#I CANNOT AFFORD FOOD FOR MYSELF AND HE FUCKING WASTES WHAT I BUY

[actual-corpse]

Was gone for a week and a half.

Cats had no water

Trash not taken out

Piss on tub

Shit on toilet

Dishes in sink

CATS. HAD. NO. WATER

I can forgive everything else, it's fucking annoying, what the fuck ever....

BUT THE CATS HAD NO WATER AND I DONT KNOW HOW LONG THEY DIDN'T HAVE WATER

[evilweasel]

Fucking???? Blows my mind that people buy things regularly, or have things bought for them regularly. Like new video games every two weeks, new accessories or clothes/shoes every month, art supplies, even getting regular coffee or lunch out in supermarkets. I have a friend who constantly spends on shirts, sparkly rocks, cool notebooks, shoes, figures, pokemon cards, a sunglasses collection. Stuff she just sees and goes "I want that" and GETS it. She doesn't save to the endless void like I do. Doesn't hang on to every fiver, every pound coin, because she's going to need it for this big Future Purchase that never comes. Another friend, she gets money to buy lunch. She doesn't automatically get the cheapest food so she can save better. Why not? Aren't you worried you're going to need that? A third friend, she's in a wealthy tax bracket and gets money from her parents whenever she wants and spends so much on genshin and models and plushies it makes me wince because it's so much money to me. She has the balls to ask money from her wealthy parents and doesn't feel shame about it. Which, GOOD. THATS HOW IT SHOULD BE. WHAT THE FUCK THOUGH.

No shade to these friends btw they are genuinely the most generous people I ever met and I honestly aspire to be their level of generous. The amount of times the first 2 friends have bought me snacks, energy drinks, coffees, donuts (don't know the 3rd friend as well but she's also super generous to her gf). And all I can think is do you know. Do you know i will not be able to repay your kindness. My company isn't even that good im so shit at conversations and can barely stutter out a thank you because I'm super grateful but super embarrassed that I can't return the favour, maybe ever, because my brain just Save Save Saves, so why did you buy me coffee when this could have gone to YOUR Big Future Purchase. I aspire to be their level of carefree. Not to have to force myself to get McDonald's to fit in when everyone else is, and even then it's just a medium milkshake. To never have to weigh up the pros and cons of getting a coffee on a day you're super tired. To not count up the days you got a 3 pound meal deal 3 days a week. 9 pounds a week for every week of term adds up. Don't get me fucking started on things I actually want and don't need. I genuinely cannot buy a thing for myself without giving it 2 to 3 weeks of thought over whether I actually need it or can I Save Some More. Thinking constantly thinking about old purchases and whether they were justified or i went mad. I got that thing and don't even use it that often. I bought that game and haven't had the opportunity or spoons to play it yet, that was 20 quid wasted and i can't buy anything else until I've played through everything else. I bought those books and haven't read them yet. I got a mystery bag at comicon and didn't particularly like what was inside. All this stuff proves i can't be trusted, so I don't need that new video game, I have minecraft. I don't need new clothes, I don't like my current ones but they still fit me. I don't need that book. I can reread. I'm not hungry, I'll eat at home. Other people have it worse. Some people can't even afford to have the heating on. If I'm not Super Ultra Careful, I'll end up like them. It's like an eating disorder but instead of counting calories im counting pennies.

I'm not even working class. Our house has a kitchen island and a double fridge. We always have enough to eat, enough to turn the heating on. When I was a kid I got everything I asked for and the nice birthday presents. So why am I so scared. Whats been ingrained into me to make me scared. My dad tells me I'm so stingy. He told me when I was 5 I was told to put a pound coin into the charity spinner and I wouldn't do it bc that would mean I wouldn't have the pound coin. I didn't want to spend it on something else. I just wanted the pound coin bc I knew it might be able to get me something, one day. When I was 10 and went away to Cornwall, my uncle gave me 10 quid to spend, but told me if I didn't spend it then he would take it back because at this point everyone knew I had Spending Troubles. And I couldn't do that either. I looked around all the shops and dithered because there was nothing I wanted more than the tenner just to save it up and put it away. I was ten. What was I saving for??? A house??? A car??? A uni fund??? At the time i wanted a drawing tablet more than anything, but I knew even if I hung onto this tenner it wouldn't make any difference and ten year old me would never be able to get that on my own. I never spent any birthday money. Any Christmas money. At 14 I had enough to buy half a drawing tablet and got my parents to get the rest of it when it was on sale and they STILL only took half my money and paid ¾. Money im still hanging onto now, at 17, when they paid most because they wanted me to get something I wanted more, they didn't think I'd actually save for a drawing pad myself. I still haven't spent it. I'm terrified I'll think ill of myself in a month for it.

My friend had a birthday recently, and she always gets me nice gifts. She's gotten me promised neverland manga, a frog pin, homemade friendship bracelets and homemade jewellry made out of rocks ane crystals she's bought, alongside sweets and choccies she knows I like. Most of this wasn't even birthday stuff, just regular stuff. I am so LUCKY to have her as a friend, someone as honest and kind and generous and talented and helpful, so I wanted to get things she also wanted. She's been going through a big pokemon phase and I KNOW her favourite pokemon is leafeon, so I got her a little leafeon plushie, and as an added bonus a magnetic ponyta pin because she also likes my little pony and the galarian version looks like one of the old my little ponies. 21 pound total, three weeks ago I still remember because its the biggest purchase I've made in months. And the thought kept crossing my mind "you didn't need to give her the pin as well. The plush would have been fine", or even "she would have loved a card, you could have just gotten her a card and then you'd be 21 pounds richer". And I just feel disgusted with myself. Because she gets all her little gifts for me so unthinkingly, so willingly, and she never regrets them. I always tell her she doesn't have to, but she wants to, and she does it for all of her friends. Between me and her other 2 close friends, that's so much spent. I'm terrified. I'm in awe. I hate myself for not being like that. Hate myself for regretting when her reaction to the ponyta pin i almost didn't even give her was "OH MY G O SH I love the little Pikachu ears on the back oh its magnetic???? I don't think ill be able to wear this, ill lose it". I cherish her reaction. So why do I still feel such dread at the money I spent. What is wrong with me. It was 21 pounds. I wasn't gonna spend it. What I have in my bank account isn't enough for the PC I need for my college course, or the new art tablet I need because my current one is breaking for my college course, or the new phone im going to need soon bc this one is on the fritz. Today, I was at another friends birthday. Shes gotten me donuts more times than I can remember. We don't make a habit out of getting each other gifts on birthdays, just funny cards. I just gave her a card. Why didn't I get her a gift too?? Two of the others did. She has difficulty accepting gifts like me, but like, who cares?? It would make her happy. I don't want her to get things for me in return I want to see her face when I get her a badass notebook with an eye on the front, or a custom dnd dice set, or a sickass writing pen for her diary. I want to be able to make her happy like that. But the deep rooted well of dread at spending money is so fucking much and I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate that I can't fucking ever return their generosity. Why do they continue to get things for me. Why do they value me so much. I'm so terrible at conversations, at hosting, at gift giving, at affection, at having enough spoons to hang out most days. I'm not charismatic and I'm not worthy or all this stuff. All I've got going for me is I'm a great listener and can remember random details and im not even that good at that and cover it up most times because it's weird to hang onto too many innocuous details about a person. I love my friends so much and they'll never know because I can't show it, not physically (im too awkward for hugging or high fives) or verbally (im too awkward for compliments I say what I can but it always comes out so stiff and insincerely) or with gifts (can't spend) or quality time (no spoons most days) or anything anything anything anything.

You can't put a price on people but I have. I've literally put a price tag on everything. Even myself. And I get so confused when people give me more than the 30p I think I'm worth. Hate it. Hate it. Disgust myself. What the fuck.

[delicioussshame]

Okay, so my plans for this one is to publish it by itself on AO3 once it’s done, which, I hope (strangled laughter) shouldn’t be in a year, so do what you want with that info. In the meantime, have the first part of a silly modern AU.

For fuck’s sake, there is no way that’s Luo Binghe.

Shen Yuan had a very clear idea of what Luo Binghe would look like. A white lotus like him had to be a small, shy, bespectacled young man. He’d probably sit by the wall, only daring to glance up occasionally to look for Shen Yuan anxiously.

The man who is refusing a woman’s overture for the third time cannot be him. It must be a coincidence that he’s wearing something that looks like what Luo Binghe said he would have on.

That must be it. Reassured, Shen Yuan starts looking for the little sheep he’d taken under his wing. Could he be the guy engrossed by his phone sitting at his right? Meh, maybe, but-

“Shizun!”

Shen Yuan is instantly mortified. The nickname was cute when they were talking cultivation novels online, but here, in real life? That’s why Shen Yuan insisted on them sharing their real names: to save himself the embarrassment of being the kind of nerd who calls themselves by a fake, geeky name in public!

Then again, since he looks like that, Luo Binghe could be larping surrounded by a crowd while wearing a shirt with a naked waifu on it and still he’d get hit on, Shen Yuan bets. A face this stunning must act as a shield, making him impervious to embarrassment.

Shen Yuan is not impervious to embarrassment. He dashes to the table where, apparently, his disciple is waiting for him. “Luo Binghe.”

He almost flinches under the strength of the beaming smile he’s faced with. “Yes! Shizun! It’s good to finally meet you in person!”

It would be better if you were not calling me Shizun. “The feeling is mutual.” Kind of.

Luo Binghe pushes a paper bag in his direction. “Please accept these as a token of gratitude for your guidance. I know it’s not much, but I hope you can enjoy it anyway.”

Shen Yuan opens the bag with no small amount of trepidation, to discover half a bakery’s stock of desserts, sweets, cakes and other patisseries.

How did he know of Shen Yuan’s weaknesses?

Shen Yuan quickly closes the bag. It would be gauche to eat outside food in a café. “This really wasn’t necessary, though it all looks delicious. Where did you buy them? Did you find a good shop already?”

Luo Binghe shakes his head. “No. I made them, so if they’re subpart, I’m the only one to blame.”

Come on! This guy cooks? At this level? Shen Yuan can feed himself, but a glance was all it took to know how outclassed he was. How is he the shizun here? “I’m sure they’re delicious.” They smell like it, anyway. “So you’re already settled down enough to bake? Moving wasn’t too much of a hardship then?”

“No, everything went well. I’m ready for the term to start.”

He’d better be, since he was accepted at Tsinghua University. How did poor Luo Binghe, who grew up in a small village in the middle of nowhere, swing that, Shen Yuan doesn’t know, but he must be smart as hell. Shen Yuan himself is no slouch, having graduated from Peking University, but it took the “help and encouragement” of his parents and his parents’ many contacts.

Not that they’re here to talk college education, unless Luo Binghe is planning to have much more fun than Shen Yuan did during his own college years. “Still, I suppose that didn’t give you much time for reading.”

“I did read! I had nothing but time on the train, so I finished Shizun’s latest recommendation. As he said, the heroine was the best part. I really liked when…”

This. This is why they’re here: for Shen Yuan to coach Luo Binghe in the ways of decent online literature, stirring him away from complete trash and protecting his innocence from the worst of the worst. He’d known from the first comment Luo Binghe had posted that he was too pure for this world, and that it was his duty as the last bastion of criticism to keep him that way.

He likes to think he did pretty well. Luo Binghe took to his teachings easily. Before he knew it, Shen Yuan had an online friend always eager to get his recommendations and to discuss them with him.

Shen Yuan had thought that maybe Luo Binghe didn’t have that many friends, or that he was socially awkward, but that is very obviously not the case. He can hear the girls oh so coincidentally sitting nearby giggling and congratulating themselves that Luo Binghe hadn’t been waiting for his girlfriend, but only a friend, which meant they still had a chance!

Ha! As if! The only way Luo Binghe didn’t have a girlfriend was if he left her behind to come study here in Beijing. Shen Yuan is sure that won’t last. He’ll probably find someone as soon as school begins.

In the meantime, he might as well take it easy. Reading more books, discovering the cities, getting to know his neighbours; he should take some time to do all this before he is swarmed by his studies.

Still, this is nice. Shen Yuan isn’t the most sociable person ever, vastly preferring to remain indoor by himself to making small talk, but this is a good combination of both! He can talk books with someone who listens to him while drinking his bubble tea and nibbling on snacks. He could get used to this.

“Could I have your phone number?”

Shen Yuan shakes himself back to the conversation. “Sure, but why?” They’ve always written one another before.

“Now that I live nearby, wouldn’t this be easier?”

Shen Yuan swears by the written word, but if Luo Binghe wants to call him from time to time, he can probably deal. “Fine.”

His pupil looks too happy to have gotten a simple phone number. Maybe he really doesn’t have many friends? Aww, don’t worry, you’ll do great here, away from the hicks that couldn’t appreciate you.

“Now that I’m here, there are a few places I’d like to visit. The city had museums, theatres, libraries, everything! Would Shizun mind being my guide?”

Luo Binghe did not need to punctuate that request with puppy eyes. It was overkill. “Are you sure you want to go with me? Shouldn’t you go with friends your age, or your girlfriend?”

“Shizun isn’t old! He’s only eight years older than me! It’s perfectly acceptable!”

Now Shen Yuan feels bad. Luo Binghe might look like… what he looks like, but at eighteen, he’s barely an adult! He should be enjoying his youth instead of wasting his time with a jaded old man like Shen Yuan.

Anyway, he probably just doesn’t know enough people yet. “If you’re fine with me, then I’ll tag along.”

Shen Yuan is once again nearly blinded by the brightness of Luo Binghe’s smile. “I’ll prepare lunch! Does Shizun have favorites?”

“I’m sure anything Luo Binghe prepares will be delicious.” He has no idea, but the stuff he gave him looks like it, at least. At worst, Shen Yuan can definitely afford to pay for a nice restaurant for them both, just like he’ll be paying here.

“Shizun shouldn’t bother. I’m the one who invited him, I should be taking the check.”

There is no way rich, adult Shen Yuan is letting Luo Binghe, a college student on scholarship who just moved to one of the most expensive cities of China, pay for him. Ever. That’s not happening. “First, you did not invite me, I volunteered myself. Second, I’m older. Third, I have a job (kinda, but Luo Binghe doesn’t have to know that) and you don’t. I will be paying for all our expanses, and that’s not negotiable. It’s that or I’m leaving.” He could never live with himself if Luo Binghe had to skip a meal to afford going out with him. The mere idea leaves him queasy.

Luo Binghe frowns, displeased.

A chorus of sighs can be heard from the tables surrounding them.

Shen Yuan estimates there are at least fifteen women of all ages staring at Luo Binghe like he’s a choice morsel now.

They should leave before this degenerates.

Shen Yuan pulls at Luo Binghe. “Let’s go.”

(He valiantly ignores the hissed “Don’t touch him!” coming from a genuinely terrifying fifteen-year-old.)

Luo Binghe seems reluctant to part once they’re out. “We’re meeting Sunday at ten. Shizun can’t forget! I’ll be waiting for him!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.” His social calendar isn’t busy enough to forget his one deliberate engagement.

_________________

Sadly, his social calendar isn’t empty. His dear parents made sure of it. Shen Yuan doesn’t quite rue the day he agreed to their conditions for funding his lifestyle, but sometimes he really wonders if the sinecure he calls his job, providing him blessed solitude and copious amount of free time, is worth suffering through the parties.

Lucky for him that the feeling is shared between all participants now.

Shen Yuan keeps his face perfectly placid as he reads a passable novel on his phone. The hero is trash, and the heroine, just as bad, but there’s a decent world being built, and he’s honestly interested in the fauna the writer created. It’s not good enough to be recommended to Luo Binghe, but few things are. Only the best for his little sheep.

No one interrupts him. They don’t dare anymore. Long gone are the times where Shen Yuan let himself be bullied. Now, he has focused his hatred of a certain character into an imitation so lifelike he’s now famous for his emotionless expression and his ability to lash out with enough venom that the wounds he leaves behind aren’t healed by their next meeting.

One does what one needs to do to survive the jungle that is the circles of Beijing high society.

His parents would weep if they could see him. “You’ll never find a wife like that,” they’d lament.

Shen Yuan doesn’t care. His two brothers are already married. He’s an uncle. His little sister is more popular than any of her siblings ever were. His parents will have all the heirs they could ever want. They don’t need him to reproduce.

There’s a commotion somewhere at his right.

Shen Yuan doesn’t bother lifting his eyes from his phone until the noise is close enough to be a nuisance. Letting none of his irritation show on his face, he looks for the cause of the disturbance in a nonchalant way that would fool no one.

His heart almost stops when he finds Luo Binghe, Sha Hualing and Xiao Gongzhu hanging off his arms like they belonged there.

What is he doing here!? This isn’t a place where his white lotus should be standing! He should still be unboxing in his apartment, not wearing this frankly obscene suit and flirting with heiresses as wealthy as they were mean!

Oh. This must be it. Shen Yuan did think Luo Binghe would get a girlfriend in no time after all. He must be here as someone’s date, and Luo Binghe being Luo Binghe, he has stolen everyone’s attention from the moment he set foot in the room.

Okay. He has terrible tastes, but whatever. No one is perfect.

Fuck, if he sees Shen Yuan and dashes over while screaming “Shizun”, he’ll ruin his new relationship! Not only will he be revealed as nowhere near as cool as he appears, but being associated with Shen Yuan isn’t a good thing. He’s made sure his disdain for this crew was well-known.

Shen Yuan tries to message Luo Binghe to warn him to stay clear, but, as expected, he doesn’t check his phone.

Fuck his parents. Shen Yuan, very ostentatiously, pretends to get an important but unpleasant message, and starts walking with a speed and certainty that cannot be interrupted.

“-Shen Yuan. Don’t bother. He’s an asshole.”

Shen Yuan doesn’t falter, but only because he’s a pro at this. So what if they’re trash-talking him to Luo Binghe? He knows better.

“I’ll have to make my own mind. Wait here?”

Luo Binghe, what the fuck? Can’t you see how obviously I’m leaving? Don’t come over!

“Hello. My name is Luo Binghe. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Shen Yuan has to answer him now. He can’t just ignore him. That would be unforgivably rude. His mother would find out, and she would never let him live it down. “Shen Yuan. I’m in a hurry, so if you would…” He’s not sure why Luo Binghe is playing along, but if he’s game to pretend they don’t know each other, that’s perfect. Shen Yuan will do the same.

The smile Luo Binghe favors him with is nothing like the one he first shown Shen Yuan, all brightness and childlike joy. This smile is, dare he say it, seductive. He smiles like he’s certain the person he’s gracing with this smile is appreciating every moment of it, as they should. “Please spare me just a moment of your time. I promise I’ll make it quick.”

It turns out Shen Yuan doesn’t know Luo Binghe at all, if he can smile like that and make it look as easy as breathing.

Shen Yuan is not enjoying this. If he had known Luo Binghe would be there tonight, they could have planned something instead of, of whatever this is. His best option right now is to leave, meet up with Luo Binghe later, explain to him his current situation, and arrange things in such a way that his disciple’s rise into power won’t be hindered by his acquaintance to Shen Yuan.

For now, that means being the jerk he pretends to be, so that Luo Binghe can be comforted instead of confronted by those women flocking to him. Shen Yuan will apologise later. “Go run back to whichever of these,” he gestures to the women, “is keeping you fed and well dressed enough to pretend to fit here. I don’t have time to waste on boy toys.” Without giving him a second look, he exits the room as fast as he can without running, inwardly mortified at what he just said.

But not fast enough to miss the mocking laughter and the elated exchanges. “He thinks Tianlang-Jun’s son is a sugar baby!”

What the fuck.

[seb-uh]

Hello! Can you please explain what's going on in Brazil, cause I really don't know and I want to be informed about this (just if you want to, no pressure or anything)

Hi anon! It's no problem at all to explain, don't worry about it!

I have a feeling this is gonna be long, so I'm gonna put it under a 'read more', alright?!

So, our president (and I use the term 'our' very loosely here, because I honestly cannot consider that very poor excuse of a human being as my president at any point in time) is someone who really is not worth of the position he occupies. Jair Bolsonaro was part our army when we were under army dictatorship (between 1964-1989). He was been involved in politics for 27 years before he was elected president of Brazil, and did not do a single good thing for the country during that time, believe me.

In 2016, our president at the time, Dilma Roussef, was impeached under very loose accusations and, in 2018, Bolsonaro was elected president because the other politicians did a very good job at convincing the people Dilma and Lula's party was involved in corruption (whether or not they were is a different history altogether). So, Bolsonaro was elected and that is when our country started going down the hill (not that we were ever at the top of it, but we were getting there).

Bolsonaro is very much like Trump, but a bit worse, if a may say so myself. He has absolutely no regards to starving people, to the lack of safety, to protecting our forests and enviroment. He literally only cares about rich people and their agendas. All of his sons are involved in politics as well and they are all rich as hell (I'm pretty sure you can imagine how, yeah? Politicians just don't earn enough money to become millionaires like that legally).

Bolsonaro has been treating the pandemic as a joke since the beginning, doing absolutely nothing to help and laughing (yes, LAUGHING) at the almost 600k lives we lost until this day (believe me, as a med student, it fucking kills me to talk about this, because I know for a fact at least half of these deaths could have been avoided if we have had a decent person leading us during these hard times). He has also taken advantage of the pandemic to pass laws that allows the agrobusiness to explore our natural resources as it sees fit and without consequences, like the Amazon deforestation, fe. I will not go on about how he promoted medical treatments which do not work at all, how he is letting vaccines go bad even today, how Pfizer tried for months to get in contact with the government and he simply ignored them, only to buy vaccines at triple the original price (and of course there are some of his 'minions' who won a lot of money with that). He is making absolutely everything in his power to make everyone's lives even more difficult and you can imagine how much the country is suffering economically because of him.

In short, over the last couple of years, Bolsonaro has made it possible for rich people to buy guns and land to make themselves even richer, but also made it impossible for poor people to buy food to survive. Everything here in Brazil now cost at least 200% more than it did two years ago, there are millions of people starving, homeless and unemployed, and basically going without any help from the government. The public programs we have today are from the time Lula and Dilma were presidents, but they are not enough to make much of a difference by themselves.

What you have to understand, anon, is that politics which center on poor people being able to go far in life don't go well with rich people. This kind of politics may not change the world, but they make people who were not born in golden cribs able to grow, have a good life and afford things rich people consider themselves entitled to. This is true for basically every country in the world, unfortunately, but here in Brazil it is especially true. Bolsonaro is mainly supported by the rich (like the Piquets and other people who benefit monetarily from his politics because they don't care about anyone else) and prejudiced people. His followers share so many fake news on social media that he passed a law yesterday to make it extremely difficult for platforms like Facebook and Instagram to track them and shut them down (fake news played a huge part on his election as well).

Today we celebrate Independence Day here in Brazil, but to be honest with you, we have absolutely nothing to celebrate. Our people are the best and we have so many beautiful things to show the world, but it makes me absolutely devastated to see such a beautiful country being wasted away like this.

There was a pro-coup protest in Brasilia today (that's our capital, btw, it's not Rio or São Paulo). Bolsonaro is losing some of his followers and it feels like he is trying to implant a new military dictatorship in Brazil (he tried it when the first one was ending, but thankfully it did not work out). Something tells me he will not accept defeat in next year's election and this is very dangerous. He wants to be a dictator, he wants to have the last word in everything and go after everyone who does not agree with him. He is also very childish and very rude to everybody.

This is the guy Nelson Piquet was driving around today. This is the guy Lucas DiGrassi, Felipe Massa, Sérgio Sette Câmara and even fucking Neymar supported and campaigned for two years ago. So, yeah, this is the reason I don't want any of them to win anything ever again. Absolutely no one who continues to support a genocide today deserve to win anything in life.

-

Sorry about the long post, but apparently I needed to get it out of my chest. Also, sorry if I made any grammar mistakes or if something was not clear enough, I double checked it but something may have slipped me. I am much more articulated than this in portuguese, but I hope you understand the picture now, anon. If you have any more questions, please feel free to reach out, I will try my best to answer them!

[infinite-inferno]

Even a Hero Needs Some Help Every Once in a While

Fandom: Jacksepticeye

Genre: Angst/ I guess hurt/comfort

Characters: Jackieboy Man, Henrik von Schneeplestein, Chase Brody, Anti (mentioned), Marvin the Magnificent (mentioned), Stacy (mentioned), Jack (mentioned)

Content warning: neglect of physical and mental health, depression, vague mentions of medical stuff, suicide mention, I guess you could read it as a mention of abuse, alcoholism, it gets positive and happy at the end though I swear

Jackieboy Man had a duty to fulfill and couldn’t afford to take a day off, not for his physical health, nor for his mental health, despite how frequently he needed one for either reason. But, he had to be on patrol every day, no matter what anyone said, because if he wasn’t then criminals would be able to get away with whatever they wanted, and he couldn’t live with himself if something happened because he wasn’t there. 

Today was another day where he really could’ve used a mental health day, but there was no way in hell he was doing that. So, he neglected his mental health and in doing so, his physical health also suffered; days like these he either ate way too much or didn’t eat at all, slept for either 12 hours or 2 hours (typically the latter, as he had to be with his brothers during the day or else they would get concerned, and that definitely couldn’t happen), he bottled up his emotions until his was absolutely alone (which rarely happened) and if by some miracle there was nobody else in the house or around anywhere he cried until he ran out of tears or was no longer alone, whichever came first (or he just felt so numb he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything, let alone cry and release his emotions). And today in particular he looked like absolute shit, as he had been having a bad day for going on 2 weeks now, and everything just kept building up and he was starting to wonder what his breaking point was and when he would reach it. 

His great solution for all his issues? Intense training all day, not stopping for any breaks, chastising himself over every tiny mistake that wasn’t even noticeable, and just working himself beyond his limits, but the pain, cuts and bruises were too much for him to continue on, so Jackie had to stop and do some quick first aid before he could go back to training. Schneeplestein found him rummaging through his medical supplies, attempting to take care of the injuries he gave himself. 

“Jackie… vhat are you doing?”

He whipped around, face pale and Henrik wasn’t sure if it was due to his medical condition or due to the shock of being found out. “... nothing…?”

“Bullshit, zat does not look like nozing. Spill, or else I am calling Anti.”

Jackie sighed and sat down on the table they used for any time Henrik had to treat injuries (which were typically Jackie’s). “I’ve just… had a couple bad days I guess. I’ve been training all morning to try and get myself out of this funk I’m in and get back to normal,” he then mumbled so quietly that Henrik strained his ears to hear it, “whatever that even means.” He returned to his normal volume to say “you don’t need to worry about me Henrik, I just hurt myself a bit while training but it’s nothing serious.”

The doctor bit his lip, not buying a word of it. “Vould you consider zis uh funk, as you called it, similar to Chase’s bad days?” Henrik eyed him warily, observing his reactions. His medical training tipped him off that Jackie was hiding something, as well as his own two eyes. 

Jackie’s reaction was immediate. “What?! No! Chase’s bad days are due to his depression, and I’m not depressed.” 

“Zen vhy are you being so defensive right now?”

“Because… because…” Jackie’s eyes filled with panic as he couldn’t come up with a reason. But he couldn’t be depressed, right? Nothing like what happened to Chase happened to him, he didn’t have any reason to be depressed so that couldn’t be it. Something just threw him off his groove, that’s all. 

“Because,” Henrik supplied, “you don’t vant to admit to yourself zat you have any veaknesses. Ja?”

Jackie, aware he was being read like a book, decided to just give up, putting his head in his hands and blinking back tears. He composed himself before huffing. “Fine. Maybe. But I’ll just get over it, and be right as rain soon enough. Please, don’t worry about me.” 

Henrik took a breath, keeping his skepticism to himself. “Ok. Vhat injuries do you have? Do you need mein help in treating anyzing?”

Jackie went quiet, nodding slightly, taking off his hoodie to reveal a once form fitting shirt that now hung loosely on his too-skinny frame. He lifted part of the shirt up to reveal a plethora of large lacerations that had been sloppily bandaged by Jackie, and Henrik was trying not to dwell on how thin he was and how he could see too many of his bones. “Yeah this happened last night, but I didn’t want to wake you or anything… I don’t think I cracked my ribs because that would hurt a lot more but there’s definitely a lot of cuts there… I did my best but I might need stitches doc…” Jackie looked down, embarrassed. The doctor didn’t say anything, and just got right to work. 

“Bite down on zis, I know you’ve done it before, but zis vill hurt.” He gave him a belt that was hanging up specifically for times like these. Jackie did as he was told, and sat through all the stitches he was given. It hurt like hell, but that’s what he got for not being careful enough. 

When Henrik finished, he took a deep breath, watching Jackie put his shirt and hoodie back on, deciding to go for it now. “Hey, Jackie…” he started softly “vhen did you last eat something?” 

The hero had to think about it for a decent amount of time, which was already a bad sign. “Well, I’ve been having some gum but not swallowing it, if that counts-”

“Nein.”

“Why does it even matter?”

“Goddammit answer ze damned question!”

“Okay, okay, jeez. Uh, I’m not sure…”

“Vas it today?”

“No.”

“Yesterday?”

“No…”

“Vithin ze last veek?”

“What day is it?”

“Ze 10th.”

“Then I don’t think so…” At that, Henrik abruptly grabbed the weary hero’s arm and dragged him into the kitchen, passing a confused Marvin on their way in. 

“Sit.” Henrik ordered in a tone that did not leave any room for debate once they got there and to the table. Jackie did as he was told as Henrik began making food for him - a piece of toast and some soup, the same thing that people who were sick typically had. At the realization, Jackie mumbled something about him not being sick, and if Henrik heard he chose to ignore it. “Vhen did you drink vater last?”

Jackie gave the type of laugh where he aggressively exhaled through his nose, not a full laugh but something, before responding with “fuck if I know. But I’ve had a shit ton of coffee and gatorade though?”

“Neither are vater, und you cannot substitute gatorade for vater, no matter vhat you zink.” He poured a large glass of water and placed it in front of Jackie, demanding that he drink it. Again, his tone was no nonsense and Jackie knew if he even tried to argue he wouldn’t win, so he reluctantly complied. As soon as he finished the glass Henrik immediately went to refill it, so he would keep drinking more and more water. When the food was ready, it was placed in front of him, and the smell was both enticing and nauseating. But he couldn’t dismiss it, as Henrik was staring at him, making sure he ate it. He started with the soup, starting by just taking the broth. “You know you need to eat more zan just ze broth ja?” 

Jackie rolled his eyes and took a bite from the soup. “Happy?”

“I vill be once you finish ze food.” 

He sighed as he slowly continued eating, the time between his bites getting longer as he went on, and he hated that he was wasting all this time. I have better things to do than to sit here and eat he thought. Or well, he thought it stayed in his head. 

“Nein. You need to eat mein friend.” 

“But Hen, I need to keep training!”

“You vill not leave zis house until you can prove to me you can take care of yourself. Und for ze next couple of days you vill not be training either. Vhen vas ze last time you slept a full 6-8 hours?”

“Ummm… I dunno, it’s probably been at least a month if not longer. Usually if I can get to sleep it’s only for a couple of hours… oh wait no I had a nice long like 11 or so hour rest like a week and a half or so ago. But before that it must’ve been…” he couldn’t finish, because he had absolutely no idea. 

Henrik looked at the amount of food in front of him, and decided that he ate enough (he would’ve preferred if he ate the whole thing but he could tell the bites were on the verge of being forced, and that would not be helpful. “Screw ze rest of ze food, you are going to sleep now. If you are hungry vhen you vake up, you can have somezing more. But for now, you sleep, ja?” 

Jackie nodded, glad that he didn’t have to try and eat anything more. Granted, this meant he needed to sleep, and he wasn’t sure how easy that was going to be, but it still wasn’t eating. He stored away the soup and just tossed the few bites of toast he had left before putting the dishes in the sink to be washed later by one of them. He then made his way to his room, flopping on the bed and resisting the urge to take out his phone and spend hours just scrolling, because then he would never get to sleep. Instead, his mind kept him busy, berating him for letting Schneep see him like that. The next thing he knew, he checked his phone and a bit over an hour had gone by already. He sighed, deciding that since Henrik was the one who wanted him to sleep, he could help him to actually fall asleep. 

“Hey Hen?”

“Vhat are you doing out of bed?”

“I’m having… I’m having trouble falling asleep. Do you have any like… melatonin or something? Any kind of medication I can take because this is not working out.”

Henrik’s face softened, and he went to where he kept the medicine and unlocked it (Chase is the primary reason it was always locked) and sifted through a number of bottles before landing on the right one - the Trazedone bottle (he could’ve given him something else, but it also acted as an antidepressant, and he had a feeling Jackie could use one). “Before you take zis, und be honest, have you had any suicidal zoughts or actions? I von’t tell ze ozers if you’d like, but as a doctor I need to know.” 

“No, I mean I don’t take care of myself as well as I should, obviously, and I might get myself into dangerous situations when on patrol, but like I haven’t really thought about like, dying - not a lot at least. I mean if I did, it was once or twice or something, and I snapped right out of it because that’s not me. That’s not my normal.” 

Henrik nodded and opened the bottle, handing him 2 pills. “You may vant to eat a small somezing vith zis, und I am not just saying zat so you vill eat. You can have a candy bar for all I care, but it vould help to reduce any negative effects it could have.” Jackie nodded, and got out a small Hershey chocolate bar, eating that and then taking the pills. He thanked Henrik and went to his room, where he finally began to have a decent sleep. 

Jackie woke up and freaked out when he saw that it was 1am because he should be on patrol right now what is he doing sleeping?! He sighed and rolled onto his back when he remembered Schneep put him on bed rest for a while, and rolled his eyes. He stood up and went to get his suit, figuring that it wouldn’t hurt to go out for a little while, but he found that where his suit should be, there was a note instead in a familiar messy scrawl. 

‘I told you, you’re on bedrest. That means no patrolling for you. You may think that me taking your suit is a bit extreme, but you are just so predictable, and I want to make sure you stay safe, because I care about you. Now, I know you will not go back to sleep most likely, and it is wishful thinking that you would go and eat something or drink any water, but please try one of the three things. It won’t kill you, I swear, and I should know - I’m a doctor.

- Henrik’

Jackie smiled at the sentiment, but crumpled up the paper and threw it at the wall. “He fucking took my suit? Does he not trust me at all?” He rolled his eyes. “Ok, to be fair you were literally about to do that exact thing, so he has a right to not trust me.” He sighed and flopped back onto the bed. He supposed he could try and fall asleep again, but he found it very unlikely. Eventually however, he fell back asleep for a couple hours. 

----------------------------------

He woke up again with light shining through the window, and checking his phone it was a reasonable hour to be awake. Jackie stood up and walked out of his room. He first saw Chase when he walked out, and impulsively said “Chase? Hey uh, can I talk to you about something?” Chase looked confused for a moment but nodded. 

“Do you want to go into one of our rooms or stay out here? I dunno how serious this talk is but based on your face it seems kinda serious…” 

Jackie nodded. “Can we go to your room?” 

“Sure.” They walked to Chase’s room, and when they got there, Chase closed the door and sat on the bed, patting the spot next to him for Jackie to sit down, which he did. “So, what’s on your mind?”

“How do you deal with your um… your…” Jackie bit his lip, not wanting to say the word. 

Chase raised an eyebrow, “my depression?” 

“Y-yeah…” 

Chase had a good idea to not ask why Jackie wanted to know this, but given his fidgety behavior and how he is way less confident than he usually is, he had a good idea of why he was asking. “I gotta say dude, it’s the one of the toughest battles I fight, the only worse thing being the battle against my addiction. But doc gave me some medicine to try and lessen it, and I like to journal my feelings. I know there’s a bunch of phone apps for it, I stick to traditional pen and paper. And it’s basically a diary, but don’t tell anyone I called it that, but I just write about the emotions I felt and if anything happened that could possibly be related to it. You wanna see it?” 

Jackie just shrugged. “I mean, if it’s too personal, I don’t wanna intrude on your super personal details or anything…” 

“Nah, I got nothin’ to hide really. Here, lemme get it.” He reached onto the table by his bed, pulling out a spiral notebook. He flipped to more recent pages and showed one to him. “See, I start by writing the date and any adjectives that come to mind that describe my mood. There’s some days where I have a lot of them and a lot are contradictory to each other, and there’s some days where I only have a couple. This one, oh yeah this is from when I got to see my kids!” He smiled fondly at the day, reading back over it. “Yeah, that carried me for most of the day I remember, that’s why it’s the only thing really in here for the day. Now, the next day was- yup that wasn’t a good day. Stacy called me just to yell at me for how I spoiled the kids,” he read it, sighing, “then ya know, called me a bad father and what not, usual Stacy shit, and I got so close to breaking my sobriety but… actually it was you that stopped me… not by doing anything about alcohol but you just said hi to me when I was on my way to try and find some and after that I… I couldn’t’ve done it so I pretended I just wanted a snack heh… memories huh,” he laughed weakly. 

“You asked how I deal? Well on the days when the meds aren’t enough I usually try my best, if I can, to talk to one of you guys. You all help to distract me from the shitty things that go through my mind. Because you know as well as I do that there’s always something going on in this house that even existing in the living room is enough to have a decent distraction for the most part. On the days though where I can’t even get out of bed… I still try and distract myself by doing random shit on my phone, sometimes I just try and vent out all my issues and thoughts by writing them down in my notes app because my phone is so much closer and easier to write on than an actual piece of paper. Plus I can also delete it when I’m done so all the negative thoughts can just disappear into the cloud. But there isn’t one set recipe for self care or anything like that. I know some people like to do relaxing shit like meditation or whatever but I just can’t do that, my mind needs to stay active or else I’ll get lost in my own thoughts. It took me a while to figure out what works, and hell I’m still figuring it out. There’s no rush though, and it’s okay if you can’t figure everything out right away.” Chase smiled and closed the notebook, placing it right back on the table. “Is there anything else you wanted to know?”

Jackie shook his head. “No, I think you covered it all. Thanks.”

“Any time. And if you ever want to talk about anything, I’ll gladly lend an ear. I know how hard it is to open up, but once you do it feels amazing. And if you don’t want to talk to any of us, when I went to therapy right after my attempt it really helped cuz I didn’t want to talk about any of that with you guys because I was just so embarrassed. I don’t think I’d be where I am today if Jack didn’t drag me to therapy.” 

Jackie hugged him, then left the room, heading back to his own. He would have something to eat later, he had some things to figure out about himself first.

[l-enfer-c-est-les-autres]

just had a long argument with my roommate about how “violence doesn’t solve anything”,  “violence is never the answer, if we kill we’re just as bad as them, look at gandhi”, and “everyone has the right to live/no one deserves to die, even murderers/rapists/fascists/etc”, “if a woman’s being abused she can just walk out the door while the abuser is sleeping”, and how “there’s always jobs available nearby for everyone if you work hard enough, that don’t require transportation and are sustainable for you and your family and you magically qualify for and don’t require any luck”. she’s absolutely a good person, and generally well-informed, but this is where white, middle class privilege shows.

1. self defense IS NOT EQUAL to assault. there is no moral comparison, and those who argue this are brainwashing their victims into allowing themselves to be victimized, to not fight back, to roll over and make things easier for them. if it’s kill or be killed, the aggressors should absolutely be the ones to die.

2. no, i do not value the lives of murderers/rapists/fascists/etc as equal to that of their victims. if it’s kill or be killed, they should absolutely be the ones to die.  it’s not about the morality of the death penalty; in the USA, the ‘justice’ system is blatantly broken: prisons are for profit, black kids who smoke weed go to prison for 6 years while white rapists get 1 week of jail time, sexual predators and offenders become president. when the system not only fails to protect you, but is part of the oppression against you and your loved ones, fighting back is self-defense, and you should and must fight back with all the means at your disposal, including violence.

3. india rebelled violently against britain, there was violent armed conflict between indians and british, gandhi just became the figurehead of the movement, and there were other factors such as economics at play; it is total bullshit myth that india achieved independence solely through pacific protest. resisting and fighting against the depredation of a colonizing aggressor is self-defense.

4. sexism, classism, racism, fascism - there is a war going on. people, lots of people, especially the poor and POC, are dying every day, murdered deliberately and though the negligence of the government and the society that is supposed to serve and protect them. you cannot “vote them out” because a) in the USA, the popular vote DOES NOT MATTER, the electoral college chooses the president and most americans don’t vote enough at the lower levels of government to claim any measure of democratic power (not to mention the US has been an oligarchy since Reagan), b) the system is designed by the people in power so that they remain in power. the system literally CANNOT be fought from within. ex: a good number of dictators were originally democratically elected; then once in power they change the laws so the presidency becomes a lifetime office. corrupt governments - and all governments become corrupt over time because enough/too many humans are selfish, greedy, stupid creatures - are self-sustaining and will legalize evil and corruption. bribing officials and buying elections? legal in the USA. under the trump administration, getting rid of the EPA means legalizing known dangers to public health and safety such as toxic waste dumping. the water crisis in flint? perfectly legal for the government to do nothing for 5 years and let an entire city suffer without clean water and get lead poisoning (the citizens are suing the government for damages, but this will not undo their suffering or restore their health). this is why revolution is the only means of destroying corrupt government and restoring power to the people, and revolution is self-defense.

5. the rights we have today - women’s rights, equal rights, LGBT rights, children’s rights, human rights - our grandparents and parents absolutely fought and died for them, they did not wait around pacifically waiting for those in power to give them some, and too many of us today are still fighting for ourselves and others. suffragettes were imprisoned, assaulted, and had their lives ruined; martin luther king jr. was assassinated by the FBI only 50 years ago when my mother was a teenager (don’t let those black and white photos fool you into thinking it was further away than it really is), and countless others died protesting and fighting; the LGBT at stonewall rioted and physically fought the police for 5 days. so many of the LGBT+ community are still fighting today, and being harassed, physically and sexually assaulted, and murdered, and teenagers are especially vulnerable and often are kicked out of their homes and forced into homelessness. those in power never voluntarily relinquish, share, or give power, because it doesn’t benefit them; they have to be forced to do so, including through violent means, and this is self-defense.

6. no there aren’t magically convenient jobs for everyone everywhere, and it is nearly impossible to climb out of poverty. when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, losing a job for even a week can be enough to force you and your family into homelessness, and from there it’s nearly impossible to find work without a permanent address, a phone number, access to regular showers and food, and god forbid you need healthcare in america, etc. you’re disabled or it’s freezing winter outside? financial insecurity and homelessness is a death sentence. in france the gilets jaunes movement began to protest a tax on cars that would have crippled the working poor, because while it’s good in theory to reduce carbon emissions and save the environment, there is not the infrastructure necessary to replace those cars. in north america, you can’t go anywhere without a car; if you live outside the city or in certain neighborhoods there’s no public transportation or it’s unreliable, or what would be a 10min trip from my house to the grocery store would take >2h30 by bus because there’s a highway to go around, which is simply not doable: the more time i spend commuting, the less time i can spend working, sleeping, feeding myself, taking care of dependents, etc. in contrast, you could live without a car in most of Japan because they have amazing public transportation. fighting to maintain the means of self-subsistence is self-defense.

7. i asked her: have you ever had to worry about where you were going to sleep tonight, or whether you could eat? no, she hasn’t. how many homeless people do you know, when you’re talking about how you and your friends all managed to find work within bicycle distance of your house? none. when is the last time you or your loved ones were threatened and endangered, harassed, discriminated against, or killed by neo-nazis, mass shooters, the police, etc? never. (ironically, she agreed that World War II needed to be fought) . when confronted with bigots whose proudly self-professed goal is mass genocide of you and your people, fighting back and killing them to prevent them from killing you is self-defense.

8. nazis, school shooters, domestic abusers, ARE NOT MENTALLY ILL. the majority of them, and this is proven by many, many studies, don’t have mental illness, and ALL of them have VALUE PROBLEMS. as in, they don’t value the lives of POC and women, they hold as a core belief that they are less and deserve to be killed and treated poorly. “if a woman’s being abused she can just walk out the door while the abuser is sleeping”: even discounting the psychological effects of abuse (hopelessness, feeling of being trapped, dependence, fear of repercussions and punishment, etc) abused women usually don’t have any money or means of earning money; if they have children it’s even harder. women’s shelters will only let people stay for a limited amount of time, and an abuser can easily find out the address. i used to live by the only women’s shelter in the area, the gate was dented from all the men who would come and beat it, with their hands, baseball bats, ramming their cars into it, shouting and threatening; i’m sure that more than one woman was caught leaving and beaten even worse for the attempt, and they are often too afraid to ask the police for help, or the police refuse to help because they’re poor/uneducated/POC/don’t give a fuck/don’t believe them because the abuser is an upstanding pillar of the community/etc, or in the USA the abuser is often a cop. and if the police do show up, the abuser might not go to court or serve jail time, meaning he’ll be free to retaliate against the woman and children, and in many cases abusers retain parental rights over their children; even if a restraining order is issued, that doesn’t guarantee it will be enforced, and it will not prevent an abuser from harming the woman and children, only punish him for it after it’s too late. for the woman and her potential children, leaving means homelessness, starvation, immense psychological stress, and huge risk of retaliation up unto being murdered. so if, since she cannot resist or escape her abuser while he’s beating the shit out of her, she decides to take a kitchen knife and kill him while he’s passed out drunk, that’s self-defense.

yes, we can and must educate people, especially children, and yes this is the only way to bring lasting change on a societal level. but in the meantime, my roommate and her loved ones aren’t the ones suffering from chronic poverty, threatened and degraded by discrimination, being denied job opportunities and basic rights, or dying from completely preventable lack of food, shelter, and medical care, or being murdered because they and their lives are considered trash. no violence is not always the only solution, but sometimes it is, and sometimes it is the best solution.

obviously her understanding of the world is going to be heavily influenced by her experience of it. and the reality is, she’s blonde, thin and conventionally attractive, from an educated financially secure family, can afford to be vegetarian and buy high-quality food every day, and she can single-handedly pay her own university tuition (in canada) with her part-time job. but it’s easy for her to say that “violence is never the answer” when she has never, and likely will never, have to fight for her life, her rights, or those of people like her, will never have to defend her inherent worth to people who genuinely don’t care. and this is a good thing, because no one should have to do any of this, but it needs to be true for everyone. so repeat after me,

PACIFISM IS FOR THE PRIVILEGED.

THE LAW IS NOT JUSTICE.

CAPITALISM IS FAKE AND NON-SUSTAINABLE, IT IS A VIOLENT, SYSTEMATIC, MURDEROUS ATTACK AGAINST THE 99%. there is no reason other than the greed of the 1% for the way our society is currently structured or how resources are being distributed. jeff bezos is currently worth 165 billion USD. if you divided that equally among all 7 billion people on this planet right now, we would each have over 22 billion, can you wrap your heads around that? or let’s convert that into time, $1 for 1 second: if i earn 50k/year, i get to live for not even 14 hours; jeff over there will live for 5232 years. so yes, EAT THE RICH. it is horrifyingly evil to have that much money, knowing the only way to have that much is to make it at the expense of the vulnerable, off of slave labor and the exploitation of human suffering, and even worse to choose not to use it to improve the world around you and help your fellow man.

[onlovestreetwithjimmorrison]

The Doors – Hyacinth House: Santa's Workshop.

The Doors – Hyacinth House: Santa's Workshop.

It was Friday, December 7th and Jim pulled into the parking lot of the fairgrounds where The Doors were their holiday event called The Doors present: Hyacinth House: Santa's Workshop was going to be held. They were going to dress up as holiday characters and participate in different events. Jim hated that every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in December was going to be wasted with this shit, but as usual, he had been outvoted. As he locked his Mustang he wondered what the other Doors would say when the found out he was going to be Santa instead of Rudolph like originally planned. He knew though that with his wrist still in a cast he wouldn't be able to crawl around on all fours like they wanted him too.

Robby, John and Ray arrived together at the fairgrounds. Robby said, “How the hell did Jim get here before us? How long has he been here? And how early does that damn Burger King open? Its 6am and you know he's always at that damn place for breakfast.” Ray shook his head, “Well he lives in a motel room, its not like he can make breakfast or anything.” John said, “Why do we have to be the elves?” Robby said, “That's Jim's fault. Though at least he has to be Rudolph. I am going to love seeing him crawling around in the mud wearing those stupid antlers we got at the dollar store.”

They walked to Santa's house. Ray screamed, “Oh hell no! Jim, what the fuck are you doing? I'm Santa. You're Rudolph. Now get out of the Santa seat!” Jim held up a piece of paper and said, “I have a doctor's note that says I cannot be Rudolph because crawling around on all fours could damage my wrist since its still in a cast.” Ray said, “Fuck Jim! Why are you always messing things up? None of this would have happened had you not gone trick or treating.” Robby said, “Why are you mad? Jim's a better Santa anyway. Santa is fat and Jim is fat so it works. Whereas you would have to stuff pillows under your costume to look fat Jim will be lucky if he can get the damn costume on, he's so big.” John said, “Jim isn't that big.” Ray and Robby laughed.

Jim glared at Robby, “Shut the hell up. I am not fat. You act like I am the size of a house and as you can see it fit comfortably into this Santa outfit. Screw you.” Ray rolled his eyes, “You do know Santa’s hair and beard are white. Your hair and beard are still brown.” Jim scratched his beard, “Whatever. Santa is also old and I'm not old. Deal.” Robby picked up a bag of flour from the cookie making station and dumped it over Jim's head.” Jim screamed, “OMG you asshole! What the hell is wrong with you. This thing opens in 20 minutes! I don't have time to wash this crap out of my hair. And it's in my beard and irritating my skin. Fuck you, Robby!” He shook his head and stormed off. Ray called after him, “You better be in a good mood, Jim! The last thing we need is for a bunch of kids to be crying because you scared them. What the hell are you doing now?”

Jim didn't respond as he twisted off the cap of the whiskey bottle he had stashed behind Satna's house. He brought the bottle to his lips and began drinking. Just then John wandered around to where Jim was and yelled, “Jim's drinking!” Jim hissed at John, “Fucking tattle tale! I'll drink if I want. Get the hell away from me!” Robby and Ray made their way around to the back of the house. Ray shook his head, “Really Jim?” Jim said, “What? One of the activities is guess which Door spiked your hot chocolate. Obviously drinking at this event isn't an issue.” Robby said, “It is when Santa is drunk.” Jim said, “I am not drunk. I've had a few sips.”

It was 11pm and the first nite was over. Jim left as soon as the last kid left Santa's house. He ran to his Mustang and cranked up the heat. He reached under the seat and pulled out a can of beer. He opened it and began drinking. He hoped the other Doors were still cleaning up because he knew they'd say something to him about drinking and then driving back to the motel. He just wanted to go to bed and forget about today. Even though the evening had gone well and everyone had a good time he just wanted to be alone. He was mad because no one would let him participate in the roll a Joint with a Door or guess which Door spiked your hot chocolate. The kids were nice and no one peed on him. Jim started the car and made the 15 minute drive back to the motel. He parked the car and went to his room. He took off his clothes and fell naked onto his unmade bed. He pulled the covers over him and fell asleep instantly.

Jim awoke to a knock on his door, “Newspaper!” Jim sleepily got out of bed and opened his door and reached down to get his newspaper. He crawled back to bed and pulled the covers over himself as he laid back down. As he unfolded the newspaper he smiled. The headline read: Doors arrested for having marijuana at a family event. Jim grinned. For once he wasn't the bad Door! He continued reading the article and smiled when he came to a paragraph explaining why he was not arrested: According to police Morrison was not arrested because he was not at the scene of the crime when police arrived and according to event attendees Morrison was never at the roll a joint with a Door station. Jim was filled with happiness.

Jim arrived at the local jail and was shown to the cell that Ray, Robby, and John were in. He strolled up to the cell and said, “Well isn't this an interesting sight. The three of you are in jail and I'm perfectly innocent.” Ray who was still wearing his Rudolph costume said, “Shut the hell up. You're just loving this aren't you?” Jim shrugged his shoulders, “I never wanted to do the roll a joint with a Door station. I told you it was stupid.” Robby seethed, “But sneaking behind Santa's house to drink whiskey isn't.” John whined, “This isn't fair! I'm a good person and now I have a criminal record. And my rash is acting up!”

Jim looked at his watch and said, “Well I'd love to stay and chat, but I really need to get going. I have a doctor appoint for my wrist and then I'm going to have lunch at Burger King and then I need to get my hair trimmed.” Robby rolled his eyes, “Since when do you go to get your hair trimmed? You're just rubbing it in that you're free and we're not.” Ray jumped in, “You need to bail us out, Jim.” Jim glared at Ray, “Yeah right. I've been arrested before and none of you clowns ever came to bail me out. You can rot in jail for all I care. And for your information Robby, I have a date tonite and want to look my best so I need to get my hair trimmed.” Robby screeched, “A date? How? We're supposed to be doing Santa's Workshop.” Jim responded, “Yeah well the date was supposed to be after, but since obviously we won't be doing Santa's Workshop with you clowns being in jail the date is happening at 7pm instead.”

Ray glared at Jim, “So you're really just going to leave us here?” Jim shrugged his shoulders, “None of you ever bailed me out of jail. Besides I need to go to the bank now and sing some papers. I just bought a Burger King franchise as a Christmas present to myself.” Robby said, “You have got to be kidding me. You're buying a fucking Burger King. Now you really will be the size of a house. And you'll be out of business in no time because you'll eat all the damn food.” Jim looked at Robby, “You are so jealous of me because I can afford to buy a Burger King”

John chimed in, “So we're not getting bailed out of jail?” Jim said, “Hell no. How many times do I have to tell you, clowns. You never bailed me out. Besides its the holidays. I am not going to waste them here. Bye!” Jim strolled out of the jail happier than he had been in a long time. The other three Doors had no idea what he planned to do with his Burger King franchise. They didn't know he was going to set up a toy collection for needy children or that he was going to donate all unused food to a local shelter. Or that he was going to dress up as Santa and surprise families on the weekends. The other Doors had no idea what his intentions were and he was happy to finally show the world his big heart.

~*~*~*~*~3 Days later at The Doors Workshop~*~*~*~*~

Robby looked at Jim, “This is your fault you asshole.” Jim seethed, “How the hell is it my fault our Hyacinth House: Santa's Wonderland was canceled. You three were the ones who got arrested, not me.” Robby said, “You didn't bail us out. We sat in Jail for 3 damn days. It was all over the news and then we find out that your Burger King franchise is all over the news and apparently you're some goody goody now with collecting toys for Christmas and donating food and whatever else you're doing now. We look like jerks and you're like a freakin angel or something. And why the hell are you dressed as Santa?” Jim said, “For your information, I just came from my Burger King. I dress up as Santa for the kids who come in/”

Ray said, “You have got to be kidding me. You threw a fit when the whole Hyacinth House: Santa's Wonderland was brought up and now you're dressing up as Santa at your damn Burger King. You're a real piece of work.” Jim responded, “Because I'm doing something good? I don't like being told what to do. I am a good person but no one sees that. But now that I have my Burger King I can do things on my own without The Doors to show that I am a good person. Screw you. I'm going back to my Burger King where I am appreciated. Merry Christmas assholes!”

This is Jim looking at the glasses for his Santa costume.

[beaurockpropsar1985-blog]

From what I heard, it was supposed to run all the way to Hartwell Ave. The problem was that it runs right through Arlington Center and they would have had to dig up the whole center area including the common to be able to build the tunnel and the station. Lexington wasn against it since the line went near the center rather than right through it. I cannot say that this is a straightforward adjustment: the absence of familiar faces and traditions of course weighs on my heart. But I want instead to emphasise what is beautiful and holy about this new experience of Christmas. As a community, we model ourselves in prayer, service and unity on Christ; we seek an openness and a vulnerability in our relations with one another, so that we may grow in humility and integrity.. WEST CHESTER, Pa. (Reuters) HSN, once known as the Home Shopping Network, is getting an image makeover. Television network where shoppers can buy everything from electronics to kitchen gadgets, HSN is overhauling its lineup to offer more beauty products while adding streamed video content to win over shoppers without cable TV.. He did something that was irreconcilably wrong and absolutely vile. But that doesn mean he a vile person. When someone admits wrongdoing and feels shame for it, they clearly demonstrate remorse.. Well I was short sighted, I had to have glasses for driving and then suddenly the pressure was up and I was being advised by the opticians and then they said maybe you should go and see an eye specialist. And I started having treatment, it was in one eye, for glaucoma. Because you can still see pretty well, you're not aware of anything happening, it isn't something you are aware of, you can see perfectly well with one eye. Dams along the river create large pools of open water upstream. Along the northern part of the river, steep limestone bluffs descend directly to the banks. Downstream, the floodplain opens to afford long, uninterrupted views of the valley. Sounds like my ex bf. I begged and begged for him an me to go to the state fair for over a month. At first he said he doesn't do rides, I said it's ok, I really just wanted to go for the food anyways. 거제출장마사지 Below stairs the dinner cloth had not been taken away, but had been left ready for breakfast. Crumbs, dust, and waste paper were all over the house. Some pewter pots and a milk can hung on the area railings; the door stood open; and we met the cook round the corner coming out of a public house, wiping her mouth. So phase 1 was destruction of the RAF and its bases, we know this as "The Battle of Britain". This had to be done to establish air superiority over the Channel. Phase 2 would be systematic harassment of the Royal Navy in preparation of a massive seaborne invasion. Also I shouldn assume that I live to 70. Anyone can did any time so everyone should try to 거제출장마사지 do the most of life and have the best time they can. I just use this to calm myself down sometimes and that is one way that I will get the most out of my life.. I worked at a movie theater when Postman came out, I was the dude who ripped tickets and let people in to the theater at the door, ain nobody fucking went to see that movie. Some of us even had a pool going on where employees would bet how many tickets for Postman would sell in one day. Sometimes during the week, I get assigned to do security checks which basically meant I walk into the theater with a flashlight, make sure the back exit doors weren left open, etc, anyway, can tell you how many times during the Postman run I went into theater rooms with the movie playing and nobody watching, not a single person, not even a make out couple.

[ijustwant2write]

You Must Decide-Ubbe Ragnarsson x Hvitserk Ragnarsson x Sigurd Ragnarsson x Reader

(GIF credits to owner)

Masterlist

Summary: requested by anonymous:‘Could you do a imagine with Sigurd Ubbe and Hvitserk. They all like you so they do different things to make you choose them. (Like dates,making you things etc.) Well one day you accidentally sleep with Ubbe and the others get mad so they say you have to sleep with them to decide which one you want. You choose which one the reader gets with. Thanks doll.’

Characters: Ubbe Ragnarsson x Reader, Sigurd Ragnarsson x Reader, Hvitserk Ragnarsson x Reader

Meanings: (Y/N)= Your name

Warnings: Some sexual themes

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As I walked through the market place, a beautiful, gleaming jewel caught my eye. I approached the stall, studying the bracelet further. It had a variety of colours, all of them catching the light perfectly. Alas, I could not afford such a beauty, and I sadly slumped away. It would be so nice to just buy anything at any time; though maybe that would turn me into a spoilt brat. As usual, I tried to forget about the things I could not have, until I was stopped.

“You shouldn’t be denied such beautiful things when you too are beautiful.” Hvitserk smirked, waving the bracelet in front of my face.

“This is the third gift you have got me this month.” I tried to act annoyed but couldn’t stop the smile on my face.

He grabbed my hand, putting the bracelet on me.“There, perfect.”

“Thank you Hvitserk. I always feel bad knowing that I cannot repay you.”

“There are some ways. N-no! Not like that! I meant-”

I laughed.“I know what you meant.”

It was strange to see Hvitserk like this. He was always so confident around women but with me he was different; I liked this side of him, it showed he wanted more out of me than a casual fuck. Holding up my hand, I smiled at how the bracelet sat on my wrist, secretly happy that He had got it for me. However, it was true about what I had said before, I always felt terrible whenever he gifted me things. I didn’t like the state’s that were sent my way, what were other people thinking?

“I must go even though I really don’t want to. My brothers are expecting me in the training grounds.” he sighed.

“You wouldn’t want to keep them waiting now. And thank you again, Hvitserk.” I reached up and pecked him on the cheek, loving the look of blush on his face.

As I went on with my day, I didn’t expect to see any of the Ragnarssons. They were all training, I would have some peace now. Although it was lovely to know that three of the prince’s were infatuated with me, I knew that it could end badly. They were always trying to out do each other, sometimes causing arguments. And it was also hard to choose between them; they were all so good to me, so charming and not to mention handsome. Alas, it was starting to become tedious. I knew how it looked, that I was their whore that just kept on taking from them. I wasn’t going to be that, I wasn’t going to become their rumours.

Feeling a tap on my shoulder, I looked in that direction to not find anyone. Facing the other way, I found Sigurd grinning. My expression matched his as our eyes met.

“I was hoping I would see you today.” Sigurd smirked, looking me up and down.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at training? Hvitserk just left earlier.”

“And here I thought you liked spending time with me.”

“I wouldn’t want you getting hurt during a battle.”

“Now you’re saying I’m not a good fighter. Wow, you are full of compliments today.”

I scoffed.“Sigurd, stop twisting my words.”

“You’re just too easy to tease.” he grabbed my hips, pulling me closer.“That meadow of flowers you like has finally blossomed. We’re going to go there today.”

I was shocked.“How do you remember that? I told you that when we were children.”

“It’s important to you, of course I remember.”

“Sigurd that’s so sweet.”

“Come on then, whilst the sun is still up.”

The meadow was beautiful. It was full of bright, yellow flowers that stood tall, they were perfect for lovers to hide in. Only, I didn’t think of Sigurd and I as lovers, nor Hvitserk. It was all very complicated. But for that afternoon, it was bliss. Sigurd had brought my favourite treats, both of us feeding each other as we laid down, the warmth from the sun feeling wonderful against our skin. Sigurd treated me well too, just like Hvitserk, but there were those feelings again; happiness and guilt, both contradicting emotions.

Later on, in the evening, I was about to settle down to eat when someone knocked on my door. Hesitantly, I put down my cutlery, cautiously approaching the door. When I took too long, I heard Ubbe called out to me, confirming it was him. Now relieved, I let him in.

“I am sorry for scaring you. I know how you feel about visitors at night.” He apologised as I closed the door behind him.

“It’s fine.” I walked back to the table.“I wasn’t expecting you to come by so late to see little ol’ me.”

“You’re always so down on yourself. How can you not see what everyone else does?”

“Hm?”

I leaned back on the table as Ubbe walked over.“(Y/N), I want to ask you a question. What makes you happy?”

“What makes me happy? Um…that could be a number of things.”

“Do my brothers make you happy?”

“I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

“I…I don’t know. They make me happy but not in a way that I want. Oh, it doesn’t make any sense!”

“Shh, calm down. I didn’t mean for you to get upset.” one arm wrapped around my waist as the other went to the back of my head, pulling me close.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that…it’s because you asked the question and what with-”

“(Y/N), I only asked because I need this to end.”

“What?”

“I see how my brothers treat you as I do. But I also see the disruption it causes. You have mixed emotions about all of this, it isn’t fair.” We stared at each other, neither of us sure what to say next. He was right. I didn’t want to keep this up any longer. It wasn’t fair on them and it wasn’t fair on me. Not wasting another second, I pulled his face down to mine, kissing him deeply. Ubbe pushed me back into the table, throwing away my plate of food. We broke apart for a moment, though it wasn’t for long as he kissed me again.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I was startled awake by loud banging and muffled shouting, my body and mind not completely following what was going on. Rubbing my eyes, I saw that Ubbe was wide awake, already reaching over for his sword before we realised that his brothers were the culprits. They barged in, shouting out our names as they searched for us. The bedroom door slammed open, Hvitserk and Sigurd both trying to enter at once, struggling against each other. I pulled the furs up, trying to cover myself though feeling sore from the evenings events. Ubbe sighed, shrugging on some trousers as he waited for his brothers to start arguing.

“We knew you would be here! What do you think you’re doing!?” Sigurd exclaimed as he gestured to me.

“That’s not fair! We said that we would not sleep with her, even if she asked! You have cheated.” Hvitserk whined.

“That was stupid. I was drunk when we made that pact. Besides, (Y/N) should decide who she wants to he with.” Ubbe crossed his arms over his chest.

“Can we not do this a bit later please?” I moaned.

“No!” they all shouted.

Sigurd faced me.“(Y/N), you cannot decide right now. It isn’t right.”

“Thank you.”

“You need to sleep with Hvitserk and I before you do that.”

My eyes widened.“What? Are you serious?”

He looked to his brothers, realising he was in trouble.

“How dare you….no, you know what? I’ve already decided.”

They all waited.

“And I’m not going to tell you.”

“What?! Why?!” Hvitserk sounded like a child.

“Because you don’t deserve it. This ends now.”

[th0ughtfl0w]

anxiety.

Grad school is stressing me the FUCK out and I need to get everything out of my brain before I take it all out on someone else or myself. Usually it’s just on myself but sometimes it’s Max and I really need to stop doing that. I don’t know the difference between self criticism and self deprecation and if i’m honest, I really shouldn’t be doing either.

so i guess i’ll just start with the general problem of being overwhelmed. I quite literally have no free time. I really don’t even have the free time to be writing this but I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t, so maybe one of my lectures won’t get finished tonight. I’ll deal with that later, but back to my point - I don’t have free time. Every day I go to work, go to the gym, then come home and study, and then I go to bed. Some days I get a little bit of a break when I finish early, or if my body just refuses to stay awake any longer so I fall asleep at 7:30 pm. That actually happened last week. I slept from 7:30 to 8:30 ish, woke up to take a shower and brush my teeth, then went immediately back to bed and didn’t wake up until after 7 am. I slept for nearly 12 hours because my body had just had enough.

I don’t have time to clean or do laundry or wash dishes or take out the trash or scrub the toilet or wipe down mirrors or go buy pants I’ve been needing for work or do anything for personal enjoyment. Sure I go to the gym, but I also feel like I need to do that because otherwise I’ll be restless and my appetite will get all out of whack and I really don’t have time to figure out a new food regimen because I’ve gotten that so down to a science that even my friends and family know what I eat every day. It’s the same thing every day ad nauseam. I don’t have time to watch any tv any more (thank god football is over because I would waste SO much time watching it). I hardly take care of my plant babies that I love so much. I don’t go out with friends or family. I haven’t been to FedEx to return 3 different things I bought that I’ve been meaning to return - one of which was a gift for my sister and I feel like a shit ass for not doing that.

I am unbelievably overwhelmed with the very few things I do because I cannot take any time for myself. The gym is the only “me time” i get anymore. Sometimes Saturday mornings give me a short reprieve from my monotonous daily life. But on top of all of that, I know I don’t handle stress well. I’ve known that about myself for many years and I have never been able to figure out a more productive way of dealing with my stressors. I’ve been taking my stress out on Max and I’m scared he’s going to leave me because I’m an awful person when I’m stressed. I know when I’m lashing out and when I’m being unreasonable but I can’t make my brain stop churning out pure garbage. I can recognize when I have started doing that but I cannot make it stop and that’s doubly frustrating on top of everything else. I’ll tell myself that I’m a failure and I can’t do the very simple task I set out to do, I’ll recognize that I should forgive myself because it’s not the end of the world, but once I start, my adrenaline just goes and I become furious with myself.

Then inevitably, Max will come into the room while I’m in a blind rage and I try to just explain what happened and what my thought process is/was but it turns into me yelling at him and getting even more irritated. Then he gets pissed and doesn’t want to be near me when all I should be doing is asking for a hug. I need to stop doing that - both to him and to myself. I need to be nicer to myself but I refuse to lower my standards. I know that I hold myself to a very high standard but it’s not an unreasonable standard. I know I can do these things because I have done them, but I can’t do them consistently and when I do fuck it up, my brain spirals.

So knowing that this is unhealthy and that I haven’t been able to fix it on my own, I reached out to several different therapists in my area because it’s really the only thing I can do. Again, no idea when I’m supposed to find the time to go see a therapist but I have to make it work. Saturday mornings, Friday nights, anything. I’m desperate for help. But I can’t get a response. I’ve sent emails, called, left voicemails, and still no response from anyone. I did the brave thing and sought out help only to just be totally ignored. I feel like a failure again. For something entirely out of my control.

I’m at my wits end. I don’t know what else to do. I’ve read self help books. I’ve watched videos and read articles about how to control negative self talk. My anxiety is through the roof and I’m going to break down.

But I can’t afford to stop working or stop doing my school work and emotionally I can’t afford to lose my fitness, so I will hold myself together with hot glue and safety pins until I finally reach my ultimate tipping point.

[lai-lae]

living under the poverty line

The poverty line in Arizona is having an income that is 138% lower than the average salary in the States. I’m one of those people.

I’m not saying this is the life to live but ...

I live on $400.00 a month with 5 lifestyle changes.

My relationship with money has changed. A lot. In this last year I went from having two average paying jobs to no job and taking my unemployment until it was gone. 

For that time, I felt incredibly bound to money. Now? That’s totally changed. I know money ebbs and flows. It flows to me in surprising ways and I take it every chance I get because I can’t negotiate when the next time I’ll get that “financial break”, because it does feel like work at times to budget so hard and to have the discipline to stick to your budget.

Which leads me to the first reason that I can make this minimalist lifestyle work.

1. I have a bunch of people that support me in areas where I’m weaker financially.

I have a brilliant boyfriend that pays rent. This is huge on so many levels. I would be living under a bridge, with a friend (and not be able to afford rent) -- most people aren’t that generous so most realistically I’d be forced to move back home. BFD, at least I wouldn’t be under a bridge.

I have a dad that wants to make up for lost time. It’s not worth getting into, but Dad cuts some cash for his daughter every so often. Which ALWAYS helps. I’m incredibly lucky to have his financial support and would absolutely be in a deeper hole if I didn’t have him. HE PAYS MY CAR PAYMENT PRETTY REGULARLY. NO LECTURE, PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

I have one particularly amazing friend that is much more financially abundant than I am! She takes me out to lunch sometimes, shares what she has with me, and doesn’t lecture me on my life choices. We all need self care. It sucks to not have a payday and think, “Wow, I’m going to allocate this to some retail therapy!”

Which leads me to my next point:

2. My relationship with self care has changed exponentially.

When I had one source of income, I had a very materialistic view of self care. It was getting sheet masks and bath bombs, getting a massage and my favorite dessert, happy hour with friends, or good old fashioned retail therapy.

That’s still true, but also not. Mostly not. A lot of that is the exact opposite now.

I workout instead of taking baths. I foam roll instead of getting a massage. I get fresh fruit instead of cake. When a friend offers to get me a coffee or a meal, I’m eternally grateful and accept instead of feeling shamed for it (eh, I still feel a little embarrassed). As for retail therapy? I go thrifting. Sometimes even through my friend’s closets. So people are typically downsizing, and when they make a Goodwill donation I’m the first to ask, “Can I take a look before it goes?” I’ll even offer to take the donation myself in return. 

My mom is pretty famous for buying clothes, never wearing them, and tossing them. Literally. In the trash. UGH, no way. I’m also helping with my own carbon footprint by not buying more clothes!

3. The budget system I have is insane.

I’m not kidding. Every single cent is designated to a bill before it comes in. I pull my weight in my own way. I don’t want my financial state to affect something as important as my relationships with my loved ones and my boyfriend that already takes care of rent.

I pay for:

a. the phone bill - $175.00

b. electricity - $40.00 - $80.00

c. hulu and netflix - about $30.00 

d. my car (used, 2011, manual) and insurance - $300.00 Thanks Dad!

e. apple care for my phone - $8.00

f. various (things I need on a moments notice) - $100.00

g. I DON’T HAVE STUDENT LOANS THANK GOD.

total: $393.00 - $400.00

This is where things get pretty tragic. I work a virtual assistant job that’s meant to be supplemental income. I get paid $15.00 an hour for each contracted job I have. You can’t milk hours either, you basically have 2 hours to finish some projects, other times 15 minutes. It doesn’t mean you’ll finish it in that amount of time. I don’t think about it as time. I think about it as how much I’ll be paid for that job. Period. Here’s the shit, there’s never a guarantee I’ll get those hours. Tsk, tsk, contract work.

At $15.00 an hour, I subtract 30% to account for taxes. Which means I’m making a delightful $10.50 an hour. Joy.

I have to work an average of 6 hours a day (I work weekends) to get my $400.00. 

But here’s the fun part, I don’t count the gigs I get. This is the pleasant surprise I get. When I book a gig, I know for a fact that I’m going to get more cash in my pocket. That’s what keeps me going. The concept that this will be my full time job if I win and you can’t win if you don’t play (not the lottery, never the lottery).

This reason alone is why I don’t spend a fucking dime.

4. I handle my debt so I don’t go under (any more than I already am).

I am in debt. I have a car payment and a shitty CC bill. The cost of working average salary jobs is that they are soul-killing. For a lot of the years I was pulled away from my passion I was fucking sick.

All the time.

With what? I don’t know. But at one point you get so frustrated with being sick that you go to crazy lengths to feel good. As I mentioned before, all my previous self care tactics involved “getting”. More self care days on top of probiotics, organic EVERYTHING, supplements, medicine, holistic medicine, all of which are really expensive. But I kept getting sick. SO THAT RACKED UP MEDICAL BILLS. Which everyone knows in the States is insane. Even with the killer insurance I had, I was still thousands in debt over it.

I worked gigs in other cities, I had to pay for hotel rooms (low budget projects don’t pay) and I was so desperate for things that made me happy that I never negotiated. I just did it. I had the money. Until I got laid off.

So. My CC statement comes in and I face it every single time. I pay off what’s coming in, and I put $100.00 towards it. The a-c expenses go on my CC so I pay those off every month plus some. I round UP on all those bills so I know I’m putting more towards that principal and I’ll cover my minimum payment with preventing more charges.

How much in debt am I? Almost $10,000. That’s double my “annual salary” without counting acting gigs.

Which is way less than a lot of people my age, considering the student loan crisis, but this is insane for me. I have no excuse to have this, but here I am. Is what is, and I’m chipping away at it the best I can.

For what it’s worth, I had a budget plan when I had my job to leave this year debt free... What kind of opportunity would bring that to me now? That’s up to the universe. I’m dedicated as heck to see it happen. I’m open to it. 

5. You intuitively eat and get generic everything.

Soup is magical. It’s value is insane because the different soups you get can really ensure you get a lot more nutrients. Bread is the one thing I’ll splurge on. 

The trick is eat until your stomach is done growling, then stop. It’s basic portion control, it saves so much food.

I get all my fruit and veggies frozen to avoid wasting perishables. I’ll get fresh food as treats if I know we’ll eat them; typically after a really long only-frozen-food spree.

My grocery list is the same, we buy bulk when we know we’ll use it all (almonds, dish detergent, laundry stuff, etc). My beloved boyfriend will also pitch in for food when times are harder and I get less hours. We do our best. I invest in meal replacement shakes (of Amazon) to help when certain days of the month I’m extra hungry or after hard workouts (which are most days).  

ALL of our basic cleaning supplies are from the Dollar Tree. I’m not kidding, all of it. If we have any household needs, the first place we go is the Dollar Tree. Toilet paper? Cleaners? Can openers? Ziplock bags? Organizers? ALL FROM DOLLAR TREE.

I’m impressed if anyone read to this point.

TL; DR

Swallow your pride. Accept help when it’s offered from anyone. If it feels transactional, offer services in return. Don’t exploit people or drain them, it’ll only make you feel shittier. Cash in your favors.

Budget all of your finances. Stick to it at all costs (pun intended) to not let yourself fall in deeper. 

Make self care about legit caring for yourself through exercise, good food, and having deep conversations with people you care about. 

Take this time to listen to your body when it comes to hunger. Read labels, think about the food groups, and know that most things that are frozen are about as good as the real thing.

Lastly, remember that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Your effort to your goal is being sent somewhere and it will come back to you. When I hustle I see it. Keep up the hustle.

[medkltty-blog]

The Integrity of Medical School

I’ve been in medical school for a little over a semester and I have become very disillusioned with medical school as an institution. I’m glad I’m in medical school and I know how lucky I am to be in medical school, however, I’m struggling with the ethics of medical school as an institution.

It took me six years to get into medical school. In that time I got a bachelor’s degree, a graduate degree, I worked full-time and volunteered nearly 20 hours a week. I took the MCAT and went on interviews and paid for my applications. In that time, I also probably spent well over 30 thousand dollars trying to get into medical school, not including the student loans I had to take out to pay for my pre-med and graduate classes. The cost of my applications, alone, was 5 thousand dollars. And that was the second time I applied. The cost of my interviews were also easily 5 thousand dollars as well. 

When I got into medical school I was excited to become a doctor. I was proud of myself and felt vindicated that all of my hard work paid off. I was ready to start learning how to be a doctor. My first semester was absolutely miserable. The morale of my class was extremely low. We go to a school that heavily emphasizes wellness but a slew of new changes based on feedback from students ahead of us created a schedule that was unsustainable and didn’t leave time for any self-care practice or wellness at all. The idea of wellness became a running inside joke in our class where people would proudly state that they participated in self-care by taking a shower for the first time in two days or by sleeping in past 7am on a Saturday.

But we got through that first semester, propelled by second year students telling us that it would be all downhill after that and that once we started organ systems second semester, we’d be so much happier and have so much time to take care of ourselves and study (because our schedule was so jam-packed that it left very little time to study and our attendance in class is required). We had third year medical students telling us how they would rather repeat their entire third year of medical school and all the crazy rotations that go with it than repeat their first semester. And so we took all of our finals and set off for winter break looking forward to next semester.

Our second semester started a little over three weeks ago. News that we lost six of our classmates spread through the class. They chose to leave or weren’t allowed to come back by the administration. It was an elephant in the room that none of us can talk about because of privacy rules. Still, morale is higher when we start up our organs systems classes.

And that is when I realized what a money scam medical school is. I am required to go to class if I want my class rank to be high not because our classes actually teach us information but because your grade is connected to your attendance, so poor attendance = a poor grade = a lower class rank. I sit in class for up to 9 hours a day and have clinicians read powerpoint slides word-for-word to me, none of which are interesting or helpful to my actual learning and all of which I could have read to myself at home. I am told by our academic administrators to buy resources like First Aid to study for Step 1, they bought us a Q bank but we have to pay for everything else. $900 later, I have subscriptions to Pathoma, RX, Sketchy, and Firecracker. I wanted to buy a set of clinical case books recommended to us but the price on Amazon was $653. By the time I take Step 1 I will have taken out 150 THOUSAND dollars in student loans ON TOP OF the student loans I already have from two bachelor degrees and a master’s degree. 

I will need to pay the fees for the Step exams on my own. I am expected to join various professional societies and pay their yearly fees because it will make my residency application look better even though joining those professional societies has no impact on what kind of physician I will be, how much I care about others, or my Step 1 score. And, of course, those professional societies are so generous and give you a discount because you’re a medical student, so instead of paying $500 you’re asked to only pay $150. But isn’t it worth it to add some fake prestige to your residency application by saying you went to the AMA conference one year? The AMA that endorsed Tom Price for HHS secretary? The AMA that endorsed someone who wants to remove the ACA and condemn 43,000 additional people to death due to lack of insurance every year. Sign me the fuck up, right?

I am disgusted with the cost of medical school. I knew it would be expensive but I feel it is unethical to ask students to spend so much money applying to medical school and taking the MCAT and then asking them to pay EVEN MORE. Especially when there was so much hand-wringing from the AAMC and NBME about how to make medical school more affordable and how to increase the diversity among students and increase the number of first generation physicians (since studies show that children of doctors tend to be worse doctors than their first generation peers). I have an idea:

Get rid of the first two years of medical school. Make Step 1 the admissions exam for students. Get rid of application fees and the MCAT altogether. Start students up in January, give them a ten week course in gross anatomy, followed by a two week intensive clinical skills course and a first aid/CPR certification, and start them up on wards in April, a full 2 to 3 months earlier than most schools. This gives students 5 to 6 months to explore specialties after their required rotations instead of 2 to 3 which aren’t even really used for students to explore since those are the rotations they need to do in order to get the letters of rec they need for their residency applications (may be the lack of time to explore specialty options is why 60-90% of physicians hate their fucking jobs). 

And then, of course, you have to spend thousands of dollars on your residency applications and travel for interviews, which are not factored in to your student loan awards. 

This will never happen, though, because the AAMC makes billions of dollars in application fees, MCAT fees, and official test prep materials. The NBME makes billions of dollars off the backs of students paying for their exams and the LCME makes just as much. None of the organizations that could change the system have the incentive to do so because they are too busy milking medical students for all the money they have.

I know it sounds like I’m too money focused. The truth is, I’m not. I gave up hope of ever paying off my student loans years ago. I will never pay them back and I didn’t want to be a doctor because of the salary. My disillusionment with medical school as an institution is due to the ethics of it all. When I was applying to medical school there was a huge push to improve medical class diversity and encourage more minority and lower class students to apply. You can get fee waivers and financial assistance to cover the cost of your MCAT fees. But that doesn’t go far enough. Those application fee waivers don’t make booking flights for interviews any cheaper, they don’t lower the cost of having to rent a car or buy a suit for an interview. 

How can we expect students living in poverty to drop 5 grand on interview costs just to get in to medical school? How can we expect students living in underserved communities to afford the cost of Step 2 and the price of travel to and from the 6 locations in the country you can take it? Underserved communities NEED students who understand what living in those communities is like to go back and be their doctors. And, yes, there are scholarships and small-scale help, but I’m arguing that the entire system, right now, is designed to keep students who can’t afford to pay for medical school admittance out. Is a student whose family is on food stamps really going to have $150 to pay for the MCAT? No. 

I look around at the people in my class, which to my school’s credit is exceedingly diverse in race and religious background, however almost everyone in my class comes from a family that was middle class or above. Half of my classmates have parents who can afford to pay for their tuition and living expenses. I am part of the other class that has to take out loans. But when I was applying to medical school and there was a mix up with my teaching assistant stipend that lead to it being delayed, my dad was able to loan me the $2500 I needed to submit my AMCAS application on time. If I had not had a full-time job as a graduate student, though, I would not have been able to afford the cost of interviewing, and a third of the interviews I went on were local. 

In class, we are asked to think about treatment plans for patients and discuss them with each other. The girl sitting next to me says she thinks this ethics class is a waste of our time. The patient is an overweight child who we need to counsel, she lives in a run down part of a large city. We work together on her treatment plan and my partner comes up with a list of groceries to buy. I point out that the patient in question is a minor and likely not in charge of her food and that the education needs to be directed towards the parent and the patient. I also point out that due to the income level of the area they live in, the patient’s mother is likely relying on food stamps. I go over the grocery list and not a single thing is realistic. I point out that food stamps cannot be used to buy milk. My partner is shocked, her eyes widen; when I tell her how food stamps in my state can’t be used to buy rice, her entire world is turned upside down. I voice this in class when we are invited to share. A male classmate who is openly gay and voted for Trump comes up to me and asks me to explain why food stamps can’t be used to buy milk. I do and he doesn’t know what to say.

I look at my classmates who do not understand what poverty looks like in reality and I think about the people I know in rural towns who blew their entire savings trying to get into medical school only to be told when they didn’t get in that they needed to go take the MCAT again because the 29 they got wasn’t good enough, they needed a 30. The people suggesting this to my friend recommend taking an MCAT course not realizing the closest one would be two hours away and that the nearly 3 grand the course costs makes that impossible, not to mention the cost of taking the test again. It doesn’t matter, though, because she wouldn’t be able to afford all of the resources for Step 1 let alone the cost of THAT exam once she got into medical school. She works as a CNA in a nursing home.

How can we put such a financial burden on students applying to medical school? How can we ask medical students to pay so much money for residency applications, licensing exams, and tuition? How can we do that and then ask them to enter a profession that requires them to get permission from insurance providers and hospital administrators to order a damn chest CT? How can we ask them to pay so much money and then ignore the fact that there aren’t enough residency spots available for all of them to train in? How can we ask pre-med and medical students to pay so much money when the health care system is in shambles and the only people making money are hospital CEOs and insurance companies? How can we expect medical students to pay back their massive student loans in a system like that? Why are institutions like the AAMC so comfortable setting so many medical students up for failure?

Because my school emphasizes wellness, we have mandatory wellness classes we have to attend. Because, in medical school, giving students time to practice self-care isn’t as important as requiring them to attend a four hour class telling them they need to practice self-care and get lots of sleep, all while requiring them to be at school by 8am and making us sit in class until 5pm, giving us five hours of the day to study before we do it all again. And, of course, in those five hours of study time we also need to fit in time to exercise, feed ourselves, and maybe speak with our loved ones for five minutes to make sure they are still alive. Because self-care!

I wouldn’t say I’m jaded about medical school this early on but I am questioning why this system is in place. Why pay for two years of medical school when everyone just uses First Aid and Step resources to get a good score? I think medicine, as an institution, is really stuck in this idea of “well, I had to do it so you do, too” which I think is a really dangerous way of thinking. I think if medical students have extremely high rates of depression and anxiety (myself included, however mine was with me long before medical school) and it just gets worse through residency and becoming an attending there’s something wrong with the system. And if something isn’t working, why shouldn’t it be fixed? “Because I went through it and you should, too” isn’t a good enough answer for me. It’s also not accurate, right? The doctors who are saying that bullshit excuse went to medical school in a different time, where they could actually make decisions about patient care without having to call an insurance company for permission first. They went through medical school when it was actually affordable. They went through medical school when the idea of a woman being a doctor was either not allowed, unheard of, or looked down on, because who would take care of their kids at home while they went through residency if their wife was in medical school? 

So, yeah, they went through medical school and worked all of these hours and paid for medical school but the context was different, so I still want to know why such an archaic system that is already financially unattainable for people we NEED to be doctors and is quickly becoming financially unattainable for anyone who doesn’t have a trust fund is allowed to exist. I want to know why a 60-90% dissatisfaction rate is considered acceptable among physicians without any examination of the system that makes them into physicians.

[surveys-r-us]

ugh

Which is better: good ‘ole southern food or sea food? Sea food

Have you ever had a very strong spiritual experience? I dunno

What do you think you want to major in at college? I was a Business major

Minor in? Didn’t minor in anything.

What song do you have on repeat lately? In My Room - Frank Ocean

What’s something important you could be doing now? Applying for jobs or practicing with Excel for my interview next week. 

How do you feel about Circuit City going out of business? I still remember it going out of business. I had to read about it for a class and it was them making stupid business decisions so it’s not shocking they went out of business. 

About how often do you go on cleaning sprees? Like once or twice a month, but if I’m super stressed or procrastinating, more often. 

What’s the best story you’ve gone over in an English class? Julius Caesar

Is your house haunted? No lol

What kind of tissues do you prefer? Two ply

What face wash do you use? Cetaphil Gentle Skin cleanser, and this Aveeno Cream cleanser if I have acne. 

Do you reject Satan? Sure?

Are you violent? No

Do you use google search or yahoo? Google.

Was your step mother terrible? Don’t have one. 

Do you know anyone who doesn’t care about anything but themselves? Lol don’t we all know someone like this?

Are you single? If no who are you dating and for how long? I’m single. I plan on staying single for a while too. Not in the mood to get hurt again. 

Do you enjoy going for walks? Yeah but I don’t go on them often. 

What are your favorite accessories? Scarves

Do you wear makeup on a regular basics? No. Maybe a couple times a week. My acne’s been shit lately so I try to only wear it when I’m doing something. 

When was the last time you really established your favorite TV show? Mr. Robot. Ugh it’s so good and no one gives it enough credit. 

Write one lyric that really explains the way your life is going as of now? I can’t really think of one right now

Do you ever have any fantasies that involve certain celebrities? Who? Not really. But Glam&Gore from YouTube was in my dream last night. It was odd. 

What is your favorite brand of shoe? Where can you buy these shoes? Vans. A lot of places but I bought mine at Journey’s 

Does anyone ever judge you for something you naturally cannot help? Probably lol Do you support homosexuality in general? Why do you or why don’t you? Of course. Because people should be able to love who they love. 

If you had your own personal dance crew, what would you name it and why? Whatever Jason’s dance crew was called on the Good Place. Because I like that show.

Has anyone ever called you an exact replica of one of your parents? Agree? Used to be called my mom’s mini me when I was a kid. 

Have you ever claimed to be in love when you knew you really weren’t? I mean sure. I loved the idea of someone and realized I wasn’t in love later on. It happens. 

If you had the chance to meet an annoying celebrity, would you still do it? Depends on who it is. 

Do you ever lie in the grass during summer or are you afraid of ticks? Sometimes but I’m allergic to grass so I avoid it. And I don’t think ticks are usually in the grass? At least here. I dunno. I see a lot of ants tho but they don’t bug me too much. 

Does it bother you when you see slutty girls getting all the cute guys? This is a stupid question

In winter, would you rather wear jacket or hoodies? Why is this? Hoodies. I hate wearing coats/jackets. 

Would you consider yourself a good singer or are you tone deaf? Meh I’m below average at best but I really only sing when I’m drunk so probably tone deaf let’s be honest.

Do you think regrets are better left unspoken or should they be out loud? I don’t know. It depends.  What color is your remote? Does it have any special/interesting features? Black. You can tell it to go to a certain channel or look something up. 

Name a time when you cried the most: It was like two months ago. I don’t want to talk about it. It sucked and I didn’t deserve to be treated that way. 

What color is your keyboard? Black

Have you ever thought about suicide? I have. 

How do you feel about Obama? I miss him. 

What was the last lie you told? Think I made an excuse up to get out of plans or I stretched the truth in the interview. lmao.

Name 3 things in your purse (or wallet): My keys, chapstick, a pen

What time does your favorite TV show come on? 10 PM on Sundays

Where is the scariest place you’ve ever been? Apparently the school I studied abroad at was haunted. 

Do you like string cheese? Yes

What color was the coolest insect you’ve seen? Dunno Do you own any pink clothing? Yes How do you usually style your hair? I don’t. I’m lazy and let it be natural most of the time. 

Do you use anything to whiten your teeth? Yes but I haven’t in a while since I have sensitive teeth nowadays.

Have you ever collaborated with anyone on a project (not for school)? Not that I can think of

What is (going to be) your career? The fuck if I know. Hopefully this administrative job works out. 

What is the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? No idea

Were you breastfed as a baby? I was lactose intolerant so no. 

What does your favorite shirt look like? It’s a gray, black and orange striped sweater. It’s comfy af. 

What is the cutest breed of puppy in your opinion? All of them

What is the cutest baby animal in general? Seals! 

Do you have some sort of odd fascination with anything? I get these weird hyper fixations on things for a while. A few recent ones: Hamilton, Derry Girls, etc. 

Who was the last person to text you? My mom lol

What did they say? "Feed the dog.”

Have you ever broken someones heart? Yep. 

Had yours broken? Yes

Do you consider past relationships a waste of time? Gabe because I have no idea if anything he told me was the truth and I found out some terrible things he did to other people after things ended. Technically wasn’t a relationship though.

Do you think you’ll be around to see the world end? No

Do you believe in second chances? Yes, but not more than that. Except I’m notorious for giving people multiple chances when I shouldn't so currently working at practicing what I preach on the matter.

Do you swear? All the time lol

What is the nearest photo to you of? A photo of me and my cousins

Are you good at being quiet? Depends on who I’m around. If it’s someone I’m comfortable around, I’m horrible at being quiet. If I don’t really know someone, I’m super quiet.  

Who has your heart? No one. At least I’m trying to convince myself of that. 

Do you like it that way? At the moment, yes. Just wish I didn’t need so much convincing ya know. 

Where is this person? N/A

When was the last time you saw them? N/A 

Do you prefer desktops or laptops? Laptops 

Sunrise, or sunset? Sunset. I had a newfound appreciation for sunrises because  waking up early and talking with Gabe for hours. That was one of my best memories of the year but we’re no longer on speaking terms. So now I look back at it and the memory instead makes me sad. So not really a fan of sunrises because not completely over the situation, even tho I’m telling myself and my friends i’m over it. If I tell myself that enough, it’ll eventually be true, right? 

What kind of mood are you in? I think “meh” would be the most accurate way to describe it. 

Do you like fans that blow directly on you or oscillate? No

What is one thing you worry about most in long-term goals? Not being able to afford to travel where I want to go (which is pretty much everywhere)

Right before you fall asleep, what is your usual position? On my side, but lately I’ve just been passing out when my body finally decides to get tired so sometimes it’s on my back or in a weird ass position with my phone still in my hand. 

When you have sex, do you keep your eyes closed or open when finishing? Closed. I dunno I’ve only finished once, or so I think. 

When you have mail do you open the biggest one first, or doesn’t matter? Doesn’t matter. Whatever looks more important. 

When you wake up what is the first thing you usually look for? My antidepressants

Think of the last habit/addiction you quit. What replaced it? I can’t think of an answer

Your phone rings but you don’t know the number, would you answer it? Nope

Do you always take a shower after you have sex? No, but I do pee. Ladies, avoid UTIs and always remember to pee after. 

Do you let your girl/boyfriend drive, or do you prefer to? I’m single af, but my ex would drive mostly but I used to have horrible driving anxiety after a car wreck. I like driving now. 

The last time you had sex was it in the morning, afternoon or night? Morning. 

[420710ge-blog]

my first entry

all of these entries will be more or less stream of consciousness

Im watching queer eye. SO I felt like writing a blog and starting a blog bc im emotional and severely depressed. ( if the fab 5 could re vamp me and my life omg)

I'm trying to grasp this concept that i am 28 years old

and i STILL have no idea who the fuck I am or what the fuck am i gonna do.

what i do know is I am a single. I am straight-ish haha (no one is straight these days eff lables and gender norms) I live in a basement. The neighborhood I live in isnt the best in my opinion for me. I know I enjoy cities and hustle and bustle and noise. this area is not where i want to spend a long period of time in. I have my drivers license but dont have a car. I'm on a fixed income. I am very very poor. I've been struggling with money my whole life. My mother was struggling with money and work my whole childhood ive come to learn. i feel like my mom maybe didn't give me all the right tools i needed to make it in this world.

I'm not a good cook, but i enjoy cooking and wish I was good. I eat very unhealthy. I dont know how to shop for groceries or clothes. i eat fast food,microwaves meals and snacks, cheese and crackers, cereal, deli sandwhiches, pb & j, fruit snacks, ice tea, juice and water. (thats basically it unless i go out to eat which is bad bc i have no money for it.)

i cannot grasp the concept of money i dont know how to budget or balance a check book or keep track of spending. i need to put money a side and save and i just cant seem to do it. The money is always being used. i feel like im always in debt or owing money that i never get in front of this wave to start earning actual income every dollar i make is always spoken for and the $1 to 80 dollars that i actually get left over is for cleaning supplies hair products medication condoms tampons pads basically things i need. and im honest in saying i do spend money on food and great craft beer bc its my way of treating myself for actually making a payment or actually getting out of bed, for going hungry for a few days or for having a good mental health day.

My hobbies include filling out job applications, fighting with doctors and secretaries, bill collectors debt collect companies and creditors, watching youtube videos, vloggers and youtubers on my phone and my freinds old old laptop the basement has pretty difficult internet connection and it is freezing cold but other than that its nice it works its a place to sleep and shelter, other hobbies are watching movies and tv, and lastly SLEEP. i sleep 10-14 hours most days or i go 2 days without sleep. i am always over sleeping or i just cant turn my brain and stress and anxiety off just to shut my eyes and sleep. I almost never talk with friends or see other people or go out and hang with friends. the only times i do go out is if someone offers to pay for me or otherwise i cant.

i am addicted to social media. i cant go for more than 15 seconds without checking instrgram or snap chat or youtube or facebook. i can easily spend 11 hours going back and forth between those 4 sites. it is very bad for my mental health and its stunted my success bc i cant help but compare myself. and its vicious negative cycle that i cant seem to break.

i have to walk or use uber or lyft or public transit to get around which gets very expensive over time. walking and being out waiting for the bus or train is very triggering for my mental health. People who are fortunate to have the luxury to own or lease a car please realize the people who cannot afford a car or cannot drive for whatever reason are not second class citizens. People and humans are very nasty and rude and more terrible than youd imagine. having to walk everywhere and be in with the public as much as i have turns you into a cynical abrasive aggresive hateful and rageful person. for example a few weeks ago a car turned on the street that i was walking on and the walk sign was lit and he had a yellow switching to a red, her turned quickly to beat the light that he didnt see me or the walk sign and was inches away from me so i ran after his car and punched the shit out of the passenger window. i spazed out like that bc i had a week of walking in the freezing cold (and living in a super cold place) being rained on and splashed by the puddles being ran thru by cars, teenagers on busses making fun of me throwing things at me, people in cars yelling shit at me and the others standing at a bus bc we dont have a car and we have to wait in the cold assuming that we were all bums or homeless.

I am not happy or passionate about things i use to be obsessed with. I grew up loving comedy. stand up sketch improv.

i use to perform. i would go see it all the time it meant the world to me it is what i wanted t0 do with my life.

but now I dont and i think its was stupid. and a waste of time. same with college it was a waste of time and money to get a degree in something i have no passion about anymore. and a degree in something in which there are no jobs for you.it was terrible decision i made. one of the billions of terrible decisions i ahve made in my life

I have zero self confidence and i barely care what my appearance looks like anymore. i glance in mirrors but never really look at myself. I dont look people in the eyes anymore. I think so hard about what i am saying for i say that it comes out more often that not weird or incorrect bc i am so worried about what others are thinking about me so then that leads to me getting made fun of for how i talk or how i say things. I am always the butt of my friends jokes im always being poked fun at or pranked or messed with.

I dress like 15 year old skate kid. i have nothing that is appropriate for like an office or an audition  or job interview or business meeting or family event or a formal event or cocktail party. i dont know how to dress for my age or for my gender. 

I am super lazy and messy but i have been working on it.

i use cannabis recreationally not everyday but definitely multiple times a week. when i can afford it. it helps clear my head and use the same way a person uses a nice glass of wine at the end of a long day. i dont think its wrong or inhibiting me as a person. sometimes it even helps with motivation and helps get me out of a depressive funk.

I am severely depressed and have an anxiety disorder.

I over think about everything. i make plans and lists for every scenario that i am going to encounter on a daily basis its almost obsessive. my train of thought before entering a conversation with anyone is “do not say anything weird dont look at them for to long, dont fidget, omg what are they thining about when they are looking at me, am i ugly and i coming off as weird or immature or nervous.” 

I lost alot of very important people in my life bc of death or from people and friends and family just cutting me off and people to live the rest of their lives without me. it makes me judge and hate everyone.

I am constantly worried that i am gonna become homeless live on the streets and become a junkie. I actually think about this so so so much. i actually shocked from what i have been thru that i havent become a junkie yet.

I dont want what most white women in their late twenties want and crave. i dont relate or most girls in my age range. its hard for me to find things in common with my peers.

I dont want to buy or own a house. renting forever is fine by me

I do want to buy and own a car preferably a truck but a small suv could work too.

I dont want a family. I dont want children my own or adoptive. I dont want to live in the suburbs or in a neighborhood with tons or old people and families.

i dont want marriage i think its problematic and dumb thing to subject yourself to.

i enjoy soccer and skateboarding and true crime movies and tv shows and horror movies and tv shows.i like some funny things but its selective. i love the sims.

i want to try out living in other states in the us and maybe even try living in the uk.

if i was rich i would want 2 small apartments in central city locations on both coasts of the us one on one and one on the other. and ill use my money to travel. i am craving to travel so badly its all i have been thinking about lately. but again no funds

i want to meet someone who just totally sweeps me off my feet. somone who knows how to be a real man and real boyfriend im tired iof these boys i need a guy who calls me out on my bs, gives constructive criticism, incredibly supportive and KIND. i want our respectfulness to be at an 100%. i want to feel worshipped and adored. i want them to be succesful and be able to bring me up and boost me forward. great listener. not sleepy or annoyed very easily. insane dark weird goofy sense of humor. id love them to be outgoing and be able to command a room and be comfortable around people new and old. great sex and adventures. currently im giving my ex a chance and its prolly a terrible idea.

i want a makeover i want to learn how to dress myself correctly and figure what my style is, make money and keep money, how to cook, how to skateboard, how to surf, how to take care of my skin and my hair. I want to learn how to work out where i wont make my current ailments and injuries and medical issues flare up and put me out of business for few days. id like to have toned arms back shoulders and legs and to not be winded dont everyday tasks.

if i had to make a dream cocktail. and the final result would be the new me i would throw in the blender: confidence of a drag queen, the wit and sharp tongue of joan rivers, the comedic timing of sean hayes, riley reids sex skills, the intelligence and maturity of michelle obama, pinks hair and singing skills, kat dennings body and dgaf attitude. that would be the perfect me in my eyes.

I want to make everyone proud of me. and I want to be proud of myself. 

idk what this was but its on the internet

-GE

[somedaypast-thesunset]

so hes essentially stopped having sex with me. physical affection is like.. few and far between. and i guess, thanks? i guess? like step up from my oshawa ex for sure - he fucked me until i left. so like, thanks? thanks for not just using me? 

i tried to be more understanding like maybe this is just how he feels right now but these little things managed to add up and with his refusal for sex ... i mean, he’s not “refusing”. i dont really come on to him. the last time we did have sex it was pretty bad. like bad enough both of us admitted it was pretty bad. i thought maybe that had something to do with it.

but he started nitpicking and being rude about it. like leaving my shoes at the door - which he does everyday all day; but it’s not my house and i should be a perfect guest always and if i’m not, it’s disrespectful. he suggested that i gain weight - jokingly mind you, but not really. finally he told me to “put money aside” to pay for myself at meals with friends because it made him uncomfortable. then suggested that “instead of not going at all” i run a tab with him and keep track of everything he buys me. 

i told him no thanks. i dont want a walking credit card. i never wanted that. that doesnt make my life any better at all. its more uncomfortable for me that the guy whos dick i suck makes me pay for all my meals. and i get it - he doesnt need to cover all of them. but holy fuck what kind of relationship is it that you cant even go out because your partner wont pay for your meal? your partner ho makes more money ad has more disposable income than a majority of our peers. 

i just thought it was really careless to make a suggestion like this when i cannot afford to eat out. period. thats not a luxury i can have right now and u know what? THATS OKAY. holy fuck, of all the luxuries i dont need and am not going to die from; it’s that. i kept thinking it was like a keeping up th the joneses kind of thing. like i’m paying to go out to eat food not to eat food but to prove i can afford to go out and eat food to a group of people. i PREFER to live frugually. even hen i have OTHER PEOPLES MONEY i try to save and be frugal for them because i feel disgusted hen a large amount of money is wasted. ive had dozens of opportunities to spend his money hoever i wanted and continually chose the cheapest option. only recently did i start choosing take out options OVER 10$. like i was literally choosing anything under 10$ so i wouldnt be a burden while his meal ould be 20 -25$. 

he tried to be friendly afterwards but i felt like it was a final straw. its never a discussion. its just hurling insults at me and completely disregarding the reason why i have suh little money. my entire being is dedicated to not being brought down by him ad people like him in the interim of hopefully making my life better. like if i cant get through this then i dont even have a hope of it being better and apparantly “this” is being shit on over and over and over again. i just.. i dont care anymore. he was really just annoying me at this point. im tired of being made to feel super poor. like no one else does this to me. i do manage to take care of myself a good portion of the time and most know where my money goes. im tired of having to give myself a pep talk to feel better about myself because hes made me question my value and worth. 

last night i slept crammed against the wall. literally. and hes come to a point he feels this is appropriate because sleeping together is such a hassle for him and it just reminded me of my abusive ex. but then he decided to jack off beside me first thing in the mornig and i was done. like i guess im very hard headed but hey - i get it now. i’m nothing to you. i dont deserve anything. i dont deserve to wake up peacefully, a good morning - nothing. all i deserve is to ake up to some disgusting man jacking off beside me. i got dressed, gathered my stuff and left. i said nothing to anyone, i just left. cuz hat the fuck is the point? i felt like a little “guilty” that this would create anxiety for him but who the fuck even cares? i dot even want to have a conversation with him because i dont have conversations ith him i just listen to him. there is no back and forth, no discovery or discussion. its just me listening to him. so why fucking bother. he knows i wouldnt leave unless i was upset so the “point” is made but i have no point. i’m just done, i think? i think you know youre the most done when words are not useful anymore ad like there is nothing i want to discuss. i dont even ant to tell him what a shitty person hes been. all it leads to is guilt and pity and sticking around because he thinks hes supposed to. i want to be with someone who wants to be with me. but like that never happens. no oe ever wants to be with me. they want to be ith some other perso but i’m good enough. and it sounds very woe is me but this is the truth. ad i am an attractive nice person. i am very caring and loving and loyal. i am a great girlfriend. but no one ever wants to actually be with me. theyve always wanted someone else, someone else is always actually “the one” ad theyve either gotten away or they never got a chance and now they’re just stuck with _me_. my first “love” was already in love ith someone else but it as never going to happen (and hen he thought it as going to it didnt and he still came back to me and that is not even a bonus thats just proving my point). my second, still enamored with his ex he never fully proved cheated on him but he thought she did (but u know maybe she didnt). and all the men in between - they wanted someone else. they predictably ended up with a few of the someone elses. and right now is just repeating this scenario. 

and you know, i come across these dudes and they tell ME they love ME. i would never dare utter such words to these people and give myself like that unless it was very important for me to do. like if i as a year into it and no one said shit and i felt strongly about it, then maybe i would but i dont even offer this to close friends. love is the most serious. 

but they tell me they love me. and all i want is love. i dont even want necessarily to BE LOVED but i would like love to exist in my life in a very pure and geuie ay that ive witnessed with others. its not like i need love and attention from all these people. i dont need love to be validated as a person. i can be without love temporarily and move forward in life. i have less sources of love than many people ad im not actively seekig it from dozens of people. but if someone asks me what do you want? perhaps i want money and security. this ould be high on the list. but i think most of all i want love. i want to experience love. my parents did not love me. or maybe my father did but i dot think he was wholy capable of giving pure love. these are perhaps the people who should be my pillars ad theyre not ad everyoe else got to experience love - not eve sexual love. its not eve sexual. its not romantic. everyone aroud me has bee able to experience pure true love of some form and i feel like i have not. like theres nevere been a single stable source of love for any length of time in my life.

and society is tryig to fill this void with medication and money and everything else but actual love an like i guess its hard not to believe that im undeserving or incapable of feeling love or receiving love. and i think this is like a top 5 survival need. like food, water, shelter, love. maybe this is the intricate part of the human experience and we so easily cover food and water and shelter now for many people but you canot cover love. you cannot package it into a goverment subsidy and yet so may people suffering have lacked love. and this pushes them to drugs and alcohol and they suffer from depression and obesity and they eat themselves to diabetes and they let their feet rot off their legs because no matter how hard they worked, no matter all the good deeds they did; they never fully received their dues in love. they suffered ad struggled alone an family ad frieds and relatioships left them but hey - they made some money. and thank god they didt just “live on welfare”. but its like - if someone did not have food or water or shelter, you ouldnt immediately offer them a job to solve the problem. there is a immediate need that has to be filled before they can help themselves. you have to give them food so they can work. if no one cares, why the fuck should they? like you’re noteve a person you’re just “the homeless” now. and like everythng of your life is referred to as “the homeless” life now. 

im surrounded by people who have been given a lot of love in their life. even though theyve become blinded to their priviledges, theyve been given so much love. they are spoiled. they cant eve see the love thats being given. i argued with a mutual fried about another; she said it was rude to say this fried ould always be there heever she needed it and not show up. i told her isnt it enough to know in your soul this person wants that so badly for you but real life dictates differetly? like the love is there. the intention is there but real life doest allow it. she couldnt see the love. 

and i guess maybe some of these people are so spoiled that they dot understad the importance of something that is like breathing air to them. they probably believe i can get love elsewhere, just like they do. they are rich in love. but its the same thing - if someone tells me they love me, i actually believe they love me. well, i want to believe. 

i also believe this problem is “easily” solved for women by having children. children are a constant source of love and hen they turn out not to be, it’s ground shaking. mothers dont kno how to go on. but i believe, even in solid relationships, that children come from a desire to give and receive love that is not currently in their life. maybe i dont understand a maternal instinct. perhaps maternal instinct is this. maybe its kicked in and im too logical to understand that its not that “easy”. neither are relationships, and at least your kids legally arent allowed to abandon you. but i think this is why, especially with young mothers, theyre inclined (if single) to sort of “lose focus” on their children when a new man enters. suddenly, especially ina “honey moon phase”, theyre receiving a ton of love. more love and attention than their children, of any age, can probably give them. 

i have little expectations with love. i mean, i assume if you “love me” you wont be cruel or malicious. like, you wont try to harm me. thats what i expect. i dont even expect NOT to be harmed. i may be harmed. thats involved in love. you cant feel such strong things for someone and not be harmed somewhere down the line. it could be big or small; someone will eventually feel bad but then it’ll probably be okay again. however someone gives love, i try to receive it as is without shaping it to what i believe is right. love is abstract; you accept it as is but we all want to read into it and find the deeper meaning and stories and little things involved but in the end its just a very abstract concept hich encompasses a wide range of emotions and psychological things. you cant really say, “if you loved me you would do this or this”. its like you are the artist and love is your paint and the world is a canvas. you cant tell picasso how to paint. that only fits your mold. we liked picasso because of how he expressed it, how he painted it - not how you shaped his painting to your liking. 

and like youre allowed to not like someones painting - someones expression of love. and some people, they suck. like they just outright suck ass they need to go back to basics and start over before they unleash anymore of their “artistry”. and some people are offensive. some people create offensive things and this thing might hurt people or make people uncomfortable. most people ask to have their “art” - their “expression of love” taken seriously. however good or bad it is, it’s theirs and this is how they see it. but its like, i dont have to buy a jackson pollock and hang it on my wall because i respect his expression. i dont have to have sex with a woman because i respect homosexuality. so you can accept, respect and walk away from someones expression. it doesnt have to be for you. you can even have the freedom to speak about your feelings of this expression for yourself but you cant dictate how someone else should feel. 

i guess my situation is many of these men bought a picasso - or tried to, and for whatever reason, it’s not aroud anymore so they’ll accept a pollock in its place because i mean, he’s still “pretty good”. 

but you know - at the same time, it’s okay. this isnt a unique situation. this is very much part of the human experience. everyone at some point will feel this way to some degree. i just happen to feel it really strongly right now because of my circumstances in life. its like taking shrooms and one perso is cool ad another trips badly; theyre just not in the right place in the right way to experience this thing of life.  thats me right now. i wasnt prepared for this trip ad its pretty never ending. its like a really long road trip in fear ad loathing but its like 10 years of sitting ith johny depp and youve foud out he beats his ife and is a severe alcoholic and its just... overwhelming. 

so i dont know. i need to really accept and take this knowledge seriously. im proud that i just left because ive stayed too many times. i thought about it an had my guilt and ould stay for my shitty ride home and get my “daily kiss” and its just like.. i no longer hate myself this much. i can do better than this scenario. its not even a personal insult to him - his personality is cool. as a human, great. but the scenario we have created - WE, okay. not him. this is a joint effort where i allowed someone to treat me like this with full knowledge that it was bullshit. no one held me hostage and it wast like i just became a personal slave to him. but its like, i even explained it with drugs. once you allow yourself to normalize gross things, its not hard to become a junkie. like if you decide smoking crack or injecting drugs is the worst shit but suddenly you’ll smoke meth and you’ll inject a “safe” drug like k but “not heroin”. this is the “gateway effect”. so we normalized this really shitty behavior ad made it easy for him to fall into habits of doing things others would (and have) walked away from. 

you know, i hate that he makes future plans and none of them involve me. ever. but he tells me he loves me. and its like, i dont even have anxiety about whether or not ill see him today. i kind of hope i dont. i think itll be easy to assume im upset he “wont buy me food anymore”. but i really just.. we are on two different planets. equally confused by each others wants and needs. i dont eve want a conversation because if someone doesnt have the desire to be affectionate with me why bother asking. 

[whoistabitha-blog]

Super Mom Life

I always see these memes where the mom is run ragged and I think to myself, “Can’t relate”.

I am not sure if it’s because I’ve been a single parent so long? Even when my children’s father was involved in their lives, I’ve still had to do everything myself. I could not count on that man for anything and man might be too giving of a term for the thing he is.

I started out my parenthood homeless. I had my daughter and literally no where to take her. It was through grace, that I was able to bring her to two different people’s homes, one being his mother’s who ended up kicking us out after four weeks because he wasn’t getting us a place fast enough and she was concerned someone will hear my baby crying and kick her out. The other was his friend’s who we stayed at until he burned that bridge too, luckily I saved us with my boss’s help.

People often ask how I do everything. I literally have no explanation. I just do. I would love to say that I am super organized and have everything planned out. Most of the time, I am just winging it. My whole life, I have been winging it. I have taken some risks in life before kids and learned how to take more calculated risks after them. I trust my judgment and my intuition and everything that needs to get done, gets done. I wish I had better judgment in men, but that’s a whole other story for another day.

If I cannot afford something, we just don’t get it. My children are not spoiled, I talk about money with them all of the time. I want them to have a good understanding of it. I sure didn’t when I left the nest. I work my ass off and I don’t tell everyone what I am doing, but I work 7 days a week. I try to keep my finances and income off the radar, it’s none of anyone’s business and attracts vultures. I’ll just say that I am considered middle class. I just need to figure out my money management skills so I can start really looking like it. LOL My car is a 2017 so I guess that’s something huh.

I went from being homeless in 2007 without a dollar to my name to where I am now in 2017, getting ready to buy a house hopefully, I just need to save up my down and closing costs. It’s feasible as long as I stay focused and quit getting distracted by fuck boys who just want to waste my time. My kids go to a great charter school. They have food in their stomachs every day, clothes on their backs, they get to play extracurricular sports and get to eat out at nice restaurants often and enjoy theme parks and such. They are definitely blessed and I work hard to maintain this life for them and keep amplifying it so it will get better and better. Since my daughter was 2 months old, she’s never had to experience homelessness again. And I do everything myself. I don’t deserve an award for this, but I want my experience to serve as a reminder to others that they can do it too. Having kids is not an excuse for a poor life, it is a motivation to get better. I will share more later.