck, doing whatever they want. Sam and Mod begin trying to organize her vast collection but are making no sense. Baze gets caught up in a hardback limited edition entitled The Great Big Book of Rock and Roll. Slim and Colson are in awe when they open a box of her records. Sitting on the floor, they start going through them like little kids in a candy store. Rook's really flying and gets bored quickly, heading into The Living Room to beat his energy out on his new drum kit. Benny and AJ are the only chill ones as always. Maxed out in the purple chairs, they continuesly puff on and pass blunts to the other wackos. Luna sleeping through it all.

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Sam and Colson find themselves out on the stoop alone. Their normal awkward silence is gone as cocaine fuels their conversation. Talking all things Luna. This is one of the reasons Sam barely hits the slopes, she talks too fucking much when she's on 'em.

"You can't be mad at Pete." She offers up her opinion. "Luna's like another little sister to him." She tries to explain.

"Yeah but he's supposed to be my bestfriend." Colson disagrees.

"I get that... So can't you understand the fucked up spot you put him in between the two of you?" Sam counters as she takes a drag off of her Camel.

"Yeah... I think he thought she cheated on me... " Colson trails.

"Look, he had a really hard time with Justin and Luna's relationship too. We both did. Justin would disappear and we'd be looking for him with Luna. Sometimes we'd find him sometimes we wouldn't. Sometimes he'd call Pete, me or Izak on his own. Pete and Izak would hide him... It was fucked up." Sam shakes get head in dismay as her own heart breaks. "Justin would get clean, be good for a minute but then relapse all over again and she'd be a fucking mess. If anyone tried to paint their relationship as picture perfect to you than they didn't truly know them. Luna and Justin had a lot of problems." Sam admits to one of the first people ever; Colson seeming to have that effect on people.

"She doesn't really talk about him... I mean a little but I can tell it's restrained." He sighs.

"There's my Sammy Bam Bam!" Baze interrupts them with a grin as he opens the door.

"Make up with Pete." Sam pats Colson on the shoulder as she stands up to head inside with her boyfriend.

The Cocaine Cowboys eventually round their night out. Sam following Baze to his room as Rook, AJ, Benny, and Slim head to theirs. Mod being super grateful for the spare bedroom he slept in last night. Colson making his way up to a still sleeping Luna.

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Stripping his clothes, Colson climbs into bed with Luna. Her body is warm as he slides himself around her. Firmly running his hand up her outer thigh, along her hip and ribcage before crawling around her breast. Feeling every inch of her once more as he runs his hand back down her slender body.

Luna moans as her hips begin to shift back and forth out of need and instinct. Colson grows harder against her back as he slips his fingers along her pussy lips. Feeling her juices spill out as he lightly dips his finger inside of her.

"Mmm... Fuck, I've missed her taste." He mentally moans, not being a able to resist sticking his fingers in his mouth as his tongue dances around her unique flavor.

"I wanna fuck you." Colson husks deeply into her ear while he grabs her tit.

"Mhm." Luna murmurs hazily as she perks her ass into him.

Getting the Go, Colson seperates her delicate lips with his fingers. Taking his time, he slowly guides himself into Luna. Feeling her body tense as she moans and pushes her ass deeper into him. Tangling their legs in each other's, Luna reaches behind and grabs the back of Colson's neck to pull him closer to her. Kissing every inch of her that he can reach, he fucks her sternly while she bounces lazily off of his cock. With her face and closed eyes still resting softly in her pillow; she moans and fucks Colson contently in her sleep and drug induced state.

There's something about a SleepFuck that's incredibly satisfying to Luna. Her walls clutch Colson's dick in pleasure, making he thrusts harder. Releasing himself as he feels her cum all over him.

"FUCK." He breathes into her bare neck.

"Mmm... " Is Luna's only response, she's already almost back asleep.

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Pete shows up on The Brownstone's stoop with two coffees. Colson meeting him with four blunts. The two friends take a seat. Colson firing up the first blunt after Pete hands him his coffee.

"Yo... I'm sorry, Dawg." Colson starts as he exhales. "I put you in some shit... "

"Nah, Homie." Pete cuts him off as he accepts the blunt. "Luna's business is her own. No matter who it's with." Pete sighs. "I just worry about her, Man. And you too. I've seen you both go through some fucked up shit and I don't want to see it again, I guess." Pete half shrugs as he takes a pull.

"Look, Sam ACTUALLY talked to me last night so I get it a little more than I did before." Colson tells him as he accepts the blunt.

"It was just hard... " Pete shakes his head at the memories.

"I don't want this to fuck us up." Colson bares his soul to one of his bestfriends.

"Me neither." Pete agrees as he reaches for the second blunt and fires it up.

Both friends look at each other. There's an understanding between men that can happen without words. This is one of those times. With a simple nod, Pete and Colson are good. Going on to enjoy their coffee, each other and the NYC morning as they get high and bust it up like nothing ever happened.

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Luna's extra miserable when Colson wakes her up for their flight back to LA. The lack of sleep, too many drugs and her gunshot wound have her aching in every sense of the word. She doesn't shower. Just throws on sunglasses, cuttoffs and an oversized Hotel Diablo hoodie.

They make it to JFK just in time for their 11A flight. Everyone is dragging, not only Luna. Proving that cocaine is a Motherfucker. Once seated in first class, everyone knocks back out. Luna curling up against Colson as his face lays on her head and arm rests upon her bare leg.

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It's just before 8P by time they make it back to The LA House. Everyone is tired. No one is happy. All dropping their luggage in The Living Room before heading to their beds. They're so mentally jacked, no one's even thought to check The Charts, let alone eat at all day.

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Luna and Colson sleep clean until the next morning until her alarm goes off. Colson groans as she shifts away from him. Climbing out of the bed, she reaches high to stretch. Colson watching her out of one slitted eye.

"Why are you up?" He asks flatly.

"So you can truly see me." Luna answers before disappearing into the bathroom.

It takes a shit ton of coaxing and drugs to get Colson moving after Luna's shower. Complaining the whole time as she hands him water and joints. Once in the shower he starts to feel slightly better after he jerks off. He's FINALLY fully functional after his Adderall and coffee kicks in.

Not getting as much sleep as Luna and doing way more drugs, he's really edgy. She hands him a football before they walk out of the bedroom. He's so pissy they leave the house quietly without his trademark WE OUT.

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"Can I have the keys?" Luna asks, she's dressed in an overall romper, white shirt, long socks and one of her leathers as they walk towards the Rover in the early Saturday sun.

"Why?" Colson asks back as he tosses them to her in his own ripped jeans and black T.

"I need to drive and you need to listen." She answers before sliding into the driver's seat.

"You're talking to me now?" He counters with a slight attitude as he buckles his seatbelt.

"Do you think this is a fucking game?" Luna whips her head towards him.

"No." He answers solemnly as he sparks a joint.

"You don't seem to fucking get it at all." Luna shakes her head as she pulls out of the driveway.

"Look Loons, I'm sorry I fucked up with the Tommy and Justin thing. I shouldn't have said shit no matter how I was feeling." He exhales his apology as he passes her the joint and finally pops the Xanax she gave him.

"You still don't get it, Colson. How many times do I have to tell you.. It's not the secret you told. It's that you TOLD a secret. Period. You don't seem to realize that I'm dirtier than a fucking affair... Fuck." Luna let's out an exasperated sigh. "Let's be honest. In the short time you've known me; I've committed coercion, shot a federal agent, am in the process of setting up an underground abortion clinic... Oh! And I was blackmailed into issuing a public apology for fucking up one person out of what? A fucking dozen? And that's only been in the last 3MNTHS... Seriously, I am a fucking criminal." Colson stares at her as everything begins to register. "Fuck, I've got things going on that you don't even know about yet." She continues to worry as she hits the joint a few times while staring ahead. "And now, I'm terrified to fucking tell you about them."

"Like what?" Colson asks her with a concerned, yet amused SideEye as he takes the joint.

"Why should I tell you? Every criminal who's been caught is usually taken down because of their irrational lover." She looks over at him with a light smirk and hazy blue eyes for the first time during their car ride.

"You really gonna play me like that?" He scoffs at her before inhaling a huge hit.

"I don't know. You wanna say don't call Jax but are your stupid ass, jealous comments gonna get me popped one day?" She bites back as she fumbles for her cigarettes.

"Are you fucking serious?" He spits out as he starts to get angry with her. "What the fuck do you think I would do to you and what the fuck else are you doin' that's worse than what I already know? And where the FUCK are we going?" He demands as they continue to drive.

Luna's quiet for a long moment as she smokes her Newport. She's trying to keep herself calm and figure out exactly how to tell Colson about what things. Already having made her decision long before they got into the SUV to give up her biggest secret.

"Tell me, Luna." Colson asserts as he lights another joint.

"All in?" She asks him firmly as she looks over at him and holds his stare while he grabs her hand to reassure her. "I told you... I'm dirtier than you think. I own properties that clean money and stash shit for one of the biggest distributors on The East Coast." Luna admits in a hushed voice.

"It's for Tommy, isn't it?" Colson immediately snaps as his mind flashes back to his conversation with Benny.

"OH MY FUCKING GAWD!!" Luna can't help but scream. "You are so fucking hung up on other dudes that it's insane and probably what's gonna get me caught!" Luna stops. "How can you not see that I tell you more about myself WILLINGLY than any other human being on This Earth? That you know more about me than Justin ever did." Luna's lip trembles as tears escape from her eyes. "So, yeah... It started with Tommy but I have bigger associates now... " Luna shakes her head. "That's only a blip though. There is so much more at stake for me than that!" Luna slams her palms against the steering wheel in frustration as she begins to sob. "You have no fucking idea." She shakes her head again as her voice breaks.

"Then what is it, Luna?" Colson softens his tone with her.

Coming to a stop light, Luna turns her head and looks Colson dead in the eyes. Her hands are clutching the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles are white. There's a look on her face he's never seen before. It's a mixture of sadness, pain and determination. Taking a shuddered sigh, Luna flicks her cigarette out the window. She finds herself begging The Universe that he won't betray her this time as she's about to tell only Colson her true intentions. Lighting her own joint, she inhales deeply and holds the hit in. Looking over at Colson, she studies him. He stares back, waiting for her words.

"I'm gonna kill Smurf." She states icily before turning away, releasing the brake and focusing on what's ahead. "Still wanna marry me now?" She asks, puffing on the joint without taking her eyes off of the road.

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Part 2 of 2

To be continued...

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jcmorrigan · 4 years

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Another f/o ramble...but this time, not a selfshippy one. This one’s more about ficfam, so I guess “ficfam” is another tag to block if you don’t wanna see my ridiculousness (and I do wanna come up with a weird name for our family unit as well for tags)

But lately, I realized I kind of...needed a certain type of parental f/o. Sometimes you just...feel there are parts of you the RL parents don’t get, even if the RL parents are extremely nice. And sometimes you just want somebody to tell you they’re proud of you in a very, very big sense at a time when it wouldn’t be convenient for RL parents to do so. Or maybe “you” is “just me.”

I’d kind of accepted Archibald Snatcher as a distant father-mentor figure a while back because I managed to pick up some of his silver-tongued manipulation skills to talk my way out of minor sticky situations and resolve work stuff, and I always imagine him thinking I’m just a wonderful little protégé...but I wanted some imaginary ‘rents I could rely on for affection anywhere, anytime, and Archie isn’t that.

So this time, I thought about Giovanni and what contributed to him being such a good romantic f/o, and realized a big part of that was that he was in a morally gray place - I like having someone around who’s kind and sensitive and fun, but also lets me do some BAD THINGS and allows me freedom. So I realized my ideal parental f/o’s had to be somewhere in that range. I had thought about Globby and Felony Carl, but it didn’t quite click (even though I think they have super Dorky Dad vibes). But then another idea hit me...and I think I have the answer? I’ve been liking it for almost 24 hours, anyway.

I think Moxxie and Millie from Helluva Boss are my parental f/o’s now.

They fit the moral gray spectrum - they have intense loyalty to each other and display the love of the sweetest family units, but they’re also trained assassins who solve problems with guns. And, just, thinking about it, giving myself an AU where I was an imp raised in VivzieHell (I imagined myself as a kiddo being raised by them from youth, so a lot of these will sound kiddish)...

-Millie is just a bundle of love. She’s always chipper and singing and dancing with me, playing games.

-Moxxie is a bit more straitlaced, and he’s not exactly the “fun parent,” but I can’t stay mad at him for too long, because he’ll personally come into my room and sing me a song he wrote especially for me on his guitar until I fall asleep.

-I was a very...emotional child, even more so than I am now. I had anger issues. Unfortunately, living with these two would not have solved that, as their resolution to problems is to 1. scream at it 2. kill it with fire, but in this AU, I kind of like being able to just get angry and be a loose cannon and just LOSE all decorum and get it off my freakin’ CHEST. Let me have some more meltdowns to achieve more calm-down time.

-Speaking of which, Moxxie and I would be cut from the same cloth in that regard, and if Millie can handle Moxxie’s mood swings, she can handle mine!

-I also think Moxxie being so neurotic would also give him some sympathy for having a hypochondriac daughter who thinks she has cancer every five months or so. (Even if his first reaction is always a very deadpan “You don’t have cancer.”)

-But during purges, we’re all three scared and just huddle in the back bedroom together.

-When I get a new crush, Millie wants to hear all about THE BOOOYYYYY and goes on a big old quest to get him and me on a DATE!

-They’re Viv characters, so I have no doubt they’re 100% A-okay with having an ace daughter...even if I have to be grossed out with constant reminders that my parents FUCK ALL THE TIME

-Anyone hurts me? Oh, they’re about to meet the business end of every single one of Moxxie and Millie’s weapons.

-That person’s double dead if it was a boy who broke my heart.

-(Shared universe? Giovanni is safe. They LOVE Giovanni. Actually, XR is enough of a “sinner” that Millie would think of him as a perfect bad boy, and Tony knows he’s gotta play the gentleman around these two or the Moxxie-bomb will explode. So I think all three of my romantic f/o’s have an in.)

-From the time I was small, both of them were so ready to praise anything I did creatively and mean it. “You drew this? This is beautiful! I’m gonna put this on the fridge!” Now that I’m older, they actually check my fanfiction word count. “THAT’S A WHOLE NOVEL! THAT’S SO GREAT!”

-When I was a child, it took me a LONG time to learn to swear because I thought it was Against the Rules and therefore a very bad thing. Growing up with these two, I would not have had that problem. Baby Rachel’s first word is “Fuck” despite their every attempt to make it “Moxxie”

-Actually, growing up in Hell might be a weirdly good thing for me? Because I could get exposure therapy for my fears and also see that The Rules aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. And this society doesn’t mind if I break a few.

-Basically, I grow up a lot more boisterous than I am now, for better or for worse. Maybe my character arc has to be about softening up enough to keep friends.

-But Moxxie and Millie would be loyal to me even at my loneliest and keep checking in on my emotional state. No way I get a depression spell they don’t notice.

-I feel like they would call me “Our little poison-dart frog!”.

-Also they teach me the art of murder and dismemberment. This is a dark AU. But I can finally exact REVENGE whenever I want REVENGE (note: I WOULD NOT WANT DEADLY REVENGE IRL)

-Blitzo is my weird uncle who Moxxie keeps trying to keep away from me because he thinks he’s being a “creep” but Blitzo means well and ends up taking me out to have some fun hang-out days because we all know he wants a kid of his own too if Loona is any indication

-Also, so long as I’m in VivzieHell, I feel like working concierge at the Happy/Hazbin Hotel would actually be a perfect fit for me so I can actually move OUT of my imp parents’ house? Charlie would need all the help she could get and is the ideal type for one of my BEST FRIENDOS. Also this would allow me to interact with people, get up and get moving daily, work unconventional hours, and be in the one part of Hell where a sense of morality actually matters.

-As for even WEIRDER crossovers...ever since Helluva Boss debuted, I’ve been dying to stick Moxxie/Millie and Nergal/Sis from Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy on a double date (and YES, Nergal would use his fourth wall powers to figure out that Moxxie has his nephew’s voice actor). Like, this is the subject of a whole other post, but you have Millie and Nergal skipping through the oceans of blood together while Sis and Moxxie make sardonic comments about passerby. Anyway, if I can blend these two ‘verses (or do something about giving my Twilight Town s/i to this crew for TBTC), then I get to have Uncle Nergal, Aunt Sis, and Cousin Junior (WE DON’T. TALK. ABOUT MY CRUSH-ON-NERGAL PHASE. HE’S MY FICFAM NOW). And I just love all three of those prospects so much.

I don’t know if I’m going to flesh out a full impverse for myself (anyone got a demon-maker Picrew that will let me have crimson skin and horns on hand?) or if I’m going to find a way to shoehorn this into TBTC with Rachel Inlustris, but right now, I just like imagining that at the end of a hard day, Moxxie comes up beside me, puts an arm around me, and says, “You did so good, little poison-dart frog.”

#ficfam

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katelandtownley · 5 years

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Palau Ramblings

A text I sent to some friends while on my first EM elective in Palau:

Last night we had a patient arrive by ambulance, which is usually announced ahead of time, 2-15 minutes, but with minimal information. This was "old woman", RUQ pain. She rolled in, looking fine, VSS, RUQ pain is super minimal, labs are benign. I would have discharged her, but they admitted her to surgery. We are warned 2nd ambulance is on it's way, ambulance driver sounded hurried, we know MVC, young man with abrasions. The end. No one here has ever had ATLS training. Anyone who looks remotely unstable when they arrive, I go through my own survey and make sure they are stable before I leave the room. I'm technically low on the totem pole, but way more knowledgeable about trauma (which is laughable, I know *nothing*). This young man is a 20 y/o, unrestrained driver of head-on collision, both cars travelling approximately 50 mph. EMS states car was totaled, windshield smashed to bits. He's in a c-collar and on a back board. Primary survey is good. GCS 15. He gets on the monitor and his vitals are pretty good, tachy but satting well, BP appropriately elevated for the situation. Literally no* one cares about the ABCs. I don't even think they'd know what I mean if I was to ask about them. And I don't have an ultrasound readily available. He's complaining of chest pain on the L but breath sounds are good, it's not reproducible, no flail chest. He's complaining of R LE pain, which looks mildly deformed but I doubt it's a complete tib-fib fracture because he's not in enough distress and it's not that deformed, neurovascularly intact. I ask for a CXR, IV, 4 of morphine (it's either that or demerol, I usually get rolled eyes when I ask for morphine because the nurses think it's from the devil...but demerol is OK??), RLE XR. While waiting we roll him, no problems, we clear his c-spine (nexus negative, I wish I would have spoken that out loud to them, showed them the C-spine rule on my phone, they have no tools. I taught a doc about Pecarn the other day. Every time a kid falls and bonks it's head the parents come in and ask for an XR. Ha!). I haven't figured out how to teach and think carefully about sick patients yet. I'm usually internally feeling a lot of pressure to not screw things up, and I'm not good at sharing/asking questions/etc. It's something I want to work hard on when I get home because I think it's important for how we interact with medical students, new nurses, younger residents. This is my first takeaway from this experience.

I did not look in his ears because there was not an otoscope in the room. I wish I would have gone and found the small one we have in a drawer, but I forgot before he went to CT. No battle sign, no peri-orbital ecchymosis. 2 cm laceration that's currently hemostatic to his scalp above his L eyebrow. It was previously bleeding all over so he's covered in blood. No neck/chest wall tenderness, abdomen is soft/nt, no extremity injuries other than the RLE and minor abrasions. He's covered in blood on his R thigh when we expose him, but after a thorough exam, it's not his. Obviously the crew is not used to people examining the perineum or meatus because I get sideways looks, ha! He's neurologically intact.

CXR is unremarkable, no obvious rib fractures, no pneumo/hemothorax (what I was worried about, but he's supine, but there's no deep sulcus). RLE XR sig for mildly displaced fib fracture only. The CT is occupied, so I throw in a couple sutures to his head lac (which they shave every time before I get a chance to tell them no to! haha). I found out in the meantime, because I see people whispering across the room, that the girl that was with him, 19 y/o F, was DOA. Massive facial/cranial trauma. This young man doesn't know, but he asks about Sarah every 5 minutes. I tell him I don't know because I want to talk with someone about the situation and try to be sensitive to the culture if there's something there that I am unaware of. He finally rolls back to CT and the tech just gets his head (which of all things, I'm least worried about really). I tell him I want a pan-scan, and he thinks I'm crazy. I tell him the other person in the car died and it was a serious mechanism, so please just do it. At the end of the day, even though we scanned his neck and chest, I didn't really get to see them because the tech saved them wrong or didn't upload them? I only got to see them on the initial scan as he was going through the machine. I could scan through abdomen/pelvis, but we don't/can't use contrast here, so that' frustrating when trying to examine for liver or spleen injury. When they were finally up, all views excepts transverse were pixelated and worthless. So I couldn't look through his ribs carefully in an easy way, but the part of his chest I could see was that he had a pulmonary contusion on the L. This brings me to my second major learning point of the night. I think I have taken for granted how nice it is to have [good] radiologists in house. I don't spend enough time looking at my patient's imaging and really learning. Last night, I was *the most qualified person* in the hospital to review a red trauma's incomplete pan-scan. I can get an official read back from the Philippines in 3 days). At the time it was terrifying, but it was more terrifying when I woke up thinking about it this morning. I *have* to get really good at reading imaging if I want to keep practicing in these weird environments (which I do). I *have* to be an excellent clinician, because what if I didn't have a CT at all to reassure me? I think I knew from my exam what his major (really, pretty minor) injuries were, but it's comforting at home to know that someone is following me with more exams, imaging, image interpretation. We are so lucky.

Lastly, this mildly displaced fibular fracture needed to be reduced, and I did not feel confident enough to do it. There's not a single ortho person on this island. I was very tempted to just try it with some valium and morphine, but I didn't. I don't know what the right decision was. He's going to follow up with outpatient clinic and I hope get an off-island referral (usually Taiwan), but this is a 20 y/o healthy man, going to college, and I just didn't know the right decision to make for him to be the least screwed up in the long run (do something I have a vague idea about but have not done before for fibula, or hope he gets off island to an orthopod). This causes me a lot of anxiety! My third big learning point, I am going to ask to be a part of all reductions when I'm in the department. Tell my seniors that if there's a reduction to tell me so I can watch. This can set us apart in low resource settings. I was glad I had my splint card they gave us at the beginning of orientation.

That's pretty much the longest message ever, but I kinda needed to type it out, and I could just leave it for no one to read, but of all the people in the world you're most likely to understand, and I'm always looking for kinship with my peers. So. There you go. Miss you guys!

December 1, 2018

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frank-av-blog · 5 years

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The Rhetoric Of Brand Messaging

The street value of one 30 mg XR Adderall is . The food-giving project has been praised, with one responding: “Wonderful idea, kindness will always be appreciated by those in need and congratulated by those with a heart. For example, if you are on other medications, such as cimetidine or azole antifungal, then you will need to avoid Viagra. If he takes CIALIS a few times and still isn't satisfied with the results, he should talk with his doctor, as his dose may need to be adjusted. I'd like to avoid going to the doctor about it for a few reasons, mainly because it takes like over a month to get an appointment with the guy, lol. Over the past 15 years, medical research has proven that Viagra is a miracle drug for millions of women around the world with common and rare heart conditions. Cialis begins working in 30 minutes while Viagra starts working in 15 minutes. Food to Avoid While Taking Cialis Can Drinking Wine Lead to High Cholesterol? FDR got us above drowning in the 1930's by taking the dollar off the gold standard. And the dollar is backed by nothing! Other than these conditions, pregnenolone has also been found to helpful in certain peculiar conditions affecting men and women in particular. This helps the impotent men to hold on strong for long time. ED hit men were just required to buy Cialis Online after the attainment of Cialis prescription, and the drug would be shipped right to their threshold. The double-patenting issue in the tadalafil (CIALIS) cases concerns two of Lilly’s patents. In the same way that Sildenafil and Vardenafil act, Tadalafil is often recommended as an 'as needed' medication. Sildenafil was theoretically authorized by the US Food in 1998 like a medicine to help remedy impotence. When it comes to something cosmetic, like our hair, we may use hair dye to cover it. The laws on holding personal data in the United States may be less stringent than the laws of your Country of residence or citizenship. For example, the person who created Apple Computer's tagline, "Think different," may not have been trying to intentionally break the rules of grammar (e.g., think differently). For anyone who is taking nitrate prescription drugs, you shouldn’t employ this cure. When it comes to the internet, there are a lot of people who are not certified to say what they say. Free people to babysit your kids now and then. Then issues of safety, health, side effects and various other issues are held against the ED drugs. Viagra increases the effects of the blood pressure lowering medications. Let them know right away that you are taking Viagra or Cialis. Fedex. Taking with drugs treats an natural Fedex completely treated to breathe. This announcement appeared in the agency's latest watch list of drugs with possible safety issues, "January - March 2016: Potential Signals of Serious Risks/New Safety Information Identified from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS)". What drugs don't interact well with anesthesia? As well as seasonal flu, online pharmacies there are several other types of flu. There are alternative component however they are not disclosed however are said to improve sexual performance. There are many tall claims made by the manufacturer, but there is no information about the money back guarantee and the company. Some of the email scams are very clever. Posted by BRENDA ANGELA at 02:13 Email ThisBlogThis! Not exactly rocket science now is it? I talk to my dog so much that I'm surprised she doesn't talk back by now! Instead of getting on with our lives, we have all of this fatigue and other problems to deal with. They have the same design and same format as the real company’s emails. Once you have satisfied yourself as to the manufacturers credibility, take a look at the content listings. I could take it late Friday or early Saturday and be good to go through most of Sunday, which is why they call Cialis "The Weekender". Life was good again! The recommended dose for BPH is 5 mg taken once a day at around the same time of the day. Cialis should be taken no more than once a day.

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gausofmispce1972-blog · 5 years

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So fixed. Like I living in a painting. You would always rush around and I always follow you cleaning up. That a bummer, I know it can be a struggle to get your foot in the door anywhere in the industry. It a bit of a competitive field these days. I can sympathize if you haven been exposed to any opportunities, but did you ever look into extracurricular work? I live in a small city but in high school through to university there have been robotics clubs, SAE teams, and other similar design or eng based projects that were, without a doubt, the reason I was able to get that first position in the field. This may sound crazy because almost all the comments recommended setting powder and baking, but I've accepted that this reality of glasses removing the makeup there is just how it's always going to be so recently I've just stopped setting my face with powder altogether. You could just spot set if you have oily eyelids or forehead, etc. But anyway, I find that not setting my face makes it much easier to blend that nose bridge area with my finger throughout the day than when it's been baked with powder. Augmented reality is the blending of interactive digital elements like dazzling visual overlays, buzzy haptic feedback, or other sensory projections into our real world environments. If you experienced the hubbub of Pokemon Go, you witnessed augmented reality in action. This (once incredibly popular) mobile game allowed users to view the world around them through their smartphone cameras while projecting game items, including onscreen icons, score, and ever elusive Pokemon creatures, as overlays that made them seem as if those items were right in your real life neighborhood. MUA gets emotional and says even if her work sucked (also no one should ever tear down her work or what she does) she 영암출장안마 shouldn't be treated that way and uses it as a lesson. Says she won't bash Cardi on social media but will use this to just let her story be known. She says something along the lines that Cardi may have more money but she shouldn't treat her that way (again).. My SIL is pretty bad. All she does is yell at her kid and she Play Station parents them. She jsut buys him things and hopes he goes away. I guess I just disagreed with the notion that a show would "tire you out more" than a game. I think each can be equally distracting depending on the person and the circumstances. On one hand, a game requires more attention than a movie or show, so while you playing it, you going to be distracted from other things probably more than you would be watching a show.. Here a 영암출장안마 slightly unrelated story, one night my ex gf was having a rough go at life, her sister yelled at her and got their parents involved over some dumb shit, so she decided that taking one of my Seroquel xr 1000mg would help her calm down Abit. She slept for 14 hours and couldn stand up when she finally did wake up. I tried giving her shit in the afternoon but she just stared at me half drooling the entire time. With his wife Endalyn, another Dance Theatre graduate, he opened his own ballet school in New Jersey. "I'd always wanted to have my own school, " Shellman says. "My own company. The reason is that turkish and iranians deal with ethnic noses on the regular. That is why you find most before and afters being mainly white american and asians. So yes it was worth it 100%.

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immedtech · 5 years

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A virtual cave got me excited about the future of social VR

Inside the Future Reality Lab at New York University, there is a cart with 50 headsets on it. It sits by a 10-by-10-foot square that's sometimes used as a motion-capture stage for the lab's offshoot startup Parallux and its ambitious projects in VR and XR (mixed reality). The team's latest effort is The Cave, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival's Immersive Arcade, and uses what Parallux is calling "a new shared XR technology."

Named MASS (Mass Audience Synchronization Solution), the technology enables large-scale shared experiences in AR and VR, so people can see and hear each other in virtual worlds. So far, VR projects have generally been limited to about a handful of people at once, but Parallux has its sights set on far larger numbers. The Cave can host up to 16 viewers concurrently, although Tribeca Film Festival's senior programmer Loren Hammonds told me the team actually managed to place 30 people in the experience during a test.

Parallux's chief creative officer Kris Layng said, "We came up with this idea for Cave, which we thought was the solution to a lot of problems that are in this emerging industry right now."

The first issue: You can't scale in VR experiences yet, he said. Existing systems aren't capable enough to handle the massive throughput needed for many people simultaneously. There also isn't yet a way to individually manage members of a large audience in VR. To counter these issues, CEO Sebastien Herscher spent about five years perfecting a system that uses data compression and management that only sends critical information "in a manner that's built to scale up."

Because of this inability to scale, the team believes virtual experiences are alienating and isolating. With MASS, though, the team feels encouraged by the level of interaction they're seeing between audience members. A Parallux representative recalls that at their exhibit in the festival's Arcade, a father with his two children was pleasantly surprised. "He asked, 'You mean I can see my kids inside?'"

The Cave is proof that MASS works. It's a short animated film that transports you to 10,000 BC. The surrounding walls are covered in shamanistic murals. A young woman struggles with a decision she has to make, and seeks guidance from the spirit world. The viewer has no part to play; you're simply an onlooker. But there is a surprise encounter (I won't spoil it for you) that immediately draws everyone's attention to one spot. In both the real and virtual worlds, you'll see audience members turn their heads to look -- my colleague Devindra was on my right as we watched this together, and seeing his generic avatar swivel its head around was amusing.

In technical demos, Parallux saw the effect its technology had on viewers. "People were holding hands, whispering to each other; doing things that you would expect people to do at the cinema or a theater," said the company's COO, Gabe Zetter. "But they were all in a shared virtual environment."

The demonstration appeared simple, though, frankly, it could use better animation. Even so, as a proof of concept The Cave is compelling. Not only can you interact with a large group of people inside a virtual world, but the creators also have the ability to customize your virtual point of view. In another demo, Herscher placed Devindra and I at different spots in the cave, facing each other instead. With more work, Parallux could have even greater control over individual viewer storylines, even.

The implications here are massive. Imagine going to the theaters not to watch a movie but to be part of a VR experience with 49 other people. With the slow adoption of headsets in consumers' homes, location-based and group VR is more likely to reach a mass audience, at least for the short term. Instead of having people wait in line to put on a headset for a solo adventure that lasts just a few minutes, we could take part in longer, larger scale events. Parallux has ambitious goals. As Herscher said, "We're not at all stopping at 50, we're aiming to go much larger than that."

- Repost from: engadget Post

#ITlive #engadget #A virtual cave got me excited about the future of social VR

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audsandends · 7 years

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Depression and meds stuff. Too much TMI information.

If anyone’s wondering, i’m on 200mg Lamictal, 150 Effexor xr, .25 klonopin for sleep, 60mg buspar.

Yesterday I saw my therapist and recounted my week since I last saw him, day by day.

Tuesday I was numb, but relieved about it because I was happy to not be suicidal/self-harmy.

Wednesday I was numb and bored, and got very distressed about it so that I had to miss my partners’ kid’s 7th birthday. It was a face-down-on-the-floor thing, then moved to the bed to cry.

Thursday I started out numb and ended up crying in an uber. I was then distracted by my boyfriend, a friend, a dog, and David Tennant.

Friday I was suicidal at 8am, then broke my No Music rule and listened to a fuckton of Green Day. Texted my bf, he rescheduled his day to take me to lunch because i’m “more important than meetings” or some bs like that. It got better after that, and that evening I had a second awkward date with this guy Vik who seems nice and intelligent, but I can’t see myself in any kind of relationship with him except one where we talk and he buys me things and he doesn’t try to kiss me at the end of the date bc it was super awkward and he ended up kissing my forehead and doing a christian side hug

Saturday was Elora’s party, so I spent the day interacting with 7 year olds and it was a lot of fun. They’re cool because they genuinely don’t give a shit about what you do, as long as you let them play and teach them how to make cootie catchers and paper snowflakes

Sunday, they discovered that Elora had lice, so I went over to help de-louse and use the insecticide shampoo. I ended up staying all afternoon and went with them to dinner at a really great mexican place.

Monday was MLK day, and I was promised a walk in “nature” but instead we visited a winery with a fucking backyard and a lake with angry geese. This was followed by a visit to Hank’s Diner which everyone loved, but honestly nothing was good except the pies. I was burnt out pretty much all day, but wasn’t thinking about my mental state.

Side note: Sat. Sun. Mon. were all spent with Jason, Dawn, Elora, and Jason’s mom. Who doesn’t know that the three of us are together. She’s very nice and gave me cookies from Malaysia. But it was like being in the closet in high school and by Monday I was p much done with that shit, but I knew if I didn’t go with them, I wouldn’t leave the bed all day so i went anyway.

So Monday night I saw my therapist, told him all of this, that most days I’m still having suicidal thoughts and urges to hurt myself, also that I’m not really able to take care of myself like shower, eat enough, laundry, brush my fucking teeth, and cooking, healthy diet, and exercise are wayy out of the realm of possibility. I also have no interest or satisfaction from things that I usually enjoy, but this isn’t new. I’ve accepted that I will have mediocre sleep with waking up at least twice during the night, and I’m okay with it.

My therapist thinks this, along with the new symptom of numbness, is cause to see the psychiatrist as soon as I can. The thing is, I don’t even particularly care. That should be really fucking scary, because normally I would be freaking out if I thought the medicine wasn’t working and that it’s not getting better. It’s not getting better, but I don’t really care. I wonder if I’m in a haze. I have resigned myself to this life. Like, maybe it will get better someday. But i’m just going to keep doing this, going to work, printing out emails, not doing my laundry and watching days pass on my Civil War calendar (January is Vision, who i love, and who has surprisingly muscular thighs for an AI). I think i’m tending towards isolating, too. Not that it’s hard. I did opposite-action and made plans with Tom for tomorrow evening, but other than that I have nobody who wants to see me on a regular basis, and my datemates can’t see me without mom.

Speaking of mothers, I haven’t talked to mine in a while. She texted that my grandparents both have the flu, so I called them. As an example of my apathy, I actually told my mean grandma how shitty i’ve been doing lately, how i’ve been suicidal almost every day, and even she said i need to see the psychiatrist. She also told me to “call when you feel down, even if it’s the middle of the night” which is very nice for her to say. Then she got uncomfortable and complained about my grandpa some more. I know she cares about me, but there is literally nothing she would do for me if I called her like that except kick me while i’m down or manipulate me. Anyways, I can’t call my mother if I don’t have good news. If I can’t say ‘I’m doing okay’ without lying, she’ll know and try to tell me how hard she’s got it. Which is very hard, ngl but it only makes me feel worse.

I feel like I’ve had a cry in my chest all day.

#personal #depression #meds talk #suicidality

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reneeacaseyfl · 5 years

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The future of immersive education will be live, social, and personalized

AR and VR have delivered on the promise to supercharge the enterprise’s education and training industry. From workflow support for sectors like manufacturing where factory floors are made consistently more safe and productive, to teaching employees soft skills that allow them to better adapt to the ever more nuanced demands of the modern workplace, these “embodied” digital formats inherently drive positive results because both our cognition and bodies believe the experience to be real.

Starting in 2016, I began to cover the education niche of VR and primarily through the lens of the remarkable journey traveled by U.K.-based VirtualSpeech; a startup that has never raised a single drop of venture funding and yet (or despite of) has found a viable product-market fit that the team reached through a process of trial and error that has, since last year, positioned them in revenue-positive territory.

VirtualSpeech is based on a hybrid model that pairs VR with traditional course programs like e-learning and in-person training, affording users a chance to practice what they have learnt in realistic environments in order to really absorb and integrate essential soft skills much more effectively.

“User engagement for our courses has also been very encouraging, particularly for the VR part of the courses, where the majority of users complete all their course scenarios. We’ve read about how engagement for online courses is typically low, so we are pleasantly surprised by our engagement levels.” says Dominic Barnard, a cofounder at VirtualSpeech. “As we progress forward, I see the B2B route for us becoming a key avenue for growth, as companies begin to shift budget away from expensive in-person training and into VR training, where users performance can be monitored and ROI accurately measured.”

Above: Practice for your radio interview with a live trainer with VirtualSpeech.

That most of the success cases in the news about VR and AR education have been fairly isolated to the needs of the enterprise isn’t surprising, thanks to the simple fact that the public education sector is by comparison a bureaucratic jungle of red tape that makes it that much more difficult to penetrate for spatial computing startups that have limited resources and runway.

There is, however, the prospect of reshaping, rejuvenating, and revolutionizing the educational landscape for the next generation of youth. After all, spatial computing triggers our physicality and appeals to our imagination; a unique combination that allows this interactive digital format to help us store learning in an emotional and instinctively charged way that has never been possible before.

Calling all ‘volumetric thinkers’

Last month on The AR Show, host Jason McDowall interviewed Amy Peck, the CEO at EndeavorVR, who spent a good chunk of the podcast discussing the promise of spatial computing for early education, a subject that particularly resonates for Peck since she is the mother of two children she describes as being “diametrically opposed learners.” Her eldest, for example, is a very linear academic learner that does well on tests and therefore tends to excel in traditional academic environments. Her younger son, on the other hand, is what she coins a “volumetric thinker”.

“It’s also the kind of intelligence that sadly land him in the principal’s office quite a bit. Because he’s looking for the whys and wheres, and kind of wants to understand how everything works and doesn’t enjoy sitting in a classroom and being taught reading, writing, and arithmetic.” Peck said during the interview. “What happens when kids are at a fairly young age in middle school is, some of them hit the ceiling in their understanding of math and science. And it becomes very, very, difficult to engage all of the students in the way they learn best.”

The idea is whether emerging tech like spatial computing can help unshackle unconventional thinkers or ones that, for whatever reason, lose interest and therefore focus in traditional Prussian-style education settings like Peck’s youngest son (or myself, for that matter).

Individualized curriculums

Although it’s impractical to expect a single teacher to be able to service a group of students in an individualized way, we do see it nevertheless happening in the real world at experimental schools like Agora in Roermond, Netherlands. And with the help of AI, immersive education seems fully capable of offering customized education through a digital format as well.

Peck believes that VR represents the opportunity to create systems that takes the pressure off of teachers to have to “teach to the test” or to the specific standards and instead can serve as guides to the curriculum, really letting the child learn in the way that suits them best personally. This would naturally open up a totally new generation of children that don’t get stunted at 13 and give up on STEM education. They, she says, get an extra six or seven years of STEM education.

The push to make this happen is already underway with social enterprises like TechRow, which already brings immersive technology experiences to over twenty K-12 schools throughout New York City. The non-profit organization leverages immersive technology to build the capacity of schools to support teachers and improve student engagement with the goal of enhancing learning outcomes.

In June, I described how the next generation of mobile connectivity will allow high-fidelity VR and AR to be streamed to the masses in the frictionless manner in which the tech has always been ultimately intended. Indeed, 5G’s potential is mind-blowing insofar as it will allow emerging tech in general to extend their scope of influence by orders of magnitude that, in turn, will allow immersive education to go live and multiplayer at a scale that makes the experiences as persistent and ubiquitous as real life.

Immersive education goes live

Enter Axon Park, the company that is equalizing access to learning by connecting people globally through VR and AI — and live.

Above: Social VR education powered by Axon Park

“When you use virtual classrooms, you are no longer constrained by physical space. It doesn’t matter where the students or best instructors in the world are based, everyone can just pop on a headset and be together.” says Taylor Freeman, founder and CEO at Axon Park. “It’s definitely a form of teleportation. It’s going to create incredible opportunities for people who live outside the metropolitan areas where high quality instruction isn’t as accessible. I definitely expect to see a true revolution in learning with this XR platform shift.”

The platform is hosting their first ever full semester length college course, which will be taught completely in VR this fall, featuring industry vet, Alex Silkin, co-founder and CTO of Survios, as Axon Park’s first live lecturer. Students join Silkin twice a week in order to learn how to build best-in-class immersive worlds with one of the pioneers that has firsthand helped to shape the industry. And like traditional institutions, admission is highly competitive, designed for expert-level developers, and even offers financial aid for students in need.

“I firmly believe in the potential of VR to revolutionize education. We have already seen how much more engaging education is when we introduce videos and interactive experiences.” says Silkin. “VR takes this to the next level by putting the student right in the center of the action, allowing them to experience the subject matter face to face, rather than through a small square window on a 2D screen.”

That real humans can project as teachers who are accessible at scale is already an awesome enough feat, but the tech naturally opens the door for autonomous avatars to step in as assistants, administrators and, perhaps sooner than we think, immersive guides in their own right. Virtual beings ought to make the very idea of recorded lessons obsolete, and their activity will likely prove to be complementary, rather than overlapping or interfering with, the work of human teachers.

Above: A peek into Axon Park’s first live session conducted just earlier this month

“We will build Axon into an embodied AI capable of teaching a student in a custom and adaptive way, similar to how a human tutor might work with a student. Over time, AI instructors will likely become the primary form of knowledge transfer, whereas human teachers will be much more focused on social and emotional intelligence,” Freeman told me. That’s quite a future.

Amir Bozorgzadeh is the CEO of Virtuleap, the startup enabling embodied brain training in VR. Their upcoming Attention Lab VR app offers a daily cognitive workout of short, intense and fun games scientifically designed to help increase attention and concentration levels.

Credit: Source link

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velmaemyers88 · 5 years

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The future of immersive education will be live, social, and personalized

Above: Practice for your radio interview with a live trainer with VirtualSpeech.

Calling all ‘volumetric thinkers’

Individualized curriculums

Immersive education goes live

Enter Axon Park, the company that is equalizing access to learning by connecting people globally through VR and AI — and live.

Above: Social VR education powered by Axon Park

Above: A peek into Axon Park’s first live session conducted just earlier this month

Credit: Source link

The post The future of immersive education will be live, social, and personalized appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

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weeklyreviewer · 5 years

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The future of immersive education will be live, social, and personalized

Above: Practice for your radio interview with a live trainer with VirtualSpeech.

Calling all ‘volumetric thinkers’

Individualized curriculums

Immersive education goes live

Enter Axon Park, the company that is equalizing access to learning by connecting people globally through VR and AI — and live.

Above: Social VR education powered by Axon Park

Above: A peek into Axon Park’s first live session conducted just earlier this month

Credit: Source link

The post The future of immersive education will be live, social, and personalized appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

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