#How time flies and I was crying in January about when I’m gonna get him

[detectivekambe]

Daisuke Kambe nendoroid is scheduled to release next month, & at last I will finally have this tiny bastard home & in my possession.

[alexhziee]

Review: Begin Again

I started writing this by late January and only early March did I finally had the chance to get back at it. It's been a while since I have seen this drama and to be honest I don’t remember much of the details. So bare with me if this will be a bit short than my other reviews and just to point out that I don’t like it less than the other dramas cause I really did enjoy watching it but time flies so… (lol)

STORY

So the drama is about a domineering CEO and the kind doctor as they go through the struggles of turning a fake marriage into a genuine and worth it marriage. 

So the drama starts with a glimpse to the main lead's wedding s before going back to where the story actually began. People then rushing and running  to greet Fangning as she  makes a grand entrance at the Luming office with her trusty secretary Erfan. 

The scene shows just how focused and detailed she is but not completely ruthless. It was then mentioned her younger brother Fangyu who took out a 4 million and has not paid back yet and this is where it all starts. Not gonna go onto the details but it started with an “Attraction at first sight” and tied together with a 4 million debt.

Even though the story was cliche, your typical fake marriage into a real love kind of story but it was still really good and satisfying, I love the strong and confident female lead and the kind and warm doctor who grounds her. 

“Like the stories in the romance novels or idol dramas, there is truth in wine right? As if no matter what the person says, as long as he is drunk people will believe what he has said. Its okay, you don’t believe me do you?....*gulps down an entire wine bottle* I can’t get drunk.. Because of social activities, I drink some wine at home every day hence I can’t get drunk. If I can’t get drunk in my life, will you never trust me in your life? I, Lu Fangning was not like this before. If I did something good in the past, I will broadcast it and let the world know that I had done this thing. If I cut one of my fingers, I would bandage all the rest fingers and show them to you. But what about now? I worry about personal gains and losses every day. I’m cautious. All I can think about is whether you will be happy or not, whether you will be delighted. What have I done wrong? You think I have disturbed your life. Haven’t you disturbed mine? Ling Rui, if you don’t like me, you can reject me. Reject me! Why do you repeatedly deny my heart for you? Deny my love for you? Is it because it makes you look particularly holy and great?” (Episode 13)

This particular scene got me crying buckets. I mean I get that she wasn’t exactly subtle or honest at the beginning but she really did try her best to be better when she finally realised that what she was feeling for him was genuine love and wasn’t just a passing affection. I also feel for Ling Rui since she came into his life like a bulldozer and is always getting confused on which is real and what is one of her lies. I just burst when she was shouting stop and I hate you. The fight really felt genuine and so painful. 

The drama did have those clichés that I normally really hate but I wasn’t mad about it. Cause it wasn’t torturous and even though our main lead fights or argues, there was no prolonged pain for the viewers.

I was a bit disappointed with the “main” antagonist of the drama ‘cause his reveal was not thrilling nor his overall story any kind of interesting to be honest , his part of the drama he was overall flat, he should have stuck with his original job(lol).

“I can love her fair and square. That’s all I’ve got”

“What Fangning needs is not someone's protection. What she needs is someone to stand next to her.”

The other couples on the drama were cute too, from Simon and Si Yu to Ping Ping and her “admirers”.  I would have liked if the storyline between Simon and Si Yu would have stayed from the original path and kind of stick to that kind of cliche cause near the end, I was kind of disappointed with what happened to Simon’s personality, although their love story was really cute, I was just not a fan of like change that particular character’s overall personality in like 1 or 2 episodes, there was no “major” event that really triggered that kind of shift, it was like the whole personality was rewritten all over. 

CHARACTERS

Lu Fang Ning is a strong confident woman who is extremely focused on fulfilling her promise to her dead sister. Because of a deal that she made with her dad; the biggest shareholder of their company, she sets on finding a “husband” she can use to her advantage and it just so happens that she meets the kind hearted and good looking Dr. Ling Rui.

Ling Rui has everything, he is successful in his profession, good looking, kind, have a supportive family and friends. He is very happy with his life until one day, his peaceful world gets disrupted once he meets the overbearing lady boss Lu Fang Ning, who always gets what she wants and this time she has her eyes set on him. 

CAST

I have nothing to comment except for two words: Simon Gong 

(lol)

FINAL THOUGHTS Rating: 8/10

Like I said earlier its been a while since I finished the drama so I might not remember every single detail on why and how I fell in love with this but one thing for sure is that this drama is worth the watch. It does have its cliches and fillers and disappointments but I definitely love the more mature romance and the great chemistry between Fang Ning and Ling Rui. 

ABOUT THE DRAMA

Synopsis:

It tells the story of a domineering female CEO and a warm doctor who turn a fake relationship into reality due to practical reasons. Having exchanged their 'I do's', they start on a new chapter of their lives as they learn to fall in love.

Lu Fangning is the general manager of Luning Group, a large corporation in the business of home furniture. Lu Fangning is a woman who has it all - talented, beautiful and rich. Nearing her thirties, Lu Fangning succumbs to family pressures and decides that she urgently needs a husband with whom she will have a child.

Coincidentally, surgeon Ling Rui appears in front of her. Ling Rui is not only blessed with good looks but also has an angelic heart, which makes him the perfect candidate in the eyes of Lu Fangning. She schemes her way to his life and they finally become husband and wife. Lu Fangning eventually realizes the error in her ways and strives to be better. However, keeping a marriage is not as easy as it seems.

Country: China

Episodes: 35

Genres: Comedy, Romance

Aired: Oct 29, 2020 - Dec 5, 2020

Aired On: Thursday, Friday, Saturday

Original Network: Hunan TV, Mango TV, Mango TV

Duration: 45 min.

Source: https://mydramalist.com/53735-we-started-dating-from-marriage 

WHERE TO WATCH

Watched it through YT and DC. Didn’t find it on KA though. Quality wise, I prefer the ones on YT cause the quality of the videos are definitely better. All the subs on either sites are not really good, it's understandable but not really precise.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5fqz5zToDJw64WgY-0joglozRerjRBVc

http://fastdrama.org/begin-again-2020

[thecoleopterawithana]

‘(Forgive Me) My Little Flower Princess’ was written during John Lennon’s stay in Bermuda, from June to July 1980, and recorded upon his return to the studio, on 14 August 1980. It wouldn’t be heard by the general public until 23 January 1984, on the posthumous album Milk And Honey.

The lyrics go as follows:

Forgive me, my little flower princess For crushing your delicateness Forgive me, if you could forgive me

Forgive me, my little flower princess For selfishness Forgive me, forgive me

Well, I know there is no way to repay you Whatever it takes I will try to The rest of my life I will thank you Thank you, thank you, my little

If you’ll forgive me, my little flower princess Never too late unless you can’t forgive

Time is on our side Let’s not waste another minute ‘Cause I love you, my little friend I really love you

Give me just one more chance And I’ll show you Take up the dance where we left off The rest of our life is the, my little

I’m home

Overall, the song seems to strike the same apologetic tone previously expressed in ‘Jealous Guy’ (1971) and ‘I Know (I Know)’ (1973).

I didn’t mean to hurt you I’m sorry that I made you cry Oh no, I didn’t want to hurt you I’m just a jealous guy 

— ‘Jealous Guy’ (1971)

I know what’s coming down and I know where it’s coming from and I know and I’m sorry (yes I am) but I never could speak my mind

— ‘I Know (I Know)’ (1973)

“The rest of my life I will thank you” gives a sense of gratitude for the other’s love and presence in his life, further explored in ‘Now And Then’ (1978). 

I know it’s true, it’s all because of you And if I make it through, it’s all because of you And now and then, if we must start again Well we will know for sure, that I love you

— ‘Now And Then’ (1978)

“Take up the dance where we left off” shows hope in a reconciliation that they have “the rest of our life” to experience, as found in ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ (1980) and ‘Grow Old Along With Me’ (1980).

It’s been too long since we took the time No-one’s to blame, I know time flies so quickly But when I see you darling It’s like we both are falling in love again It’ll be just like starting over, starting over

— ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ (1980)

Grow old along with me The best is yet to be When our time has come We will be as one God bless our love

— ‘Grow Old Along With Me’ (1980)

Nevertheless, this feeling that “time is on our side”  doesn’t take from the urgency to get together and “not waste another minute”, similarly dealt with in ‘Borrowed Time’ (1980) and ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ (1980).

Now I am older ah, hah The future is brighter and now is the hour 

— ‘Borrowed Time’ (1980)

It’s time to spread our wings and fly Don’t let another day go by my love

— ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ (1980)

Regarding the endearments used during the song, we find the classical ‘little friend’, famously used by aunt Mimi in reference to Paul. (It is also worth noting that, tongue-in-cheek or not, in French ‘petit-ami’ means boyfriend). 

Also, the song is called ‘My Little Flower Princess’. It is known that Yoko Ono has reported hearing Paul being called ‘John’s princess’ around Apple.

But it’s John’s thing with flowers as a metaphor for love that fascinates me the most. 

Forgive me, my little flower princess For crushing your delicateness

…

Forgive me, my little flower princess For selfishness

John, after some introspection, has reached the conclusion that his relationship with Paul was destroyed by “inattention or inadvertence of selfishness”. He seemed self-aware enough to realise that his half of the “blame” was a problematic possessiveness:

Q: Do you think that a new attitude towards love and relationships – would it be fair to say we’re getting away from the property concept of relationships? John: Of owning the other person? I think – yeah, we could be. But uh… That’s all very well intellectually, but when you actually are in love with somebody, you tend to be jealous and want to own them, possess them a hundred per cent. Which I do. Yoko: Yes, it’s real life, all that. And I do it too. John: But intellectually, before that, I thought – right. I mean, owning a person is rubbish, but. I love Yoko, I want to possess her completely; I don’t want to stifle her, you know? [Yoko laughs] And that’s the danger, it’s that you want to possess them to death. But… that’s a personal problem of mine. Yoko: But we’re doing alright now – just very nice, you know. In other words, I think— John: It’s after the beginning, when it cools down a bit – not cools down, whatever, it st– uh, whatever the word is, you know – that you can allow each other to breathe. Yoko: Yes. When you relax a bit, you know. John: But at first you tend to strangle each other, I think. Yoko: And [inaudible] we’re starting to relax— John: And because you have so little as a child, I think it is, you – when once you find it, you want to hang onto it, you grab it so much you tend to kill it.

— John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Women’s Hour Interview for BBC Radio 2. (28  May 1971)

John even goes as far as to recognise that him not feeling loved enough as a child by his parents, was the original cause of all his insecurities and franticness. So desperate was he for love, that he ended up “crushing its delicateness”. 

A decade later, we get another glimpse into his matured perception of the nature of love:

Q: As Tom Robbins half-facetiously asks in his most recent book, “How do you make love stay?”

John: Trying to possess it makes it go away. Trying to possess somebody makes them go away. Every time you put your finger on it, it slips away. Every time you turn the microscope’s light on, the thing changes so you can never see what it is. As soon as you ask the question, it goes away. Peripheral vision is what it is. There’s no looking directly at it. Try to look at the sun. You go blind, right? Now that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work on it. Love is a flower and you have to water it.

— John Lennon and Yoko Ono, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

John suggests that not only being possessive of the person you’re in love with “makes them go away”, but that the love itself is subject to some weird kind of observer effect, in which the mere act of trying to understand the relationship alters it — “As soon as you ask the question, it goes away.” (And this specific example is, in my opinion, another crucial clue about what went down.)

This philosophy that love is ruined by conscious interference and the specific choice in words — Love is like a flower — seem to have been heavily inspired by the D. H. Lawrence poem ‘Mess Of Love’. (Note that D. H. Lawrence has been referred to in the Beatles presence).

We’ve made a great mess of love Since we made an ideal of it. The moment I swear to love a woman, a certain woman, all my life That moment I begin to hate her.

The moment I even say to a woman: I love you! — My love dies down considerably.

The moment love is an understood thing between us, we are sure of it, It’s a cold egg, it isn’t love any more.

Love is like a flower, it must flower and fade; If it doesn’t fade, it is not a flower, It’s either an artificial rag blossom, or an immortelle, for the cemetery.

The moment the mind interferes with love, or the will fixes on it, Or the personality assumes it as an attribute, or the ego takes possession of it, It is not love any more, it’s just a mess. And we’ve made a great mess of love, mind-perverted, will-perverted, ego-perverted love.

But while Lawrence urges us to accept the fleetingness of love (going as far as to say that it’s its own ephemerous, untouched and undefinable nature that gives it meaning), John clearly wants to strike a compromise. Because while he admits he was probably crushing this delicate flower by “wanting to possess it to death”, you still have to water it, Paul! 

In fact, John’s first known comparison to love being like a flower reflected more his unmet expectations than his own role in the end of the relationship.

Love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard, or just think it’s gonna get on with itself. You gotta keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it, and be careful of it, and keep the flies off and see that it’s alright, and nurture it.

— John Lennon, 'Man of the Decade’ Interview (2 December 1969).

John was clearly feeling neglected, hurt by the “kind of insensitivity [Paul] would have”. And his own desperate need to acknowledge the love and have it validated — coupled with Paul being “scared to say ‘I love you’” — escalated into a vicious “mind game” where John was ready to do absolutely anything to get Paul’s attention or some sign that he cared, including destroying the Beatles.

It seems fitting then, that around the same time, an emotionally exhausted Paul was marvelling at the self-reliant and giving nature of the new plants in his life:

When we are in Scotland we plant stuff – vegetables – and we’ll leave them there, and of their own volition they will push up. And not only will they push up and grow into something, but then they will be good to eat. To me that’s an all-time thing. That’s fantastic. How clever! Just that things push their own way up and they feed you.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed for Life Magazine (16 April 1971).  

I like to think that by 1980, at the time this song was written, they had matured enough to “work it out”. 

John knew he couldn’t be possessive to the point of crushing the flower, or selfish enough not to realise that he also has to water. With his more self-assured persona, he would probably learn to recognise and accept Paul’s Acts of Service for the love expression that they were, and eventually even help Paul himself overcome his own insecurities regarding saying Words of Affirmation outside the plausible deniability of songs. 

Unfortunately, despite their beliefs, time was not on their side. 

But like Yoko said:

Once you know somebody, you can never unknow that person. And knowing is loving. So you can never get out of love. There might be misunderstandings and separating for other reasons, but love is always there. Staying together is just one form of love. Maybe that’s a strong love and expression of love. But love is a soul thing. It always stays there.

— Yoko Ono, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

John himself had said it to Paul some years prior:

Bless you wherever you are

Windswept child on a shootin’ star

Restless spirits depart Still we’re deep in each other’s hearts

…

Bless you whoever you are Holding her now, be warm and kind hearted

And remember although love is strange Now and forever our love will remain

— ‘Bless You’ (1974)

[blackmuzak8484]

nortey dowuona’s best of 2020

to be completely honest, I decided to do this entirely for TSJ. otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered at all. Best end lists are for music nerds and billboard chart nerds and industry vultures, and i happen to be subscribed, in the discord and in the comments of the youtube vids of these folk. so, i decided to pick 10 out of random from the big best of 2020 i was compiling for the whole of the year, which I was gonna post to this Tumblr at the end of the damn year, but I guess I can just post the link to the playlist in the bottom of this post. Here, i’m gonna write about 10 songs I personally love, and pick out a few artists i specifically loved:

artist of the year.

RAP Ferreira put out his best album and best verses in a year everybody either stagnated, fell off or got rendered irrelevant by the world at large. He was ebullient, hilarious, thoughtful and even surprisingly honest. I enjoyed the fact that now he’s begun to create a real platform for many talented folx, and I hope he continues to do that in the margins and make even more beautiful music in the years to come.

rookie of the year.

Enny by a mile. Everybody else who debuted this year got hamstrung by the pandemic but she created 3 great songs, each thoughtful, insightful and a joy. Apparently she just started publicly releasing music to a large audience, and I hope she gets better and better, and even gets bigger than J-

most pleasant surprise.

Vic Mensa’s V Tape. An artist who I though had no more moves left completely turned around his whole career with a fantastic performance at Lollapalooza, a fantastic fleet of features and tis gorgeously produced EP which had some of his most brilliant songs on it. I love it all, Vic Mensah is well and truly back. Welcome back bro. (ALSO, DROP THE DRILL TRACK.)

GREAT THING A GHANAIAN ARTIST DID.

Strongman Burner, Amarae, Okunta Kinte, Vic Mensah in general.

cool things my friends and classmates did.

Justine Darcenne’s #4TheBaeless. Valencia Rae’s Siren thyhomebodies’s Coming of Age. (Phil, a producer in the group, made his own studio!) Brad built his own computer. petit abri put a track on APT9 Record’s compiliation album Volume II. khaalid anderson’s transitions. (khaalid will also be performing at Beats & Brunch on January 23, 2021 at 11 am.) Yannick Paul’s Bear Fruit. The Big Climax’s This Is Ya Boy kxng jetson’s Waves (ft. Kokko Williams & Mike Mezzl) Nicole Gonzalez performed in The Composer’s Melody. Victoria Marie released a bunch of beaufiful covers on her Insta, @toriiii_marie @ph0ssy_jaw works as a counselor online. Pay her at her PayPal. Johnny Aperano Yoba was on People AND Vogue. Dalitso is a wonderful pianist at his church back home in Zambia. Kobina is a fantastic drummer at his church. Kayla graduated with a BS in Music Technology and Industry! Damian been cookin on his insta. Travis graduated! (Look out for Clan of Dragons.) Rorghino Flores made a documentary! Francis (and Animax FYB) put out Mmofra on AmaLexPrime! (play it with yo kids.) A Hype has been dropping crazy all year, roll by his SoundCloud and check out Persistence Of Memory. Reina H been doing great covers on her Insta, @challenges_inlife. Hannah placed music on C. B. S.

best albums of the year (that nobody’s written about).

Maya Huyana -1991 DaWeirdo - Broke and Ugly $ilkMoney - Attack of the Future Shocked, Flesh Covered, Meatbags of the 85 VI Seconds - Because Why Not/Never Knows Best Erik Cain - Heart & Soul Vol. 2 Dimitri & the Scarecrow - Messenger is Sender (from 2015, finally got released onto streaming this year, still pretty great and another great Zimbabwean rapper for us to all fawn over, just like billy woods) Flowking Stone - Gifted 1 The Hoodies - Incommunicado Jayy Grams - Every Gram Counts Domo Genesis/Mike and Keys - Just in Case1/2 Madwiz - God’s Gold Teeth Maez301 - Hasaan Daara J Family - Yaamatele Dai Burger - Dessert EP TeePhlow - Road To Phlowducation II Tef Poe/Blvck Spade - Preacher in the Trap Terrell Hines - Portal One: The Mixtape redveil - niagara Nyukyung - Trap Harmonix AdrianXpression - Sucka Deante Hitchcock - Better (Deluxe) maassai & jWords - ve.loc.i.ty tobe nwigwe - cincoriginals everything Kelsey Lu did this year.

strangest things happening in music in general.

vic mensah actually making a great record. goldlink going through a narcissistic collapse and winding up making the best music of his career. redveil blowing up off Fantano calling him wack. pharoahe monch finally making a rock pivot and it actually works. meet me@the garden coming 10 years too late for my 14 year old self. RAP Ferreira being in the NYTimes, selling a vinyl record for $72, creating an actual nostrum grocers in a video game so we can listen to his next record. The entirety of the playboi carti phenomenom. The entirety of the lil uzi vert phenomenom. The entirety of Chance’s instagram EP being far more money worthy then the entirety of the Big Day and yet being released on Insta and not immediately monetized. Deante Hitchcock releasing a great album and being completely forgotten armand hammer releasing their underground kings wayyy too early. my ass continually not actually looking into amapiano despite always loving it when I review it. several good songs needing to be tacked on to a prior youtube vid as an ad for me to find them instead of actually listening to the artists. santan dave still releasing good verses after he made his illmatic. (expect his new album to suck.) slowthai becoming cake. (we let that go way too far.) Guapdad and BfB Packman being wonderful. Finding out BfB PAckman is a better rapper than Sada Baby. John Boyega putting on Ego Ella May. Having to admit Young Dolph was good all this time and i missed out like a fool.

best tv performance.

Chance The Rapper’s “A Chi-Town Christmas.” IDK’s “Change The Channel.” Sa-Roc’s Tiny Desk Concert. Chika in general. Robert Glapser’s “This Changes Everything (ft. Denzel Curry).” SZA at the Roots Picnic. Sampa The Great at the Roots Picnic. RAP Ferreira in general. Umi’s “Introspection Live Show.” Alexa Esperanza’s cover of “Is It A Crime.” Bad Bunny in general. the jwords, nappy nina and MIKE performances at Satellite Syndicate

most embarrassing piece of music i love with all my heart

Logic’s No Pressure. In all sense of the words I should not love this album like I love my siblings but I do. It is beautiful.

best 10 songs of this year objectively

1 - RAP Ferriera - An Idea Is A Work Of Art (ft. Mike Ladd) [prod. by Kenny Segal, mr. carmack and Mike Parvizi]

I know, I know. In all honesty Doldrums should be here. Then Noz put it on his best list and I had to be all ChiTown Go-Getter and pick the next better thing: this. And in all honesty, it has the best lyric RAP spits on the album: “we build better answers.” But it’s not just that, it’s RAP’s most animated performance, the most dexterous piece on the whole album and the most gorgeous beat, a loping bassline sliding behind the flatfooted drum, allowing Mike Ladd, his musical father, to gently drift through, saying, “what if royalty depised us?” and knowing the only gold is soul and giving it to all of us, all us maggots and vultures and locusts and weevils, to hold to the light so we can finally see. On the quest to get open and free, we continue.

2 - Chika - U Should [prod. by Lido]

I heard this the night it dropped and shot 2 insta videos playacting as it played. But apart from that, it’s a intimate, beautiful song about getting to know a new lady love, so tenderly sung it might melt and disappear if not held gently, with a sweeping guitar lick and purring trumpets sliding all over the place, Chika softly holding each frayed piece together into a considered, gorgeous piece - wait, she’s talking her shit.

3 - Issa Gold - Boys Don’t Cry [prod. by Kingjet & Sherwyn and Matt Zara]

The only reason this isn’t number one is because it dropped on Christmas Eve. But otherwise, it’s a openheart letter to us all. “it’s a lonely path being different,” Issa says, swimming in the melted ice caps as he once danced happily on the edges of melting glaciers that failed to drown him, looking at the world that keeps hurting his heart, yet he still opens his eyes and smiles, and dances. The heavy drums are so bouncy the whole song suddenly flies, formerly a hidden murmur becoming a bright sunlit flight across the sky so we can all see. I can’t wait to see Tempus, if it’s anything as good as this was.

4 - Deante Hitchcock - Growing Up/Mother God [prod. by Brandon Phillips-Taylor]

In all honesty, “Growing Up” is really not the best song on Better. It’s a sweet, happy song with a smooth, crackling bassline with soft, ghostly synths, but still kinda ok. It’s the song added at the end, “Mother God”, that has warm, sizzling piano chords and gorgeous singing in the back. It’s one of the few time I’ve ever heard a man pay homage to the woman in his life and to the God above while being entirely sincere and not faking the funk. The way he praises his mom, his lady, remembering the women in his family taking care of him and him foolishly neglecting Breonna due to his overburdened mind feels full of details, remembrances, explanations and praises. Plus, it actually makes sense that God, if she exists (she does) is a woman since -

5 - Yana Perrault - whiskey and weed [prod. by slate]

Apparently, Yana Perrault is verified now. Excellent. {YES YES MY GOD YESS}, It means more folks know about how great this song, and Yana herself is. If I had any sense, I would’ve written up 12:21 as the best song of 2018, but such is life. Anyway, we have this smooth, bass heavy slinker with shimmering percussion and lumbering drums about hooking up with a former flame who’s “sober” yet keeps on calling Yana to break their sobriety, “know we ain’t talked in a while but you still know my address,” she wryly mentions. As the beat sprints away under a warm cocoon of accapella echoes, it mirrors a relationship so tenuous it might disappear into the wind. Yet still strong enough to have whiskey on call.

6 - Marlon Craft - Culture Sick Freestyle [prod. by Cormill]

Apparently this was supposed to be a shot at Flex. And since Flex is a woman beater and a lame, good for him. Shouldn’t have even gone on Flex to be honest, but then again neither should Jay Critch or Tyler or Black Thought and besides, I watch those freestyles too. And on the freestyle, Marlon frankly put things in perspective. “You don’t want us to better, you just want to be cool still.” This describes all of rap media to be real. And tellingly, it only has 310,000 views. Methinks nobody really wants real. But I do. Thank u Marlon, you continue to be the best white rapper alive. (Nowhere near the best rapper tho, and if Token hadn’t fell off -)

7 - Miah - Cascades [prod. by Cedes]

I’m sideeyeing the boy Miah cuz I had to search up his Audiomack to find the producer’s name (it’s Cedes, and they have a really great avalanche of Drake Type Beats is you like that kind of thing). Were you trying to trick folk into thinking you produced it yourself? You don’t need to do that shit. Especially since you’re writing stuff like “back in high school all my peers were tryin to hit the league / until the league too far from reach so they tap dancing over beats.” When you can frankly break down life that clearly, don’t be trying to hide producer’s names unless you actually learn to produce too. Plaster your name all over that shit.

8 - Justine Darcenne - Off Days [prod. by Mikhail Miller] / Enny - Peng Black Girls (ft. Amia Brave [prod. by Paya]

Justine is indeed my classmate, but that’s not why this song is here. it’s here because it’s a nice little guitar driven song with a spellbinding bridge that’s the best thing I’ve heard her do yet. And I’mma keep it short cuz I already wrote this up at the Singles Jukebox.

Enny released this soft, cushiony record with washed out synths over bulky drums and floated FLOATED over them without even trying to run in the tar, saying frankly, “He said to me, 'they put guns in the streets, that’s what they wanted for me.’ And I said, ‘G, someone can fix you a plate but no one can force you to eat.’” After all, why not try to live for something greater than what the world has expected you to be. And Amia sings, “We’re gon be alright, ok?” with the joy and excitement of someone realizing the words coming alive on their tongue. One of the best songs of this miserable year, and it’s kinda funny watching Jorja accidentally Drake out Amia and even Enny (and by funny I mean irritating.)

9 - Tobi Lou - okay (ft. Dreezy) [prod. by Matteo Woods & Dilip]

Fun fact: Dilip did some great songs with Otxhello, a producer who recorded and mixed 2 records on my first album. That again is not why this song is here. The warm, swinging synths and heavy, bouncy drums are why this is here. Oh, and Tobi’s goofy, silly lyrics and his surprisingly effective Missy Elliott tribute are great too. But obviously, the verse that vaulted this into top 10 was Dreezy, which opens with such a openhearted line, “i can’t help it, it’s too hard to say I’m sorry.” And every line is harder than the last, until she closes with “and I ain’t talkin frontals but we got the city sown up.” Absolutely amazing.

10 - Strongman Burner - Pilolo (ft. KelvynBoy) [prod. by Nixie]

The sweet, gooey synths are poured over the soft, zipping and smooth drums as the wiry bass whirls between Kelvyn’s soft, thin crooning as Stoneman tap dances over the drums, both desperate and defiant, trying to salvage a sinking relationship that he knows is already gathering coral and snappers. It’s the best afropop song of the year and yet it still has a Nigerian on it (well, I put 4 Nigerians on here, next year I’m rectifying that.) And they even did a song together last year , not as good as this. At all. (still pretty good tho.)

best 10 songs i love (but not enough to write full paragraphs for, I already put 10 in and this is already 5 goddamn pages)

11 - Logic - Heard ‘Em Say

best song on the project that isn’t Dadbod but at least it isn’t tempting fate.

12 - Deqn Sue - Creep

I already love this for having a gorgeous bridge, and is cute af. Yes Sue, you can creep.

13 - Quelle Chris & Chris Keys - Sudden Death/ka - i love {moms, mimi, kev}

QUELLE CHIS CAN SANG SANG./ka can heart heart write.

14 - IDK - Square Up (ft. Juicy J)

I don’t know why this is here either but this slaps regardless.

15 - Nappy Nina - Modestly (ft. Maassai)

Maassai is creating some of the best raps out here. so is Nappy Nina.

16 - Kehlani - Lexii’s Outro (ft. Lexii Ajaii)

Let’s celebrate our great rappers when they’re alive (and this includes me. Pls Chika, don’t win Best New Artist.)

17 - Samad Savage - Goodnight

What Travis Scott should’ve tried to be instead of what he is now. Samad still dope af regardless.

18 - Bad Bunny - Si Veo Tu Mama

The way Bad Bunny actually hits that last note makes me feel so excited and alive.

19 - Fat Tony - Back In The Saddle

I fucked up. But I’m getting back in the saddle, back in the saddle next year. NO NIGERIANS ALL NIGERIENS. #ENDSARS tho.

20 - Lady A - the truth is loud

Why am I the only one who has this on a best list? I have 34 bot followers. Vibe, step it up.

best of 2020 music right here folxs.

worst music things of the year:

The Pop Smoke album. Just in all areas. (Better win that Grammy tho.) Travis Scott in general. (So loud and empty and boring.) Big Sean’s Detroit 2. (why does this exist? Just put out Deep Reverence and Detroit Night Cypher and leave everything on the cutting room floor fo the next album.) Remembering all the great rappers who are dead or incarcerated. No Kendrick album (just leaks. Not good enough.) J. Cole and Noname beefing and Noname getting strung up by twitter. Jay Rock pushing being anti-vaccinations. The realization that Normani might never drop a single record ever again. Tory Lanez in general. Joyner Lucas making actually good songs and falling off almost immediately. Cardi B in general. Anything positive being said about steven Universe songs. Luzamity shipping (until it’s canon please stop! Willuz is RIGHT THERE!)

[whumphoarder]

Them’s the Breaks

Summary: Peter is home alone and ends up breaking his ankle. Figuring his super healing will fix it overnight, he doesn’t tell anyone and tries to sleep it off, only to wake up in the middle of the night in agony. Cue Tony, saving his ass yet again.

(Alternative title: Super Healing is Not All it’s Cracked Up To Be Tibia)

Word count: 3,174

Genre: Whump, hurt/comfort, fluffy angst

A/N: Thanks to @sallyidss for beta reading!

Link to read on Ao3

Prior to being bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter had broken exactly one bone in his life.

He was eleven. Someone dared him to do a flip on a trampoline at a classmate’s birthday party. The flip itself was mediocre, but the landing was legendary. Blood streamed down Peter’s face from his now crooked, throbbing nose, ruining both his brand new stormtrooper t-shirt and the horrified birthday girl’s pink dress.

Ned—ever the sympathetic friend—had puked on the spot, which hadn’t done wonders for either of their middle school social statuses.

Peter managed to hold it together pretty well for the twenty minutes it had taken Ben to arrive, but the second the car door was shut and they pulled out of the driveway, the façade crumbled. Peter’s shoulders shook and tears ran down his cheeks, stinging his nose, because, as it turned out, broken bones just really hurt. Almost as much as Peter’s pride.

But Ben was there, and Ben always knew how to make Peter feel better. He cracked jokes about his nephew’s failing gymnastics career and tossed wadded up Burger King napkins at the kid’s messy face all the way to urgent care until Peter’s choked sobs turned to quiet giggles.

The doctor reset Peter’s nose and May fussed over him all weekend, making sure he was icing it appropriately. Three weeks later, he was back to normal.

But that was before the bite—before Peter had taken the unofficial job of crime-fighting teenage vigilante.

He’s up to eight bones now, lifetime total. Besides the nose, there were four ribs last summer (for the record, being thrown into brick walls really sucks), his collarbone back in January (missed a web and crashed onto the roof of a parking garage), and two fingers just before spring break (got stomped on by some dude gallivanting about in a rhino costume, what even is his life?). Luckily, super healing came as part of the package, so what had taken Peter’s sixth grade body weeks to repair, he now accomplishes in mere hours.

Today, however, it’s not Spider-Man who injures himself. It’s just Peter Parker, fresh off an evening patrol, wiping out in the goddamn shower.

“Oh shit!” Peter gasps sharply as his feet slide out from under him on the wet surface. His hand flies out on reflex and grasps the shower curtain, which he pulls down on top of him. As he slams onto the floor of the tub, his ankle rolls sideways underneath him. A split-second later, the metal curtain rod hits him in the face.

“...Rude…” he groans.

Water is still streaming down from the shower, splashing onto the sheet of vinyl now covering Peter’s body. He pulls the curtain off himself with another groan and gingerly pushes himself up to sitting. Half-blind from the shampoo running into his eyes, he reaches up over his head and fumbles for the shower handle. The water stops.

Peter makes to stand, but a sudden jolt of pain just above his ankle stops him. With a grunt, he lets himself fall back against the tub, teeth clenched.

Oh yeah, he’s never gonna live this one down.

It’s not his most graceful moment, but somehow Peter manages to extricate himself from the tub. Thankfully May is out of town this weekend so no one is around to hear the crashes and muffled curses issuing from the bathroom. He quickly dries off and pulls on some clean sweat pants and a t-shirt before hopping on his left leg to retrieve a bag of frozen peas from the kitchen. Once back in his bedroom, he carefully props the already-swelling ankle up on pillows and rests his makeshift ice pack on top.

It’s times like these when Peter curses his mutated spider metabolism for burning through normal painkillers so fast that Tylenol and ibuprofen are about as effective as Skittles. Tony has better drugs at the compound—the kind that actually work on him—but Peter isn’t too keen on explaining to his mentor how someone who’d stopped a runaway car with his bare hands and walked away without a scratch a few hours ago was no match for his own bathroom.

Plus, it’s really not that bad. He can deal. He’ll just sleep it off and everything will be fine by the morning.

X

Peter wakes to nauseating pain.

It takes him a moment to orient himself. He’s lying on his bed in a tangle of covers, a deep, pulsing ache radiating from his right ankle. He flaps his hand around under his pillow until he locates his phone and lifts it to his face to check the time. It’s 1:13 a.m.

God, this sucks.

When Peter pushes himself up to sitting, he can’t help but let out a muffled cry as a fresh wave of agony shoots through his leg all the way to the hip. It’s healing—he swears he can actually feel the bone knitting itself back together under his skin—but something about it feels different. Wrong.

Flipping on the bedside lamp, he pulls his covers off his aching foot and instantly gasps at the sight. It’s purple with bruises and swollen to double its usual size. On the side, right where the ache is deepest, the bone is jutting out at a weird angle and his stomach rolls at the sight. When he tries to move his foot slightly, searing pain nearly makes him lose his dinner.

This isn’t right. None of his past breaks have ever hurt this much. He can’t do this anymore—he needs help.

Fingers trembling, he types out his message: Mr. Stark? Are you awake?

It’s about thirty seconds before Peter sees the three dots indicating that Tony is typing: Haven’t slept since the 90s, kid. Why?

Peter steels himself with a deep breath as another pulse of pain stabs his ankle. He types out and backspaces a few different variations of his confession, ranging from ‘I fucked up my ankle and it’s killing me pls send help’ to ‘Nothing, just couldn’t sleep, sorry’ before finally settling on a vague version of the truth:

I might have done something dumb

Within five seconds of sending the text, Peter’s phone starts ringing, startling him. His fingers fumble to accept the call. When he speaks, his voice comes out more like a squeak than anything else. “Yeah?”

Tony cuts right to the chase. “How dumb are we talking here?” he asks briskly. “Because my lawyers generally appreciate a heads up.”

“No, it’s not that kind of dumb,” Peter manages to grit out through the pain. “It’s um… it’s just…” he trails off, not sure quite how to word this.

“It’s one in the morning. Just spit it out,” Tony prompts.

Tears are pricking at the corners of Peter’s eyes now, the ache somehow finding a way to become even deeper. “I-I got hurt,” he manages to say.

Tony’s tone instantly sobers. “Where? How bad?”

“No no, it’s not that bad,” Peter says quickly. “I just messed up my ankle or something. I thought I could just sleep it off and my healing would fix it, but it’s like”—he takes a shuddery inhale—“It just… it just really hurts, Mr. Stark.” He wants to cry; he feels absolutely pathetic.

Tony curses under his breath and Peter hears a lot of movement from the other end of the line. “Why didn’t I get any alerts from Karen on this?” he demands. “Because I put all those safety features in your suit for a reason and if I find out you coerced that Ned buddy of yours into disabling yet another layer of security, I swear to god, Pete—”

“I didn’t, I promise,” Peter interrupts. “Karen doesn’t know because it didn’t happen on patrol.”

“How did it happen then?”

“I just… kinda fell?”

“You fell?” Tony questions, confusion in his voice. “Fell where?”

Peter’s face flushes. “You know what, I-I’ll be okay,” he says. “I’m sorry to bother you, it’ll be fine in the morning, just—” Another pulse of pain shoots daggers up his right leg and his breath hitches.

“I’m already on my way,” Tony says, and Peter can hear the sound of wind rushing over the line now. “ETA, thirteen minutes.”

“Oh no, you don’t have to come out here!” Peter protests. “I just need some of those painkillers that you and Dr. Banner made. I dunno, maybe you could just send a couple over in one of your suits...?”

“Cute,” Tony remarks. “It’s adorable how you think I’m gonna let a fifteen-year-old dose out a drug strong enough to knock the Winter Soldier on his ass.”

“I’m sixteen now,” Peter argues. “Sixteen and a half, actually.”

“Equally adorable how you think stating your age in fractions helps your case,” Tony quips. “Listen, just hold tight, kid—I’ll be there soon.”

Peter sighs as the call disconnects.

X

Eleven minutes later, Tony arrives at the apartment and lets himself in with the spare key May had given him when it became apparent Peter's internship was more than just a run-of-the-mill semester-long program. He pauses in the doorway of Peter’s messy room to gaze at the miserable teenager sprawled out on the bed.

“Jesus, kid,” Tony swears quietly.

Peter gives a small wave. “Hey,” he mumbles. The nausea is back and he’s sweating slightly now. “Did you bring the drugs?”

“I did,” Tony says, his gaze narrowing as he steps closer to the bed, “but given that your ankle is currently resembling Violet Beauregarde’s, you’re not getting any until FRIDAY does her thing.”

Peter huffs, but he’s in too much pain to come up with anything witty to say. He holds still as Tony taps twice at the nanotech armor’s housing unit on his chest. A light appears and quickly scans over Peter’s body from head to toe.

After a moment, the light disappears again. “Scan complete, boss,” FRIDAY reports. “Partially healed misaligned fracture detected in the lower right tibia.”

“I broke my leg?” Peter balks. “I thought it was the ankle?”

“Your ankle is made up of three bones,” Tony explains. He pulls out his phone and starts typing something as he goes on. “Tibia, fibula…”—he pauses and glances up, frowning—“and that one that doesn’t rhyme.”

“The talus, boss,” FRIDAY supplies.

Diverting his attention back to the phone screen, Tony gives a short nod of acknowledgment. “Yeah, that one.”

“Oh.” Peter glances down awkwardly. “Um, I’m gonna take anatomy next semester.”

Tony hums absently. He finishes tapping out whatever message he’s been sending and pockets the device again. “In the meantime, I’m sure Bruce can tell you more fun bone facts when we get to Medbay.”

“Whoa, wait, what do you mean Medbay?” Peter demands, a fresh wave of panic and guilt crashing over him. “All I need is some meds so I can sleep through the worst of it and I’ll be fine,” he insists.

Tony huffs. “Your knowledge of anatomy might be lacking, but last time I checked you were getting an A in English so you should know that ‘misaligned’ isn’t a word you want connected to ‘fracture’. It’s healing wrong. You need x-rays. And a real doctor.”

With a groan, Peter drapes his arm dramatically over his face. “Great. Even my super healing is against me.”

“Not to mention you still haven’t told me how you fell,” Tony continues with a pointed look, “so if you’re trying to hide some other injury, or a vertigo thing, or—”

“I’m not,” Peter mumbles into the crook of his elbow. With a sigh, he lowers the arm from his face and looks miserably up at his mentor. “I just slipped in the stupid shower.”

To Tony’s credit, he doesn’t laugh.

(Even though his lips do twitch.)

Instead, he steps out of the bedroom and returns a moment later with a cup of water, which he hands to the kid along with two of the super strength painkillers from the orange pill bottle in his pocket. Peter downs them gratefully.

“Your aunt’s got her car here, right?” Tony checks.

Peter nods. “She took an Uber to the airport. Won’t be back until late Sunday. Conference for work.”

“Think she’d mind if we use it as a makeshift ambulance?”

Peter just shrugs.

“Alright then.” Tony presses the housing unit again and this time the armor encases his whole body. “Now I’m gonna pick you up and carry you down to the parking lot, and you’re not gonna make a big deal about it. Capisce?”

Peter suppresses a groan of embarrassment as he’s gathered carefully into Tony’s arms. Maybe next time he wipes out in the shower, he’ll get lucky and just drown.

X

The painkillers are strong and Peter ends up sleeping through most of the two-hour drive back to the compound. By the time they pull into the parking garage—May’s little dented Ford Focus looking positively ridiculous next to Tony’s array of expensive sports cars—it’s nearly four in the morning.

Bruce is waiting for them with a wheelchair, which Peter instantly balks at using.

“I don’t need that—I can totally walk,” he protests.

Bruce gives him a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, that’s not a good idea. Judging by the scans FRIDAY sent ahead for me, your bone rotated as it healed—that’s why it looks so deformed right now. Walking on it is only going to cause further problems.”

“You heard the man,” Tony says, gesturing to the chair. He smirks. “Unless you'd prefer me to get the suit on again.”

With a groan, Peter transfers himself into the chair. His ankle really does feel better now. The swelling is down and the pain only flares up when he jostles it too much—he can tell the bone has mostly knit itself back together.

Once back in Medbay, they’re joined by another doctor—someone from SHIELD called Helen Cho who Peter has never met before. She does some x-rays and an MRI while Peter half-dozes, still foggy from the medication.

When the scans are complete, he’s transferred back to a hospital bed while the two doctors talk over the results with him and Tony. Peter tries to pay attention but he’s still groggy and exhausted, so the medical jargon sounds more like irritating droning than actual words. Then all of a sudden, the three of them start throwing around words like ‘rebreaking’ and ‘inserting pins’ and ‘realignment surgery’ and Peter snaps right out of his haze.

“Whoa, whoa, what do you mean surgery?” Peter demands. “It’s fine, oh my god.”

Dr. Cho gives him a half-smile. “Look here, Peter.” She holds up the x-ray and points to the bulge on the side of Peter’s ankle. “This malunion is going to significantly reduce your mobility, as well as potentially cause chronic pain. Given your”—she pauses for a moment—“unusually active lifestyle, I would highly suggest surgical correction sooner rather than later.”

And that’s how, several hours later, Peter finds himself lying on a bed in a pre-op room at SHIELD Medical, waiting for some surgeons to take a bone-saw to his freshly healed right leg.

“How you feeling, kiddo?” Tony asks, plopping himself down in an armchair beside the bed.

“Really stupid,” Peter answers honestly. He gazes down at the deformed bones in his ankle. “All this from falling in the shower.”

Tony huffs out a laugh. “Eh, this shit happens. One time in college, I threw my back out during a ping-pong match with Rhodey.”

Peter’s eyes widen. “Seriously?”

Tony nods. “Bodies are dumb. Even enhanced ones—did you know Steve once sneezed so hard he dislocated a rib?”

Peter gives him a skeptical look. “Now you’re joking.”

“Cross my heart,” Tony chuckles. “Then Thor clapped him on the back and popped it back in.”

Peter opens his mouth to express his disbelief at this information, but before he can do so, a nurse dressed in light blue scrubs comes in to take him to the OR. A fresh wave of anxiety comes over Peter and he shoots his mentor a pleading look.

“You’re really sure this is necessary?” Peter tries one last time.

Tony gives his shoulder a squeeze. “You’ll be fine,” he assures. “As soon as you’re healed up, I’ll teach you some sweet ping-pong moves.”

Peter smirks. “Maybe I should get Rhodey to show me so I don’t throw out my back.”

“Nah, you don’t want him either,” Tony says, waving his hand dismissively. “I might have thrown out my back, but he ended up with a concussion.”

Peter blinks at him. “What kind of ping-pong games did you play?”

Tony locks eyes with him. “Ball is life, kid.”

X

The surgery itself goes as well as can be expected. Peter wakes up groggy and disoriented, with three new metal pins inside his ankle and a bright red cast around the outside. Bruce feeds him ice chips, and Tony video calls May from his Starkpad so she can fuss over her nephew a bit from Denver. Peter silently marvels at how this ridiculous life he leads has somehow brought him to the point where Iron Man and the Hulk are functioning as his postoperative caretakers.

Then his thoughts are derailed when he suddenly throws up bile all over the bedsheets and Tony’s tablet.

“It’s okay, Peter,” Bruce assures the thoroughly humiliated boy—who is now clutching a pink plastic basin to his chest as if his life depends on it—as he helps the nurse to strip the bed. “Nausea is a really common side effect of the anesthesia, and especially considering how much you had to be under for your metabolism, this is to be expected.”

Standing off to the side, wiping the tablet down with disposable disinfectant wipes, Tony huffs. “I mean if you knew that, Bruce, you could have warned me…”

Whether the antiemetics the doctors give Peter do their job or simply knock him out through the worst of the nausea, Peter will never know. But when he wakes again a few hours later, life is significantly better.

X

He’s released from Medical the next morning and Tony brings him back to the compound to finish recovering in his own room. The cast comes off Sunday morning and Peter’s good as new.

Late Sunday afternoon, Tony drops Peter back off at his apartment—Happy tailing along behind in a much shinier, undented, and heavily upgraded Ford Focus—and thanks May for loaning him her vehicle before asking permission to use their restroom.

Emerging from the bathroom a few minutes later, Tony ruffles Peter’s hair and tells the kid to take it easy before driving off again.

When Peter goes to take a shower later that night, he finds the floor of the tub covered in adhesive non-slip rubber duck decals.

(Yeah, Peter’s never gonna live this one down.)

X

Fic Masterlist

For more Tony helping Peter out sticky of situations, try:

 You Broke Tony 

 The Five Times Peter Denies an Illness or Injury + the One Time He Doesn’t

[longeyelashedtragedy]

this has been the most wild fuckin year so let’s do a Year in Review shall we

in terms of internet and fandom life, that is. my real life has been atrociously boring but who cares about real life amirite folx

january probably the only calm month of the year.  i spent the first day of the month watching the brazilian inauguration in burgos, spain with one headphone in, while ordering for my family in a restaurant where nobody spoke english (my sister speaks decent spanish, but my whole family has like 8194814 food restrictions so it kind of went past her level of ability). translating between spanish and english with portuguese in one year was kind of awesome. i watched bodyguard and it was amazing!  what else...in january i briefly owned the issue of spanish GQ with Luka on the cover which i then forgot about until november. other than that...? nada.  the calm before the storm. (fav music)

february was so long ago that i keep forgetting how insane its 28 days were.  probably the wildest month of the year really. i got involved in an absolutely batshit and exclusive group chat with a famous person’s family member (which must remain confidential). it was all sunshine and rainbows for a week and a half and it then devolved into the most absolutely insane Lord of the Flies situation ever--it turned into 1 main chat and then 1 chat that was less puritanical than the main chat, and that chat spawned another chat that didn’t trust the previous chat, and then that chat had a massive argument and a like 6-person bitchy chat modded by a gay guy who does voodoo (shoutout to ALCIDES) spawned from that one.  i made it into every level of group chat and was asked by the tiny bitchy chat to spy on the other bitchy chat (i did not lol). i was a member of the tiny bitchy chat until i got a new phone and was logged out of whatsapp for like a month.  these words can’t even convey what this chat was like--oh and did i mention it was all conducted in only my 3rd-best language? it’s no wonder my weird ass survived middle school almost entirely unscathed.  as this was winding down, on the very last day of the month, I found out about Justin’s involvement in the SNC-Lavalin scandal and decided to go public about my years-long boner for him; Lavscam definitely changed the course of the rest year ~ Oh, also i began helping to repair a friendship that had had some Drama go down so that was p cool ~ (fav music)

march was a Time. The insanity of lavscam helped me finally finish the macdeau I started writing the previous December when a bunch of tungelr people called me disgusting for writing it.  i wrote my first straight-up serious explicit porn in years which has wound up being the third-longest thing i’ve ever published on ao3. Also, Hozier released Wasteland, Baby! which made a huge impact on me as well.  i spent like half of march staying up till 3:30 am writing said Long Fic, and i was firmly in the closet about stanning manu. also justin almost got a vote of no confidence or something and he got busted for eating a chocolate bar during a parliamentary all-nighter.  (fav music)

in april i wrote a ton of fanfic thanks to declining mental health(tm).  i think this is when i started my emmanuyell insta account and became really into making weird edits (which i still love doing just...don’t anymore.)  i started meeting some cool people thanks to macdeau.  what else happened in april? i feel like it wasn’t actually too eventful other than writing a lot of fanfic and being Annoyed about manu.  feel free to jog my memory lol.  oh i think i wrote “Okay so who from the French national team are we gonna ship Manu with” on twitter after seeing photos of manu + antoine griezmann at the World Cup but nothing came of that...at that time... (fav music)

may saw me having to deal with my shit mental health and up my meds but that seems to have had a good effect because i seem to not be too depressed to write in the winter/fall anymore! it was the 2nd anniversary of manu’s election and at the Christchurch Call in paris, macdeau took that amazing fairytale princess photo together that was completely unrivalled in Gay Shippy Feels moments until ivan went out of his way to kiss luka during the el clásico gameplay last wednesday. someone wrote ao3′s first griezmanu drabble and at the end manu gets down on his knees in front of antoine, takes off his shoes for him, and sucks his dick, and i achieved another state of being entirely.  my sister graduated from grad school and when we went down to DC for the weekend i went to eat at this restaurant manu famously ate at while there and ordered the same stuff he did and i have no idea how he consumed all that grease.  i learned about the song O Come, O Come, Emmanuel *snort*. i feel like other things happened in may too?  OH YES--i got the idea for my magnum opus, Trophy Boyfriend, and started to write it. the first scene i wrote was justin blowing manu in the hallway. then the same day i wrote the scene at the airport (which was the ending for a solid month and half till i realized it shouldn’t be), and the saddest scene in the fic--but we’ll stop to open presents.  oh! and i stumbled across the macronists discord chat which is such a delightful little community *weepy sniffles* (fav music)

june was Eventful.  a french neonazi on tumblr told me to go let manu fuck me in the ass because i was a fucking degenerate.  what a start!  then came the ceremony in which manu awarded everyone on the french national team the legion of honor medal and the way he and antoine looked at each other was truly...Wait it was the 3rd Gay Shippy Feels moment of the year.  as soon as the ceremony was over i wrote a fic about it and haven’t looked back.  between this + watching almost every 2018 World Cup game and the women’s world cup (during which I cried during argentina’s last game because of that miraculous penalty) i finally achieved my years-long goal of getting into Futbol(TM).  Antoine dropped his spotify playlist and my crush on him turned into Intense Love (TM) and also he introduced me to some legit awesome artists.  which led to (fav music)

july, in which i wrote “ça c’est ma dope” which is definitely the best thing i’ve written since i wrote “modernity towering in front of the sky” almost exactly 10 years before. got embroiled in Soccer Transfer Drama and learned its pain for the first time (unfortunately, since i wound up attaching my heart-wagon to barça’s Suddenly Least Favorite Player, the transfer drama pain has...never ended) became a full-fledged culé, O the joy O the honor.  i wanted to ship antoine with someone on the team, which in their current chemistry-less season is a real challenge, but after seeing a few photos i decided it would be fun to casually ship antoine + ivan rakitic (partially because, ever since i went from Enemies to Lovers with the croatia NT during the World Cup, he was one of the only players i knew anything about other than messi, suárez, and piqué lmao). while looking on ao3 to see what kind of headcanons people had about him--and the fic is definitely in general better than what’s out there about antoine, which is perplexing because antoine is much easier to write than ivan--i found That Amazing Rakidric Fic and thought “oh wait that ship makes a lot of sense” and started also shipping ivan and luka with the fire of a thousand suns.  oh and my air conditioner was broken for like 3 weeks. i worked on more fics, seriously outlining the path of Trophy Boyfriend, and my music taste was killer. (fav music)

in august i finished Trophy Boyfriend in my neighborhood Starbucks after writing the scene that was giving me the most trouble (the scene at the beginning where they’re organizing their book collection). the fic has made multiple people cry and people disagree on whether justin’s choice at the end was the right one and god i’m so proud of it.  Instantly went on to write ‘i might not mind,’ a lively lighthearted Friends to Lovers ivantoine~ romp which was definitely going to be a one-off and i was definitely not going to get an extra celeb crush out of it,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, (fav music)

in september ivantoine became A Thing in my mind and it’s a whole ongoing slow-burn character-arcy series that has taken a very different turn than i had expected. i’m not saying it’s like, the most deep writing of all time, but it’s gone to some interesting places emotionally. honestly, ships and boners aside, the concept of a person who made some really stupid homophobia 101 comments many years ago slowly realizing over and over again that they have gay feelings for a man who seems rather comfortable with gayness is a fascinating one and one that’s really cool to explore in writing.  Or at least, i think so.  in many ways ivan is my most unreliable narrator because of the many layers of Discomfort, Emotion and Repression at play in the fic while he’s interacting with this pretty cheery and uncomplicated seeming-dude who’s still perceptive enough to sort of know what’s going on (and that’s not even adding in the star player/falling from grace former rockstar dynamic!!!)  i know in the current climate it’s Not Allowed to write about someone who said a bad, but luckily i’m too old to give a Fuck. ivantoine is hard to write but it’s my bff’s favorite ship of mine and has a few other excited fans on ao3 which tbh is kind of an accomplishment considering i made it up out of thin air and it’s not something you’d ever think would be a thing. instantly also developed ‘getting called out about ivan by a child on the internet’ as a goal.  and...i achieved my dream of leading high holiday services!!! (fav music)

october had more high holiday services and i worked a lot on certain fics (including d*janfic which would be fun to finish). i came up with the idea of a Very Long Rakidric Fic based on the translation of a gorgeous croatian folk song i sang in college (Janko fell asleep under the poplar/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me/Under the poplar's golden branch/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me/I tore off the golden branch/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me--in which the golden branch is a reference to a way to get into the underworld). decided to start quarter-assedly learning croatian for fun.  Fun...ha.  other than fangirling a lot and watching the croatian NT play, october was pretty uneventful? i think? Justin got reelected and mauricio didn’t ;( (fav music)

in november i finally achieved my dream of having a literal child on the internet call me out about being attracted to a homophobe.  (they were a madridista even!) accidentally started writing some more rakidric and now i’m seriously hooked.  also accidentally came out of the closet about the secret crush i’d been harboring on luka modric and then one fateful day in the ihop on 14th st i realized i’d had this crush already and repressed it from my memory. Don’t do that kids! now it’s Hurting Really Bad. Ivan dropped the most pathetic and candid interview like...ever and i hope “¿Cómo puede disfrutar uno? Jugando al fútbol. ¿Cómo se siente mi hija pequeña cuando le quitan un juguete? Triste. Yo me siento igual. Me han quitado la pelota, me siento triste” goes down in the history of most epic futbol quotes of all time.  (still haven’t actually been able to watch this because no one has uploaded it anywhere)  What else...............Am i forgetting anything? i celebrated my birthday with @tender-vittles in epic fashion after two years of Not doing that, and turned 32 going on 15.  enjoyed my first-ever “x reader” fic (zlatko dalic x reader LOL) and finished “drive your plow over the bones of the dead” which was real fucking good. i saw hozier live and it was a religious experience and i unexpectedly cried during nina cried power and then called myself “Luka B” when ordering at the classy taco bell across the street after getting a glimpse of alexxx ryan in the flesh. (fav music)

now it’s december and my seasonal depression is a little worse than it’s been the past few years but i’m managing.  still shipping and writing and i just got called out about ivan again last week.  i’m 2 for 2 here!  el clásico was boring but also it was gay and my heart my heart my heart ! Anything could happen in the last 10 days of this year and honestly...I’m pretty sure I’m ready.

Most importantly this year, despite it being not that great in a lot of ways, I developed a lot more self confidence, made many important realizations, and became a lot more peaceful (despite how this post makes me sound) and wiser and less bitter and pessimistic.  And i became outspoken enough about antisemitism on the left to lose friends over it...3 for 3.  i can’t say i’m displeased with these developments.

Hasta 2020! <3

[annakie]

It’s gonna be the future soon...

So, I think that it’s close enough to definite now that I can say something solid about it.

Very close to 10 months after my old, awesome company was acquired by this... other... company... that we had an extremely not-awesome experience with... unless something goes terribly wrong with my pre-employment checks,  on June 11th I’ll be starting a new job, at a new company, doing exactly what I want to do with people who I don’t know but I seem to like so far, in a location really close to home.

I didn’t talk about much of this outside of private channels because it’s always a bad idea to be negative about your employer when they’re your employer, but... I’m feeling such catharsis, and like the cold hand that’s been gripping my head and heart for so long is finally letting go.

Anyway, here’s a lot of words, and a few pictures.

Last year, on the five-year anniversary of working for the company I worked for, we’ll call it company A, I wrote this long blog post about how much I loved my job.

I really did.  I was so happy.  Most people who worked there were really happy.  The IT/Dev group were mostly very close with each other.  My team, the IT team specifically extended out with two others, we were honestly like brothers and sisters.

On August 15th, we were acquired by Company B.

I knew it was coming for like a month ahead of time, and throughout July and early August every day I made myself appreciate all the little things about working there, because things were going to change some.  But you know, we’d probably just lose the top bosses and maybe they’d cut like, Marketing, which would be sad, but understandable.  And maybe a few other people would leave and things would be different, but still, it couldn’t be that bad.

But it was.  It started when... for most of the employees, our stock was worthless.  A few people got a few hundred dollars but... some of us had been given stock in leiu of bonuses and raises.  So our outgoing board screwed us.  That cut, deep.  It wasn’t the new company’s fault, but we started out disgruntled.

And the new company... I think that the people in charge didn’t really want to acquire us, but were told to by the financial backing partners.  It was bad from the start.  From an absolutely ridiculous NDA/Non-Compete which many lawyers we consulted said we shouldn’t sign which made 5 important people just walk out instead of signing, and the fact that my boss was almost walked out on orders of the CEO for speaking his mind when in a meeting Company B set up to answer questions.  Our old and new CTOs just barely averted that from happening.

Picture break!  This is the old office, the view from my desk. I mean... Carlos wasn’t ALWAYS dressed that way,  just when there was a World Cup or Euro Cup happening.  But every one of those desks and a bunch you can’t see were filled with people I loved working with.

But within a month, communication and trust between the two companies was already shattered.  They made much deeper cuts from the staff than we thought would happen.  We lost one of our 3 locations, everyone but the 2 devs there were laid off.  The entire marketing team, almost all of the sales team, all of accounting.  And it wasn’t too long before my boss found something else because his days were numbered anyway.  And our CTO was pushed out a month later.  Expected, but it stung.

And in all this time, they kept telling us that we were wanted.  The IT/dev teams.  And we kept dropping like flies.  People just saying “Fuck this shit, I’m out.”  Finding something better, higher paying, less painful, and quickly.  For most of the last 4 and a half months of last year, I was turning accounts down.  

We were getting punched in the stomach by something from the new company every few days, it felt like.  There was no morale.  There was only us, huddling together for warmth as people were torn away or dropped out, one by one.  I organized probably close to 20 goodbye lunches, and several more “Hey who wants to go to lunch?  We’re going to ____, whoever can go, meet there at 11:30″ to keep in touch lunches.

The last one we had was May 11th, to celebrate my birthday and one of our remote guys being in town.

I take a picture at almost every group lunch we have.  I have so many pictures of various groups of us sitting at a table, smiling, all just happy to be hanging out together again for an hour.

This was the “new” Dev manager and Carlos’ goodbye lunch.

I can’t get into specifics of all the ways things happened that hurt.  There are so many things that happened that just left our jaws hanging open.  So many things we questioned.  This post would be ten times the length were I to really get into it.

They hired a new Development manager, promised him support and the ability to run what remained of the IT department his way, and then in actuality though, gave him no power and no money and no ability to change anything.  He was a scapegoat.  He started out rah-rah we can fix this in late October or early November-ish?  By Christmas, even his spirit was broken. 

We were told during the acquisition we would get to participate in the company’s bonus program.  Neat!  Prorated, of course, I mean, that makes sense.  Cool.  Well, December we get our bonus checks and um... it’s half of what they should be.  We did the math, a lot.  Several times.  Someone, somewhere made the decision that we only deserved half of our prorated bonuses.  That’s just the way it was.

There’s so much more.  But let’s move on.

We’d been told when all this started that they wanted to move our office and turn our development-focused office into more of a sales-focused office.  The move is its own story of hilarity, but those of us left got the honor of cleaning out the office and packing it all away.  We did, at least, get to take a lot of stuff home.  I am, right now, sitting at my desk from work, and my chair from work, in the middle of my living room.  What used to be my office is now in process of being turned into the living room.  I took home my favorite painting, a TV console, and lots of just misc stuff we wouldn’t need at the new place.  So that’s nice.  

Yeah so that’s basically my living room now.  The cats like it!  They got new beds AND a big cat tree out of the bargain!  Pemily only uses a bottom “house” level, Fry likes the bed on top and the bigger level right under it.  They use the beds a lot more, though.

There have been so many days where I would just get in the car at the end of the day and cry out of frustration and anger and sadness over what we lost.  The promises broken, the things that we were told wouldn’t happen and did, the things we were told would happen and didn’t.  The loss of so many people I cared so much about from my daily life.

And I should say, some of the people at the new company are great.  My new immediate boss, I really do like him, and I have always tried to be as honest with him as I could.  The last several months, I’ve been completely honest with him, for both his sake and mine.  He, more than anyone on their side, has gotten the brunt of taking several bad decisions by the higher ups on his chin.  The rest of the other IT team, they are very nice people and I enjoy working with them.  Even their CTO, well, there are some mixed feelings about him, but as a person, I like him a lot.  We’ve even hung out when he’s been in town.

So yeah... by the beginning of 2018, the IT/Dev team was down to like six people, out of over 20 when we started.

The day of The Move, January 27th, everyone on the team who was left got pulled into a meeting at the new place, while the movers were still moving our things in.

We were told that we were all losing our jobs in six months.  We’d get a (TBH, laughable, 12%) severance if we stayed the entire time.  Or, we could move to Kansas City, Kansas.  Hmm... from the #1 job market in the US to Kansas City.  Lol.  No.

Immediately, I mean like WHILE THAT MEETING WAS STILL HAPPENING, my last two team members from IT accepted other job offers they’d been mulling over.  My last other friend who I’d gotten a job there not long after I started, went from “Nah, I’m gonna stick it out.” to “I’m out.”

Eric was gone a week after the announcement, Carlos and the new Dev manager were gone the next week.   My dev friend and I were the last two left. It only took him about a month to be gone.

They’d designed an area in the new office for development and IT before they made the decision to move us.  I literally sit in this area of 10 cubes utterly alone.  Soon, the only people left from my office were 2 guys from sales and one project manager which... his story is a whole other doozy I’m not getting into.  Anyway, four of us left, out of the 30 that were there in August. And eight of the twelve from Memphis still have their jobs.  Twelve people left.  Out of fifty.

So yeah, this is my view.  Nobody sits in any cube you can see besides mine.  My back is to a wall.  One of the remaining guys DOES sit in that office on the right, and recently another of them moved into the office next to that one, which you can’t see in the picture, though.  That helps stave off the lonely a lot.

The same day we were starting work in the new office, the Monday after the day we were told about losing our jobs (Friday) a whole other set of people started work there, too.  Eight call-center salespeople and their manager.  

It was very apparent that first week that... whatever used to be my company was utterly gone.

I wasn’t totally alone.  The 3 guys left and I banded together.  They were already close with each other, and I did consider myself friends with them already but we hadn’t been like, close.  But they took me in, and made me a part of their clique.  That helped.  

And the new people... aren’t bad, honestly.  The manager is great, I really like him, and most of the sales people are nice, even though I don’t really talk to them much.  They have calls to make, and I don’t go to their meetings so... I’m  just... there. It’s still a weird feeling.  I mean, I IT Support them as is my job, but yeah.  There’s still a divide there.  The new office space is OK.  The building is pretty classy, we’re on the 7th floor right off of a freeway, it’s a great view.  Lots of nice amenities. It’s also a 45 minute drive from home.  The drive would be a little better if I wanted to pay $5 a day in tolls, lol.  No.

And mostly, I’ve been horribly bored.  I mean, sure, I’ve made it to like episode 42 of Critical Role.  I do all my work.  I help the people in the office who need help.  I set up cubicles with the computers and peripherals the Kansas office sends me for the new hires.  I find more work to do.  I’ve been documenting all the things I do in anticipation of when I’m no longer going to be there, and I don’t wanna leave my new team hanging when that happens -- none of this is their fault.  I’ve been wiping all our laptops we don’t use anymore and sending them to Kansas so they can use them.  I’ve been sorting boxes and throwing more stuff out.  It just... it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing anymore.  It wasn’t interesting or challenging.

So why was I even still there?  I had reasons. 

There was... an opportunity... I was told I was going to get.  It was solid, a lock.  And in fact at one point there was ANOTHER opportunity I was supposedly a lock for.  For quite awhile, I was waiting for one of these to pan out because either would have been awesome.  I just needed to hang on a few more weeks.

When suddenly it was April and neither had panned out, I realized that it was really fucking time that I stop waiting and being sad about what was gone, and to start actually taking charge of the next few months.  I had til July 27th to make something happen for myself. I’d been assured that unless I did something really terrible at work, my current job was safe until that date. (I very much appreciated that and suspect my direct boss and (possibly the CTO too) has stuck his neck out for me a time or two to make sure this happened.)  That took some pressure off. And I still had hope that the opportunity was going to pan out, but I could work harder to make things work out.

I first had to sit down and really decide what I wanted to focus on.  Before the acquisition, I had two halves to my job.  IT Support for the entire 50+ person company, and project managing our yearly SOC2 Audit.  I knew I could pretty easily get another straight up IT Support job.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d been doing IT Support for like, 18 years now, along with another half to both of the jobs I’d had in that time (Telephony in my previous job, and auditing in this one.)  I started to wonder if I could make a real go at getting a job 100% in auditing.

I started poking around at job listings for that and kept seeing the acronym “CISA” as a requirement for everything I was interested in.  So I googled it -- Certified Information Systems Auditor.  Intrigued, I spent a day learning about what that was.  I took a “practice test” I found online and thought “Oh, hm, I don’t know most of these answers but I do understand the questions.  I... I think I could do this.”  So I joined a professional organization for the first time, dropped a load of money on that, plus study materials, and set aside another $600 for when it’s time to take the exam

A great deal of my free time since early/mid April has been taken up by studying.  I’m hoping to take the test in late June.

I also modified my resume at this point to add that I was preparing for the test.  Couldn’t hurt.

In the last six weeks or so, I’ve probably applied to 20 or 30 IT Auditor type jobs, and some just more in general IT Security.  I’ve talked to about a dozen recruiters.  I’ve heard a lot of people say my resume is great and they could definitely find me a job.  None of them tried.  I didn’t even hear back from most of them, ever.  I’ve talked to a lot of internal recruiters, some of whom made me big promises then ghosted me, some of whom were excited to place me and then whoops it turned out the hiring manager promoted from within and all interviews were canceled... or something.

It was frustrating, but people kept telling me, this is also normal.  TBH, I hadn’t had to job hunt literally since the year 2000.  I’d read up a lot about what I needed to do, how to act and talk and what to say and how to answer the hard questions and I felt like I did well whenever I was given a shot.  It’s just that Something always happened.  I started to joke with my guys left at work that I wondered what this week’s Big Disappointment would be.  I was also joking that if I wanted to feel let down this consistently, I’d go back to dating.

Two Sundays ago I was doing a pass at job boards, and went to one I hadn’t been using before, but probably should have.  And there I saw it.

A job doing exactly the auditing things I wanted to do, but more stuff, that I also wanted to do, and I had almost every line of their “Must haves” already on my resume.  It was one of like, three jobs I applied to that night.

Tuesday I got an email for a phone screening.  I didn’t let myself get excited, but I researched the company as much as I could, and liked what I saw.  I also noticed, holy crap, they’re a 15 minute drive, all on surface roads and no freeways, from my house.  That. Would. Be. Awesome.

The internal recruiter was really responsive, and nice, and seemed interested, all things I’d come to not really expect.  We set up a phone screening for Wednesday, and on Thursday she said that the hiring manager wanted to skip a phone conversation and jump right to in-person interview on Monday.

Um, wow.

So I finally got a chance to wear that $200 interview outfit I’d bought, and put on the $100 makeup, and Monday, I drove the fifteen minutes oh my God this is awesome to the new place.  Holy crap there’s a Starbucks RIGHT OUT FRONT IN THE SAME PARKING LOT YOU CAN WALK THERE.  I took the elevator to the top floor wow this view is beautiful I can almost see my house from here! and met my possible new manager.  I kind of got the vibe early that he was already heavily favoring me, and our conversation was basically like “I need someone who can do ____” “Oh, yeah, I was already doing that, so I can definitely do that.”  And some of it was “Hm, I don’t have any experience in that area.” and he was like “Eh, but you have experience in this related thing, you can definitely pick it up.”    And it was a lot more like a conversation than an interview.  Always a good sign.

I’d actually put under like “Other interests” my masseffectsaves.com site and being admin and a major contributor to the TAH wiki, as a “see, I have other interests, I’m an interesting person” and he even asked about both of those things. I think being able to explain these semi-complex ideas helped a lot.  (Why do you need a saves site?  WHAT THE HECK IS Thrilling Adventure Hour?  And I explained that the wiki shows I am able to write well, and have a good head for categorizing information.)  

I felt things were going very well when he asked me to stay, and went and got the team, the people who would be my equals.  They came and asked me questions, I asked them a few, and they thanked me and left.

And then he brought in the CIO, his boss.  Later edit: this was not his boss, but someone very important at the company and I have since learned he told my boss he should absolutely hire me and I was perfect for the job and thought I’d do great.  And since it’s 2 months later I’m making this edit, he’s already told my boss he thinks I’m great. :)  And we had a good conversation.

Then I got the office tour.  That was when I felt really good about it.  And I had decided pretty early on in the interview that yeah, I really wanted this job.

The only downside is a smaller bump in my salary than I was hoping for.  But it’s still a bump. And literally, everything else is fantastic.

I left the interview at 11:30. 

I got a phone call from the internal recruiter (I made sure to tell both her and her boss how great she is) with a verbal offer at 3:30.  I verbally accepted.

(Side note, I also got another request for a phone screening interview with another company I’d applied to that same night while I was in the interview.  I did set up the phone screening just in case, but canceled it this morning after signing my offer letter.)

I signed all my paperwork today, submitted for the background and credit checks (because of the industry of the company, the credit check is like, mandatory.  And my credit is great so, no worries.)

My current boss knew I had an interview Monday.  I didn’t go to work Monday or yesterday, but I talked to him and let him know.   If everything goes well, I’ll be turning in my notice on Tuesday (Monday is a holiday), and the 8th will be my last day.

A week shy of 10 months since all this started.

To the people I’m close to who read this, I’m sorry I’ve been withdrawn for so long,  It’s just how I needed to cope, thank you for sticking with me.  IDK if anyone noticed, but I didn’t post on tumblr and let my queue run out for like three months at the end of the year.  I’ve still not been here a lot, but... enough to keep a queue going and make a few actual posts here and there.  It was really bad for a long time.  I didn’t want to engage with almost anyone about almost anything.  I didn’t feel like I had much positive to say.  And I couldn’t really talk about this publicly.

And now, today, it feels so good.  I just want to scream about how great it feels to be getting out.  Moving on! And to be fair, the last four months haven’t been terrible.  They’ve been fine.  Just fine.  They actually offered to let me keep my job, to be even more fair, back in April, at about the time I’d decided to start studying for my CISA.  Also about that time I was going through my first “Oh you’re gonna get this job!” excitement, pre-disappointment, besides the two that I’d been waiting on. 

 Oh yeah, of those two I’d waited on... one of them ghosted, and the other one, the one I’d really been waiting on, offically fell through like two weeks after I turned down the offer to stay on at the current company. I did have one weekend of “OH SHIT WHAT DID YOU DO NO ONE IS EVER GOING TO HIRE YOU WHY DID YOU TELL THEM YOU WERE GONNA LEAVE MAYBE YOU CAN BEG TO KEEP YOUR JOB” thoughts, a pretty bad panic attack, a bunch of scared crying, and utter despair in there.  Then Sunday afternoon I picked myself back up, and went back to studying, and told myself over and over there was going to be something awesome out there for me.  Plus, I had savings enough plus the “retention bonus” money to live on for a few months, if worse came to worse and I hadn’t found something on July 27th.  

And to be honest, I really didn’t think I’d find a job in It Security/Auditing until after I passed the exam.  I was applying to things, though, just in case, maybe I will.

I’m so, very glad to be wrong.  I’m still going to pass my exam, and there’s at least one other certification I’m going for afterwards.

Which is just another weird thing.

My whole life I’ve been like, drifting when it came to college and work.  TBH I never finished college.  I got into IT almost by accident, because someone believed in me and pulled me onto his team.  That person went from being my boss for a few years, long ago to now one of my closest friends  I stayed in IT + Telephony then IT + Auditing because... I could.  I always had a solid job that I was happy in (except near the end of the first job, the last 2 or 3 years were... hooo boy.  Anyway.)  I never felt a particular passion or calling to it.  I liked it, I was good enough at it.  It was a good paycheck and I got to work with awesome people.

But, as much as I would sometimes grouse about the audit, secretly kinda loved it.  It was a LOT of work, and nerve-wracking, but I was good at managing it.  I knew I could be better at it and do more if I didn’t have that whole other half of my job of IT Support to do.  But realizing last month I could actually get a certification and there were other certs I could do that would also make work better and actually holy shit I have a career PATH.  What sorcery is this?  It’s weird.  I just really, really, really wish I would have started looking at it... oh... five years ago.

I also took this other step about a month ago.  There were several jobs I didn’t apply to because I never finished college and they stressed a degree was mandatory.  That made me sad, and nervous.  

I knew I had a TON of college credits, probably close to 120, but nothing that would coalesce into like, a degree.  Also as the years went by it was like... well.  There’s no way I could start all over with college.

On a whim, though, I googled “What to do when you have a lot of college credits and no degree”.  And it turns out, there’s a couple of real, actual accredited non-profit colleges that have programs exactly for people like me.   They accept transfer credits liberally and will tell you what you need to get a real actual diploma.   I said what the fuck, and applied and got my transcripts from the three colleges I had significant credits at sent over there.

They finished the evaluation and got back to me today. I need twelve hours to get a bachelors of Liberal Arts.  TWELVE. Five classes. (one is a 1 hour credit, one is a 2 hour credit, the rest are three.  And I can CLEP out of two of the classes, if I want to.)  I was also accepted into the program.  I’m kicking myself for not doing THIS years ago.

So... the rest of this year will be dedicated to CISA and at least one more certification.  Starting in the spring semester, I’m going back to school.  Online, night classes type school, but I’m going to do it.  I’m gonna get a fucking diploma, even if it’s a liberal arts diploma, at 43 years old.  (Hell, I’ll be 44 by then.)

And what’s crazy is... this is like the silver lining to a dark, dark cloud. No, it’s more than that.  It’s... coming out of the dark.  It almost feels like a rebirth.  It took five and a half months of a torturous slow death of the job and place that I loved.  Then two months of emptiness.  Then two months of terror and pushing myself and frustration and disappointment.

And now... I’m here.

I’m starting a new job that I think I’m going to be great at, and think I can be very happy at the place.

I’m getting real professional certifications. 

I’m going to graduate college, finally. 

Sometimes it really does take a lot of pain in order to grow.  It takes the death of a thing that you hold dear to push you out of the nest and force you to make changes, to work hard, to be better.

I’m still sad that it took all of that to get to where I am, but I’m so glad, today, to be here.  I feel like I can breathe again.  I feel like the future is good.

Sorry this post is so long, by the way.  I feel like.. for a really long time I couldn’t talk much about it.  There were only a few people / private places I really talked about it because I was afraid of consequences should the wrong people see -- I still needed this job.  I needed to figure out what I was doing.  So now, this is me able to talk about it.  Thanks for reading.  It’s been a journey, and this chapter is closing.  I really, really can’t wait to get to the new one.

[petri808]

Right in Front of You

Fic Writer’s Appreciation- January 2018 Writing Challenge January (2018) Day 14  Present

AU NaLu Story

The young blonde cheerleader had a lot of friends throughout high school.  Beautiful and friendly, she could bounce through any clique she wanted, the popular kids, jocks, geeks, it didn’t seem to matter, but her core group of friends at Fairytail high was really a mish-mosh of all the above.  They were kids that grew up together since the days of tag and jungle gyms, though adolescence and puberty, till finally adulthood was right around the corner.  

But among this group there was one, a boy that she was closest to over all of them.  Natsu and Lucy had lived just a few doors down from each other and since their parents had been friends, play dates started before they could even walk.  So, it was no surprise that the two would share a special bond.  

For her, Natsu was like the brother her parents never gave her, and he watched over her like one, fiercely protective and supportive.  It was obvious by 9th grade that his feelings toward Lucy had changed from merely a friend to a more romantic once but she couldn’t see him that way and it hurt.  

Every time she’d break up with a boyfriend, it was his shoulder she would cry on; and he’d grin and bear it.  Every time she celebrated a win in Cheer or acing a test, it was in his arms she’d find herself; and he’d gladly take it.  But every time he’d broach the idea of them...  she’d pull away.  Why?

All through high school this charade went on, and continued even after graduation when she left for college in a different city and he stayed behind at the local university.  They kept in touch through texts and social media, sometimes spending hours on the phone, especially when she was having a bad day; he was there for her.  Lucy visited during her first winter break and spent much of her time hanging out with him.  Spring break came, same deal.  

Finally, her first summer vacation from college and the young woman was ready for a long break from school.  Natsu picked her up at the airport like he usually did, and they made plans to hang out with their friends.  Everyone was home for the summer but there were a few new faces in the bunch.

Levy had met a guy in college, Gray a new girl, but there was also one more that had started hanging with them, a student at Magnolia U.  According to Levy, Lisanna was in a couple of Natsu’s classes and one day just started coming around.  But Lucy thought nothing of it, Natsu wasn’t her boyfriend so if he was interested in another girl, that was his choice.

Besides, he sure didn’t act like he was.  From the moment Lucy arrived home, he was glued to her hip like nothing had changed.  Part of her felt bad for the other girl when she could see the hurt in her eyes, but maybe a small part of her was happy that she didn’t have to share him with someone else.  It was selfish, of course, it’s not like she’d ever put his feeling first when she dated other guys, but she figured if he didn’t like it, wouldn’t he say something?

It’s amazing how quickly time flies when your having fun and before she knew it, Fall semester would be starting up in just a couple of weeks.  Some days, Lucy wondered, was there a good reason why she had chosen to go away for college since most of her closest friends all stayed home?  Magnolia U and Crocus U offered similar programs, were ranked the same, and tuition wasn’t the issue.  

And tonight, that question came up again but not by her, but Natsu.  He had taken her to the bluffs overlooking the lake where they could relax and lie back on the hood doing something she enjoyed; stargazing.  It was a special place for the long-time friends, one that only they shared and no one else, going there ever since they were allowed to go out at night on their own.  

She was using his arm like a pillow, as they chatted…

“Luce, could I ask you something?”

“Of course, you can.” She turns her head to look at him.

But his eyes stay facing the sky, “Why’d you go so far away for college?”

“Honestly, sometimes I ask myself the same question.  I think I just wanted to experience something different.”

“Don’t you miss having your friends around all the time, I mean I’m sure you’ve made plenty more in Crocus, but, do you ever miss… me?”

“I do miss everyone, especially you, and I’ve made some friends, but I focus mostly on school while I’m there.  I don’t even want a boyfriend until I finish college.”

He turns his head away, “Oh.”

“Why the sudden question, Natsu?”

“It’s nothing…”

Lucy props her head up, “I know you Mr. Dragneel,” turning his face towards her, “if something is bothering you just tell me.”

He exhales, “What would you do if there was someone you liked, and they didn’t seem to feel the same way too, would you try to find out, or would you just move on?”

The young girl blinks, she hadn’t expected that kind of question.  “Well,” she bites her lip, “I really don’t know since I’ve never had that happen to me.”

“Don’t worry,” he fakes a smile, “Forget I asked,” and changes the subject.  “Are you excited for Fall semester?”

“MmHmm,” she nods, “The classes I have are gonna be hard, but I’m looking forward to the Creative Writing class.”

“That’s good, you always were an amazing writer.” He looks back to the sky, “It’s such a beautiful night…  I wish it never had to end.”

“Yeah…” Lucy lies back too.  But her mind is swimming by that last comment, and the way his voice sounded was so sad.  She can see through a side glance that his brows had furrowed like he was still thinking about something…

By mid-September, Lucy was certain, something was amiss.  She and Natsu’s daily and constant text messages had dwindled to every few days, their often hour, long phone calls became shorter and shorter and she was lucky if she spoke to him once a week.  Finally, she asked him about it one day and he feigned being busy with school, classes were harder, football season, etcetera; but she didn’t believe him.  

It was Levy who confirmed it, Natsu had a girlfriend and it was the one she met during the summer.  ‘Why didn’t he just tell me,’ Lucy sat in her dorm after the news.  Why hide such information?  Did he think she’d get upset?  It’s not like they were a couple or anything.  She’s angrier that she had to find out from Levy than if he had just been honest with her himself.  All those excuses he gave her…  

She grabs her phone ready to give him a tongue lashing.  ‘But what if he’s with her right now?’ the phone drops back to her lap.  ‘I could leave a message if he doesn’t answer…  No if I call now, how will that make me look?  Desperate, a fool?’

“Ugh!” she drops onto her back on the bed.  “Whatever!  If he wants a girlfriend let him!  What do I care!”  Sighing, ‘Why the hell am I getting so angry!’ and curling into a ball, Lucy feels like, like she’s lost him…  Images of his smiling face, memories of his embrace, pictures after pictures, too many over their lifetime reminding her how close they once were.  He was always there for her, always…

“What would you do if there was someone you liked, and they didn’t seem to feel the same way too, would you try to find out, or would you just move on?”  It was like a ton of bricks falling on the young blonde, ‘Natsu, had you been talking about me?’  Now all those memories seemed to be telling a different tale, not of two friends but something that should have been more.    

Lucy clicks the home button on her iPhone revealing the lock screen of her and Natsu at Senior Prom.  She had been staring straight at the camera smiling and he had been looking at her.  Up till now, the young girl just thought it was cute picture of the two of them having fun but as she looks closer at the image, his eyes…  they were… ‘Oh my God!  I’m such an idiot!’  …filled with longing…                  

A pain in her heart, stabbing, searing; she clutches at her chest as the dam bursts and tears flood down her cheeks faster than her sobs could keep up with.  As a little girl she would dream about finding her soulmate and living happily ever after like in a fairytale and all this time, all this time; he had been right in front of her.    

“…I wish it never had to end…”  She hears his voice again, the sadness of its tone, replaying like a broken record and she bangs her head with her fists trying to make them stop.  How could she give up everything she’s ever known?  Natsu had always been there, 19 years…  You can’t just make 19 years of memories vanish…  But, there’s no way she can face him now.  She was too embarrassed and a little angry at both herself and him.  ‘Why didn’t he just tell me how he felt!?’  

After that night, and that revelation Lucy avoided all contact with Natsu, though she didn’t have the heart to block his number.  When he called, she let it go to voice mail, when he texted, they went unread and what had begun with less contact by him reversed by the first week of October.  He was calling or texting multiple times a day, sending messages through social media, even friends began contacting her concerned if she was okay.  With them she acted like she was fine, never telling the real reason she was blowing him off, but with him, silence.  

Fall break came, and she didn’t go home.  

By the beginning of November, Natsu’s contacts slowed down.  He was still calling or texting daily but not in multiples.  But the messages were growing sadder, even his posts on Instagram were becoming depressing.  Their friends begged her to contact him, but she refused, making up excuses that she was simply giving him space… since he had a girlfriend.            

Winter break came, but she stayed in Crocus.

On Christmas Day, Natsu left her a phone message wishing her a Merry Christmas, saying he wished she had come home because he misses her.  It hurt, she wasn’t gonna lie.  So finally, she sent him the first text message in months, simply reading ‘Merry Christmas too’.

Her parents were aware of what she was doing, it was unavoidable since she had to explain not coming home to visit.  They told her the Dragneels were concerned about their son and she, and they agreed with them that this rift was becoming ridiculous.  But she told them she was still angry that to this day, he has still not told her the truth about his girlfriend.  If he was such the friend he was supposed to be, why hadn’t he been honest with her, she spat back.  They were both young and inexperienced in such matters was her mother’s response and she should just forgive him.  I’ll think about it is all the young girl could agree to.

Valentines Day.  

That morning was like any other for the college girl, with no significant other, she went about her day, going to class, and returning to her dorm by 3pm.  But around 4:30 there is a knock at the door and a courier standing there with a dozen long stemmed red roses and a small red box.  Thinking maybe she had a secret admirer or something she carries the items to her bed and pulls out the card; it was from Natsu.

She blinks, ‘Is he crazy?  Why the hell would he send me something for Valentines day?  And if that girlfriend of his ever found out…’  but her eyes grow wide when she opens the box for inside is a silver promise ring and it’s engraved, ‘Natsu and Lucy Forever’.  Taking the card out of it’s envelope, she reads the message…

“Lucy, I don’t know what else to say at this point except, I’m sorry.  Whatever I did to hurt you, I’m sorry.  And now, I just…  No matter if you never forgive me, please know you will be the only girl I’ll ever truly love.  Forever yours, Natsu”

And as if there had been a camera watching her, her phone pings alerting her to a message.  She’s almost afraid to read it but she opens the text and it’s a picture of his left hand, a matching ring on his finger.  Her hand flies up to her mouth, ‘Impossible!  No way his girlfriend would allow that!’  But the gesture tugs at her heartstrings, Lucy may be angry, but she doesn’t hate him, she may not have forgiven him yet, but, ‘I still love him too…’  

So, she puts the ring on a chain around her neck for now.  

Spring Break.

In no uncertain terms her family tells her she’s coming home for a visit whether she likes it or not, and Levy and the others had been threatening to kidnap her and drag her back to Magnolia too if she didn’t so what choice did she have?  Lucy missed them terribly, she just hoped to avoid Natsu while she was home, but it’s too bad for Lucy because they had other plans.

As she walked through the jetway, a part of her hoped Natsu would be standing at his car waiting for her at the curb like their routine had been but how could he when he shouldn’t even know she was home, right?  Her head hung down, maybe Levy and her parents had been right, maybe it was time she forgave him, I mean he was a guy and guys do dumb things all the time, plus it wasn’t all his fault either, part of the blame lay with her for being blind.  

Grabbing her suitcase from the baggage claim…  Even if he had a girlfriend, Natsu was still the closest person to her.  No one else, except maybe Levy as a close second knew her better.  But it would be awkward, if Lucy put herself in Lisanna’s shoes, what girlfriend would put up with their boyfriend being so close to another girl?  Making her way out to the curb…

“Lucy?”

A familiar voice.  She looks up.  “N-Natsu?  What are you doing here?”  ‘Are those bags under his eyes?  He doesn’t look like he’s getting any sleep.’

“I always pick you up at the airport.” He takes the suitcase from the frazzled girl.  

“B-but you weren’t supposed to know I was coming.”      

He frowns, “I know, but your parents asked me to get you.”

‘They are gonna hear it from me!’ she screams in her head.  “Alright fine, just take me straight home.”

Natsu doesn’t respond, just simply puts her bag in the trunk and get into the car.  Lucy sits in the passenger side and stares out the window as they head away from the airport.  ‘Weren’t you on the verge of forgiving him?’ her conscious chimes, ‘Tch, I didn’t say that.’  ‘Admit it, stop being angry and just get it over with…’  

She sighs, and props her head with her hand.  Natsu looks over but doesn’t say anything.  Holding in all these emotions, especially the anger was becoming taxing on her.  Lucy had never been one to hold a grudge for so long against anyone and she despised feeling negative.  But maybe it had more to do with the person rather than the situation.  Since Natsu was such a large part of her existence, his affects on her were also amplified.  

Closing her eyes, another sigh, ‘I can’t keep doing this, it hurts too much…’

When she opens her eyes again, it’s only at that point that she realizes they are going in the opposite direction from her parent’s house.  She turns to the Natsu, “Where are you taking me?  I said I wanted to go straight home.”

Staring straight at the road, “I know you did, but we’re going to our spot first.”

“Our spot?  You can’t just kidnap me…”

“You damn well know I’d never do anything to hurt you Luce,” he sighs, “But we need to talk.”

“Fine,” she looks away again, “what choice do I have…”

When he stops the car, Natsu doesn’t even wait for her to get out before he does and sits on his hood with his head hung.  Lucy’s parents had asked him two days ago to pick her up at the airport despite knowing the two friends weren’t talking.  But both her parents and his told him he, they needed to fix this and now.  He had spent these couple of days in dread trying to figure out what he was going to say to her.  

They were right, Natsu knew they were right.  Everyone told him she was hurting just as much as he was, and they were both being stubborn.  But that assessment wasn’t fair, at least in his mind because he had tried, and tried talk to her but what could he do if she wasn’t responding, wasn’t answering, hell not coming home?  The rings he bought, they weren’t exactly cheap!  Another problem was he didn’t know why she was avoiding him and no one knew the full answer either.

Lucy sat there for several minutes just watching him through the windshield.  She could be a bitch and refuse to get out of the car but…  Things were so much easier when she was miles away and they weren’t face to face because looking at him… the pain he was feeling, the low energy of the usually gregarious young man, it was killing her.  

She gets out and leans on the closed passenger door.  “Well, you wanted to talk, so, talk.”

“Why are you mad at me Lucy?”

“Are you serious?  You really haven’t figured it out by now?”

He looks at her, “If I had, don’t you think I would have tried to fix it?!”

“Tch, I don’t know,” looking away, “I mean you were stupid enough to do it in the first place.”  

“Do what!” he walks over and traps her between his arms.  “Just tell me what I did!”

She faces him and narrows her eyes, “Pick a reason!  You started dating that girl and you didn’t tell me.  You started not answer my texts or calls and the times you did answer our conversations got shorter and shorter.  Then the excuses of why you weren’t talking to me like we used to…”  Tears are streaming down her face, but her anger is a train without brakes.  “…I knew it didn’t sound right but you kept lying and I finally got it out of Levy that it’s cause you had a girlfriend!”

Punching his chest, “You’re my best friend, my best friend!” she hits his chest again, “And yet you lied to me and kept lying to me.  Why keep her a secret?  What the hell were you so afraid of that you couldn’t tell me the truth?!”

“You want the truth?  Yes, I lied to you because I didn’t want you to think I was moving on.  You said on these bluffs last summer you didn’t like anyone and that broke my heart because, because… Ahh what does it matter anyways!” he slaps the door frame and walks away to the edge of the cliffs.  Looking at the sky, “You just couldn’t see what was right in front of your face all along.”

“And what’s that?” she responds, but her voice is trembling

Hanging his head, “How much I love you.”

“But, you have a girlfriend…”

“Had, Luce, I broke up with her by the end of September once I realized no one could ever take your place in my heart.”

Lucy pulls the chain from around her neck and slips the ring on.  Her parents were right, she needed to fix this too.

“Natsu…” she wraps her arms around him and leans her cheek against his back.  “I’m sorry too.  I-I had no idea you felt so strongly about me, a-and the truth is,” exhale, “I was angry that you lied but, I was angrier at myself for not seeing it sooner, and, I took that out on you.  It was easier to blame you than to point the finger back at me.”

She squeezes, “I’m sorry!  I’m so, sorry Natsu!  I was such a bitch to you and that was wrong.  You were right, I was too blind to see what was right in front of me.”

Lucy feels him unfurl the fingers on her left hand and rub over the ring, “You’re wearing it?” a bit of surprise in his tone.  

He feels her nod, “From the moment I received it.”

“I…  didn’t think you would…” Natsu’s voice stutters.  

Letting go, Lucy walks around to face him and takes his left hand, rubbing over his ring, “This is a beautiful gift…” she looks up at him and smiles, “I can’t change the past, and I can’t guarantee the future but now, in this moment, I see what’s right in front of me.”

“And what’s that,” he caresses her cheek, rewarding her with the smile that always makes her feel better.

“How much I love you too…”

[dearophelia]

brightly shone the moon at night

Five Christmases in Olivia Shepard’s life. ~5k, G, includes references to parental death (not Hannah, she’s fine). [if you’d like background music] | AO3

one, mindoir.

Yawning, Charles quietly pads down the stairs, sidestepping the edge of the landing and the squeak that developed during the fall. He should’ve checked the weather before even getting out of bed – easier to plan how many layers he’ll have to pile on – but at some point, cold is cold, and they reached that point two weeks ago. At least the new heater Mark built for his engineering class seems sturdy enough for the chicken coop, even in the snow and subzero temperatures.

He reaches the bottom of the stairs and turns toward the kitchen to start coffee, but pauses with his hand hovering over the coffee maker. It isn’t nearly as dark as 3:30am should be: the kitchen lights shine into Mark’s room if the door hasn’t shut just right, so they turned off the motion sensors until he has a chance to fix his son’s door. He starts the coffee maker and, suppressing a yawn, looks around. His brow furrows when he looks into the living room.

The Christmas tree is on. And there are two mismatched socked feet sticking out from underneath it.

As the coffee maker burbles to life, Charles walks over, nudges a few gifts out of the way, and lies down next to his daughter. “Morning,” he says quietly. He follows Olivia’s line of sight up into the tree, smiling at the sparkling white lights Hannah carefully threaded through the branches.

Olivia huffs the kind of quiet little sigh only possible from nine-year olds.

He turns his head to look at her. His children are early risers, but 3:30 is pushing it. “You okay?”

She sighs again. “I didn’t get my homework done,” she admits, a twinge of guilt in her voice. She covers a yawn, and doesn’t take her eyes away from the lights and glittering ornaments above.

Charles knows that tone. What she means is I couldn’t get my homework done. “That’s okay,” he assures her. School’s almost over for the winter, one more missing assignment won’t matter. And if any of her teachers decide to say something about it, there isn’t a single one of them he wouldn’t fight on his daughter’s behalf. There’s an Alliance ship due in January with supplies; he and Hannah have already decided to have the ship doctor work with Olivia. They both have their suspicions about why she’s having trouble reading, but an official diagnosis would open a few doors. “Can I help?”

Shaking her head, Olivia scoots closer to him. Charles takes the hint and lifts his arm, letting her cuddle into his side. He brushes her hair out of her eyes and kisses the top of her head. “I love you,” he says, hugging her close. She nods and rests her head on his shoulder.

They lie side by side in silence for a while. Charles lets his eyes drift out of focus, turning the tree above into a blur of white lights and shiny smears of color. Water runs through the pipes from upstairs – Hannah’s awake. “We should get up before your mom comes down. She’ll think we’ve finally lost our minds.”

Olivia giggles and sits up with him. He stands and offers her his hand, then tugs her up and into a tight hug. “You’re my favorite daughter,” he says.

“I’m your only daughter,” she points out, hugging him in return.

“Yeah,” he grins as she steps back, “but I don’t have to like you,” he teases lightly.

She scrunches up her nose and, after a moment, sticks her tongue out him.

Charles laughs. “Do you want to help with the chickens?” He doesn’t need the assistance, though Hannah does need a truly tremendous number of eggs for today, but Olivia doesn’t look like she’s interested in trying to go back to sleep yet.

“Yeah,” she nods.

“Go get bundled up,” he says, and then heads into the kitchen for at least a sip of coffee before he has to pile on three layers of warmth.

The snow’s deep enough outside that he goes first so Olivia can step in his footprints. He keeps his stride shorter in deference to her nine-year-old legs, and holds the coop door open for her. Olivia makes quick work of collecting all the eggs while he feeds the chickens, changes their water, and checks the heater.

He lets Olivia go first on the way back, smiling into his scarf as she carefully steps in his footprints in the snow. Cold moonlight glitters over the ice that’s covered the trees and the vines, but warm welcoming candlelight shines from every window in their house.

“Thanks for your help,” he tells Olivia once they’re back inside.

Tugging off her purple hat, Olivia smiles up at him, a happy smile a billion miles away from the sigh she gave him earlier. She wraps her arms around his waist, hugging him tight even through two sweatshirts and a jacket. “I love you,” she says, a little muffled.

Charles smooths out her hair, and settles his hands on her back, hugging his daughter close. “I love you too, Liv.”

two, citadel.

Olivia glares at the stove, and her third attempt at toffee. It goes into the matter recycler with the other two, but at least she didn’t set off the smoke alarm this time.

“This is not difficult,” she mutters, rising up on her toes as she scrubs at the burnt bits. They only have one saucepan, and she’s getting tired of cleaning it. Toffee is fussy, it was fussy on Mindoir even when she knew all the quirks of the stove, but it’s never made her want to throw the pan out the window before.

Well. It did last year, but that’s because it was smoking so bad she genuinely thought it would catch fire, and the kitchen window was conveniently open. After staring at her for a minute, Mark told her to try out for softball in the spring, and then went outside to fetch the pan.

Olivia thoroughly dries the saucepan – even brings out a fresh towel, just in case – and sets it back on the stovetop. Lights and decorations went up around the human sectors of the Citadel over a month ago, and she’s heard nothing but carols on the walk home from the transit station for two weeks. She can count six brilliantly-lit trees and three menorahs in the windows of the building across the street, and someone’s gone to great lengths to hang garland and ribbons along the stairwells of their own building.

And yet, their apartment remains dark. No lights, no tree, no stockings on the wall, no wreath hung on the door with jingle bells that ring every time a cargo skycar flies past. No nutcrackers on the shelf or Santa figurines tucked into every corner, no candles in the windows.

She thinks the candles bother her most of all. She bought one, a little electric thing she found in a shop while she was taking the long way home last week; she turns it on every night after Mom comes home, but it’s not the same. It’s just one candle. They have six windows.

Sighing, Olivia dumps sugar back into the pan for one more effort. They don’t have a tree or decorations, Mom didn’t even ask what she wanted (which is fine; Olivia’s throat gets tight whenever she passes the Santa at the center of the upper Zakera shops, has to duck her head down and blink hard when she hears him ask a small child what they want; it’s better that nobody ask, lest she tell the truth and finally tumble over the same cliff her mother catapulted over six months ago in a small room on an Alliance transport), but it’s Christmas. And at Christmas, even though it hurts so badly to remember laughing while Mark dashed outside for the scorched pan, she makes toffee. Burning it a few times is part of the tradition, even if there’s no one around to see.

She’s spreading melted chocolate over the hardened toffee when Mom finally gets in. Olivia looks over her shoulder and offers her a smile, and not just because she’s carrying a pizza that smells wonderful. Olivia tries to be a little less sad on Tuesdays and Fridays; therapy days are hard for both of them – she dreads Monday and Thursday evenings so much she’s about to call it quits – but Mom always seems fragile afterward, like a gust of wind would shatter her into pieces.

“You’re making toffee,” Mom says, a strange, distant tone in her voice. She sets the pizza down and takes out two plates.

“Fourth attempt,” Olivia admits. She pokes at a particularly-stubborn corner until the chocolate finally covers it.

Mom laughs – it’s a tiny thing, more of a slightly-upbeat huff than a true laugh, but it’s more than Olivia’s heard in months. She bites her lip as she sprinkles toasted walnuts over the chocolate, determined not to cry into her candy.

“I was thinking,” Mark says once they’ve sat down to pizza.

“That’s dangerous,” Olivia says, out of habit. But when she looks up, it isn’t Mark sitting across from her – it’s Mom. “Sorry,” she immediately apologizes. Maybe she shouldn’t quit therapy after all – Mom and Mark sound nothing alike.

Mom simply shakes her head and smiles. “I was thinking,” she starts again, “this place could use some decoration.”

There’s a sadness in her eyes – but it isn’t the sharp, stabbing sadness of half their family just suddenly gone. It’s a dull sadness, an ache. Guilt, maybe.

Olivia realizes that her single little candle in the window isn’t as secret as she thought. Her vision blurs and she swallows hard, willing the tears not to fall. “Yeah,” she says quietly after a moment, “it could.”

“Meet you after school tomorrow? We can go shopping, grab dinner?”

The tears fall anyway, and Olivia quickly wipes them away. She sniffles, but manages a smile. “Sounds like a plan,” she says as Mom squeezes her hand.

three, thessia.

“I’m gonna murder this paper,” Olivia says, hauling the box into their apartment, “do you want to help me set up this tree?”

Liara looks up from her laptop with her brow furrowed, trying to figure out what one thing has to do with the other. “Where did you find a Christmas tree on Thessia?” she asks, standing up to help Olivia. The box is just about as long as Olivia is tall, which bodes interestingly for the rest of their evening.

“I didn’t,” Olivia says. She hangs her coat and scarf on the hook by the door, drops her hat and gloves in the basket, and toes off her boots. “It’s freezing outside.”

Liara looks at her roommate’s reddened cheeks, then outside to the snow that’s been falling for three days, and then back to Olivia. “That happens during winter.”

Olivia presses her lips together and stares flatly at Liara for a moment before walking into the kitchen to find something that can pry open the plastic box. “I ordered it from the Citadel months ago,” she says, coming back in with, of all things, a metal offset spatula. “Never again am I going for the free shipping option,” she grumbles.

“Is this,” Liara gestures to the box and steps out of the way, “why you’ve been living on noodles and coffee for the past two months?”

“No,” Olivia grimaces, working the spatula into the seam of the box.

For a moment, Liara considers videoing this endeavor, but decides she’d prefer the video of her at a karaoke bar for Olivia’s birthday not ‘mysteriously’ end up on the archaeology department’s internal website, so leaves her omnitool where it lies on the table.

“I’ve been living on noodles and coffee because I have five research papers and a thesis proposal all due within forty-eight hours of each other next week.” With a twist, she pops open one corner. “And because the universe hates me, I also have to present that thesis proposal in person on Christmas Eve, and Dr. Aridana can’t reschedule, so even if I could afford to go home, I can’t,” she growls at the box and glares at it. With one last shove, the lid pops open with such surprise force that Olivia loses her balance and falls on her rear. She sighs. “Hence the Christmas tree.”

Liara still isn’t sure what one has to do with the other, but doesn’t say so. She offers Olivia a hand up. Though they’ve lined up neatly the past few years, Serrice’s winter break just barely misses human winter holidays this year, and instead they have finals the whole week of Christmas. She’s heard no end of complaints about it from her human colleagues, though Olivia has been silent on it until now.

“Is everything alright?” She helps Olivia lift the tree from the box and set it aside, revealing even more decorations underneath.

Olivia huffs and bats her hair out of her eyes. “Christmas is…weird for me. I don’t know how I feel about it anymore.” She looks away toward the windows, and when she looks back, she looks a little distant. “I feel like I should be there though, for Mom. It’s five years, this year,” she says quietly, almost to herself. Blinking, she shakes her head, clearing her thoughts, and hands Liara two strands of lights.

Liara nods, and gently bumps her friend’s shoulder before she begins to unravel the twinkling lights.

After a few minutes of silent working, Olivia turns on some quiet Christmas music. Liara defers to Olivia on how best to string the lights up on the tree and instead goes to work on the garland. They don’t have a fireplace, as she’s given to understand is a traditional location, but they do have plenty of bookshelves.

While Olivia is shoulder-deep in the tree, Liara subtly types a message to her mother – would you mind terribly if I brought Olivia home for holiday? She doesn’t even have half the next sentence typed – an explanation of why she’s asking to bring her roommate home – before a response appears.

Not at all. I will make sure the guest room is ready.

Liara smiles and deletes her half sentence. You might also want to stock up on human coffee, she suggests, and then sets her omnitool back down so she can focus on the task at hand.

When Liara leaves her room later, in need of a slice of cold pizza and a glass of juice to fuel the next three hours of research, she’s surprised to find the apartment darkened. Olivia usually works in the living room, needing space to spread out star charts and maps, and she hasn’t gone to sleep before Liara for at least three months. Olivia’s bedroom door is open, and the little string of lights she’s hung up around the window illuminates enough for Liara to see that her roommate hasn’t simply tripped over her own feet and just decided to stay where she landed face-first in bed.

Puzzled, Liara walks down the short hallway to the main living space. She pauses at the edge of the room, wondering if she can get her snack without intruding, or if she should tiptoe back into her room and leave Olivia to her solitude.

Olivia sniffs and wipes at her cheeks, but doesn’t look away from the small candle-shaped lights they’ve placed in the windows. A quiet rumble heralds the heat kicking on, and warm air gently blows into the room; the Christmas tree glitters in the dark behind her. The hollows under Olivia’s eyes cast haunted, cold shadows against her pale skin. Liara wonders when she last slept. Olivia blinks, and the candles reflect off tears trailing down her cheeks.

Liara shuffles her foot against the carpet, letting Olivia know she’s here, and then walks over and sits beside her. Snow falls softly outside, sparkling in the lights.

“They’re my favorite part,” Olivia whispers, “the candles.”

“What do they symbolize?” Liara sets her arm around Olivia’s shoulders, letting her friend lean into her.

Olivia rests her head on Liara’s shoulder. “That there’s safe harbor inside. A warm place to wait out the storm.” She wipes at her eyes again. “We had them at the farmhouse,” she says softly. “The colony got battered by blizzards a few years, and Dad always opened the door for anyone caught out in the snow and cold. Neighbors, mostly, but sometimes transients, even people whose company he couldn’t stand.”

Liara hugs her and presses a kiss to the top of her head. The matriarchs have a similar tradition, though it lasts all year; she’s met her share of unexpected houseguests over the last several decades. “Would you like to come home with me over break?” she asks after a while.

Sniffling, Olivia sits up a little so she can look at Liara. She pushes her hair out of her eyes and nods. “Yeah.” A smile – small and trembling, but still a smile – quirks at her lips. “Thank you.”

Liara smiles in return, and tugs Olivia back into a hug.

four, normandy.

She has to hand it to her crew. Middle of a war, and they’ve still managed to decorate the entire ship for Christmas. Wreaths in the hallways, candle lights in every window (her doing, two nights ago, when her insomnia thoughts took an ugly turn toward something she wasn’t sure even her meds would be able to lift her back out of), strands of multicolored twinkling lights looped around cables and cabinets, an incredibly tacky Santa Claus next to the armor fabricator. A stocking for each member of the crew – including the aliens – hangs along the medbay windows, candy canes hooked on each one. Someone’s even found a Christmas tree.

Such as it is.

They’ve done what they can with lights and garland and ornaments (mostly weapon mods balanced precariously on the branches), but it still looks like it was the last one on the lot. Given wartime rationing and that fake Christmas tree manufacturing likely isn’t a high priority for anyone, Olivia would bet that it probably was.

“That is the most pathetic Christmas tree I’ve ever seen in my life,” Joker says, lifting his glass of eggnog in mockery.

“I can return it,” Ashley offers, light enough to be joking but with enough bite in her tone that she means it. She peers over the gifted baked goods from Hannah, and selects a snowflake-shaped sugar cookie. The icing sparkles with decorative sugar and Ashley breaks the cookie in two, offering one half to Cortez. He takes it with a smile.

Joker holds up his hands in defeat. “Hey now, let’s not be hasty. Where else is Shepard gonna put our presents?”

Olivia snorts into her coffee. “Look who thinks he’s getting more than coal.” Truthfully, she’s bought gifts for all of them. Some are practical, some are very not, and each of her crew will find something tucked away in their bunk or locker when they turn in for the night.

“It’s perfect,” James steps in. “It’s scrappy, just like us.”

Olivia raises her mug. “To the Normandy, and her amazing crew,” she toasts.

“The Normandy!” everyone shouts.

“Enjoy the party,” Olivia says as Ken turns on music and several brave souls go in for another glass of Vega’s eggnog. Christmas itself isn’t for another three days, but there’s no guarantee about tomorrow, let alone three days from now. Tonight’s a quiet night of travel, surrounded by mass effect fields and inky space as they fly toward the Caleston Rift in search of Garneau and Leviathan. They might as well celebrate when they can.

Olivia makes the rounds, chatting with her crew and politely turning down every offer of eggnog (she saw what went into it). She pauses beside Gabby, and stands quiet as the other woman says a prayer and lights seven candles on her menorah. She asks about family for the crew who are still in contact with theirs, and doesn’t for those whose families are missing or gone – she offers them a warm hug instead.

Eventually, she makes it through everyone and gets a refill on her coffee before looking for Garrus. She finds him leaning against the wall, apart from the others. Frowning a little – he’s usually not this quiet amongst their friends – she walks over to him. “You okay?” she asks, sitting on the table beside him. She bumps her shoulder against his.

He blinks silently, and the deep breath he takes immediately tells Olivia that, despite whatever he might be about to say, he is very much not okay.

But he doesn’t try to deny it. “I miss my mom,” he says so quietly that it’s almost lost amidst a very rowdy – and incorrect – rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Olivia quickly does the calendar math in her head – Alterra isn’t for another few months, but she supposes any winter holiday, especially right now, is enough to bring up memories of lost family. “Come on,” she says, taking one more sip of coffee before sliding off the table. She catches his hand and tugs him away from the wall and toward the elevator.

They leave the party to a number of teasing ooooohs, and she makes sure to walk them underneath the mistletoe. Despite his melancholy, Garrus smiles as she lifts up on her toes to kiss him. She squeaks a little in surprise as he dips her low to the sound of cheers and a few wolf whistles.

“Have fun and don’t trash the ship, please,” Olivia calls before rounding the corner.

They ride the elevator in silence, and once inside their quarters, she withdraws a wrapped package from her desk drawer. She’s also bought him the boots he’s been lusting after every time they walk past the store; they’re in his armor locker, shiny blue bow on top of the box. But this one is more important tonight.

“Merry Christmas,” she says, sitting on the couch with him. She offers Garrus the package.

He leans in and brushes a kiss to her cheek, and then turns his attentions to the package. She’s given him wrapped gifts before – last Christmas and Alterra, and a belated birthday gift once he was back on board – and he always treats them the same: like the paper is just as precious as the gift inside. She has no idea how he manages to get the paper off in one sheet, without a single rip: she has five fingers and no talons, and can’t manage that kind of delicate work.

Garrus opens the lid and sets it aside before unfolding the tissue paper to reveal the gift. He gently lifts the candle light out of the box. “It’s a candle,” he says quietly, almost reverently.

“Well, I was going to get you a garage door opener,” she smirks, grinning even wider when he pokes her in the side; they’ve been joking about that for a year. “But,” she settles back to serious, “I thought this might be better.”

Garrus looks over to the window behind their bed, and the two candles she’s set there. He looks down at the candle in his hands, and then over at Olivia. “Why are there two this year?”

She sighs, and tucks herself deeper into her sweatshirt. “Everything’s a horrible mess,” she says softly. An understatement. “I just wanted Mark and Dad to know I was thinking about them.”

He nods, and looks down again. “And so, this is for…my mom?” The tight, thin rumble in his voice betrays his outward calm: he’s far more upset about his mother’s death than he’s told her.

Olivia scoots across the couch toward him. She leans up and kisses his temple. “Yeah.”

Garrus pulls her into a tight hug and nuzzles her neck. “Thank you,” he whispers softly, holding her close.

five, citadel ii.

“She doesn’t talk much, does she,” Hannah says, more of an observation than a question, as she rolls out sugar cookie dough.

Olivia looks over her shoulder, and finds Nora in the living room playing with her brothers. Quentus, already almost as tall as the other two put together, places the last block high on the tower and crows in victory. Nora and Nico silently share a look – a look that, even from kitchen, Olivia can tell is nothing but a conspiracy – and Nico subtly shifts position under the pretense of stretching out his knee, and knocks the tower’s base with his foot.

There’s a moment where everything hangs still, and it looks like the tower might only just wobble, but then the whole thing crashes down around her children in a shower of brightly-colored plastic blocks. Quentus’ slightly-irritated subvocals vibrate through the air, countered only by Nora’s giggles.

“No,” Olivia says, turning back to her chocolate once she’s sure they’re going to start building again and she won’t have to break up another block-throwing fight. “She can,” she clarifies, stirring the chocolate chips, encouraging them to melt faster, “she’s just quiet.”

Hannah bumps Olivia’s shoulder with her own and gives her daughter a small smile. “Sounds like someone else I know.”

“And then that someone else you know ended up shouting at people for a living, so look how well that turned out,” Olivia teases. She doesn’t shout much these days, not in the sense of raising her voice to dalatrasses and primarchs and clan leaders who forget that they’re on her ship by invitation only, but she’s nearly perfected her tone of parental disappointment. She never uses it with her children, though it seems to be tremendously effective on diplomats.

“I think she turned out just fine,” Hannah says, a surge of pride catching in her throat. She swallows and rummages through a plastic box, searching for the star cookie cutters amidst rabbits and pumpkins and hearts.

Smiling, Olivia looks over her shoulder at her children once more. They’ve begun the tower again, but shorter and wider this time so they can all reach. She turns back and pours the chocolate over top of the set toffee she made earlier. She only burned it once, a personal record.

They work mostly in silence for the next hour, Hannah cutting out cookies and sliding batches into the oven while Olivia starts on another round of candy, until muffled voices rising from the basement herald the return of Garrus and Zaeed. Both women look up when the door opens, twin expressions on their faces of it cannot possibly have taken two hours to simply find all the lights. The two men stop in their tracks, Zaeed half-in-half-out of the doorway, and Garrus trying to hide behind him on the stairs below. Neither one of them are carrying anything at all.

Olivia breaks first. “What password did you change?”

“That was one time,” Zaeed says, defending both of them.

“It was my coffeemaker. It exploded.”

“I heart Garrus isn’t a difficult password,” Garrus says.

The corner of her mouth quirks up in a grin she’s trying very hard to hold back; they’ve held this exchange countless times in the last ten years. “It is when the keyboard in question doesn’t have an emoji setting.”

“It was voice-activated.”

“Well, your instructions were unclear.”

Hannah clears her throat. “Weren’t you two supposed to be getting the lights?”

Garrus and Zaeed share a look, and sheepishly retreat back down the stairs.

Much later, once cookies are iced and lights are hung and candles placed in the windows, and once everyone else is asleep, Olivia brushes a kiss to Garrus’ mandible, and sneaks out of their bedroom and downstairs. Despite her quiet, frustrated requests to the stars, the galaxy does not come to a halt just because it’s Christmas; her office released an updated relay repair schedule earlier this week, and she’d promised her staff she’d keep an eye on her email in case there was any resistance to the new schedule order.

She stops on the landing and smiles softly. The glass has shifted to nighttime mode, blocking most of the ambient light outside, and the candles shine bright in the windows – one in each, except for the window on the end, holding three. A quiet noise draws her attention toward the Christmas tree, casting soft warm light over the living room.

Three pairs of feet – two turian, one human with mismatched socks between them – stick out from underneath the tree.

Her smile widens as she walks the rest of the way down the stairs, and turns toward the tree instead of her office. The galaxy can wait half an hour.

“Enjoying the view?” she asks her children. Quentus scoots over, making room, and she lies down between him and Nora.

“It’s really pretty this year,” Nico says, looking up through the branches.

She reaches an arm around Nora to rest her hand on Nico’s shoulder. She gives him a squeeze, and his subvocals rumble happily. Quentus nudges her arm and she lifts it, letting her eldest son scoot in close; his crest has started to grow out, he might not be able to lie on his back like this next year. Nora makes a content little snuffle and cuddles into her side, eyes wide and fascinated by the lights and shiny ornaments of her first tree.

“I love you,” she whispers after a while. She presses a soft kiss to Nora’s and then Quentus’ forehead. Her engagement and wedding rings glitter and shine in the lights as she squeezes Nico’s shoulder again.

“Love you too, Mom,” Quentus says, and the other two echo him.

Nora yawns twice in a row, but Olivia decides they can all lie here for a little longer. She looks up at the tree and lets her eyes drift out of focus, turning the green branches, white lights, and multicolored ornaments into a sparkling, cheerful blur.

[samanthabreedlove-blog]

A few nights later, after class, I walk to the Palladium-- NYU’s athletic center, on 12th Street and 3rd Avenue. As I walk north on Broadway, the Arctic air so cold against my face, snots dripping from my nose all the way to my neck. Once inside the building, though, it's toasty and warm. The smell of chlorine from the Olympic sized swimming pool in the basement of the building is so overwhelming you can smell it even on the 3rd floor where the general exercise equipment is located.

I change in the women’s locker room and walk out into the empty gym. There is hardly anyone here at this hour. It's almost 10pm but I estimate I’ll still be able to get a solid 4 miles in plus a shower before they close at 11. I choose a treadmill, turn it on, set the pace and begin to run. Lately, after my evening classes, I like to come to the gym and run. This helps to clear my mind. My sprints have gotten faster and faster. I’ve achieved a steady 8 minute mile pace. It feels good to accomplish the goals I’ve set for myself-- chipping away at my run-time, resulting in tangible proof of my hard work.

While I run I become hyper-aware of the passing of time, and I am also aware of my physical movement. As I run, I imagine the landscape of Florida. Thoughts come in and are subsequently pushed out of my mind as my feet pound down onto the circulating rubber of the treadmill-- the weight of my body shakes the machine more and more the harder I run.  My mediation through this action repeats over and over inside my brain: “It is over now, it is in the past. The past is behind me, and the future is in my control.”

I imagine JR: I see his face as I saw it for the very last time-- framed by the window of the cab as he shut the car door. It is like a short movie that plays in my head every time I run; after the cab comes the memory of sitting at Reagan International drinking whiskey alone at the airport bar, tears streaming down my face-- so much so that strangers stare but they know better than to ask me what’s wrong. Then the memory of the Washington Monument visible through the oval of my window seat as the plane takes off and flies over the Mall before setting course south towards Florida. In memory, I can see myself in third person: sad aching body as it sobs in near silence for all 800 miles back to Tampa where my mother will pick me up once we land because I can’t stand for anyone else to see me in this state. That feeling was boiling over so intensely inside of me I swear I could taste it in my mouth-- my heart heavy with a new kind of sadness-- aware for the first time with absolute certainty that I meant nothing to him.

***

I’d gone to visit JR in D.C. where he’d moved in early 2008, after shit hit the fan once Margaret found out about not only me, but the other handful of woman he’d been sleeping with after breaking the seal of infidelity in my bedroom that past July. JR had stuck around just long enough for the full force of the crash to whip back from him to me.

Everyone loved Margaret. She was universally lovable. A thing I never considered until after, and under the weight of everyone else’s judgement: how easy it is to slut shame the woman. Everyone expected this from JR. He’d done it before. But, they hadn’t from me; well-- How could I? What was I thinking?

I was a home-wrecker, a whore. A pathetic drunk who ought to gain some self-respect. An elitist bitch who destroyed everything. Funny how quick a town full of miscreants gains a moral compass. Except it wasn’t really funny at all. My spirit was crushed; instead of having him, I had the judgemental eyes of everyone else around me. Wherever I went, there they were looking at me like I was a disease, like I was crazy. Was I crazy? Maybe I was crazy.

First week in January, after she’d kicked him out, JR came to find me at Dirty Nelly’s-- a bar just south of State Theater on 8th street that people would come to when the band at the Emerald was awful. Nelly’s was unremarkable other than the fact that it had a pool table and shag-carpeting which seemed like a really poor choice for a dive bar. But if the Emerald was out of the question that night, you knew Nelly’s was where everyone was gonna be.

I was surprised to see him, further still that he came straight over to my table. We hadn’t spoken since the Christmas Party. The first words out of his mouth were: “We should talk. Alone. She kicked me out.”

When the shoe finally drops, no matter how much you think you’re ready for it, you really just aren’t. I told him okay, that I’d be back and went off to find Quinn.

Quinn was in town on winter break from the New School where she was finishing the last year of her BFA. She’d been staying with me on my couch like she always would. I found her in the bathroom reapplying her lipstick and chatting with Carolyn who was taking a piss. I told her what JR’d just disclosed. She says back to me straight away, “get him out of here-- I’ll find someone to go home with.”

Quinn is my best friend. We were born exactly one week apart, and on each other’s due dates: me one week early, her a week late. Friends since grade 6, she’d moved to New York City in 2005 with Laura before the thought had really occurred for me to leave Florida. They both live in a basement cement loft off the Halsey Stop on the L train where they commute into the City, working together at the Strand Bookstore in Union Square.

Quinn’s tall at 5’11, with curves for days, a body built just exactly like Beyonce. Her eyes the color of dark chocolate with the face like the fawn of a deer, Quinn is both sweet and steady. Her presence in any room feels like the steep, strong column holding up the architecture of everything. I kissed her on the cheek before scooping JR up and driving us both back to my place.

There on my couch, we sat in dark silence for a long time before he says, “You weren’t the only one, and she doesn’t know about you yet. But it’s only matter of time and you should prepare yourself for that. We both should”

I didn’t say anything back. After a while he went on.

“This a mess, and it is going to get a lot worse. I need to figure out how to not live here anymore and fast”

His eyes are wet with tears and I realize for the first time just how much he really does love her. What I feel in return for JR, as he sits in so much sadness on my couch isn’t jealousy, or anger, or fear. But, rather, just an intense desire for him to be okay. It’s really dark in my house, all the lights are out in the living room but the lamp left on in the kitchen casts shadows, creating a pattern across JR’s pale and tear stained face. I’m fixated on him, but he won’t look back at me. He’s looking at the wall with his forehead in his hand. I start to cry too, but I’m not really sure why and I don’t want him to see so I get up to pour us a couple glasses of bourbon. I return, taking a place on the floor, looking up at him in the dark I hand him the glass.  

He sips, and after a while he says, “We can’t be together, it’s a mistake. It was a mistake for me to come here.”  

I don’t say anything but I reach for his hand and he takes it.

“I love her, and--and look what I did, I- I can’t do that to you too. I can’t do that to you, period. I don’t know what is going to happen next but we should stay as far away from one another as possible. For your sake and for the sake of what’s gonna happen once this all comes out.” His voice is stammering.

For the first time I speak: “I’m not going to do that, JR.”

I feel calm as I climb into his lap. Holding his face in my hands, I comfort him the way I know how. I lift off my shirt and put his hands on my hips.

“Everything will be okay, no matter what happens, everything is going to be fine. ” I tell to him, my voice full of strength from a source I can’t identify but feel with conviction.

His body presses hard to mine in recognition. We made love in the middle of the living room floor and wake to the sound of Quinn coming in the back door the next morning.

Within the month JR’s left, nevering having said good-bye. He took me to the Hold Steady show a couple days after we made love in the living room. They were playing the Skatepark of Tampa Anniversary show hosted at Czar-- a communist themed Russian club in Ybor that has thick red velvet curtains, tiger striped carpeting, an excellent vodka selection and a huge stage in its ‘Imperial Theater’ where bands would play. He’d bought my ticket and my drinks, and even helt my hand at one point but after that night JR stopped taking my calls.

One night a couple weeks later, at the Independant-- a fancy hipster bar in St. Pete with over 70 international beers on tap, I spotted him there with a pretty girl in a pixie cut. Because God must hate me, our two parties combined and there I am sitting across from him with the new girl’s hand in his, all this visible to me just under the metal table where we sat. It’s her birthday, I’ve gathered. She is 23 and her name is Jenn. JR avoids eye contact with me until, at some point, his gaze searches then finds mine. We are sitting directly across from one another and a million miles apart. Across the distance, his eyes say to me ‘I’m sorry you’re seeing this’ but not ‘I’m sorry this is happening’. The inflections of his facial movements tell me ‘I told you I’m bad news. I wish you would had listened.’

That February, Sarah told me he’d moved. I pretended like I could give a shit, but my heart was broken. JR had moved to D.C. to take a contract job until the position he’d really been gunning for would come together: front end web design for XM Radio where his sister worked and had arranged for an interview. Back in St. Pete everyone had found out that I was the one he’d cheated with and everywhere I went the gossip followed. Even people I considered friends looked at me like I was pathetic and not a good person. Ill equipped to deal with this feeling, I was drinking a lot. That April, just after my 24th birthday, I ran into him at the Emerald-- he’d come down for his baby sister’s wedding and was out on the town showing off how he didn’t live here anymore. At the bar I mentioned wanting to come visit and he said I should. I justified it as professional development: The Women in the Arts Museum had just opened, for which my company was a sponsor, and Raymond James would pay for the trip if I wrote a piece about the inaugural exhibition. I wrote that piece, but I went exclusively to see him.

I went to D.C. because I wanted JR to give me something I knew in the back of my mind he probably never would-- some indication that I mattered to him, that all of what had happened was real. That it transpired, that I wasn’t losing my mind. Or, conversely, that I meant nothing: I needed closure and I naively thought he’d give it to me of free will. But instead, all I got was the knowing that I was just be a mistake he made-- a thing he had come to regret.

We spent the weekend in the Beacon Hotel on Capitol Hill because he was freshly kicked out of the apartment he was shacking-up in while taking advantage of a 39 year old woman who thought he loved her. Terri was also who he’d been interviewing with for that position at XM, and once hired she would be his boss. But he didn’t love her. In reality, he just couldn’t afford rent for his own place until after saving up a few paychecks and he desperately wanted that job-- those saved up paychecks JR subsequently blew on our hotel room because he was completely hitting rock bottom and lacked all semblance of self-control.

He’d seemed excited for my visit at first but once I was there, JR was different-- nothing felt right.  His intense desire for me to leave him alone was perceptible the entire time I was with him, even when we were having sex. When JR put me in that cab and slammed shut the door, I knew we’d never speak again. The relief that I was finally going plastered across his face clear as day.

Hand written on hotel stationary, and pressed in the palm of his hand before putting me in that cab:  

“You should know that I really believed that I could forgive you. Though I know now that I can’t. Wilde says those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love’s tragedies. And I’m better for that; for having loved you despite the fact that the esoteric nature of our relationship has finally knocked the wind out of me, and I’m resolved to the fact that whatever the reason, you and I are over.

Maybe in another lifetime we’ll get it right.

-Samantha”

Back in St. Pete, once the reality had really set in, Carolyn, Diane and I went to the ocean in the middle of the night because being in the salt water was the only thing that would calm my aching soul. We stripped all our clothes off and swam far out into the Gulf. Carolyn was the first to notice the phosphorescence, she pointed it out and we both looked down to see the shimming greenblue of the bioluminescent tides as they rolled over our bare breasts.

“It’s the color they make when they announce to the world, letting each other know ‘I exist, I am here!’, so they can find one another and reproduce.” Carolyn tells us. “Isn’t it magical?”  She is dipping her hand down into the water and scooping up a handful of the shimming water.

I let my body float in the Gulf as I watched how the colors looked just like thousands of fireflies all over my skin. I looked up at the full moon and I saw how the world was so big and full of so much beauty. I knew then that my story wouldn’t end here in Florida, I was destined for something more and I was free now from the power JR had held over me. I would find my magic, I would cast my life like a net into the great expanse of the sea-- I would be open to whatever would come of it.

***

While I’m running late at night at the gym, I confront these memories head on: this sacred space, with the full force of my body in motion, is the only place I let these thoughts seep in.

I concentrate on how every mile completed is a mile further away from him and closer to the promise I’d made to myself that night we went swimming in the ocean. This thought helps me run farther, and run faster. Despite what’s transpired, my love for him persists. It bubbles up in my torso, so I push it down deep into the recesses of my soul. I lock it down inside of me and I imagine that I’ve thrown away the key. This becomes the fuel from which I draw upon as I make my way in the world outside of where I’ve come from. I am dedicated to my successes not for him, but in spite of him. I am my own keeper: my body will never be broken for JR. He will no longer drink from my blood. My love for him reinvents as a way by which I make sense of myself, and I put that self at the forefront of everything.

[moshfeghpilled]

February: The fall starts easy. I took baby aspirin, and a rusty spoon to my head, and smoked the stale weed my brother left in a broken vase before he left for college. Night comes fast, and tells the creation story. I ignore her this time. I don’t give a fuck about how I was made anymore tell me how I fall apart. March: Nobody can ever find the raw spot on their leg until they start itching. I remember 6th grade when the mosquito bit my calf. Larvae and laps on the soccer field in early spring. He is oozing into my shoes with the mud. April: My mother buried my rusty spoon, and took my brown hands. the clothesline was dripping carbonated orange soda sun, the wind was soft, the mice were sleeping warm beneath the floorboards; she spread my tarot on the floor with the forever broken and gnarled thumb she stuck in a blender when she was 5. That spring I walked home alone some nights, the heatwaves followed me like the labored breath of drunk men who don’t take no for an answer, I turned over The Devil and someone dropped a wine glass next door, she gasped, white eyes, the mice began to scrape and scream, the heatwave killed their children like it split my shoulders open and ate the youth inside. May: The month of falling out of trees, junior high was gonna shipwreck any day now. There is a fast food place where the milkshakes taste like cough syrup and the skater kids cheat death on 3 feet of concrete stairs. There is a crack in the sidewalk in front of it, and he kick flips on it to break the back of the mother who left him at 13, he breeds violence between his fraying vans and then something in his ankle snaps, my oxygen goes tar black. He bleeds, he. Makes this sound. Like a dog when you step on its foot. I want to hold him, put a butterfly on his cheek, give him a band aid, something, God, something. He looks like he’s in pain. I want to. I don’t know. Help. I walk away trembling and put my head between my knees behind a dumpster full of shitty milkshakes. June: The neighbors fuck like rabbits while I’m trying to cry to joy division. I pray for a lightning strike. This type of poetry is for pretty girls, anyway. July: my birthday flies into the glass of my bedroom window and breaks its neck. mom said the only things you can grow in summer that won’t die are grapefruit and hair, and I made a garden, I cut my chest open for Demeter each full moon. These locks were watered with gulf stream sea spray. I fed them bludgeoned daydreams. I threw my head against church doors trying to send Jesus some red flowers for his funeral, or maybe his birthday, doesn’t really matter, we celebrate both. August: I got kicked out of high school knocking myself out on my desk. People carved hearts into the enamel, I carved my heart out of my chest and turned it in for my midterm. I slam dunked my skull into the bleachers on game day, and when the bleachers fell, into my history textbook, and when the book was mushy with blood, into the track field. I’m grinning ugly, dancing to the 80’s synth in an empty gym after homecoming, with a nosebleed dripping love songs down my yellow teeth, like words on old gravestones: here lies a moontoothed lover who will never rest in peace, every night she claws her grave and hears the call of western waves. September: I’m high on concussion flavored car races in a stolen low rider, bluebirds fly in circles around my head after we crash, I wrote a song on a 5 dollar bill called blunt force trauma and it is about skater boys with broken noses, snarls of shaggy Jew fro his friends make fun of, and hands. that graze los angeles highways while he rides asphalt waves, slam his locker, and give the finger to the education system he keeps tripping over like untied shoelaces. he pricks those hands sewing together the lackluster parties private school kids throw. he puts his dewy rose bud lips to the jack daniels bottle, and kicks the drum kit over, gives it mouth to mouth, pump his fists into someone’s chest, gives it a pulse again. hands big enough to steal grapefruit with, the size of my swollen heart. I didn’t know it could get that big but he bumped into me, buzzing like a light saber, sky walking out of the grocery store with a grapefruit. with my heart. October: do you have a girl do you? have a lover? Jupiter is orbiting around whatever this emotion is called, the rollercoaster one. when you look at me. We spend Halloween turning into werewolves at the library, you were moshing in the kids section, bleaching your hair in punk rock, I was banging my bruised and knuckleheaded love poems into a paperback copy of Romeo and Juliet, brushing my hair with broken glass. That was the first day the blood on our hands was not our own, she shushed us and we laughed. High on Shakespeare and Jupiter gas, we dug our fangs into the dewy decimal system. You ask me my name, I tell you, you smile. We had matching bruises and I floated home. November: You make me. Feel. You make me feel like I can speak to snakes. You make me feel like my hips have a purpose besides balancing bins of laundry, and bowls of fruit. You make 17 stop feeling like a suicide note no one will read. you make me banshee scream and lick like fire against young pines, when you. dance. when you. kiss her, let her ride your double dutch hips, and your skateboard. She is a new coin, tangy on his numb tongue, and he tucks her in his pocket, his lucky penny. I’m the bubblegum he scrapes off his sneakers and throws into a storm drain. December: I still cower into my pillow and smile a crooked smile, and go red at the cheeks, you. You put the red in my cheeks. I’m here, I’m exploding, why can’t you see me? Just put the bottle down, take your hand from your eyes, I won’t ask you what happened to your face, or how you got that scar, I will just like you and like you. we can buy angels wings in Hollywood, make an apartment out of crumpled homework pages at the bottoms of our dirty backpacks, we can drop out of high school, I will like you and dissect your sadness like frogs in freshman biology I am used to the rotting smell in your ribcage, I reek of it too. I will like you. until I know how to love you. January: I switch schools, I cut my hair, bleach what little is left. It makes my mother unhappy, she thinks my spirit world is severing ties, she thinks my planets are discordant. I ask somebody back home about him, she says he dropped out and started working on cars. I come down. Softly. February (again, again, again): He was born to a rabbi and a beauty queen. I was born to a chemist, and a witch. Ammonia, bleach. Don’t mix them unless you want someone to die. Blood, adolescence, summer saltwater. Don’t mix them unless you want to make somebody wish they were dead.

2. a crush. and nothing more.

[takemetohelena]

</2017>

Halloooo 2018! Time really flies fast when you’re wasting your life hahaha. 2017 was fun, definitely better than 2015 and 2016 hahaha. Eto ata yung year na pinakamaraming naging ganap in lifeu. First yung mga nacheck ko muna sa bucketlist ko hahahaha.

🌋VISIT A VOLCANO

Taal Volcano yas!! It wasn’t on our plan to hike it but we did, umuusok yung lupa amazing. Details: takemetohelena.tumblr.com/post/159747455034/041017-going-south

🏃🏻‍♀️ RUN A MARATHON

Night run at UPANG with Rose, Pine, Charm and Ali hoho. We didn’t actually run tho, more like night walk yan hahaha. I’m not sure kung may post ako bout that here, basta after that we drank wine and sleepover kila rose yay, late bday celeb ko din ata yun hahaha.

📅 NO ABSENCES IN SCHOOL FOR A MONTH

Basta nacheck ko to so it happened. Hahahahaha

💧WATERFALLS

Antong Yays!!! I should’ve made a solo entry about this pero wala di ko nagawa, it was so fun!!! Kasi hapon na kami pumunta so kami lang tao and umaambon pa kasi may bagyo ata that time. What a perfect time to have an adventure diba hahaha. Hindi ako nahirapan sa hike kasi similar to Quezon ung place haha pero si Alison, nyeaam hahaha nasira paperbag nya, naputol tsinelas nya, and naputikan af sya hahaha. Medyo creepy lang kasi may engkanto-ish feels sya nun kasi maraming kweba tapos malalim hhahaha. Merong pagtatalounan na mataas kaya lang walang G tumalon kaya di na din ako tumalon hahaha pero gusto kooo. Tapos ginabi na kami pauwi and we got lost, lowbat ang mga phones with kidlat kidlat pa. There i thought, ‘i like thisss’ nakakatakot pero i like like like hahaha. Imagine gabi in the middle of nowhere, i feel like we were in a horror movie hahaha, i loved the thrill talaga, tapos diretso lang kami sa lakad then pagtingala namin andun yung bridge na dinaanan namin nung papunta hahaha. May 1hr din ata kami nagwait ng bus padagupan then we bought soju, na si roselyn lang din ang uminom. Sleepover at rose’s again!!

🎥 BE IN A THRILLER FILM/MOVIE

Hikbi, directed by kuya desmond. Professional videographer sya kaya i was soo feeeling it hahahaha. Tapos kasama ko pa si anthony(HUHUHUHU), he was the killer, idk kung pano ko nacontain ung kilig and hiya ko everytime we had a likey scene like ung kaming dalawa sa bonfire while im holding a gitara, when he hugged me from behind while holding a knife(eeeeeek) nakamadaming takes unHAHHAHA. Tapos when he dragged me by the hair, he kept asking me kung nasasaktan nya ba ako. OO nasasaktan mo ako ngayon! HAHAHHA char only. Basta when kuya des’ says “action!” feeling ko artista na ako and hindi na ako si helena hahaha ganun ba feeling, try ko kaya mag artista tae joke ang papangit ng angles ko HAHAHAH. Pero nagawa yun! I’m amazed hahahha

📹 WATCH CINEMA ALONE

Guardians of the Galaxy!! Sad ako that time eh, i dont remember why, i was fighting na hindi mahulog ung luha ko kahit funny yung nangyayari hahahaha. Tbh i didn’t understand what happened sa movie, nung tapos na ung movie i texted alison and sumunod sya, we watched it again and un naintindihan ko na hahahaha. Naisip ko baka di counted yan kasi sumunod si Alison hahaha. Pinanood ko din ung Kita Kita alone because again, sad c acoe hahaha same shit naiiyak ako not because of the movie but because of my lifeu hahaha. 

🍺 DRINK A BEER

Feeling ko dinaya ko to kasi sip lang ginawa ko. I therefore conclude na ayoko ng beer, or any hard drinks na akshelly. I think im past the stage na walwal is life because i already experienced that during my teenage years haha, walwal is not life, walwal is bad for your health, tapos pangit pa sa feeling the day after hahaha.

🚣🏻‍♀️KAYAK

I’d love to do this again! Details: takemetohelena.tumblr.com/post/165685032854/kayak-the-best-part-of-this-was-staring-at

So far, yan lang yung mga nasa bucketlist ko na nacheck ko last year(parang ang tagal ah hahaha) pero i swear marami pang magagandang nangyari! Hahaha like when i went to Quezon for holy week, sobrang ganda ng weather that time i could die there, the feeling of contentment ganern, i was sipping my coffee in the terrace while looking at the tall niyog trees, and it was cold pa. hay i love. tapos everytime magigising ako ng madaling araw, i could dieee. 

Pati yung Baguio Escapade namin!!! Details: takemetohelena.tumblr.com/post/159745877114/022617-weekend-escapade maganda din ung feels ko dyan.

Marami talagang magagandang nangyari nung 2017, thinking about it now parang i hurt because 2017 was so good to me, i didn’t wanna leave there yet. Kung icocompile lahat ng mga posts ko dito this, majority would point to Anthony because he is my highlight. Tao kasi ako afterall and it’s in human nature na feel like love makes the world go round (not that it was love ha). I mean no matter how i believe na liking an opposite sex the special way is always the last in my favorite things, at the end it shows na he’s made his way to the top, see he’s my highlight nga. Afterall the wonderful places i’ve been too, all the harthart moments with my constants, and the feeling of contentment in my home, sya pa rin nagtop. The normal days spent with him inside and outside the school, the feeling of excitement everytime i see him like parang tagal ko sya hindi nakita, my tugudug heart evrytime he pops in my messenger, basta those little happenings crept into my brain and i feel like he’s so special, i hate being human. Siguro, maybe kaya sya nagtop because i knew that he’s not gonna stay in my life for a long time. The wonderful places i’ve been to, my constants, my home in Quezon will always be there, I can always go to them pero sya he has his own path to take and he doesn’t need me there. Aaaaah the tragedy of getting attached to someone who isn’t meant to stay. It makes me teary-eyed hays. I used to laugh at couples na 1month palang parang di na nila kaya mabuhay pag naghiwalay sila, now I kinda understand it (not like hindi ko kayang mabuhay ng wala sya lol). I mean kahit maiksing time lang, someone can be so special to you, it depends sa emotions and things na naiinput nila in your brain to cherish ganern. I think si Anthony nag input sya ng 8GB sa utak ko pero he put it with glitters and more kaya i’m left with “it-could-be-nice-kung” ganern.

2017 made me happy, too happy that i dont wanna let go of it pero life goes on, nung New Year, i didn’t feel the hype talaga tbh, it was like nagtotorotot lang ako para di nila mafeel na wala akong gana magnew year hahaha. Thank you so much 2017, parang blurred na sakin yung hurt ko nung 2016 because of you tho it still hurts, pero you balanced it. Marami ding hindi magandang nangyari sakin pero this time nangingibabaw yung mga mamagandang nangyari. I don’t wanna say goodbye pero I have to. Thank you sa life lessons, to the very nice people i met, they’re going to be a part of me for a long long time, to the new places i’ve explored, and the emotions i felt. You were so good to me that it hurts! 

Yo 2018,

It feels foreign to type 201 with an 8 hahaha. Welcome uy. Tumatanda na ako, im one year closer to my death haha tbh that’s what i’ve been thinking since new years eve hahaha. feeling ko i’m getting numb like ‘ah okay’ ganern, it’s hard to feel these days at the same time feeling ko mas nagiging emotional ako, please dont make me cry too much haha im such a mess diba. Exactly last year i asked 2017 kung it has new failures, disappointments and heartbreaks for me. Failures and disappointments come together and i’ve had lots of them too. Yung heartache, i cant say na i have it right now pero parang ganun. I’m at this stage na tinatanggap ko na he’s not for me but knowing myself, few days later magbaback to one ako hahaha. I hope you make evrything good for me, atleast some things. i know that most of the things in my life are permanently broken, including me haha. I doubt na you can fix it but pls be light sa’kin. I’m trying to live here hahaha. Di ako ready sa mga mangyayari but i want to grow and move, the more i move the more na napapalapit ako sa death. Idk if it’s right but i think it’s my will to live lately, that whatever’s gonna happen it will only lead to one thing: my finish line hahaha. I could die this year, if i do then sayonara earth! 12 months, a lot can happen there, i’m curious. Make me feel ANYTHING, 2018.

Signing out @  11:58PM, January 1 2018,

Helena