#I also need my English teacher’s approval so bad. She needs to like my project

[ivyinforests]

I got myself used to sleeping an appropriate amount. Fatal mistake. Now I can barely make myself stay up late doing objectively fun things and it feels ridiculous. I used to stay up till three with chem and algebra and now I’m struggling to work past 11 analyzing Enheduanna and making lesbian cake. These are my favorite things to do!!! If I told myself this a year ago I would think it was a joke.

[collecting-stories]

She’s Kinda Hot - Sarah Cameron

Request: omg i really wish i could write but, can you do one with sarah and kind of like kie reader(rich but hang out with the pogues)where they are enemies and are stuck together for a project and the reader keeps annoying sarah to make her mad and the reader tells sarah she’s hot when she’s mad and then they end up getting together or something. sorry this is really long this is also my first time requesting so i’m kinda new lo

A/N: I really freaking love Sarah Cameron. That is all. Enjoy the fic. 

Outer Banks Masterlist

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

Sarah was pretty sure that there was one of those personal rain clouds hanging directly over her head as she sat in math class with you. Who even assigned school projects in math class? Wasn’t that kind of thing reserved for english or science? But no, her math teacher...your math teacher...decided that a project to highlight Women in Math was a brilliant idea for Women’s History Month and, in an even greater stroke of genius, she stuck Sarah and you together as partners. It was all your fault really, that was all Sarah kept thinking as she stared across the classroom at the side of your head. That if you hadn’t walked into class late, in the middle of assignments, Sarah would’ve ended up with the next person alphabetically behind Cameron. Instead, she was stuck with you. 

“Why don’t we just split the assignment into parts and then put it together at the end?” Sarah suggested, after the bell rang and she managed to chase you down the hall of the kook academy to your locker.  

“Why not just work together?” You replied, shrugging a shoulder as if it shouldn’t be the worst thing that could ever happen to Sarah to be paired together for the project.

“I’d rather not.”

“Cause you broke up with me-”  

Sarah hushed you immediately, covering your mouth with her hand and looking back and forth down the crowded hallway. “You know what happened!”  

You pushed Sarah’s hand away and rolled your eyes, “well too bad princess, I need this grade so you’re gonna have to deal with seeing me.” You said, “everyday. After school.”  

“That’s bullshit,” Sarah snapped, following after you when you shut your locker and started down the hallway to your next class, “you do not need that fucking grade! You’re at like, the top of the class.”  

“Are you the teacher?” you asked, looking back at her. “Don’t worry Sarah, I promise I’ll stay six feet away and I won’t try to tempt you. Wouldn’t want anyone to find out you’re into girls.” You said, whispering the last part so only she could hear it.  

Sarah stopped in her tracks, watching you walk the rest of the way to your class. She wanted to scream after you, that wasn’t the reason. That wasn’t why she’d totally annexed you from her life. It wasn’t just that she knew this project was going to get her in deep shit, it was that she was one hundred percent positive that she would not be able to work with you without letting her feelings get the better of her.  

It wasn’t like the kook academy was a big place, there wasn’t exactly room to avoid you completely, but Sarah had done a pretty decent job so far. Even when the two of you crossed paths in class, and it happened more than Sarah would’ve preferred, she managed to keep herself away from you. At least until now, she was stuck with you as her partner for some ridiculous math project. She’d been banking on you wanting as little to do with her as she tried to have with you but instead you seemed totally fine. Unbothered by everything that went down between the two of you.  

She thought about asking Kiara what she would do but Sarah could already hear her best friend telling her that she wasn’t going to take sides. Kiara was friends with both of you and the most advice she would ever offer was “I don’t get what happened between you two anyway”.  

No, asking Kiara wouldn’t work. Sarah would have to resign herself to this project. She could this. It was just a three-week project. She could survive three weeks with you.  

“Hey, if I get lunch, what’d’ya want?” You asked, hanging your head off of Sarah’s bed and holding your phone out so you could tap through your doordash app.  

Sarah wanted to scream, it was still half-way through the first week and you had been to her house three times in as many days, spending your after-school hours driving her crazy. She was pretty sure that you were doing this on purpose.  

“It’s almost 5:30,” Sarah replied, not looking up from her laptop, “I think lunch is over.”

“Dinner then.” You said.  

“No. I don’t want dinner.” She snapped, “and I don’t want lunch or whatever else...I just want to finish this project.”

“We’ve got like, two weeks left Sarah,” you pointed out, rolling over onto your stomach and looking at her across the room, “just chill out.”  

You knew you were pushing Sarah’s buttons but you couldn’t help it. When things between the two of you had gone bad, when she’d told you that it was over and, worse than that, it was a mistake, you had been heartbroken. There wasn’t a better word for it. You hated how upset you’d been after Sarah broke it off with you but when things settled, you couldn’t deny that there was still something there. Little looks, fleeting in the hallway, moments you caught her staring and you knew she caught you too. It felt like boiling tension, the same way it had before, when you’d gotten together.  

“Chill out?” She huffed, “you’ve been at my house all week driving me fucking nuts and now you tell me to ‘chill out’. No, you need to help me with this fucking project!”  

You sat up on the bed, unable to contain the smile as you looked over at Sarah, “god, I totally forgot how insanely hot you are when you’re pissed off.”  

Sarah tossed her pencil across the room at you, “will you knock it off. You always pull this shit with me.”

“What shit?” You almost laughed, “you’re the one who told me that dating was an ‘accident’ and you were ‘confused about your feelings’. What am I doing, exactly, to pull shit with you? If anything, Sarah, you leading me on was pretty much exactly that.”  

“I wasn’t leading you on.” She groaned, flicking her hair over her shoulder the way she always did when she was pissed with something someone said to her. “What was I supposed to do anyway?” She said, voice dropping lower so no one would hear her. You might’ve been in her closed bedroom but if there was one thing you’d learned about Tanny Hill it was that someone was always listening. “Do you know what my family would do if they found out?”

“Found out that you were dating...basically a pogue? Or dating a girl?” You deadpanned, raising an eyebrow at her in question. You knew what the answer was. Sarah had been trying to live up to every expectation that Ward set for her from the moment she was born. She was always trying to make up for Rafe or Wheezie doing something to upset him by making sure she never did. And while other people dating whoever they wanted was totally fine with him, his favorite daughter, his pride and joy, dating a girl...maybe if it’d been Wheezie a few years down the line. But not Sarah, who was supposed to date a rich kook and go to UNC and marry the same rich kook and they could have a couple kids and buy a big house near his. He’d been planning it all out for her since before she was born and you had thrown a wrench in that plan.  

“It’s a delicate subject.”

“No,” you laughed and shook your head, “your dad’s a total homophobe. What’s he got against two super-hot girls dating each other?”

“When one of them is his daughter, I don’t think it’s at the top of his approved list.” She replied. “We should be working on this project anyway...I want a good grade and so do you.”

“Sarah-”

“No. Cause you’ll say something that you know I wanna hear and then you’ll do the stupid slow walk over to my chair and put your hands on the arm rests and I’ll be totally defenseless and then I’ll do something I totally regret...like kissing you.” Sarah said, “or letting you kiss me.”

“You’d totally regret it if we kissed?” You asked. “Positive?”

“Yes I’m positive.”

“We could test it out? Just to make sure?”

“No.”  

You shrugged, grabbing your math text off the bed and setting it on your lap again, “okay, I guess we should get back to work then.”

“What?” Sarah almost sounded shocked and really she shouldn’t have been. She should’ve known when the teacher put the two of you together for the project that this was exactly where she would end up at some point within the three weeks. Though really, she’d held out a lot longer than she ever thought she would be able to. “That’s it? You’re just going back to the project?”

“You said that’s what you wanted to do.”

She groaned and tugged at the roots of her hair for a second before looking at you, “you are the most frustrating, annoying, dense person in the entire world and I cannot believe that we-”

While she reamed you out, you had put your book aside and gotten up, going over to her and doing exactly what she said you would. You put your hands on the armrests of her desk chair and you leaned in and kissed her mid-sentence. “Is that what I was supposed to do?” You asked, pulling away just enough to see her face.  

Sarah wrapped her arms around your neck, pulling you toward her and forcing you to stabilize yourself with a knee on the side of her leg, practically sitting on her lap. “Something like that.” She finally said, “though I would’ve appreciated a little warning.”

“Oh, sorry, you seemed stressed,” you replied, feigning innocence, “I just wanted to help you relax.”

“Is stressed the word?” She joked, tension melting as she brushed her nose against yours. She leaned forward so your foreheads were touching, her eyelashes just ghosting a touch on your cheeks when she closed her eyes for a split second.  

“Extremely hot? Sexy...a major turn on.” You joked, kissing her again. “God, imagine if you’d been paired with like...Topper for this? You’d be kissing him right now.”

“Stop trying to ruin the moment and kiss me.” Sarah laughed.

[alexlabhont]

I didn’t mean to fall in love with you

Chapter Two

Book: Queen B - Choices (Universe)

Pairing:  Poppy Min-Sinclair x Trans!Male MC  (Beck Hughes)

Genre: Canon re-write (Because I can)

Rating: Anyone can read it, really... I think.

I´ll be posting this one over here because Tumblr, for some reason, thinks my secondary blog is a bot...

This is me trying to write by and for the Trans community, specially FTM community, meaning, trans guys, but I actually took the liberty to use They/them pronouns for everyone out there who´s interested (Also, the name Beck was the most neutral one I could find, trying to use the cannon Bea Hughes)

Now, about the PAIRING... I will be using choices style, kinda. If you have any comment, PLEASE BE RESPECTFULL and patient with me. This is also my first english fanfic and english is not my mother language, so... i’m sorry fo the grammar errors

CHAPTERS

The beginning

Chapter one 

ONE-SHOTS

Just a dance (Zoey x MC)

—————————————————————————–

One of their favorite things of all New York experience it's having lunch with Zoey. The girl was funny and interesting and she always had the right conversation to spend time with. Also, she had an incredible taste in music, they both even shared some classes together, working in pair so often that the rest of their classmates just knew they weren't available to them.

So when Beck found out Zoey co-produced the last summer hit, they weren't surprised, what was making some teeny tiny noise in their head was…

“Did you really co-produced Lightning and you didn't tell me?!”

… That.

Beck was impressed, of course. They where proud! That song was one of their personal favorites, so the fact of knowing they were collaborating all this time with such a spectacular talent was an honor.

“To be fair, you never asked” She chuckled.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, Zoey: Hey, my name's Beck, had you ever co-produced a summer hit? Because I haven’t”. Beck ironized. The news were all over The T, and it definitely had to do with a little lunch Zoey managed to have with the same Professor Roberta, making her finally be friends with Beck. “By the way, thank you very much. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Babe, you just bought us a $200 lunch. I think you deserved not to have some teachers bad blood”

“Maybe I did it to be on your good side” Beck winked towards her, making Zoey laugh.

“Such a charmer, aren’t you?” Zoey opened their room door, finally reaching their home. “Careful, Beck. You’re going to make me believe I'm your favorite girl.”

“How says you aren’t?”

“Hum… I don’t know” She tapped her chin with a perfect polished fingernail, pretending to be thinking about it. “Maybe some little bird called Ina Kingsley.

Ow! Low blow

“Ah, gotcha!” Zoey laughed.

“Ok, that’s completely unfair! You know it was one-time thing and we ended whatever that was as soon as we found out we were teacher-student” Which was practically the very next day, by the way… kinda.

“Still… I think you should make it up to me for it.” Oh, that little flirty game between them. Beck was curious about it most of the time. Was it just a joke? Something more? Back at Farmville they never had a friendship relationship like that one, but Zoey was never really clear about the matter neither.

Instead, she always came up with some Ina related topic and it was confusing as fuck. I mean, yeah, they kissed Zoey in front of everyone in that football kiss cam. Beck thought that time that it was very clear they wanted to be more than friends with her. But apparently, she didn't feel the same, so… they won’t be pushing her. Beck would never oblige someone to be into… well… them.

“What can I do? Please tell” They said, playing along with her.

“You're a smart one. I'm sure you’ll find a way to do so.” Damn it, Zoey…

“I already have a few ideas… Scandalous lingerie.” Beck joked some more, a mischievous smile on their lips. “I’m thinking satin sheets, handcuffs, maybe a blindfold…”

“I like this image. You, sprawled out on the mattress, completely at my mercy…” Zoey moved closer to them, trailing her finger up their arm, making them shiver.

“Come on, Zo. Back down already! At least show me something, do something.”

“I might just take you up on that someday.” She said before walking away, teasing them.

“Gwaah!”

Beck hated that. Really, that kind of frustration was no good at all.

“Crap, I'm gonna be late for music theory! This is not good. The prof is a total hardass.”

“Told ya! You should’ve choose professor Liam as I did. You brought this on yourself.”

“And now you’re just an asshole” She said smiling, hitting Beck right on their arm.

“Ouch! Rude…”

“I’ll catch up with you tonight, yeah?”

“It’ a date”

~~X~~

“Are you sure you’re ok, Poppy?” Veronica asked. She looked preoccupied, and she was… But Poppy wasn’t the one in her mind. The blogger was worried for Chloe.

She was number one now, dethroning Poppy so suddenly that it was suspicious, especially knowing the blonde dumb head girl. She adores Poppy since they were kids, Chloe would never betray her, never. But of course, Poppy wouldn’t see that; no, the strawberry blonde was furious, feeling backstabbed, feeling like revenge…

Of course, you couldn´t blame her. She lived all her life between smoke and mirrors.

“Of course I am!” She replied, knotting her white transparent beach dress, covering up a sexy pink bikini. Poppy took a deep breath and accommodated her cleavage so it shows part of her chest, just a little, seductively inviting, but demure enough no to seem made on purpose. She was an expert on it, and she was about to prove her theory right about now. “I´ll take care of that traitor later…” She checked the hour on her phone. She had invited Farmsville to come there around this time. Test number one: They needed to be punctual, no lover –real or fake- of hers is an irresponsible with her time. She had better things to do than waiting around for an asshole. “Now come, Hughes must be here by now”

 “No, I think I’m going to stay right here. Light’s perfect” Poppy rolled her eyes at the way Veronica was trying to find the right angle to make her face look impossible good. She always manages to do so, though.

The strawberry blonde crossed the room, walking through the cabin towards the swimming pool room, she could see Beck there, on time, talking with Michael. Poppy smiled to herself.

“Test passed, Farmsville…”

“… It was built by the Alphas and Zetas as a place to study, party, hook up… Now the only people who come here are - -“

“The people I decide should be here.” She made her entrance.

Test number two: Is Beck into girls? Kissing Zoey didn´t count, Poppy herself had kissed a lot of friends without liking them, she had to prove it herself first hand. So she walked to them with confidence, head up high while moving her hips seductively, attentive to Beck´s every reaction, reading their face, their expressions, the little gulp in their throat, the way their eyes opened wild, checking her out, looking at her boobs…

“Disgusting pervert”

… to her eyes, were Beck fixed their own to stay, always to the face. Beck was trying to be polite, respectful, but the red on their cheeks was exactly the same they had back in the class. They liked what they saw, Poppy knew it. Just to verify, she took a look at the rest of Alphas, who looked away the moment they were discovered. Ugh, gross.

“… but… you have manners. I like it… Second test approved. Well done.”

“Welcome, Farmsville. Let’s discuss our little project, shall we?” An inviting smirk was drawn on Poppy’s lips, willing to test the limits of her new discovery, how much more could she play with Beck today?

“Oh, sure. See ya guys at gym” Beck said, bumping fists and shoulders with the Alphas as if they were good friends. One more of them. For an instant, Poppy found herself wishing they won’t turn Beck into a brainless gorilla. Beck was fine just like already was.

A blonde head caught her eye from behind Beck, saving her of questioning what was that though about because the anger crawled its way up her stomach, keeping her from minding of anything else. “Hold on. What is she doing here?”

The fucking nerve!

The audacity!

Every person in the room was watching Chloe, but nobody had the rage Poppy had. Of course she made them block the entry, how dare she?! After a little scene, that bitch finally went away. To think she considered Chloe her very own best friend! Deep inside, she was hurt, she felt used… The society was right: never to trust anyone, because their always pretending, always faking no matter what they said. Waiting the right moment to strike. That was a mistake she was never going to repeat. Never. She was about to leave, ready to start the project, but of course, Beck was about to ruin her mood one more time.

“That was… pretty rough…” What did they just say? The strawberry girl observed Beck. There was no rest of respect in them, conversely, Beck looked at Poppy as if she was Narnia´s White Witch, what happened to the little lamb look? “I get it if ya’ll are in a fight, but isn’t she supposed to be, like, your best friend?”

God, they were an idiot.

“You´re not here to be my moral compass, Farmsville. Shut the fuck up and walk with me. The rest of you, get out. Now”

Once alone, they both walked slowly around the pool, silence… She didn’t enjoy that. At all. But it was necessary and she couldn´t show any weakness sign to anyone there. Especially not Beck. But… She was now sure of one thing: Beck didn’t care about looks, but actions, or… feelings?

“Have you checked the student ranking today?” She asked, her voice softened. Beck shook their head. They looked at her phone, and after a while…

“Oh boy. Chloe is…”

“Don´t say it…” She was angry, venom caught in her throat, but instead, she let that out like a whisper. A hurt one. She wasn’t faking it, but controlling her emotions on her benefit. Wanting more test, Poppy slipped off her heels and went to sit at the edge of the pool. A moment after, she felt Beck doing the same.

“Bingo”

“It’s just as my parents told me… You don´t have any real friends, Poppy. Just allies. Hmp! Looks like they were right all this time.”

“Poppy, I…” They said, unsure.

“Such a shame.” She stopped him, going back to the anger. “I don’t know who she thinks she is, or who she had to sleep with to knock me out of my spot, but if she thinks this is over she is so wrong. It’s utter betrayal is what it is. That girl is dead to me.” Silence. Was that too soon? Did she got it wrong, again?

“Poppy, you´re too hot to worry about this”

Yes… now they can play.

------

Next

[remywrites5]

“You’re a slacker and I’m a straight A student and we were paired together for a group project and I just want you to get out of the way and let me do everything but you insist on helping for some odd reason ” AU with wolfstar please

           Remus froze in horror as he reached into the bowl of names to pick his partner for their history project. He looked out at the sea of his classmates and prayed for someone good. He knew no one in the room would really mind being his partner, because Remus was studious and took his academic seriously, so being his partner for a project basically guaranteed a good grade.

           His hand wrapped around a piece of paper and he lifted his up. “Sirius Black,” he said as evenly as he could while his heart sank. Sirius Black was a notorious trouble maker who barely did any school work and only got decent grades because he was smart and was good at taking tests. Most days he didn’t even bother handing in his homework and he spent most of class lounging back with his feet on the desk and his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket.

           Remus risked a glance over at Sirius and he found Sirius beaming at him. It was odd to see Sirius look so excited about anything school related. The only time Black got excited about anything was the stupid pranks he liked to pull with his friend James. At least Remus hadn’t ended up with Potter as his partner. James was even worse than Sirius but it seemed that misfortune had landed on Lily Evans.

           Taking his seat again, Remus began jotting down ideas for what point in history they should do. He immediately dismissed World War Two as he figured most people would be drawn to that era. He didn’t want to pick anything too obscure, knowing he’d be doing everything himself. There was no point in making things harder when it came time to research.

           Remus had been so busy with his list that he must have missed the teacher telling them to meet up with their partners. He was startled when Sirius Black dropped his books onto Remus’ desk and sat backwards in the chair in front of Remus to face him.

           “Hi there!” Sirius said, running his fingers through his shoulder length hair. “How’s it going, Lupin?”

           Remus jotted down a few more ideas before he forgot them and then glanced up at Sirius. “I’m fine, you?”

           “I’m fantastic,” Sirius said, leaning in towards Remus as if they were sharing a secret. “I was hoping I’d be paired with a cute boy for this.”

           Remus rolled his eyes. Sirius Black was a shameless flirt, everyone knew that. “I was thinking maybe we could do the Victorian era,” Remus told him, chewing on the end of his pen.

           “I was thinking ancient Rome,” Sirius said, wiggling his eyebrows. “You know with all those orgies and stuff.”

           Remus resisted the urge to roll his eyes once more. “We’re not presenting on orgies to the class.”

           Sirius grinned, putting his arm on the back of the chair and resting his chin in his hand. “You want to do the Victorian era where seeing someone’s ankle was considered scandalous.”

           Remus quirked an eyebrow at him in response. “You do know Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for sodomy during this era, right?” he said, making Sirius’ eyes go wide. Probably from the use of the word sodomy. “And Lord Byron was off fucking pretty much anything that would move.”

           Sirius hummed softly. “I guess that could be cool.”

           Remus sighed. “So glad you approve,” he said with a hint of annoyance. He was going to have to do the whole project himself anyway. He didn’t really need Sirius’ input anyway.

           “Wanna meet in the library after school?” Sirius asked, gathering up his stuff as the teacher announced the end of class.

           “Why?” Remus asked, frowning as Sirius stood up.

           Sirius laughed. “To work on the project?”

           “Oh, um, sure.”

           “Perfect!” Sirius said, beaming at him. Remus gave him a tentative smile in return. He was surprised to see Sirius so enthusiastic about a school project. “’I’ll see you there!”

           “See you.”

                                                           ***

           Remus got a few books about the Victorian Era and spread them out over the table he’d picked at the back of the library. He thought maybe Sirius would bail on their plans to meet up, which honestly suited Remus just fine. He’d get along better without having Sirius interrupting him. He chewed on his pen cap as he jotted down some notes.

           “Hey Remus!” Sirius said, sliding in the chair beside him. “Sorry I’m late. Peter got his hand stuck in a peanut butter jar…again. I swear it’s like being friends with Winnie the Pooh.” Sirius laughed and slung his arm over Remus’ shoulders with a familiarity that just did not exist between them. Remus wondered if it would be rude to shake Sirius off him.

           Remus cleared his throat and decided to change the subject back to school. He didn’t want to get to know Sirius Black. He didn’t want that kind of trouble in his life. Sure, Sirius was gorgeous, vivacious and intriguing, but he also had a tendency to get bored of people easily. It seemed like every month there were rumors of Sirius with another bloke. Whether they were true or not was another matter and Remus didn’t know Sirius well enough to be sure. At one point Remus had cared a great deal about the goings-on of Sirius Black but he’d more or less gotten over his stupid crush.

           “So I was thinking we could talk about the evolution of the English novel starting and it’s reflection of society at the time,” Remus said, writing down the names of a few authors he wanted to mention.

           “Sounds very swotty,” Sirius teased, reading the list over Remus’ shoulder. “I’m not going to have to read all those books, am I?”

           “No,” Remus said, shaking his head. “I’ve read most of the ones I want to touch on. Dickens, Conan Doyle, Austen, Bronte, Wilde.”

           “I have read Hound of the Baskerville,” Sirius offered, glancing at the list again. “I’ve seen the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice. Does that count for anything?”

           Remus chuckled despite himself. “It’s more accurate to the book than the Kiera Knightly one.”

           “I mostly just watched it because Colin Firth is hot,” Sirius said with a shrug. “And I know about a Christmas Carol, even though I’ve never read it.”

           “Let me guess, the Muppet version?” Remus quipped, turning his head to look at Sirius and noticing just how close their bodies were. Their breath was actually mingling together.

           Sirius grinned. “It’s still the same story.”

           “I knew it!” Remus laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. “What am I going to do with you?”

           “I don’t know…” Sirius said softly, bringing his other hand up and brushing his fingers over Remus’ cheek. “What are you going to do with me?”

           Remus felt his cheeks go red and he quickly turned away back to the safety of his books. “I’m thinking maybe we should talk about the poverty of the time and the classism at work in British society. Maybe talk about how a lot of novels had protagonists trying to improve their social standing – Great Expectations, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Oliver Twist.”

           Sirius listened to Remus ramble with a bemused smirk on his face. When Remus glanced back over he noticed Sirius was staring at him intently. It made Remus’ stomach clench uneasily.

           “Have you ever kissed anyone before?”

           Remus’ jaw dropped. “I don’t see how that’s relevant – “

           “Is that a no?”

           Remus flipped the page of his notebook just for something to do to continue ignoring Sirius’ question. “It’s none of your business,” he finally responded after Sirius didn’t let it go.

           “I could make it my business,” Sirius said, licking his lips and smiling. “Why don’t you give me your number?”

           “Why?”

           “Because I want it.”

           Remus scowled at him. “Sirius, I’m not interested –“

           “Bollocks.”

           Remus’ frown deepened. “Not everyone is interested in you, Black. Y-you’re annoying and selfish and reckless.”

           “Flatterer,” Sirius said, his grin showing that he didn’t really believe Remus. “Come on, I’m not that bad, Lupin. I’ve got some good qualities too.”

           Remus huffed out a breath. “I don’t know you well enough to say if that’s true or not,” he informed his project partner. “We’ve never exactly spent any significant amount of time together.”

           “Let’s change that then, hm?” Sirius said, grabbing Remus’ notebook and scribbling down his number. “Text me tonight and we’ll pick a time this weekend to work on the project. I’ll come over to yours because my place is a nightmare.”

           “What?” Remus asked, blinking in utter confusion at Sirius. He wasn’t sure but he thought Sirius Black had just invited himself over to Remus’ house on the weekend.

           “I’ve got to get going but don’t do the whole project without me, okay?” Sirius said, standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I promise I’m not completely useless.”

           Remus could do nothing but stare up at Sirius with a puzzled expression on his face. Sirius smiled at him and then went bounding out of the library. Remus looked down at this notebook and the number scrawled over the middle of the page. Remus tore the page out of his notebook since it was ruined anyway. He considered throwing it into the rubbish bin but shoved it into his pocket instead. He thought about ignoring Sirius’ request and just continuing on by himself. Instead he took the books up to the front desk and checked them out so that he could continue his research over the weekend. Even if Sirius didn’t show up to help him, Remus would be prepared to finish the project on his own.

                                                           ***

           Against his better judgment Remus texted Sirius later that night. He had talked it over with his mum during dinner and she had agreed to let Sirius come over on Saturday. She had been a bit surprised that Remus had asked to have a friend over. The only friend he’d ever had over before was Lily and they were such good friends that Remus didn’t really have to ask if Lily could come over anymore, she was always welcome at the Lupin house.

           You can come over tomorrow if you want.

           You texted me!

           Well yeah. You gave me your number.

           What time should I come over?

           Around lunchtime? My mum said she’d make us something if you want to eat here before we get started.

           I can eat anything I want?

           I mean as long as we have it.

           Can I eat you?

           Shut up. I’ll see you at lunchtime.

                                                           ***

           Sirius arrived at Remus’ a little before noon and he seemed energetic, practically bouncing off the walls. He ate his lunch with gusto, munching on the ham and cheese sandwiches Remus’ mum had made. Sirius had kept the conversation going with Remus’ mum and Remus just sat there eating his food, kind of in a daze. He hadn’t expected Sirius to put so much effort in to talking with his mum. Sirius was alarmingly charming and it seemed like he was attempting to make a good impression. Remus had no idea why.

           “Uh, Sirius and I are going to my room to work on the project,” Remus said, grabbing Sirius by the arm and hauling him up out of his seat. He practically dragged Sirius down the hallway to his room and shut the door.

           “Anxious to get me alone, huh?” Sirius asked, biting his bottom lip.

           “What are you doing?” Remus asked, searching Sirius’ face for some kind of hint that he was lying or being a prat. Instead Sirius just smiled at him.

           “I don’t know what you mean,” Sirius responded with a shrug. “I was just being polite. Am I not allowed to be polite to your mum who made me lunch?”

           Remus huffed, the air puffing out his cheeks for a moment and then causing the curls on his forehead to move when he released it. “You never put it effort for anything.”

           “That’s not true,” Sirius said softly, reaching out and playing with one of Remus’ curls.

           Remus worked his jaw for a moment. “This isn’t – you don’t –“

           “I don’t?” Sirius challenged, twisting his hand into the front of Remus’ jumper and tugging him forward slightly. “How do you know?”

           Remus stared at Sirius for a moment and then shook his head. “Why are you trying so hard, Sirius?”

           Sirius grinned. “Because you’re making things difficult for me.”

           “And if I stopped?” Remus asked, crowding in closer to Sirius.

           “Then things would be remarkably easier.”

           “You’d get bored of me,” Remus said, glancing down for a moment at Sirius’ mouth and how very, very close it was. “Probably quicker than all the others – “

           “Ugh,” Sirius groaned, dropping his head back against the door. “Is that why? Remus, come on. I thought you of all people would be above listening to that gossip.”

           Remus frowned. “Lily told me she saw you snogging Evan Rosier.”

           “Yeah, well, we all make mistakes,” Sirius grumbled unhappily. “I dated Evan for a month and when I dumped him the stupid prick started making shit up about me. He has been for months just to get back at me. I guess I really am unforgettable.”

           Remus placed his hands gently at Sirius’ waist, slipping his fingers under Sirius’ t-shirt to touch his skin. It was warm and soft and Sirius made a cute little gasping noise at the contact. “So I’m not just your latest conquest then?”

           Sirius shook his head emphatically. “I fancy you,” he said, pressing his nose against Remus’ jawline in a gentle, sliding it up towards his ear before playfully biting the lobe. “I have for a while now but you don’t exactly make it easy to get to know you.”

           Remus smiled and pressed a soft kiss to Sirius’ temple. “I suppose I don’t,” he agreed quietly, shifting his hand to splay against the small of Sirius’ back. “I’ll let you close, if you want.”

           “I want,” Sirius breathed out. “Fuck Remus, kiss me.”

           Remus turned his head and captured Sirius’ lips, pressing Sirius back against the wall. Sirius’ mouth dropped open and Remus took the opportunity to slide his tongue inside. Sirius moaned and carded his fingers through Remus’ curls until his hand was fisted in Remus’ hair at the back of his head.  

           Remus broke the kiss after a few life-altering moments and pressed his forehead against Sirius’. “Sirius…”

           “Does this mean you’ll stop making things so bloody difficult for me then?” Sirius asked, his kiss-swollen lips twitching into a smirk.

           “Absolutely not,” Remus said, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of Sirius’ mouth. It would do Sirius good to keep having to put in a little effort. “Still interested?”

           “Fuck yes,” Sirius said, pulling Remus into another kiss. “If we get a good grade on the project will you be my boyfriend?”

           “We’re guaranteed to get a good grade,” Remus informed him, nipping playfully at Sirius’ lower lip. “I wouldn’t settle for anything less.”

           “Well then?” Sirius asked, raising a questioning eyebrow at Remus.

           “Yes,” Remus agreed to their proposed deal, sealing it with a kiss. Even though they were going to get a good grade on it, Remus knew Sirius would continue to work extra hard on it for Remus. Renowned trouble maker Sirius Black was going to put in effort into something school related because of Remus - because he wanted Remus. It was the best thing that had ever happened to Remus in his life.

           And if the project took twice as long to finish, because they couldn’t help interrupting their work to snog each other, well that was pretty spectacular as well.

[nasa]

Meet Our New Flight Directors!

We just hired six new flight directors to join a unique group of individuals who lead human spaceflights from mission control at our Johnson Space Center in Houston.

A flight director manages all human spaceflight missions and related test flights, including International Space Station missions, integration of new American-made commercial spacecraft and developing plans for future Orion missions to the Moon and beyond. 

Only 97 people have served as flight directors, or are in training to do so, in the 50-plus years of human spaceflight. That’s fewer than the over 300 astronauts! We talked with the new class about their upcoming transitions, how to keep calm in stressful situations, the importance of human spaceflight and how to best learn from past mistakes. Here’s what they had to say…

Allison Bollinger

Allison is from Lancaster, Ohio and received a BS in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University. She wanted to work at NASA for as long as she can remember. “I was four-and-a-half when Challenger happened,” she said. “It was my first childhood memory.” Something in her clicked that day. “After, when people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said an astronaut.” 

By high school a slight fear of heights, a propensity for motion sickness and an aptitude for engineering shifted her goal a bit. She didn’t want to be an astronaut. “I wanted to train astronauts,” she said. Allison has most recently worked at our Neutral Buoyancy Lab managing the daily operations of the 40-ft-deep pool the astronauts use for spacewalk training! She admits she’ll miss “the smell of chlorine each day. Coming to work at one of the world’s largest pools and training astronauts is an incredible job,” she says. But she’s excited to be back in mission control, where in a previous role she guided astronauts through spacewalks. 

She’s had to make some tough calls over the years. So we asked her if she had any tips for when something… isn’t going as planned. She said, “It’s so easy to think the sky is falling. Take a second to take a deep breath, and then you’ll realize it’s not as bad as you thought.”

Adi Boulos

Adi is from Chicago, Illinois and graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign with a BS in Aerospace Engineering. He joined us in 2008 as a member of the very first group of flight controllers that specialize in data handling and communications and tracking systems aboard the space station. 

Most recently he served as the group lead in the Avionics Trainee group, which he loved. “I was managing newer folks just coming to NASA from college and getting to become flight controllers,” he said. “I will miss getting to mentor them from day one.” But he’s excited to start his new role alongside some familiar faces already in mission control. “It’s a great group of people,” he said of his fellow 2018 flight director class. “The six of us, we mesh well together, and we are all from very diverse backgrounds.” 

As someone who has spent most of his career supporting human spaceflight and cargo missions from mission control, we asked him why human spaceflight is so important. He had a practical take. “It allows us to solve problems we didn’t know we had,” he said. “For example, when we went to the moon, we had to solve all kinds of problems on how to keep humans alive for long-duration flights in space which directly impacts how we live on the ground. All of the new technology we develop for living in space, we also use on the ground.”

Marcos Flores

Marcos is from Caguas, Puerto Rico and earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico and an MS in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University. Spanish is his first language; English is his second. 

The first time he came to the Continental US was on a trip to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as a kid! “I always knew I wanted to work for NASA,” he said. “And I knew I wanted to be an engineer because I liked to break things to try to figure out how they worked.” He joined us in 2010 as an intern in a robotics laboratory working on conceptual designs for an experimental, autonomous land rover. He later transitioned to the space station flight control team, where he has led various projects, including major software transitions, spacewalks and commercial cargo missions! 

He shares his new coworkers’ thoughts on the practical aspects of human spaceflight and believes it’s an expression of our “drive to explore” and our “innate need to know the world and the universe better.” But for him, “It’s more about answering the fundamental questions of where we come from and where we’re headed.”

Pooja Jesrani

Pooja graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a BS in Aerospace Engineering. She began at NASA in 2007 as a flight controller responsible for the motion control system of the International Space Station. She currently works as a Capsule Communicator, talking with the astronauts on the space station, and on integration with the Boeing Starliner commercial crew spacecraft. 

She has a two-year-old daughter, and she’s passionate about motherhood, art, fashion, baking, international travel and, of course, her timing as a new flight director! “Not only have we been doing International Space Station operations continuously, and we will continue to do that, but we are about to launch U.S. crewed vehicles off of U.S. soil for the first time since the space shuttle in 2011. Exploration is ramping up and taking us back to the moon!” she said.” “By the time we get certified, a lot of the things we will get to do will be next-gen.”  

We asked her if she had any advice for aspiring flight directors who might want to support such missions down the road. “Work hard every day,” she said. “Every day is an interview. And get a mentor. Or multiple mentors. Having mentorship while you progress through your career is very important, and they really help guide you in the right direction.”

Paul Konyha

Paul was born in Manhasset, NY, and has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University, a Master’s of Military Operational Arts and Science from Air University, and an MS in Astronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California. He began his career as an officer in the United States Air Force in 1996 and authored the Air Force’s certification guide detailing the process through which new industry launch vehicles (including SpaceX’s Falcon 9) gain approval to launch Department of Defense (DoD) payloads. 

As a self-described “Star Wars kid,” he has always loved space and, of course, NASA! After retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2016, Paul joined Johnson Space Center as the Deputy Director of the DoD Space Test Program Human Spaceflight Payloads Office. He’s had a rich career in some pretty high-stakes roles. We asked him for advice on handling stress and recovering from life’s occasional setbacks. “For me, it’s about taking a deep breath, focusing on the data and trying not to what if too much,” he said. “Realize that mistakes are going to happen. Be mentally prepared to know that at some point it’s going to happen—you’re going to have to do that self-reflection to understand what you could’ve done better and how you’ll fix it in the future. That constant process of evaluation and self-reflection will help you get through it.”

Rebecca Wingfield

Rebecca is from Princeton, Kentucky and has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kentucky and an MS in Systems Engineering from the University of Houston, Clear Lake. She joined us in 2007 as a flight controller responsible for maintenance, repairs and hardware installations aboard the space station. 

Since then, she’s worked as a capsule communicator for the space station and commercial crew programs and on training astronauts. She’s dedicated her career to human spaceflight and has a special appreciation for the program’s long-term benefits. “As our human race advances and we change our planet in lots of different ways, we may eventually need to get off of it,” she said. “There’s no way to do that until we explore a way to do it safely and effectively for mass numbers of people. And to do that, you have to start with one person.” We asked her if there are any misconceptions about flight directors. She responded, “While they are often steely-eyed missile men and women, and they can be rough around the edges, they are also very good mentors and teachers. They’re very much engaged in bringing up the next generation of flight controllers for NASA.”

Congrats to these folks on leading the future of human spaceflight! 

You can learn more about each of them HERE. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

[hi-i-love-u-bitch]

My Sides 2.0

So, I’ve done my Sides before being that I had been inspired by @asofterfan‘s art work of their sides. But mine turned out really half-assed and meh so I upgraded them. (CLICK FOR BETTER QUALITY BECAUSE TUMBLR IS SHIT!)

Mimsy “Momo” “Mama Mo” (Morality)       Pronouns: They/Them She/Her

*Likes*

Flowers

Sweets

Seashells

Warm Weather

Stuffed Aimals

70s Aesthetic

Puns (accidentally forgot that one)

+Dislikes+

Ignorance

Confrontation

Sand

Assholes in general

Close Toed Shoes

About Them:

Has been numbed by life so much to the point where nothing can faze them

May come off as cold at times

Still, somehow, very empathetic

Closed off to their own emotions but very in tuned to others

“I don’t care,” They said, caringly, as they cared deeply.

Unknowingly has become the Mom Friend of the Sides

A bit of a temper

Stern but caring, even if they don’t show it at times

Helps keep Anne under control (they’re the only one that can)

Kind of a hippy

Wants to do the right thing but also doesn’t want to hurt anybody

Very blunt and to the point

Very quick to turn violent if one of their friends or loved ones are in danger/distressed

Surprisingly very forgiving if you do harm on to them

Doesn’t really communicate their feelings well with the others which endlessly frustrates Lola

Doesn’t open up to Lola much because she believes he won’t understand since he’s logic, there for unable to process emotion

Unknowingly has a tendency to coddle Kiki a lot

Has nicknames for all the sides: Kiki is Sugar, Lola is Honey, and Anne is Sweetie.

Lola (Logic)      Pronouns: They/Them He/Him

*Likes*

Biology

Zoology

Psychology

Insects

Crunchy Peanut Butter

Funky Bow Ties

Learning New Things

Non-Fiction Books

+Dislikes+

Incorrect Grammar

Math

Deadlines

Humidity

Not knowing things

About Them:

Excited and always ready to learn

Biggest teachers pet

Will literally raise their hand to ask a question

Always researching the weirdest things late at night when they can’t sleep

Basically Bill Nye the Science Guy

Prefers comfort over professionalize

I dye my hair a lot and they kind of took a liking to it, thus the two green streaks in their hair

Very curious by nature and has gotten in a lot of accidental trouble because of it

Tends to ramble off topic sometimes

Doesn’t really understand emotions or social cues that well but is trying their best to learn

Always writing things down in note books just in case if it’s important and they might forget

Pretty emotional for someone who’s not supposed to have/understand emotions

Anne seems to like them more then the others so she doesn’t tend to pick on Lola that much unless they’re rambling and need to be told to shut up

Lola and Kiki get along the best because of their shared interest in books as well as working together in a lot of projects

Wishes they could bond better with Mimsy but the emotional side tends to keep them at arms length

Doesn’t really think of themselves as smart

Kiki (Creativity)     Pronouns: They/Them

*Likes*

Reading

Writing

Poetry

Fan Fiction

Dungeons n Dragons

Art

Knitting

Cartoons

Musicals

Murder Mystery Thrillers

+Dislikes+

Writers Block

Research Papers

Philosophy

Beowulf

Avocado

About Them:

Very, very, very, low self esteem

Easily pushed around (mainly by Anne)

As a million and one ideas but can never seem to finish anything

Gets excited by thing but is quick to close back in on themselves because they thing they’re annoying

The ultimate super fan!

Perfectionist

Is there biggest critic

Very jittery and speaks really fast when nervous

Coffee is there life source

Sleep? Who is she? I don’t know her!

Has no sense of style but doesn’t really care at this point

Again, hates Beowulf with the fury of a thousands suns because of that one English teacher my senior year!

Likes to make personalized gifts for their friends

The only time them and Anne work together is when they’re giving me nightmares! (I suffer from chronic night terrors)

They’re close to Lola the most and doesn’t mind hearing the logical side ramble, the information he has to say is interesting and useful for more stories and projects

Doesn’t like that Mimsy baby’s them like they’re some sort of glass doll

Doesn’t know why Anne bullies them....they used to be friends long ago after all...

Anne (Anxiety)    Pronouns: She/Her

*Likes*

Witchcraft

80s Rock

The Beatles & Queen

Ballet

Cthulhu

Scary Movies

Gore Horror Movies

Black & Purple

Terrorizing Kiki

+Dislikes+

Loud Noises

Socializing

Bright Lights

Vinegar

Authority

About Them:

She’s a bitch

There’s no use in sugar coating it, Anne is a bitch and she knows it

Extremely nihilistic and pessimistic

Constantly reminding everyone of their impending doom

Is the grunge goth aesthetic

Tells things how they are even if it makes her look bad

Hates when people tell her what to do

She is the embodiment of all my repressed anger issues

Very self destructive both physically and mentally

Actually kind of hates herself

Likes to release all of her frustrations and insecurities out Kiki by verbally bullying them

Kiki doesn’t fight back or say anything so she keeps on doing it

Actually feels really guilty about it all but continues to pick on Kiki because she’s convinced she’s at the point of no return so might as well continue being the bad guy

Can not for the life of her bring herself to pick on Lola

The nerd is the embodiment of an excited puppy and Anne may be a bitch but she isn’t the type of bitch to kick a puppy even if it gets annoying at times

Is lowkey scared of Mimsy but also kind of respects them

Secretly looking for her approve and acceptance

Does not help that Kiki is obviously Mimsiy’s favorite

[myaekingheart]

So my mind has been all over the place tonight (thanks depressive episode) and sometimes when I’m like this, I like to dig up my old journal from high school and flip through it just to reflect on and remind myself of how long I’ve actually been like this and there was one entry in particular I was hellbent on finding that I feel is very reflective of the current chaos going on in my mind. 

This was an entry from October 10th, 2014, but the day that this happened on was Wednesday, October 8th. Sometimes I forget just how traumatizing and disgusting high school sometimes was. 

Wednesday I woke up so freaking depressed. I didn't want to get out of bed. I didn't want to put pants on. I didn't want to put my contacts in. I was actually contemplating just going to school in my pajamas. I actually just ended up throwing on my Jack hoodie and a pair of jeans, leaving my hair a mess, and doing my now-usual dark makeup. And I trudged off to school. Legitimately trudged. I was so depressed. So, so, so depressed. When I saw my one friend on the way to 2nd period, she said she hoped that my day would get better. She fucking jinxed it. It was bad. I have never been so pissed off at everyone in my 2nd period before. My English teacher made us do this writing assignment where we had to describe a person in the class and it was bad enough I didn't want to deal with people that day at all, but I don't even have any friends in my English class. My social anxiety got the best of me when we were told to look around the room, target a person, and zone in on them so we'd have a good idea of how to describe them. We had ten minutes. I panicked my ass off for five of those minutes until I just puked out a half-assed description of myself. After we finished writing, we passed our papers to the front because for the first time ever we were turning in a quickwrite assignment so I thought I was off the hook considering my teacher said we would have to read them aloud and guess who we wrote about it and that was the last thing I wanted to do (well, actually, the assignment as a whole was the last thing I wanted to do but the reading them aloud was a very, very, very close second). So after that we did our work and whatnot and I thought I was finally out of the woods until the teacher stopped us and walked to the front of the room...with our papers in hand. And then began hell. He started reading them aloud, keeping the names of both the writer and the projected victim anonymous, and we had to guess who was being described. And it was all fun and games until they got to me. Not the description I wrote, thank God, but something possibly worse: someone's description of me. I knew it was supposed to be me immediately. The beginning was pretty neutral, saying how I'm always quiet, almost silent and dutifully take notes and shit but then things just went downhill. They said things like I give off a "don't talk to me" vibe and gave an ugly description of the baggy clothes on my body and my dark, curly hair and the way I held my arm in with a fist covering my mouth when we had to survey the room "like I was afraid to take up space". That's really all I remember from the description, though there was quite a bit more. I had never felt so incredibly humiliated in my entire life. Fortunately, the girl who sits behind me (whose name I don't know but she was in my English class last year) probably caught on that it was supposed to be about me and when the entire class was silent when it was time to guess who was being described, she was the one who piped up and suggested we not guess on that one because it was so mean. And the entire class came to a general consensus on that and we moved on. But quite frankly, I have not moved on. I have never hated the majority of my English class so much before. The only part of that description I approved of was the "don't talk to me" vibe because fuck yeah I don't want you [redacted] assholes talking to me. Unless you are the girl sitting behind me who stuck up for me and covered my ass from another round of public humiliation, I do not want you to bother me. Of course, it doesn't help that the majority of the people in my English class are stupid ass popular people and there's one girl who I've got a fair history with from back in middle school there, ... whose boyfriend is in the same class and I have to see them together every single day. [Note: This was when I was heartbroken and depressed because the guy I was in love with was barely talking to me at this point and this day had actually marked six months since we met and all I could think about was how he never spoke to me anymore and how desperately in love with him I was.] Just...fuck my life. So as if I wasn't already feeling depressed and unloved and unwanted and not wanting to be there, I had to hear some asshole's description of my apparent ugliness and dark attitude. And what's worse is that because the descriptions written were kept anonymous when read aloud, I have no freaking clue who wrote it. [redacted[ Either way, though, the fact that that happened on top of the depression over [this boy] just made the entire day one of the worst I've ever had to endure. I shoved everyone away for the rest of the day, I rushed out of school after fourth period ..., and as soon as I got home, I tore the super fluffy blanket off my bed, cocooned on the couch, and absolutely cried my eyes out until I fell asleep. And I slept until about 6pm, so a good five hours. Of course, apparently while I was asleep my mom told my dad everything that happened with the English assignment and my dad was pissed as fuck-- so pissed, he was about to straight-up call the principal and cuss him out about it. And apparently because by 9pm that night, I was still depressed, my mom suddenly felt the need to schedule an appointment with a therapist because she called me a basketcase. Because I had a shitty couple days and was still depressed over it. Sorry mom but newsflash, I am not as optimistic as you are. In fact, I grow more cynical every fucking day! So big whoop-dee-doo! Don't get on my case, bitch! I hate how she says she understands when she really doesn't because she said she understood I was upset and she said she knew how I felt with being depressed and all but if she knew how I felt, she wouldn't have been pressuring me to be happy again like I can flick some magic fucking switch and automatically be all rainbows and butterflies and cotton candy. So after she made me start crying again out of pure frustration, I screamed at her and made her sit down, shut up, and listen because I was tired of her giving me crap and assuming things and after I explained everything to her, poured my fucking guts out, she fortunately finally understood. I hate yelling at her and stuff but it felt good taking action for myself because I am so tired of taking everyone's shit, including when my mother treats me like being depressed is a simply cured emotion and not a mental state and when she assumes she knows and understands when she doesn't. I know I'm a bitch for it but quite frankly, right now, I do not care because I am taking care of myself. I am done letting everyone else's shit pile up on top of me and letting people get away with it. If I have to look terrifying to warn people I am a force to be reckoned with, so be it. Bring on the dark makeup and smug glare because I am done. I am 100% done.

It has been five years almost and this is still painful as fuck to read, and yet it’s been five years and this is also still how I see myself and that sucks :) 

[sapphicscholar]

Prompt from @bonsai-maggie-sawyer : So... yesterday I was trying to draw Marines!Alex for my fanfic (I'm translating the first chapter into English, I'm going to publish it on ao3) and I used Lucy in her dress uniform as a reference. So, I was thinking, can you write about General Lane finding out about Director Sanvers? Maybe Lucy can face him and later she can breakdown with Sanvers or something else. We all know he's an asshole. Sorry, I wrote a lot 😂 CW for homophobia and general assholery. Also, I tried to humanize Gen. Lane just a bit in order to show why Lucy would care at all about telling him. Don’t worry, though, there’s no justifying bigotry. Drumming her fingers against the wooden tabletop, Lucy tried to remember why she had agreed to this dinner, why, when her homophobic, xenophobic, controlling father had called, she’d said yes, of course she’d like to have dinner with him. Deep down she knew it was because there was still a small part of her that wanted him to approve of her, to treat her the way he did on the day she enlisted or the day she got into law school or the day she received her JD. But the things that made him proudest were always the things most similar to his own life, his own experiences. Everything else was, at best, something he’d ignore. It was as though he’d taken “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” as a mantra for his daughter’s entire life. And hell, that was how he treated Lucy, his favorite. Lois might as well not have existed for the amount of attention he showed to her. At least they were in public, she reasoned. He could get angry and tell her he was disappointed in her and her choices, but he couldn’t scream—wouldn’t “embarrass” the uniform like that. Not like Lucy had. “Lucy,” he nodded as he strode through the rows of tables, posture impeccable and uniform crisply tailored. Lucy stood to greet him before sitting back at the table. “How was your trip in to National City?” She zoned out slightly as he answered, responding in kind and asking other general, vague questions until the waiter came to take their order. She suspected they could do this all night, that she could make it through this dinner with nothing but formalities. They could talk of the weather and traffic. She could nod politely at his gruff rants about the state of politics these days. She could listen as he talked about life at the base and tried to talk her into leaving the DEO again. But she also knew that she’d be disappointed in herself if she said nothing. Because as much as a part of her still craved his approval, a much bigger part wanted to be able to own her own life, to tell someone like her father and not care whether or not he approved, not care if he gave her his blessing in a way he never had with James. So halfway through her dinner, during a long lull in a conversation made up of pleasantries about the food and wine, she cleared her throat. “Dad?” “Hmm?” “I wanted to talk to you about some people in my life.” “Someone causing you trouble?” Sam asked. Lucy froze. Because here was the man who had come to school to defend her project on military history to a teacher who’d tried to fail her for going beyond the information provided in the rudimentary course textbook. Here was the man who had hugged her and shown genuine emotions in front of all of his colleagues when Lucy first enlisted. But she also knew he was the same man who’d raised her to believe that all aliens were evil, were invaders from other planets here to destroy the world as they knew it. He was the same man who had abandoned one daughter already, a man who had acted like a protector to his wife, never an equal. “I’m, uh, I’m in a relationship.” “Not with that Jimmy boy again, right? He wasn’t nearly good enough for you.” “He won the Pulitzer, Dad,” she sighed, trying not to dwell on the past, to remember that defending James wasn’t her reason for bringing up this topic. “But no, it’s not him.” “Good,” Sam nodded. “Do you remember that conversation we had after college? When I talked to you about the woman I was dating during senior year?” She didn’t mention that he had scoffed and told her to get over whatever phase it was and focus on her future. As soon as he nodded but before he could make any comments, she pushed forward: “Well, I have found a very loving relationship with,” she took a deep breath: “with two very wonderful, very accomplished women.” “That’s not a relationship.” She ground her teeth at his easy dismissal. “It is. And I know that it isn’t perhaps the most conventional definition of a relationship, but they make me happy, Dad. They make me happy, and I work to make them happy too. We work together—all of us—at defining how our family will work when we don’t have a template set for us. And I know that right now, maybe you need time to sit with it. But I am going to continue seeing them, no matter what you end up deciding. But if you can be happy for your daughter, can support me, then I would very much like you to meet them.” For a long while he said nothing, steadily working away at his steak until all that was left on his plate were a few spears of asparagus. Finally he cleared his throat: “I might have been able to come around to you seeing a…woman. But this—it’s like you’re trying to bait me.” “This has nothing to do with you,” Lucy interjected. “I am finally making decisions for myself, based on what makes me happy.” “Well then I hope you’re happy enough with them to make up for losing everyone else.” Shaking her head and swallowing harshly, refusing to let her father see how his words affected her, Lucy spit back: “I’m not losing everyone else; I’m just losing one close-minded old man.” As Sam put down his glass heavily, Lucy was already up on her feet, swinging her purse off the back of her chair, dropping a twenty on the table, and storming out of the restaurant. She made it all the way back to their apartment still fueled by righteous anger, by indignation at the words he’d dared to throw at her, at everything else she knew would have come if she’d stayed in the restaurant, allowed him to continue talking to her like that. But it only took one look from Maggie and Alex for the hurt and sadness to mingle with her anger, to leave her choking back tears before finally giving in and sobbing openly, letting herself be wrapped up in her girlfriends’ arms. “We’ve got you,” Maggie whispered, her voice soothing and quiet. “No matter what happened, we’re here for you.” She ran her fingers through Lucy’s hair, pressing soft kisses against her forehead. “We love you, Luce.” “We have ways of making him disappear,” Alex added, her tone equally soothing and quiet even if her words were of a distinctly different quality—a disjunction that had Lucy laughing through her tears. “Wouldn’t expect anything less, Danvers,” Lucy hiccupped. “Now, how about we fill you a bath?” Maggie offered. “And we’ll light those little tea light candles you like and do the essential oils and everything,” Alex added. “And we can make some tea,” Maggie continued, already holding out a hand to lead Lucy to the master bathroom. “And cuddle up with movies when you’re done your bath,” Alex nodded, following behind them. “Yeah, okay,” Lucy added with a small sniffle, letting herself be loved and held and cared for by her two favorite people. And soon she was being led into a steamy rooms, being helped into a hot bath, watching Alex line up little candles around the sink (because, “It would be so bad if you burned your arm or your hair by lining them around the tub, guys!”), smiling as Maggie shuffled off to get the tea ready while Alex sat down on the bathmat next to the tub so that she could be eye-level with Lucy, feeling the stress of her dinner slowly melt away. Because maybe Sam Lane wouldn’t be there for her, maybe he’d never come around or want to meet her partners or come to a commitment ceremony if they ever decided that was the right next step. But she had Alex and Maggie, and they were worth so much more than he ever was.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Life Story, Part 37

I couldn't stand anyone I knew anymore after 2003/2004. I wanted to be taken away somehow, to leave my old skin behind so to speak, but it didn't seem like that was something I could simply do as a fourteen year old. I muddled through the rest of the school year somehow. I was still very much in love with Zack. The sight of him walking down the hallway still made my heart race, I still looked for his approval, but it was hard for me to feel very much hope or positive feeling about him anymore. I knew now that he was a flawed person, and that all of this lead to disappointment. There was a growing recognition that feeling and knowing are sometimes two different things, and I was the tortured fool in the middle of both, unable to make sense of it.

At least now didn't feel the burden of needing to act. Zack had started to talk about Melissa with me. He started writing love letters to Melissa – to me for some reason. It was hard for me to read them and emotionally stay balanced. I forced myself to read these letters, and I forced myself not to be jealous. I pushed myself into some radical state of acceptance. He was also very upset that his sister Whitney was now dating Melissa's brother Josh, so now they were in this strange love square. I was beginning to feel demeaned. My heart was broken, and yet there was no space to go away. My friends did not care that my best friend had just casually had sex with the love of my life, a guy who had been leading me on with every ounce of energy he spent in the day, only to find out that he already had a girlfriend and that his interest in me had no clarity at all. And I was starting to feel like he really didn't actually care about me either. Yes, he thought I was a magical special creature here to make the world a better place. He seemed sort of obsessed with me, and maybe there had been something between us. But he didn't care about the version of me who was simply a girl trying to get by in the world who had feelings and aspirations. It's better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you aren't.

I just felt demeaned somehow. Honestly, it had been a rough fucking year for me. With this whole thing with him, my father's abuse, losing trust in everyone and everything, losing my best friends really and now realizing that they were more mindless and untrustworthy than I had imagined, I felt like I had been projected so far into a state of nothingness that there was no turning back. There would never be a time going forward where I could continue being the person I had been. That naive girl was dead. How had I gotten to this place? I kind of knew that this was me now, and this was the world. I had been blind before, and now I saw the world for what it was, much as I might have liked to have put all this behind me and proceeded as if nothing had changed. It left me feeling empty and sick inside.

We had this very dumb teacher named Mrs. Brammer. She had been my teacher clear back and fourth grade, and she didn't like me any more now that I was older. Really, what was horrible about her though was the fact that she actually didn't understand English and had no business teaching it whatsoever to high school students. This is a typical thing for small towns, since the budget is very small. We started reading Fahrenheit 451, and she had no idea what was going on in the story, or why it mattered. She had us skip several chapters because she couldn't understand them. If I deserved an F, so be it, but so did she.

For the last part of our English class, she wanted us all to write poems. I had been writing a lot of poetry at that time, after the miserable situation I had gone through, I was now able to be the kind of person who could express themselves in the abstract. Thankfully, almost none of it exists today. Most of it wasn't very good, terrible if I am going to be honest, and related to working through and trying to understand my place in the world, and what was going on with me emotionally at the time. It was contrived, self absorbed and embarrassing – what you might expect from a slightly foolish broken hearted teenage girl who thought that freemasons ran the government and had just lost everything she held dear. I would type out three or four poems a day, print them out, and put it in this book that I had pasted a picture of David Bowie as the goblin king in the Labyrinth on the front of. I picked some less personal poems from my collection for this particular school project, and I actually was able to get some kind of grade for her class, though I would not read them in front of anyone so my grade was docked. I remember all the boys in my class had written poems about football.  One of them went something like 1,2, kicked football with my shoe … ecetera. At the end, the closing line was “touchdown”. It was hard not to laugh. I know it's not nice to laugh at other people's poetry, but it was hard to not watch this crude ignorant ass read this with all seriousness in their dim little eyes. For  these young men, for most people I went to school with, this is as complex as any emotion could ever be. Kicking a ball around. And Ava ended up plagiarizing her poems from various lyrics, she was praised for her creativity. I have no idea how she didn't get caught.

I had somehow been able to hide the chair I busted from my dad by taking the pieces and hiding them in a dumpster downtown. Later I think David told him, but he didn't do or say much to me about it to me strangely enough. Maybe an act of violence was something my father might actually be able to understand. After I broke the chair, I laid on the floor all night and didn't think of anything, only this swirling feeling of my own reality, not even due to my circumstances, just this strange sense that I was simultaneously alone in the universe, that I was sentient, temporary, and at the same time interconnected with everything else. I had never ever seen myself this way. I had more or less been like a small rodent who finds things they like and takes them in. I had not questioned my place in the world, or the meaning behind it up till now. I wondered honestly if anything had ever actually been real. It is strange how pain can do that to a person.

I woke up that morning still on the floor and I felt like a completely different person. I didn't feel good, or bad anymore. Like some old ancient wisdom had simply been found, and I was bigger than the young lass I had been before, pining for the attention of a boy, which was all that had ever really mattered until then. I felt my own existence differently than I had previously. My eyes saw color differently, my skin felt different. It was almost indistinguishable from my previous self, but with added awareness. I didn't believe in God anymore, or at least one that I thought might have some personal relationship to my well being. And I didn't think that was a bad thing or a good thing. It just felt settled. I had never been a person of faith mind you, but I had always assumed there had been one on some level, as well as a sort of order to our lives on earth that would culminate into something heavenly later on and might protect me from evil if I had asked. It wasn't a belief, as much as it had been a notion.

Now, I just didn't think so. I was now ready to embrace atheism. I was also able to recognize this big vacant emptiness that was at the middle of everything that we all know about and try to hide from, and that we should accept and try to embrace that void rather than fill it up manically. So, though I was now discarding my belief in a higher power, at least one that I could logically contemplate the existence of, I also really felt like I was embracing a greater spiritual understanding.

I had started listening to a lot of Radiohead. Pop music had lost it's grip of me completely. It felt played out and dead. People on the television didn't hold their previous glamour. I was not interested in being pacified anymore. I wanted to embrace things that connected with death, love, and might even make me feel uncomfortable. I didn't think that being happy really mattered anymore. Happiness chooses you, and comes and goes. The harder you try to be happy, the more it alludes you. This isn't to say that self care has no purpose, or you shouldn't strive to be productive or lead a good life. But happiness is not the culmination of those things exactly. When you find yourself in a state of bliss, you consider yourself lucky, and know that it will not last. Nothing lasts, and it's okay. For just about everyone I had ever known, everyone had gone about the business of wanting to feel good immediately, to get what they want. But I was now aware that there was something to be said for not getting what you want. Happiness was not the goal.

Ava was no longer someone I looked forward to seeing. She was selfish and mean spirited. I think what she had done to me actually was causing her to embrace her full on hedonistic asshole self more fully. If she let herself feel remorse, then all her insecurities would come spilling out. And honestly, I think Ava was mentally ill back then. They would have diagnosed her with borderline or something. I am not trying to excuse her behavior, but in the long run, she was ultimately her own worst enemy. I was the best friend she ever had. She admitted this, and she knew it was true. I stuck by her when she was being unpleasant and mildly abusive. I actually cared about Ava. Most people were enchanted by her when her moods were up and she was outrageously hilarious and glowingly gorgeous, but as soon as she became moody, ego maniac, an attention whore and a manipulative unstable wreck, people left. I didn't however. You have to accept people's low points as well as their good.

I was getting fed up though. I was getting to this point where I was not emotionally strong enough to balance what she had done and give her ego so much of a boost while trying to figure out my own bleeding wounds that had not even begun to heal. I think in a way it almost made her angrier that I had accepted what she had done as well as I had. She would have felt better had I lashed out. She wanted some kind of punishment. I wasn't taking the situation easy at all, but I wasn't blaming her as much as I was changing my perspective a lot. I was going home and thinking about death for eight hours before finally going to sleep. My skin hurt, I felt like I was choking half the time. And Ava did nothing to be there for me. Nobody wanted to listen to what I had to say.

So, there was this day where Ava used my home phone to call Tyeson. She had gotten to this point where she simply was losing her mind with frustration at not having had much success in getting with him. She had had Zack, and now she wanted to fix that in her mind I think by getting with someone she actually wanted. She called him from my house, and she forgot to block the number. She had actually been prank calling him for a few months to hear his voice. Today, he called my number back and was not having it. I answered, and he went into a big angry thing about how I needed to leave him alone. I tried to play dumb, but he didn't want to hear it.

Ava broke down right about then, and I hung up on Tyeson. She started screaming and crying and saying that she was a stupid ugly bitch and that she had the worst life of any of us and none of us understood her. She started hitting herself in the face lightly and looking around at Sarah (who was also present) and I in her typical attention seeking routine. I might have had more compassion, except I had literally had to talk myself out of suicide because she had made decisions based on her sex drive and her drive to dominate everyone. She had kind of ruined my life. So I instead I just watched her and she threw herself on the floor and began kicking and screaming like a baby. I was cold about it because of the bigger picture. Sarah was colder about it because she is far more composed by nature. We both just stood there. I then told her, if anything, she was the one who fucked me over, she was the one who wanted to prank call Tyeson, and if anything, I was the one who should be angry at her, and I wasn't.

She suddenly got up off the floor in a blind rage. She told me to shut the fuck up, and then she ran outside. She grabbed a large granite rock from the garden and I watched her through the front living room window as she aggressively yelled that she was going to take this rock and throw it through the front window. As if I didn't already have enough troubles. I knew there was nothing I could do if she had decided to go through with it. I just sighed and let her threaten. She then took the rock and threatened to bash my father's RX7 in with it. I was really annoyed. She then didn't do this, and instead she threw the rock back into the garden, came in and took the phone to call her mom to come pick her up.

The next week, as I was sitting in my English class, I got a call from the office saying I was needed in the counseling room. So I got my books and shuffled into the counselor's office, and there was Ava. She was acting extremely formal and talking in a very clear 'adults love me' voice with the principal about me. I think in an act of revenge or something, she had decided to go to the counselor and tell them that I was acting insane and was being a terrible friend. This was so ludicrous and insulting that if I had the self respect I had today, I would have just laughed and gone back to class. But I sat in. It was extremely uncomfortable and completely insulting to me in every way. The counselor and Ava both were nodding their heads to one another as they spoke about what a poor student I was, how I had a sick obsession with death that was 'hurting Ava's positive outlook and affecting her grades'. I wanted to explain how she had fucked (actually fooled around, but it's not really so different in a sense) the one person I had loved more than anyone, as well as everything else she had gotten away with, but I didn't go there. I got defensive and nervous and shifty, and in every way probably behaved as though I was hiding the very poor qualities they were attributing to me. I felt like I was in a no win situation.

Had I explained the depths of what I was going through, the school would have ruled me insane for other reasons, for being too much in love, for being too interested in the meaning of life. And the counselor talked to people in the office, and the office people told other students all the dirt. So if I talked about my life, it would have been all over the school. The hypocrisy in the room was extremely thick. I acted like an aloof punk, I got passively reprimanded, Ava pointing this out like this was what I did all the time 'See what I mean??!' she would say to counselor, who would nod in agreement. Basically, they came to the conclusion that I was delusional and insane. As soon as I got out of the small horrible room, I had to sit in the bathroom for awhile to let the rage and absolute frustration fade away. It was moments like this where, Zack's words explaining to me that the school was trying to beat me down to nothing and they were all somewhat conspiring against me started to make some emotional sense.

Zack and I were still tight. I just felt completely horrible and sick and at the same time in love with him, which was conflicting and painful, but nevertheless, I still adored him, and it was obvious. If my friends actually believed that I wasn't infatuated with him anymore, they were deluding themselves, which at the present time, they probably were. In the last month of school, Zack had to be separated in class. I was really frustrated, being separated, but we found a way to stay connected. He got this roll of toilet paper, and he took a long line of it that would span the distance between our desks. One one side, I began twisting, and on the other side, he twisted. While our history teacher drawled on and on, we twisted the toilet paper so tight that it became like a wire. We did this for the entirety of class.

Ava was in the same class, and I could tell this made her angry. The next class period in history, We were all allowed to sit together and even move our desks close, I don't recall the reason. Ava tried to force Zack to scoot his desk with hers, and he told her he didn't want to. She got up, and started screaming at him, saying she wasn't going to deal with his shit. She glared at me, and left the classroom. I couldn't lie. I felt a smile draw on my lips. There was something satisfying about seeing Ava not get her way.

And then there was the week before Ava's birthday. Ava had a birthday party a week earlier than her birth date. Her mom didn't want all of us girls making noises all night in the house, so she set up this camper outside, a relatively big camper with a bedroom and a small living room space. Me, Sarah, Teal and Samantha were all invited. Ava had just bought Pink Floyd's The Wall, and we were all going to sit and watch it for the first time. I was blown away. The symbolism in The Wall made so much sense to me, in every way. I felt so connected with the film that there were times I had to hide little tears in the corner of my eyes. The other girls, at the end of the movie, all commented about how 'trippy' it was, and how you could only understand the message if you were high. I disagreed vehemently, but had trouble explaining myself without getting frowned at by the others. The concepts and the meaning behind the film were so clear to me. I felt like this was the first piece of art that I could actually relate to. I felt like I understood everything so clearly that it hurt.

Ava accused me of trying to pretend I was deep. I said nothing further. She then started talking about sex. Teal, Samantha and Ava now had all had some kind of sexual experience to talk about. They started talking about everything they had done and who with. Ava was bragging about Zack in this really mindless way. Talking about his anatomy and such. I knew she was trying to get some kind of reaction from me. I just closed down. I passively glared at everyone. These people weren't my friends. None of these people had any sense of the pain I was in, or cared. They didn't get any message from The Wall, and for that not to sink in even a little, it showed just how shallow and pointless they all were. They saw me as weak. I didn't think it was a good idea to speak up though. If I did, where would it end? My eyes started watering however, so I laid down, and I pulled the sheets over my head. We were listening to the radio, and I remember very clearly listening to Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order. I had always loved that song, but didn't know how to tell people that I liked an 80's hit – at this time the 80's were considered as uncool as some people consider the early 00's now. I felt like I was probably too sensitive to be at this sleepover, and I was wishing I could just go home.

Sarah spoke up though. She had been silent this entire conversation, and I could tell she was really nervous and uncertain of her place in the conversation. But she spoke up anyway, and bless her little soul for it. What she said wasn't that liberating or outstanding, but the lack of sympathy displayed was making her mad too and it was hard for her to sit through it. She told Ava, in front of the other two, that she thought what Ava had done was wrong, and she should actually be more ashamed of herself for betraying a friend, and that both she and I didn't want to hear about this. Samantha looked a little guilty. Ava, once again, as you might imagine was blown away and upset. She ran out of the camper to her own room in the house. Teal followed behind her. Teal of course was thoroughly for Ava's egomania. They came back a few hours later, avoiding me at all costs in the clear fashion that let me know that I had been the topic of discussion. And it was funny, because even though Sarah had been the one to say it, Ava and everyone else saw it as something that I had said. The next morning, Ava told me that her mother didn't want me at the house anymore, because I was trashy, poor, and obsessed with death – macabre. I was a futureless bum and I would never get into a good college. Ava didn't need to be around people like me, and I was ruining Ava's future by being around her. Ava was a winner, I was a loser. Simple as that.

The next weekend, I decided I was going to hang out with just Sarah. Ava didn't allow Sarah and I to hang out anymore. It had been over half a year since we had last spent any length of time together. Ava would always call to see where we were. If she had ever found out that we had hung out and she was not invited, than there would be hell to pay. So I simply stopped contacting Sarah in person. Ava didn't even want us calling each other. And I now felt like I could trust Sarah. We had always been good friends, and had always really connected on a certain level, even as children when she used to be a bit mean to me we had still had another side of our friendship that was very freeing. Now, perhaps to some degree a little overly adamant in my desperation to feel somewhat connected to at least one person in the world, I now chose to accept Sarah as my one true friend. Perhaps the only friend I had ever actually had.

I felt like Sarah needed a lot of work. My newfound perceptions about life had given me a bit of an ego. That ego was largely created I think to protect me, but it was starting to become my master. Slowly, I was starting to see myself as clearly better than everyone else. I felt like Sarah was lacking in a lot of ways. She wasn't very passionate. She seemed to prefer to sleep all the time, and avoid anything uncomfortable at all costs. I wanted Sarah to step up as an equal, to fight back, to question me sometimes, and she seemed to not want to do that. She seemed to crumple up when I asked her what she thought about anything. She posed as a cool kid, but was actually lost. She avoided certain things, rather than face them and this bothered me. But, I felt like I could fix that. Sarah was a good person. She did have a very strong sense of apathy. And on some level, she seemed to really understand me.

I will give Ava one thing. She got her revenge on Mr. Driskoll. (For those who aren't aware, Mr. Driskoll was the football coach who had made sexually inappropriate jokes about Ava's weight, talked about how he wanted to bone teenagers with the football players, who had essentially been the ringleader one night in sexually harassing Ava in the beginning of the school year – he was/is a disgusting person who didn't deserve to have a job). It all started with this incident where Zack intentionally began telling Ava about how Tyeson was sleeping with one of the cheerleaders, in great detail. Ava became derailed. Zack did this I think to piss her off. I just sat there on the bench and watched Ava freak out and go to the girl's bathroom. The bell rang, and we all headed to computer class. Mr. Driskoll was lazily in charge of typing class for some reason – a budget thing I guess. Ava came into class late. She was obviously in the middle of having a panic attack and was trying to make it quiet, and failing badly.

Mr. Driskoll foolishly took this as a moment to be the bully and get in her face. He came up to her and he told her to knock it off. I really don't remember the altercation between the two of them, but I remember the psychological dynamics perfectly. Mr. Driskoll walked up to Ava, thinking he was going to be scary. Ava was not afraid. Ava didn't have those kinds of rules. In fact, every bit of her frenzy and frustration became totally focused on him. She basically challenged him to a fist fight. She stood up and walked towards him, and he backed up scared. She called him a pedophile. I don't know if he was one or not, but it seemed to get a reaction – like he was guilty of something. He looked scared. He was stuttering. She threw something at him. And he left the room, scared. He was shaking. He had no idea what kind of person he was dealing with.

She ended up going into his office, and threatening him to leave her the fuck alone. Which he stammered and obliged. Later, she came back to class with a sinister grin on her face, and a look of satisfied accomplishment. Mr. Diskoll walked like a beaten man, he was shaking. It reminded me of one of those scenes in movies where, the monster actually kills the corrupt cop. Obviously the monster is bad, but there is a satisfaction in watching it munch down and slash apart the other bad guys, particularly when their own hubris made them walk into it.

The Locus Blossom festival had come once again. Just as it had for my entire life. Years ago Rachelle and I had roamed the streets using our squirt guns to mow down the other kids. Even before that, I had been a little three year old, timidly picking up the candy thrown from the floats that fell on the sides of the street. And now I was a few months shy of fifteen, everything had changed, but the festival remained the same.

Zack and arrived with Melissa. It was the first time I had seen them together as a couple. Previous to that of course, I had seen them as friends before Zack and I had become friends. But now I had to see her as someone who was Zack's girlfriend. She didn't seem to be aware of just how intimate Zack was with me. She saw me more as a passive companion in a group of people, and likely she assumed that he was closer with Sarah and Ava. Melissa looked/looks an awful lot like Avril Lavigne. She was very pretty. I tried not to see myself as less than her. I tried to accept the situation for what it was. Zack was with someone else. Melissa was manipulative and there were many things that she had silently seemed to conspire against me on over the years, but I never felt like it was due to any personal dislike. I think she had been curious. And her dating Zack was not one of those things. She genuinely was in love with Zack, or at least it seemed that way. I couldn't be angry at her. It hurt, of course. But I needed to see this. And in a way, I felt like maybe both Melissa and I understood and loved Zack, so ultimately, did we not have something in common in this way?

Melissa went back home early in the day. Zack went to go get high with one of his older guy friends, and then he came back in the early evening. He talked to Allison and David, which was the first time they had ever really talked to him before, and it was amusing. He was teasing them that they should date one another. Allison and David didn't take kindly to the joke, but we were all laughing. He convinced me to disappear from my pals (if you want to call them that), and we ran down the bike path, until we found tall grass that grew by the creek that we could lay in and hide from everyone else. We just laid there and looked up at the sky. I don't remember if we said anything or not. But I remember being extremely happy, and incredibly sad at the same time as I stared up into the clouds. Everything was mixed up and incomplete. I could never and may never have been closer to Zack than I was at that time. And did Melissa really know about this? I couldn't imagine this kind of thing would fly with most girlfriends, and honestly I wouldn't blame them. This wasn't cheating, but it was certainly something. I remember just laying there, and forcing myself not to think, but rather just feel the earth beneath me and the sky above, and Zack there next to me.

Of course, Ava was on a warpath, and she was determine to find us, and she did. We heard her and we got up and proceeded with our lives and the entirety of that event rests solely in my memories of that day.

PART 36 - http://tinyurl.com/y9ygq9q8

PART 35 - http://tinyurl.com/ya5xhe2f

PART 34 - http://tinyurl.com/yc6y4p69

PART 33 - http://tinyurl.com/y87449dz

PART 32 - http://tinyurl.com/ycetanep

PART 31 - http://tinyurl.com/yae3o4rd

PART 30 - http://tinyurl.com/ybht9aul

PART 29 - http://tinyurl.com/ybfcr9j2

PART 28 - http://tinyurl.com/yagdlo47

PART 27 - http://tinyurl.com/ydcj5fgf

PART 26 - http://tinyurl.com/y73nvl73

PART 25 -  http://tinyurl.com/y6v6pgoj

PART 24 - http://tinyurl.com/ycak5d8r

PART 23 - http://tinyurl.com/yac6sk3g

PART 22 -  http://tinyurl.com/yat6cfnw

PART 21 -  http://tinyurl.com/y783egno

PART 20 - http://tinyurl.com/y8jskymt

PART 19 - http://tinyurl.com/rfhbms8

PART 18 - http://tinyurl.com/ycrznrwk

PART 17 - http://tinyurl.com/y77unlng

PART 16 - http://tinyurl.com/yadpsv8c

PART 15 - http://tinyurl.com/yb3lt6k5

PART 14 - http://tinyurl.com/yb4cfedq

PART 13 - http://tinyurl.com/yalanq9s

PART 12 - http://tinyurl.com/yc79mw94

PART 11 - http://tinyurl.com/yc9qhj84

PART 10 - http://tinyurl.com/yb734w24

PART 9 - http://tinyurl.com/yc2t6vfw  

PART 8 - http://tinyurl.com/ybl37utq

PART 7 - http://tinyurl.com/ybvo283g

PART 6 - http://tinyurl.com/kbc9dwu

PART 5 - http://tinyurl.com/msnz4am

PART 4 - http://tinyurl.com/k9x8esg

PART 3 - http://tinyurl.com/mwp9atx

PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2

PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8

[rina-rambles]

The Peepal Tree: Behind The Scenes & Curtain Calls

Hard as it is to believe, it is almost time for Rina Didi’s (hopefully temporary) curtain call. While I hope the literary group remember the German I taught them, this article is about my real legacy after the few months at Happy Days: the English play with Class 5A.

Admittedly Nani did a lot of the initial legwork, adapting the script from a Ruskin Bond story to make it suitable for a school play and proving once again why everyone adores Umi Ma’am. But from the moment I sat down to type up the script, I felt attached to the story and what it would grow to become. This doesn’t mean that the production is huge, quite the opposite in fact: With a cast of only 15 or 16 kids and three short scenes, the play is relatively small-time. Add to that the fact that it’s a fifth grader’s performance and my pride in the project may seem over the top. My own fifth-grade play is a hazy memory now, as this production will be for these kids ten years from now, if at all.

As a quote from my favourite TV show Glee nicely puts it: “Life only really has one beginning and one end…the rest is just a whole lot of middle.” This play is hardly comparable to a lifetime but the sentiment is fitting. That scene was leading up to a show choir competition for a group of misfit kids in high school and their teacher, whose quote that is, had some noteworthy advice: It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose when the journey has been so much fun. 

Not that any sane parent dislikes a performance from their child, but the point is that audience reception of this play doesn’t matter to me. I will remember every minute of our rehearsals fondly and if there’s one thing making me sad at this point, it’s the fact that I will miss the final performance of the play in December. But my “whole lot of middle” about this journey has been every day with these kids and getting to watch them grow into their roles with infectious enthusiasm and joy. The story is simple but it is the progress made in just over a month of rehearsals that have made it memorable, at least for me.

The Story

The Peepal Tree is narrated by a young man named Bobby, telling the story of a disruptive arrival to his family home when he was eight years old. Living with his Dada and Dadi, life was peaceful until the local P.W.D department decided an ancient peepal tree in the family’s garden was obstructing the road and would need to be cut down. Led by a pompous chief engineer, the surveyors descend upon the family garden to measure out the space required for the wider road. A team of obedient woodcutters soon follow suit, paying no attention to how much their presence and ruthless destruction of the tree anger the master of the house, Bobby’s Dada. The old man tries in vain to remind the business-like chief engineer of the government’s message to replenish nature rather than cut down such valuable greenery. Neither his anger nor Bobby’s Dadi’s broken-hearted cries at the loss of her beloved tree have any effect on the workers and the chopping commences.

As the first scene draws to a close, the narrator chimes in with the foreshadowing insight that Prets, meaning ghosts, often live in peepal trees. No one in the house would be able to see this spirit, but with the tree gone, the mischievous creature had nowhere to go but their once peaceful family home. The play’s second scene takes place in the house and opens with a clear indication of the havoc caused by the Pret. Bobby’s Dadi has apparently misplaced her glasses and in her frantic hunt lays the blame on Bobby, innocently doing his homework nearby. As the eight-year-old points out he had nothing to do with the disappearance of her spectacles, the old woman asks him to locate her missing keys. This is the cue for the ghost to have some fun and the keys soar across the room, out of the little boy’s reach and leaving him confused and out of breath. That was the moment the grandmother realized that the strange chaos must be caused by the Pret from their old peepal tree, a moment of recognition met by delighted applause from the naughty spirit.

After this introduction to the ghostly chaos, the narrator announces the arrival of a new victim for the Pret, the misfortunate Raju Uncle. Exhausted by his long journey, the man tries to sleep but the Pret cheekily pulls the sheets off him and throws them to the ground repeatedly. The result is a restless night and when the scene shifts to a family breakfast the next morning, Raju is in a very sleep-deprived and grumpy mood as he informs the family of the mysterious flying sheets. For this prank too, young Bobby gets suspected and blamed by his uncle, though the little boy has moved out of that room while Raju is staying. It is then that the Dadi tells him of the strange disappearances of her glasses, the flying keys and general havoc in their organized home since the peepal tree was chopped down…the Pret is to blame for Raju’s rough night as well.

The narrator indicates the passage of time at this point, with the mischievous Pret continuing to create chaos and messes in the house, to Dadi’s dismay. Then another new arrival is introduced, loaded with heavy baggage to exhaust her plump physique, the dramatic Kamini Aunty enters. The Pret takes an instant liking to her, showering her with rose petals stolen from Dada’s garden as a welcoming gesture. Although angered by the destruction of his flower garden, the old man recognises this action as a sign that the Pret approves of Kamini and says so. Kamini then makes the fatal mistake of saying she doesn’t believe in ghosts and such things, leading the spirit to throw fruit at her head in revenge. In those few poorly chosen words, Kamini Aunty managed to get on the naughty Pret’s bad side and this would be soon proven in the ghost’s ultimate prank. In switching out Kamini’s tube of toothpaste with some of Dada’s shaving cream, the Pret had her frothing at the mouth and led to Raju Uncle dramatically declaring; “Keep away from her, she has rabies!”

The final scene arrives with a brainwave from Raju to rid the family of the Pret’s annoying presence. He heads off to the bazaar and returns shortly with a Sadhu known for ridding houses of evil spirits, despite young Bobby’s insistence that the Pret is just mischievous, not evil. The Sadhu moves around the house, chanting mantras and lighting incense sticks to ward off the lingering spirit haunting the family. When he is finished, he gleefully demands payment for his services from Raju Uncle, only to have the Pret pelt him with garbage and chase him away for good. The narrator then eases along the passage of time once more, with the family adjusting to their friendly Pret’s habitual tricks and pranks since there seems to be no getting rid of the ghost. One day, the Dadaji beckons his wife and grandson to the garden eagerly, claiming he has a surprise for them. It turns out to be the sapling of a peepal tree, to take the place of the one so viciously cut down by the P.W.D department. Little Bobby is disappointed to learn how long the tree will take to become as large and majestic as the first one, but vows to take care of the little sapling for as long as he lives. The Pret is overjoyed to have a home again and applauds the planting of the little sapling, giving weight to the environmental message of the play: For every tree we cut down, one should be planted in order for the circle of life to continue.

No matter what happens when this play is ultimately performed, I know how far these kids have come. In early October, rehearsals began sitting crowded around the table in the staff room, just reading through the script to try and find the right person for each part. There were perfect fits, like the narrator Aman and Sumit as our Raju Uncle. Other key parts, like our Dadaji, were re-cast multiple times until Tushant finally claimed the role. The play is built upon a message of environmental preservation importance, so the old man’s final monologue is vital. With Umi Ma’am as his daily coach since he got the part quite far into the process, I have full faith in him. There are only two girls in this little play, as Dadiji and the dramatic Kamini Aunty. The grandmother needed to be emotional at the loss of her precious peepal tree and Aunt Kamini has the play’s biggest prank played on her and had to act accordingly. Again quite far into rehearsals, considering the school break for Diwali, we swapped the two girls’ roles. Originally the Dadi, Manya is much better suited to the exaggerated drama of a plump aunty who has her toothpaste swapped for shaving cream by the Pret. And Pankhuri has adorably awkward chemistry with Tushant, as it always looks like he’s touching her head in blessing when he guides her away from the garden wing of the stage as the tree is being cut down.

Other fond memories include the adorable drawings from various boys in the early days, which I will definitely proudly frame for my bedroom in Switzerland. It was also touching to see the family unity across two areas of the school I was involved in when Prashika from my literary hobby group came to beg us to give her brother (an originally mute surveyor of the tree cutting) a line in the play to increase his self-confidence. That impressed me and was symbolic of everything I have grown to love about Happy Days in the past few months. We’ve had ups and downs through this process, of course, distractions in every form from stray monkeys to the construction of stage lighting when the school recently had its 25-year reunion function. But as the final week of rehearsals rolls on before I hope to prove to my parents that these months have been well worth it, I am really proud of these kids.

It was difficult to get fifth graders to understand the assignment when I asked them to write down their fondest memories of this whole process…or maybe I’m just more sentimental and nostalgic. I also tried to get them to imagine alternate endings to the play. The only option to come out of that exercise was the new peepal tree hypothetically being cut down again one day, causing the Pret to move in with the family once more. Some of the kids did confess their highlights of the storyline though: For Manya, it was seeing the ghost pull off Raju’s bedclothes repeatedly and for Sumit, Raju himself, it was the line “Keep away from her, she has rabies!” For me, the funniest will always be Sumit’s confession that he didn’t have the 30 rupees his character was required to pay the spirit-banishing Sadhu…I told him to pretend but the dismay was precious. Now the poor Sadhu gets a handkerchief pressed into his hand as payment, as Sumit cheekily told me only this week…you have to love this boy. Whatever the case, I know that I will treasure the dramatic increase in excitement and enthusiasm whenever I would pull out my camera. My phone has been a life-line on this trip for a reason; I will look back at those videos and photographs very soon with as much pride as the kids showed every time they fought to be the centre of attention. I’ll be waiting eagerly for the day I can come back to Happy Days no matter what, but I hope that in the ultimate dress rehearsal next week my kids give me a good reason to. All that’s left to say is that I love them and every memory they have given me in the past few months. Good luck in December and I demand videos of the big day; Rina Didi will miss you all!

Speaking of missing people, it’s not only the school I have to temporarily say goodbye to but also my family. Since this may be my final article until I come back in hopefully a few months, there are some things that need saying. I have been coming to Shivpuri every year for my whole life and it has always been home, but in the past three months is the first time it has really felt like it, if that makes sense. It was a safe place to venture into teaching, with my family to fall back on and I am so grateful for that. Thank you, Nani, especially, for being there at every play rehearsal, even when the kids didn’t quite live up to your expectations. Thank you Geeta Mami, for being such an awesome boss and letting me start out with sessions in your office. Thank you Aditi, for putting up with me as a roomie and Arjun for letting me take over your desk for hours every day, I hope I’ve made my mark. And Sam, for encouraging every article and indulging my inner fangirl at the same time…you love my words but none can actually describe what a confidence booster all your help was, I love you and see you soon!

[negativehome-blog]

I was clueless about sports but I played soccer in high school and met a friend on the team named Jeremy. He was like me, always laughing and trying his best to support me in all my endeavors. When I told him I wanted to be a writer he said he knew that already because he could see it in my eyes. He was a smart guy who loved science. I never understood science but he said he had his reasons and I understood that. He would spend hours and hours in the science building just tinkering with robots and mixing chemicals and stuff like that. I'm not kidding with you he was a real geek. But then after a couple hours in there he'd come out and kick the soccer ball and talk about how much he liked this one girl Sharon. She was smart and cool like him and he knew she was the one. Meanwhile I was just trying to kick the ball in a way that would meet his foot directly, I hated when I was even a little bit off with my kicks. He was funny when he talked, he knew he was a good guy so he just kept going and going. He was trying so hard to explain the way she looked at him, I believe he said it was like being at the dentist. When your being worked on by your dentist and you are powerless to everything they're doing, all you can do is look up at the ceiling and try to stay calm. I laughed when he said that because it was so brilliant. But I knew what he meant. I felt that way about my mother. My mother was in law school at the time. She was studying almost always and working so hard. She was a real lover of life and I couldn't see why she'd want to spend all that time with books. But she wanted a career and a lawyer sounded right to her so she thought she'd go for it. I don't know much about my mother at the end of the day. She works so hard. But I remember all the times we went to the park when I was younger. She would take me to the lake and we would skip stones. She is a brilliant women who I couldn't live without. It was cold out and I was walking with Jeremy. He had on a nice blue sweater that I was envious of. He looked like a hipster who was a little too cool for me and I liked that. It was fun being around Jeremy because he always surprised you. He said while we were walking that he wished he could go to war and I said why doesn't he enlist. He didn't know he said. I looked down at my feet as we walked then looked up and saw the building we were walking to. English class, my favorite. My teacher hates me because I was always laughing at the books he made us read. People like Faulkner and Camus. Assholes in my opinion, just plain stupid and inconsequential. I wrote a paper on Hemingway, I liked him, but all the rest we read were shit. I didn't say anything to Jeremy when he asked if I read the reading from last night. I just thought about how much I hated my teacher. Anyway though I liked to read, even books I knew were terrible, so I enjoyed English. I sat next to Jeremy and to the left of me sat Joan who I enjoyed a lot. She was funny and read the same books as me. She really liked John Updike and I thought that was interesting. I saw Joan when we walked into class and she smiled. Hi Joan I said. She said hello and I laughed at the way she said it and she smiled. It was stupid as hell but I enjoyed it and I sat down. I looked at my teacher, he was reading something on his computer. Fucking fool, I thought. He was gay as hell, always smiling about something that probably meant nothing to anyone else. He had a wife who was a hard core Jew and she lived with him in some house in the middle of town. They had a baby too, named Beck after the singer, I kid you not. Fucking Beck. I couldn't stand the guy but he looked up and I saw his eyes and felt bad for him. He was good I think when all is said and done. I looked into my bag and pulled out a notepad. It was going to be a boring class I could tell. My teacher had written some words on the chalk board. "Glass Eye" and "Death repeated" and then there was a few lines quotes from the Poe story we were supposed to read. It was a good story that I'd read before but didn't read the night before so I was hazy on the specifics. I knew Jeremy had read it because he was already writing something in his notebook very busily like he meant something to the world. Across the room sat Jeff some asshole who smoked a lot of weed and listened to music nearly 24/7 but not in a good way. In a pretentious way as if no one else mattered and he was a musical genius or something. He looked my way and I gave him an approving nod. He looked mad and i felt bad. Shit, this class was stinking. My teacher was babbling about Poe and his metaphors and I couldn't stand it. Joan was doing something i didn't even want to care about because it would have sent me crazy. But I looked over anyway. She was opening a pack of crackers and she took one and put it in her mouth. She had lipstick on and I was amazed for a moment and didn't care about life at all I only wanted one of Joan's crackers. I gently asked her for one and she said sure and gave me one. I thanked her and we went back to what we were doing, which I can't even know at all. What the fuck were we doing? Joan had her legs crossed. I liked Joan a lot but I wasn't physically attracted too her much. She knew that and I knew she probably felt the same about me. So we just went on repeating the same thing over and over and eventually it became a friendship. After class I threw up in the backyard of the building. No one was around. There was a black cloud hanging in the sky and something was soothing me deep inside that I couldn't explain. My main reason for being here, I thought, was to meet a girl and fall in love. And that was very reassuring, it was truly my only job. Everything else, writing and making money and all that, the only reason to do it is to meet someone and maybe start a family. Jesus Christ, isn't that a nice thought? Of course there's my current family too which I grew up with. My brother Jack and my sister Carmen and my dad who I rarely see but I know is a good guy. They mean a lot. But they know me at this point and there's nothing to prove to them. So I just have to focus on my career and the girl or I guess boy or maybe both or whoever that I can fall in love with. I felt sick again and threw up but this time it was just bile and I stunk of throw up when I walked into the cafeteria. Maraika was a good girl, very solid. I dug her a lot. She liked me too and I knew it could be romantic. But we didn't say anything to each other when we saw each other that day. She didn't even look at me when I looked at her and I bet I didn't look at her when she looked at me. But who knows if she looked at me, I'll never know. Fucking Maraika could really drive me crazy. I knew her well at that point, we'd had a couple classes together and we worked together on a project and we sat together at lunch a couple times with other people at the table. I wanted to say something but was too scared. I needed motivation of some kind. I sat down at a table with a guy named John who was funny as hell. I said hi as I sat down and saw he was eating an apple and a pear and had an orange juice. Jesus, John, I said, could you get any more fruity? John was a fag. One of the gayest men you'd ever see. He laughed and said yes he probably could. I loved John. He made me feel safe. He could speak about anything with a certain distance that made you believe he cared about it but also didn't care at all, which mesmerized me. He was like a doctor or a lawyer or a politician. Something very real yet something really fake about him. He didn't adhere to society at all, he just leapt and hopped around campus and he could play a pretty mean guitar. He had a band called Function that was pretty good. They played metal. I hated metal but could listen to them play and not be turned off. John, I said, what do you think of Maraika. John looked at Maraika who was sitting across the room. She looked about 50 feet away. I have no idea he said and took a bite of his apple. She's nice, I said. Yeah I bet he said. I'm gonna ask her out. You are? John looked at me. He was shocked because he didn't think I would like a girl like her. I dated John's friend for a while named Maggie and she was nice but I got bored of all her hypotheses and all her chants and things she did to build up her own confidence. I liked Maraika I said. Ok said John, yea I think you should go for it. John was surprised and I liked that.