#I managed to start being open over covid and I don’t want to have to go back to suffering silently

[existentialcrisis-24-7]

When I was 6 I tried to run away.

It was around 7:30am on a rainy weekend.

My parents had yelled and argued with me once again over something that absolutely did not justify that response, especially considering I was 6.

I had decided that, at the very young age of 6, I had had enough of this treatment so I packed my bags on the verge of tears, thoroughly thinking through everything I would bring, and left.

I snuck out the front door nearly completely undetected (despite there being bells on it and an incredibly loud lock). Someone just thought a cat was being let out.

I was nervous, but I was definitely happy to be going away. I got all the way out of the estate and into the next one before I realised I hadn’t eaten breakfast and reluctantly returned just to get an apple and then I would leave for good.

Alas though, I didn’t have keys and we never left any spares outside, so I had to knock and be let in. My older sister let me in, woke everyone up and I got reamed once again for running away.

It was brought up recently in conversation. (To be perfectly honest I’m still upset that I didn’t just push through the hunger). I was being stubborn and my sister claimed I had always been, mentioning when I ran away.

My mam was adamant I just randomly decided to do that. That there was no argument and that she would never have yelled at me like she did.

My dad didn’t even remember it happened.

[scientia-rex]

I got home from work today sneezing my head off with a right eye that won’t stop watering, took a hot shower, climbed into bed, and I haven’t climbed out since. I’m grumpy and I have a headache and if I’m not testing positive for COVID or debilitated by symptoms tomorrow I’ll still need to go to work because that’s twenty patient visits that would need to be rescheduled, usually with someone else, and that’s twenty people I’m letting down. Today I did one of my patented 45-second Pap smears (if it takes longer than that, your doctor needs to get better!) for someone with vaginal atrophy from menopause (it is both very common and very treatable) and she was in disbelief. (This time it was more like 30 seconds.) I saw a suicidally depressed patient who’s clinging to life with both hands and I changed their meds last week and I am not making them wait to see me. I cleaned a wound no one else gave a shit about and I saw a bitter pissy Republican Party bigwig who has terrible anxiety and depression she doesn’t tell anyone about, who’s alienated everyone but who I can still convince to try treatment.

I do my job on hard mode on purpose. I like being important—who doesn’t? I like being legendary, I like that when people move to town and ask for doctor recommendations on Facebook so many people mention me that other patients feel compelled to tell me about it. I got nominated for best doctor in our local region last year. (I didn’t win, out of 5 nominees.) But when I’m sick, when I’m the kind of sick that can be hidden easily, the kind of sick I was always expected to go to school and rotations and residency with, it’s so hard. I hate exposing patients, even to a cold, but the benefits of receiving care are probably enough to outweigh the chance of transmission. I wrestle with myself: if I call in, it starts a ripple effect. Can they get a per diem from their “pool” (of three) to come in? Can they reschedule my patients with me? I don’t have any open spots for five weeks. Can they open same days? None available for three weeks. Can they open blocked spots? That’s going to make my life hell when I come back from being sick. That’s clinic staff calling twenty patients, trying to reach them. That’s twenty patients who feel abandoned. They can know intellectually that doctors get sick too, but they don’t believe it. They take it personally. I have seen this over and over again, until I had to believe it.

It is so EASY for people who don’t do this job to tell me how I’m doing it wrong. “Just stay home!” Oh, okay, you want to tell the person whose chronic opioids I’m supposed to write for that I can’t? You want to put the nurses through getting the on-call to write a bridge prescription? I write more ADHD meds than most of my peers—usually a lot more. You want to tell my colleagues to write meds they’re uncomfortable with? How about tell my suicidal patients (which is a lot of them!) that the provider they know and trust after months or years will be replaced today by a 70-year-old white man who still thinks they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Tell my queer patients that they have to wait until I’m better and back to get their hormones and their STI screenings, reschedule a Pap someone was dreading. Every day is a kaleidoscope of opportunities to make a real connection with “difficult” patients. I’m good at it. I may be the best at it at my clinic.

I don’t hate calling in sick just because the clinic manager is a judgy bitch, though that doesn’t help. I hate it because of what it does to my patients. And it’s not simple. Pretending it is does all of us a disservice. I am not a widget. I am not easily replaceable. You can’t plug any of our per diems (all men, 2/3 white, 2/3 old, 1/3 a Bitcoin bro) into my place and call it an equivalent, and my schedule is already so packed that if I call in sick, patients will be guilt-tripping me about it for months. I’m not kidding. That happens every single time.

Christ alive, I wish it was true that doctors never got sick.

[fanboo]

They’re Sick HC’s

HEY. DO NOT READ TECHNOS IF YOURE GOING TO CRY

Dream

• Very needy bby

• Wants all the cuddles

• “Where’s Patches? I wanna pet my cat…”

• You bring him blankets, food, water, medicine and Patches

• Constantly reassuring you that he’s okay

• “It’s just a cold” he says as you take him to the doctor because he won’t stop puking

• Will yank you down into the bed to cuddle you

• But it’s cute

Sapnap

• “I’m literally fine Y/N I’m not sick”

• Is very sick

• Only admits it once you force him to take his temperature and is running a fever of 102°

• Surprisingly willing to tell you what feels wrong once you make him admit he’s sick

• Will help you take care of himself while also letting you do most of it because you don’t want him to exhaust himself

• Asks you to come cuddle for a bit

• Will fall asleep on you and will drool

Georgenotfound

• So. Fucking. Needy.

• “Y/N come cuddle pleaseeee”

• “Darling pleaaasssseeeee????”

• You basically have to lock him in his room

• Day two you caved and let him out instead of making him eat in bed

• He gave you covid

• Sapnap and Dream end up taking care of both of you

• “You two are idiots” “Shut the hell up Dream.”

WilburSoot

• He is so anxious when he’s sick

• Literally called you the second he realized he was ill

• “Don’t come over this week I’m sick.”

• “Wilbur I’m coming over, you get into bed”

• Says okay on the condition that you wear a mask at all times

• Only asks for things he needs to minimize the work you have to do

• Asks you to hold him for a bit because he couldn’t get warm and couldn’t sleep and it honestly helped him

• He’s so worried and cute and you keep him distracted the entire time

Tommyinnit

• “Y/N. I am ill.”

• Goes to bed and literally sleeps the entire time

• Lets you cuddle and get him food and whatnot

• Dude legit managed to sleep for the entire week with the exception of meal and bathroom times

• What the fuck Thomas

Technoblade

• “Eh, I’m fine”

• Still streamed

• When he started to get worse and was bedridden he’d still insist that he was okay because seeing his little sibling in so much distress caused him more pain than the cancer ever did

• He’d let you come and lay in his bed with him and you’d talk for hours

• You’d go into his room in the middle of the night and he’d wake up when he heard you open the door

• Always always ALWAYS let you hang out with him because he knew what was coming

• Told countless stories

• Comforted you to the very end

• I’m not crying you are

Tubbo

• It’s so cute

• He’s like a little kid

• Walks around the house in sweats and a blanket

• Follows you around like that

• Rests on the couch because he felt cooped up in his room

• Walks up to you from behind and adds you to his blanket and just stands there with his face pressed into your back

• Very cute

• You cuddle him a lot

• He’s so bby

Ranboo

• Mf will NOT admit to being sick

• You have to force them to go to bed

• “I am perfectly fine Y/N”

• “So who’s puke am I mopping up then?”

• Little shit

• Will not let you take care of them

• Insists on doing it himself

• Annoyingly cute

Philza

• Father is sick

• Where is Mumza

• “Mum. Dads sick.”

• You and Mumza make him stay in bed and do everything for him

• It’s fucking hilarious

• He just had a small fever and was literally fine but let you do this because it’s fun

• “Hello chat. I have a small fever so Y/N and Tristan are taking care of me.”

• Very good at acting sick for you

• “Thank you Y/N, I feel better already”

Karl Jacobs

• Shows up at your house wearing a blanket and goes straight to bed

• Sleeps half the time and helps you the other half

• It’s hard for him to eat when he’s sick so you tell him eat what he can and snack on the rest later and it helps

• Cuddles

• Helps you clean after he gets better

• He’s very cute

Quackity

• “I don’t get sick I get bitches”

• Very independent and actually takes good care of himself

• Does make you cuddle tho

• It’s all over once he pukes

• “I take it back I get sick. But also bitches.”

• Goes to bed and lets you do everything

• “Thank you Y/N” he mumbles quietly

• Forehead kisses for him

[donkey-hyuck]

[00:00 a.m.] for our haechan who works too much ♡

~ He doesn’t know when and he doesn’t know how but Lee Donghyuck had grown tired.

Tired of what? Everything.

The year was coming to an end yet he and his members have not. With barely enough time to rest with back-to-back performances and tours with not only 127 but dream as well, he grows tired.

He doesn’t know why he’s feeling like this and he really doesn’t want to come to the conclusion that he’s just tired. Being an idol is everything he wants, everything he’s ever known. Yet he grows more and more fatigued as the days drag by.

Everything he’s been experiencing with tours and movie makings thrills him, excites him. They’re opportunities that happen once and a lifetime. Yet at the same time he feels nothing at all. Just tired.

You’d barely had enough time to see him. And you never call, worried that you may be disrupting Lee Donghyuck who was forever following his passion. He’s an idol, it’s almost like he was born to be one. But he’s also a human being. And human beings can only take so much.

“I don’t know how much longer I can take. I love being there for my fans and being someone they can look up to but it just doesn’t feel the same,” he sighs, shifting around in his bed.

He facetimed you that night. He wanted to come over but you made him stay home. You lived on the other side of town and you convinced him that it’d be too much of a hassle for him to come to your apartment. You knew how hard he worked and you constantly pressured him to just rest. To take advantage of every minute of spare time to relax and just be Lee Donghyuck. Not Lee Haechan.

You don’t know what to say to him. This was the first time you’ve ever heard him feeling dejected. Like everything he’s doing is a chore. You hum, letting him confide in the warmth of you, even through the phone screen.

“I love my fans and I love my members but we’ve all been feeling off this year. We had so many opportunities offered to us since covid and it feels like we’re making up from those years that were stripped from us but, god, I feel so…. lost. I feel so overwhelmed and I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Hyuck has finally opened up to you despite your knowledge of his feelings because of the worrying habits of his members. You recalled the time Jeno called you, saying that your lover was rejecting meals and was cooped up in the practice room. Or the time Mark texted you saying that Hyuck was having an off day and that something was definitely up.

“…. I just… I-I don’t know,” he trailed off. And by no means did you mean to zone out but looking at Donghyuck through the pixelated screen made you want to cry. He’s never felt like this. You have to see him.

“I gotta go now, Hyuck. My moms calling me, I’ll be right back,” you could see the rejection flash in his eyes as he sighed and let you hang up. You felt horrible. But you were going over to see him. And hopefully that would make him feel better. At least a bit.

It was a long twenty minutes of Hyuck scrolling through his phone, waiting for a call back from you and those intrusive thoughts came back.

Were you starting to grow tired of him too? Why were you taking so long?

A knock was heard on the door. First came in Taeyong, and soon after, you. The man audibly gasped and got up from his bed to finally have you in his embrace.

“Are you not tired, my love?” You brushed your fingers through his hair.

“Not really. We have something to do tomorrow so there’s not really any point of me forcing myself to sleep,” he looks over to the digital clock. Just past midnight, “I guess later on.”

The room grows quiet. You’re both laying on your sides with Hyuck’s face hiding in your chest with your fingers running through his locks and your chin rested on the crown of his head.

All goes well until the tears managed to escape the sockets of his eyes. Immediately, you unwrap your arms and look down at the love of your life.

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s wrong, my love?” Almost everything is more gentle now than ever before and you grow even more worried, looking at the idol in front of you.

“I just… I don’t know how long I can do this. I’m so grateful to have these opportunities for my members and I but, god, I’m so sick of feeling like this. I feel more incomplete than I ever have but being apart of the industry is so important to me. It’s all I’ve ever known and I’m completely terrified to think of where I’d be without it but…” He breaks down once more, with you wrapping your arms around him so he can let out all of the tears he’d been so selflessly hiding.

“It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere,” you shush him, which only prompts him to cry even harder.

“You’re completely valid to have those thoughts, angel. I know how hard you work, and although I don’t know really know what you go through, it’s okay to have those thoughts and have those days. It’s so completely unfair for your company to use you for the income, and I don’t even have words to express the disrespect I have for your company to be treating you and your members like that, but I’m right here. Let it all out and I’ll be here waiting for you to cry out all of your emotions at the end of every day.”

You repeat those words over and over again as the sobs coming out of Lee Donghyuck breaks your heart into trillions of pieces. You’ve never seen him this vulnerable before and you’re thankful that he’s opened up to you but every fiber in your being wants to punch every person that’s ever made Hyuck feel like this. Starting with his godforsaken company.

No words are further exchanged as he falls into his well deserved slumber.

You, on the other hand, don’t rest a bit that night, wanting to nurture every hurt that Donghyuck feels and has felt for the past decade.

Strong is too vague of a word to describe Donghyuck pushing through everyone in the industry to get where he is today. With every bit of criticism and drawback, he handles it like a god and doesn’t complain.

Lee Donghyuck is strong. He is the strongest person you know, inside and out and he only deserves the best. You never want him to feel like this again. You’d fight every person who’s ever made Donghyuck feel, in honest words, like shit.

He deserves all the love he puts out into the world.

[louisupdates]

The Habit He Can’t Break 4/4

IQ 123 | Gordon Masson | 9.11.2023

If I Could Fly

With the production traveling to Australia, in early 2024, before shifting to Latin America, Andy Lovell at Freight Minds is gearing up to become involved with Tomlinson once again.

“We did the Central and South America dates on the tour last year, and onto Mexico,” says Lovell. “It was very challenging back then as we were still coming back from Covid, and various systems and infrastructure were in pieces. But it all went well in the end, as we kept an eye on things and worked on it every day to make sure we had solutions to everything that was thrown our way.”

Lovell continues, “Things on this tour kick in early next year for us. Historically, Australian services were quite reliable, as we could use any number of airlines. But post-pandemic, the number of long-haul flights still aren’t as frequent as they were. As a result, the production is being reverse engineered with the budget being worked out before we can see what we can afford to take as freight, and then we try to plan accordingly.”

“Similarly, in Central and South America there are still just a fraction of the flights operating, compared to pre-Covid, so that makes it very challenging. If there aren’t the flights to handle the gear, then you have to start looking at chartering aircraft, or alter your schedule, and that can become very expensive, very fast.”

With everyone working on the artist’s behalf to make sure the tour remains on track, being able to call on such experienced production experts is paying off on a daily basis.

Sherwood notes, “There are a few back-to-back shows over long distances that occasionally mean we don’t arrive at the next venue until 11 AM, rather than 6 AM. But we’ve never failed anywhere to open the doors on time, so we know we’re capable of getting things done, even if we have a late start at mid-day.”

Such dilemmas are not lost on agent Rowland. “It’s not so much the routing, it’s more like the timings, because Louis does have two support acts, so the shows start at 7 o’clock, and then when we’re done, we need to load out to get to the next show in good time for loading in the next morning and soundchecks, etc.”

Nevertheless, Sherwood admits that he loves the trickier venues and schedules. “Because I’m a dinosaur, I relish anything that makes things difficult or awkward for us on the production side of things,” he says. “I think everyone on the crew looks forward to challenges in finding the solutions to problems.”

Common People

Having amassed millions of fans through his association with One Direction, Tomlinson very much has a ‘pay it forward’ attitude to music and is building a reputation as a champion for emerging talent, wherever he performs.

“He’s a great advocate for alternative music,” says manager Vines. “Louis realizes he’s in an incredibly privileged position in terms of what he can create in terms of awareness. He loves alternative music and indie music, and he understands how hard it is for that music to be heard. But we have this amazing platform where we can put these bands in front of these audiences as a showcase that allows them to build these authentic new audiences. It’s a huge part of his love of music, wanting to help younger bands.”

Rowland agrees. “He took an act called Andrew Cushin - a very new artist – on the road in America with him as a support, and he’s doing the same for Europe. Louis is a fan and is championing his career.”

Indeed, Tomlinson’s A&R skills have knock-on effects for his agent, too. “He asked me to confirm the Australian band Pacific Avenue as support for his Australian tour last year. The music was great, and they didn’t have an agent, so now I’m representing them,” says Rowland.

Perfect Now

As the European tour speeds towards its conclusion, agent Rowland is enjoying every minute of it.

“It’s incredible – they’ve really stepped things up,” she says, fresh from seeing the show in Athens and Paris. “They’ve got six hanging LED screens on the stage, and the whole production just looks polished and professional.”

And Rowland is especially excited about next year’s Latin America dates, which will deliver her first stadium shows as an agent. 

“The return to Latin America is going to be huge – Louis is playing arenas and stadiums in South America and Mexico 15 shows across 11 countries,” she says. 

Vines is similarly enthused. Harking back to the Covid situation, when the show would go on sale, sell out, be postponed, and then re-scheduled in a bigger venue, Vines says, “For example, in Chile, originally the show was scheduled at a 5,000-cap, half-capacity arena in Santiago. And what we ended up doing with three nights at 10,000-cap in that same venue.”

Vines contends that Tomlinson’s work ethic is outstanding. “He loves his fans, and he loves performing for them, it’s as simple as that,” he says. “He just loves being on the road and seeing how the songs connect live. In fact, the second album was very much written with the tour and live shows in mind – ‘This song could work live,’ ‘This one will open the set,’ ‘This is the one we can do for the encore.’”

Fearless

Another element to Tomlinson’s psyche has been his decision to visit places off the usual tour circuit.

“Louis has a real desire to perform to fans in markets that are often overlooked,” says Rowland.

Manager Vines explains that while the Covid-delayed first tour allowed them to upgrade venues pretty much everywhere, “On this tour, we are a bit more competent on venue sizes, but we still speculate a little bit in different territories. In Europe, for example, we’ve gone into the Baltics in a number of different places to test the markets there, while in America, we’re looking at A and B markets, but also tertiary market as well – we go to places where people just don’t tour in America, just to see what the reaction is. That was something that very much interested Louis - to play in front of people who don’t normally have gigs in their town. So there’s been a lot of experimentation on the tour in terms of where we go and what room to play.”

That concept is something that Vines has employed before. “I manage a band called Hurts, who were pretty much overlooked by the British radio system, and we have spent 15 years building a business outside of the UK. And that was built on going to play at those places where people didn’t normally go. They built to multiple arena level in Russia, for instance.”

“If you can build fanbases in lots of different places, you have festivals that you can play every summer, as well as touring those places. It allows you to have more consistency over a number of years, by having more opportunities.”

Such a strategy found a convert in Tomlinson. Vines tells IQ, “Louis also is extremely fan-focused in everything that he does. He comes at it from a perspective of ‘I want to take the show to them,’ meaning he’s always more willing to take the risky option to try something out.”

And the result? “It’s a combination,” concludes Vines. “There have been a couple of places where we now understand why tours don’t go there. But there are more places where it’s worked incredibly well. For example, we enjoyed incredibly good sales in Budapest. And overall, it’s allowing us to get a clearer idea, globally, of where the demand is, which will help us when we go into the next tour cycle.”

1/4, 2/4, 3/4

[slavghoul]

Full article from Metal Hammer 12/2022 that I posted an excerpt from in the previous post. BTW, Impera landed #1 on Metal Hammer’s list of best albums of 2022!

--

It was January 2022, and we found ourselves sitting in the empty lobby of a snug Seattle hotel, overlooking the sunset over Puget Sound while soft rock wafted through the PA system. Across from us was Ghost frontman and mastermind Tobias Forge, and we spent nearly two hours talking about music, family, dogs and the steady ascension of Ghost from spooky Swedish underground band to arena filling titans. But mostly we were there to talk about Impera – their fifth album, then still two months away from release.

In the run-up to an album coming out – particularly one with a highly acclaimed predecessor, like 2018’s Prequelle – artists tend to convey palpable anxiety as they prepare to relinquish control of their work to the world. Not so with Tobias, who radiated ease and comfort. Impera had not yet seen the light of day, but he had already moved on. Looking back at that period today, he explains, “As soon as I am done making a record, I’m pretty much fed up with it. I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to know about it, I just want to forget about it. Once it hits the ears of people, depending on how it’s being received, that’s where you start from scratch again.”

Following Ghost’s North American tour with Volbeat and Twin Temple, Impera was released on March 11. It seamlessly blended pop-savvy songwriting with elaborate arrangements and steady torrents of anthemic pop metal riffage that created a wormhole back to the lighter-raising, arena-rock majesty of the 80s. From the glass-shattering scream that opened Kaisarion to the synth-rock squall of Watcher In The Sky, it delivered one guitar-powered banger after another.

It was enough to land Ghost their first No.1 position on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart – their fourth Top 10 overall. Even bigger, in terms of vinyl and CD sales, Impera scored 2022’s biggest first-week sales for any album, of any genre. With more than 62,000 copies sold in the US alone, it easily bested The Weeknd’s February CD release of Dawn FM. In fact, Impera claimed the biggest first sales week for hard rock vinyl since Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy in 1994.

Critics united in swift and lusty praise. It might have felt heretical at the time, but many early reviews rated Impera as besting Prequelle on all fronts. Our very own Dave Everley wrote: ‘Impera wins on bolshiness, bravado and skyscraping songs alone. Ghost have turned in a modern metal classic with an arena rock heart. It turns out the Devil doesn’t have all the best tunes. Tobias Forge does.’ It’s safe to say any plans of “starting from scratch” were shoved to the back burner.

Ghost’s official Imperatour headlining run took them back across North America and then to Europe. Despite the lingering ravages of Covid across the live music industry, they thrived. “I am very happy that we managed to orchestrate a somewhat functioning but very successful album launch”, says Tobias. “We managed to nail 70 shows with just one cancellation. I think in this day and age in this year, that’s fucking great!”

Across the globe, stages were filling up with shows that had been booked many years prior. “We had to cut and paste a little with our touring schedule, because this past summer was basically filled with 2020’s line-ups,” says Tobias. “That made our scheduling a little… I wouldn’t say sparse, but we had breaks that were longer than normal. There are so many bands that are doing these weird dances. The last year of releasing an album into the void, with no touring and cancelling here and there and everywhere, and people having to rethink their lives, basically… We’ve been blessed not to have done too much of that.”

Logistics aside, somewhere along the line, that cultish little band from Sweden – the one with the creepy frontman singing about Satan and plagues and empires – went mainstream. Propelled by Impera’s momentum, the band tapped into new levels of cultural saturation thanks to appearances on mainstays such as Jimmy Kimmel Live.

“TV always brings you in front of new people”, says Tobias. “We did [The Late Show With Stephen] Colbert a few years ago, and every time you do something like that, you obviously expose yourself to a new scene of viewers. And that’s always great, unless you completely shit the bed on the air. Ha ha ha! I think we did do a few things this year that brought in a whole slew of new people into our fanbase.”

But ever the realist, he adds, “You might have a spike of people checking you out… but you don’t really notice if things like that had any effect. It’s not like the day after, all of your shows are now sold out and there’s a double night booked into every show you’re doing. It’s such a slow process that you don’t notice until a half year later when new fans come in and say, ‘I saw you on Kimmel’ or ‘I saw you with my dad.’ I wouldn’t say that being on Kimmel changed everything. It’s been slow, step-by-step, but it builds new branches onto the same tree and you keep growing higher.”

And higher they grew. In July, Mary On A Cross – originally released on the 2019 EP, Seven Inches Of Satanic Panic – was used in a Tiktok tribute to the show Stranger Things. The ripple effect was staggering. The song landed in the Top 10 of Spotify’s Viral 50 Global chart. As of this issue, the hashtag #Maryonacross has notched up well over one billion views. Ghost eventually released an official, slowed-down version of the song and the two versions combined now claim more than 180 million Spotify streams and counting. “For us, the Tiktok thing was or is just a giant bonus”, he explains. “That was never something that we planned.”

Surely the unplanned waves of publicity will ferry over legions of new fans, for whom an embarrassment of riches awaits. “One thing that I felt proud over, was the fact that we’ve been around for 12 years,” says Tobias. “We’ve made five records, a bunch of EPS, and I am glad that there seems to be a song that has a way to suck people in. And if they go into our world and like it, there is plenty to find. If you like Mary On A Cross, you can just jump on the train and go where we already are heading.”

It’s been an uncommonly good year for heavy music, but for Ghost it’s been more than a success – it’s been a coronation. Despite their demoniacal appearance and transgressive lyrical themes, they have negotiated the near-impossible task of attracting mainstream audiences while holding fast to the diehards in metal who have been there from the start. It creates the enviable problem of facing a new year with new pressures and heightened expectations. But Tobias has a plan.

“We’re doing a lot of touring again”, he explains. “On previous album cycles we’ve done four legs in America and two or three in Europe and repeated. We’re going to go into every territory next year, but there’s going to be one European tour, one American tour. We are going to do a little bit of everywhere. There’ll be a little bit of something up in upper Asia, on the far end there – a very well-established country with a lot of pop cultural fascination, and the home of videogames. And there’s going to be something in the Oceania world, and there might be something south of Panama, and there might be something slightly north of Panama. It feels pretty solid.”

He cryptically adds, “We’re going to come out with a little bit of change before that – good change. We’re not going to go silent. Some things are public, other things not in public view, but there are a lot of things brewing.”

We are journalistically bound to inquire about the next album and, unsurprisingly, Tobias remains mum. In January, he told us, “Everything I’m doing now is for the next record. I have a vague idea what that will be like and a vague idea of the title and the colour scheme.”

For now, that will have to do, but rest assured that as we all continue to enjoy the masterpiece that is Impera, Tobias is already hard at work, figuring out dramatic new ways to blow our minds. But he still allows himself the odd moment to stop and take it all in.

“To be able to make all of the shows that we’ve done, and to have a record that did fairly well, I think the sum of it is pretty fucking awesome,” he smiles. “I’m very thankful. It was a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck.”

[joealwyndefenseattorney]

As I’ve been reading reactions, I’m starting to get icked out by some Swifties and the GP who are defending Joe because Taylor talked about his mental health. Some of it is going too far. They are throwing around words like clinical depression, the line wondering if he wanted to be here as him not wanting to be alive anymore, talking about how he was in such a deep depression that he couldn’t pull out of it for years, that he wasn’t taking the right meds, that it was so bad that no med was working, etc. They are swinging so far in the way of defending him, that it’s become this over exaggeration of him being the most depressed person to ever live and how dare Taylor treat him this way.

In truth - we have no idea. We don’t even know how much of a role that played in the demise of the relationship. We know that Taylor used his “blues” and her being locked up and bored because he wanted a private relationship as an excuse to cheat on him and then leave him for Matty Healy. I just honestly don’t believe that it was because he was too sad for her. We also don’t know on Joe’s side what caused him to pull away and check out and how much his blues were caused by her or his career or how her mental health and alcoholism impacted him and their relationship.

He’s been open about his anxiety and that is it. Is there more to it? Probably. Looking back, it’s all over his face and there was clearly a point where he pulled back again after starting to be quite open with Taylor right before COVID. Was it because he couldn’t or didn’t want to? Who knows. But I’m getting uncomfortable with the way some are talking about him.

We don’t have any idea, you’re right anon. I don’t want to speculate about where his mental health was at that time. We see him doing so well now and really, that’s all that matters. I have depression and wouldn’t want people talking about the moments where mine is not as manageable as I would like to do the things I want/need so I won’t do that to Joe. I’m proud of who he is as a person and glad that he has a great support system 🥰

[orgyporgy]

Have you ever considered teaching elementary students? I think you're awesome for being an educator.

I forgot to reply to this! Because the answer is long.

The short answer is, no.

Elementary school was never what I wanted, or pictured for myself, because when you are working with kids that age you really do have to parent them in a lot of ways.

Frankly, I wanted this job because I wanted to engage young minds in literary discourse the way I got to when I was in my honors and AP English classes. I like public speaking, I like school, I like working with kids, and I like poetry and literature. It seemed perfect!

Then I got the job, and all my classes were general ed/blended low level courses. The students in my classes hate school in general and English in particular. I learned to adapt - I wouldn’t be having the Socratic seminars or high level creative projects I had envisioned but that was ok, I could still make my content fun and interesting for my student population.

Then Covid happened, and we thoroughly lost the battle against phones/social media. A full two years of learning and socialization has been lost. Kids sit in my class and play on their phones out in the open as if they are sitting at home on their couch. Students are violent, with each other and with staff. Everyone is sick of me talking about it, but almost 100% of my male population are fans of Andrew Tate, and spout his talking points at other (female) students and staff.

I stopped focusing on my content and started focusing almost entirely on classroom management and basic expectations for English. Things like staying in your assigned seat, and capitalizing your own name on papers. Things I had specifically hoped I could avoid by working with older kids.

Then, this year, I was given my first GATE (Honors level) English class. They are high level learners and have almost zero behavioral issues. And I, as their teacher, am failing them. My content is nowhere near their standard of rigor. Their class average since September is a 96%. They ask me questions about reading and writing that I don’t know how to answer, because I haven’t thought about them in 6 years. I finally have the opportunity to engage critically with a student population over literature, the whole reason I wanted this job, and I’m completely blowing it.

So. Maybe I’m just not in the right place anymore.

[dayeongi]

Well-wishes

I saw the texts come in this morning as I worked.

They came from a number I didn’t have saved, but I saw a preview on the notifications. Words like “I’m sorry” and “I didn’t know how to handle...” and my breath caught in my throat.

Almost as soon as I realized who it was, the last text came in. It said “i’m X.”

I managed to swallow the trepidation and finish off an email to let the dread settle comfortably before I opened them. They looked to be long and emotionally destructive.

X had been my best friend since the first day of preparatory school. From the very first day I got to school 3 hours early because I made a mistake with my timetable, and she asked if I was always early, and I said yes, and then that was the last time I was early to school.

She’d been there for 11 years. Through my father’s death of Covid, she had brought a chair and sat outside my house, brought me groceries, and chatted with me through the glass window for the entire 14 days I was quarantined. And that made it worth the times she’d stood me up or let me down, or made me wait for hours because there was always something going on.

She had been there through my first boyfriend and first serious crush (which were two different people). She had been there through the abusive household I lived in, and I was there through her first serious relationship with a mutual friend, from the beginning through its messy end, I chose her every time, because I thought that’s what best friends were like. And I was there as much as she let me be.

Last I’d heard from X was in 2021, she’d told me she was in an unsafe situation with her stepfather at home, and asked if she could move into my spare room, and pay rent. I said come, don’t pay rent, just help with the utilities and groceries.

She said yes, and dropped off some of the things that same day, and she slept over. Next morning before she left for work, she said she’d drop by her current place and pick up the rest of her stuff after work. I said I’d wait for her to come back to order groceries so we could save on delivery fees and gave her my spare set of keys.

She called during work hours, and said she would be coming over tomorrow; she was afraid of her stepfather so she wanted to get her things out when they were out.

I said that was fine since she had keys anyway, and asked if she wanted me to wait to order groceries.

She didn't show up the next day. Or the next.

This was normal from her. She never kept her word.

I messaged just to check on her and ask if she still wanted me to hold off on the groceries.

No response for another two days. I started to get nervous. I ordered the groceries because I'd ran out of stuff, and messaged her again.

I let her know I could just take care of the delivery fees. No response for the rest of the day.

Then, a premade-like message. "I'm sorry, I can't answer right now, but I'll get back to you ASAP."

Like the ones you set up on your phone to be sent automatically.

I started to panic, because I didn't know her stepfather, and in my country, you can make people disappear with under 100 gbp, and she'd recently had experienced a situation almost like that with a taxi driver.

I thought, "what if I'm sitting here, thinking she's fine and just not getting back to me, and instead she's dead in a ditch somewhere."

My best friend of 11 years.

I called several times. Several being maybe 4 times in the span of an hour, which wasn't strange for us.

I calmed myself, and decided I'd been dumb not to check on her social media; I normally don't check people's profiles at all.

What I saw was surreal. I'd been there, sitting in my living room floor thinking my best friend was dead; she had been so urgent, and seemed so frightened.

During that time, she had been going on brunches, and on a roadtrip with her fiancé.

The change of plans itself was irrelevant. It was the lack of consideration. The shamelessness of putting me on hold without giving me a word.

I called her again. No response. I stewed on it for another two days, waiting to hear back.

Nothing.

I sent her a message. "I just think it's unfair that you asked me to do this for you, then left me waiting here to hear back from you for over a week, worried out of my mind."

No response that day. Or the next. I message her again. "Please let me know when I can go pick up the stuff (I'd lent her for a trip)"

No response, until later that day. It has been 2 weeks since she came to my house panicking about needing somewhere to stay immediately.

There was no apology. Instead she said she would drop off my spare set of keys, and she needed some space from me, and maybe one day we could be friends again once I was in a better headspace.

That she had no reason to report what she was up to every minute of her life, and that if it had been such a pain to wait for her, to not bother.

To add insult to injury, that she loved me and would be there for me if I ever needed anything.

I snarked back. I said things like "I don't need to know every single thing you do every single minute, and sorry I give a shit about you"

Then she took everything I'd ever trusted her with, all the times I'd been frustrated with my family and told her, and used it to say I was the problem, that I was the reason I always had interpersonal conflict, and the reason my life was the way it was, and I needed to reflect on myself and the shit path my life was taking.

She sent me her love again. My best friend of 11 years.

I didn't send her love back. I only asked to get my shit.

I will spare anyone who is reading the boring negotiations and promises she never kept to give me back my stuff, until she finally did.

She dropped them off at my place. It was raining. I awkwardly avoided looking anywhere above her hands; I knew I would cry if I did.

I thanked her as I closed the door out of politeness.

On text, after I'd closed the door after myself, she'd sent me her love and well-wishes again.

Like she hadn't riled me up and prepared me to help her. Like I was a wet stray under the rain she looked at pitifully.

Well-wishes. Hah.

I blocked her the very moment I saw them.

I hadn't hear from her in a while until a mutual friend shared the photos of her wedding.

She had taken the dream wedding dress design I'd made for myself, that I had so delicately and secretly shown her, and made it for herself.

I blocked every mention of her from everywhere, and over time I realized, I was starting to feel like a full person again as soon as I stopped constantly giving her everything.

I put my face on the desk.

Which brings me to today, and the 5 deleted messages. From an unknown number.

I pointed out I could see someone had tried to message me.

"sorry, I got the wrong number," she said, and I thought: how fucking unfair to mess up my tuesday and try to play me for a fool. How fucking evil and selfish of X to wish me a good day and try to deceive me into taking her well-wishes again. All for her own comfort or healing or whatever she was trying to do by messaging me on a fucking tuesday.

But, honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted to talk to X. Too much has happened. Too much time has passed.

I didn't want to be carrying around a piece of her anymore. So I pretended to buy it.

And X decided to text me back. "Sorry. I actually didn't get the wrong number. But I don't want to tell you who I am because I'm afraid. Regardless, I just want to wish you a good day."

Some part of me relished in the fact that she was scared. So I said "thank you, X."

I wanted her to feel what I felt when I saw her messages pop up on the screen, then disappear.

Maybe I wanted to fuck up her tuesday too because I'm also a coward.

And because I'm a coward, I pretended I guessed, but wasn't sure if it was really X.

"We can play a guessing game. I'm someone who likes to shop around for useless stuff. And I always scolded you for eating your fries before your burger."

And I said "so you're really X." Even though I'd always known, from the 5th, deleted message.

Bracing myself for impact, I read the messages she sent after. About how sorry she was about everything that happened, that she had been a fool and I'd been a great friend, and she hopes everything is going well for me.

How if I ever wanted to, we could go get a burger together again.

For a moment, I thought about saying yes. Because she'd been my best friend for 11 years. Because I was lonely. Because she remembered I like to eat my fries before the burger.

Then, I remembered how she'd known exactly how to hurt me and hadn't hesitated in my lowest moment, then skipped-off into the sunset with my dream wedding dress for a wedding I haven't been able to hold for myself. Apparently now self-reportedly with regrets.

How she had selfishly tried to give me unsolicited well-wishes to ease her own guilt.

Too much has happened. Too much has been said. Too much time has passed. The scar of the space where she used to be is old and gnarled, but a scar.

I replied, "I'm also sorry about how everything happened, and I always did wish you the best."

X seemed to falter. She typed and deleted. Typed and deleted.

She thanked me for giving her my time.

She said she hadn't know how to handle her own situation and emotions and everything had just gone out of control, and she'd done it all before she'd realized it, and then got scared to try to fix it.

X seemed to have realized what I meant by not responding to her burger invitation thing.

She said again she'd kept me in her good memories, and although she knew things couldn't ever be the same again, that she regretted it.

I thanked her, etcetera. Wished her a good life.

Sincere, I mean. 

I'm not sure if I was sincere, this only happened today. I don't know what I'm feeling.

But I want to think my well-wishes were. 

It's the best I can give her now.

I want to think I said it out of gratitude for those 11 years. For the time she stood outside my house when I was afraid I was dying every time I gasped for breath.

Of the time that I told her I was afraid I wanted to off myself, and she drove to my house at 12:35 AM and held me as I cried.

Well-wishes. 

The only thing I'm willing to give her now.

[pinkguacamole]

Ice Camping in Antarctica!!

Our first day in Antarctica was probably the most extreme 24 hours of my life. After surviving 2 days on the Drake Passage with no seasickness, but unfortunately a nasty cold (covid-tested negative, luckily), my head was clearing up and it was time to hit the ice. For the morning our trip to Port Lockroy to see penguins in the snow was on queue, then the afternoon would lead to kayaking (previous posts) and the evening would bring Ice Camping.

It was a snowy day so some of us were thinking and maybe wishing ice camping would be postponed, but in Antarctica you have to make the best of your weather and there is a possibility that if we hadn’t had gone the first night, we may not have gone at all.

So we suited up with merino wool base layers, fleece mid layers, water proof outer layers, a bivy bag, a sleeping pad and a super warm sleeping bag and took zodiacs to shore.

When we arrived on land it was 10pm but still light out. Fresh snow was falling so our boots would disappear into the powder if we didn’t stay on packed paths our guides had shoveled out for us. I found a clearing a bit to myself in the middle and plopped down my things. I wanted set up while enjoying the peace and scenery but I quickly realized the only way to get set up would be to just get in the bag…

I stuffed my waterproof pants into my boots so they wouldn’t get filled with snow and slipped in. I was warm and comfy. By 11pm it was snowing pretty heavily so I had to zip myself up and just lay in my body bag, hoping to get some sleep. The wind and the snow picked up to about 30 knots throughout the night.

At around 1am I started to get claustrophobic in the bag. I knew it was fine and I could tell that snow had fallen and I should *not* open my bivy bag but my brain yelled “claustrophobic!!!” In a panic I punched around looking for the zipper and opened it anyways. It was still light out (midnight sun) and a wall of snow had formed around me. I repeated this panic a few more times, opening and closing the sack until I finally found a position that felt more breathable and I watched the wind and snow beat the red bag over my head until I actually managed to sleep. I was a bit worried that in my opening and closing of the bag I might have lost my beanie or other small items in the snow, but that was future Jenna’s problem.

Around 5am I heard people shuffling around and packing up. Even though I had actually found a comfy position and was managing some rest, I decided to open my bag and see what was happening. It was snowing and windy, and I probably looked warn and confused (see photo) and a guy asked if I was okay. I was fine but I asked when the boat was likely to come. He said 6.

I had an hour but it was too late, snow was gathering in my bag so I had no choice but to continue packing up and gathering my things before I was snowed in. Overnight my waterproof bag next to me had been completely buried by snow. I was pretty deep in it as well. There was a moment as I cleared snow off of my sleeping bag with freezing hands that I thought to myself “what the hell are we doing here?” But I carried on and put my stuff away. I had a lot of time to kill before we were to be rescued back to the ship so I scooted over in the deep snow towards some friends and we all joked in disbelief at what we were doing until we saw the ship dropping zodiac boats into the water and it was time to get the hell off that island.

Despite the situation being a bit absurd, when we arrived back on the ship, I felt amazing. It was the most alive I had felt on the trip so far. My dreariness from the head-cold was behind me and I was in my element! This is when I realized for good that I really do enjoy things more when I torture myself for them. Sitting around on a boat and eating at a buffet for every meal was killing me, but sleeping in the snow during a storm brought me back to life.

Would I do it again? Probably. But I don’t love bivy bags.

[darklightsworld]

Now that I’m frequenting tumblr once again, it’s time to make the post I wrote in June, but got lazy selecting photos for, so it never saw the sunlight ^^;;; This is part 1, with tiny update comments. I will try not to slack on part 2.

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

Long time no see, tumblr. It has been a busy year so far, and more than a half are gone already (well, 3/4 now). Yet, we’re still not over covid (Still!!!) >_> We’re having the biggest number of infections ever, but fortunately traveling is not restricted. Never mind that people are self-restraining even without being told from above. It’s really disappointing, I was hoping that Japan would gradually open up after they started to let in organized tourism (the economy really needs tourism, especially with the cheap yen, thus more expensive imports, rising prices), but I don’t see it happening any time soon :/ (Well, it just happened, yay! Covid had the seventh wave meanwhile, currently decreasing numbers, but far from over) I think I was really lucky to be able to travel to Europe in May-June, just before the new variant started to spread. Now I have a short trip booked to Sendai in September (summer is for surviving and not for traveling in Japan, after all), and I was asked to hold a speech in Kyoto in late October (and Nagoya in November) – I really hope it won’t be cancelled (they won’t 👍), I really want to go back, even if it’s a few days (accidentally I wrote years first, yeah, Freudian). Once again, because Tokyo is the most infected, traveling for research is out of question, which sucks… The National Diet Library really should make postwar magazines freely available. Like seriously, what do they expect to happen with 50-60 year old of magazines, that don’t happen with 80 year old ones?!

Anyway, I just wanted to share a few photos of my Europe trip. The catalyst was a symposium in Spain I was invited to, and taking the opportunity I also visited home before and after that. Traveling became damn expensive and difficult due to covid. I paid like 60 thousand more for the ticket. Sure, there might have been cheaper ones with long overlays, but I don’t like traveling too long, so I take a direct flight from Tokyo to Vienna if I can. Of course, due to the war the trips were longer than usual by 2-3 hours orz But, on the other hand, unlike European planes there weren’t many passengers, so lying across seats was possible (managed to get screaming kids on both flights though…>_>). In the end even to Spain, or more accurately to Galicia, there weren’t many options from Budapest, so that trip was also from Vienna, my dad driving the three hour trip from home back and forth a lot of times ^^;

Both Hungary and Galicia were extremely hot for that time of the year, but not before and after, so I felt like the heat was following me from Japan – and then back -_- Due to the trip to Galicia I didn’t spend that much time in Hungary, so rather than go sightseeing all the time I was trying to relax and eat food I can’t get here, like good cheese, túró rudi, paprika salad every day, etc. I really hoped to make a trip to the capital for the Bosch exhibition, but the timing was not right :((( By the way, being without a mask required some getting used to in the first few days, but it was sooooooo good. I really miss that now…

So, first batch of pics: Vienna. We spent two days in Vienna before the Galicia trip, because my plane took off at seven in the morning, and I was not willing to travel through the night to get there by five. It was really nice and an additional plus of traveling through Vienna. Once again we stepped into a holiday (in 2019 the National Day, now Ascension of Christ @_@), but it was not too bad. First (half) day were were just walking around in and around Hofburg. Karlskirche was new to me, very nice church, but the elevator inside the church messes up the view a lot. The main purpose this time was the Belvedere, also a first for me, and it was great. Many great exhibitions, old palace and history.

tbc...

[natalieisabellee]

8:10pm for nosy ahh people

also im a lil garden gummied rn.

I think the reason why I feel trapped in my head is because I allow it to go on. I of course know that it isn’t always my fault and that I need to allow myself to feel whatever I’m feeling. But even then sometimes, I don’t allow myself to feel those feelings?? So complicated. But I allow it to go on. I’ve grown far away from telling my brain otherwise because I have grown so comfortable with “being okay with change” but then never wanting it to happen. I think it is because my childhood was depressing but I managed to stay happy. My adolescence, I sook validation from men and everyone around me but swore otherwise. In high school, I was open to knowing how I was a worse person and acknowledged my growth that was needed and I grew. I was involved. I was in JROTC, marching band. I didn’t have the time to think about all of the empty space because betwixt all of that I still cared what everyone thought. Then I found people who showed me that I was who I was and that was chill. They lifted me up until they couldn’t recognize me due to their change. I wasn’t changing, I wasn’t moving fast enough and I wasn’t a part of their life solely anymore. I caved and I cared and I begged for forgiveness because it’s what I’ve always done and I did it over and over, for them. I think I fought so hard because through it all, even though I cared what they all thought, I knew they were all just people. We all have different lives and you never know what they hell is going on is someone’s world. While mine could be raining in sadness, someone else’s could be burning in rage. But then ultimately I realized that every day you fight for something and when it comes to your peace, your mentally, your health and your morals of who you wanna be as an existing person in this world; you have to choose yourself. You have to. And that’s doing what you wanna do, being with whoever you wanna be with, filling your life with so much contentness that you could one day (?) hopefully want for nothing because you know that you are a lucky human being with compassion and drive and perseverance. I started my new life when I came four hours from home to meet my best friends who I hope I have for the rest of my life. Since day one I’ve relearned so much about the possibility of good people. People who are understanding and real and also have so much shit going on that they realize that sometimes life. is. just. hard. Everyday they continue to teach me how to be a good person, they show me how to go for my dreams, they believe in themselves and they believe in me. But amongst all of the beauty and ecstasy of contentness, I’m stuck. I’m stuck not wanting any of it to change because that would mean that life is real. (Covid also really threw me off, not gonna lie. That’s when I started smoking weed. I vaped nicotine for a year because “everyone else was doing it” and I worked in fast food and it was so easy to get. I learned that my brother had been smoking weed in high school as well and I became a little less apprehensive about trying it because I trust my brother. I loved it immediately and the moment I turned eighteen, I got myself a thc cartridge to vape, all of the time. Came the summer after the weirdest senior year of high school and I managed to get a bowl and some flower. I started doing it all the time. I became more relaxed and anxious about everything and felt a shift in who I was as a person. I genuinely began to like myself more and more. I was open to the idea of starting over…but you read about that already.) Another realization is in my midst though and that’s that I have been letting this go on when I am the one in control. 

k thanks, byeee :)))

[talesoftheinsomniac]

July 15, 2023 1:46 am

It’s crazy to think that it has been about 4 years since I’ve written here. Reading all my other post before Covid and my struggles after my relationship with Catherine has really made me feel like I’m a completely different person. I know more now, but I feel like parts of me have been lost. I feel less optimistic about things, I rarely notice the good around me, or I’m constantly anxious for what’s going to happen while living with my current partner. There’s always something that I will apparently make her mad. I’m living my life feeling exhausted all the time from the worries, from work, from physical pain on my lower and upper back, mental exhaustion from my relationship - feeling like I’m always walking on eggshells, etc. Reading back, I surrounded myself with the people I needed when I was in my lowest. I found clarity and the will to move on forward from my depression and struggles. I felt confident that I could pull through. Nowadays, it feels like I could never get better. It’s crazy to think that few years apart would make you feel weaker and lower. I have to admit that my self-confidence has been low. I was able to manage to get some back, and then lose some. I find myself cowering behind my fear and addiction of nicotine and shopping. I don’t feel safe where I’m at in life currently.

Currently, after reading my old posts and journals, I feel sad and yet I feel a small amount of hope stirring in me. What I did for myself in the past is what got me through, not perfectly, but everything is a journey with failures. Failure is something I apparently don’t want to have my whole life. But I proved myself wrong in the past, I failed and tried and tried again. But what makes it different now that I can’t seem to get myself to just try? My old writings don’t seem like it’s me. I started to question if what I wrote was real. It might be real during that time, but I personally can’t remember the feeling nor my old self. It’s confusing to me that I wrote so much in such clarity. But now, I write and speak as if my mind is scattered or fragmented. I can rarely put thoughts together without struggling. I feel like I’ve become disabled.

The truth is, throughout these 4 years, I feel like my identity has been ripped apart, debunked, or invalidated. What I’ve done in the past to be a better person feels like it’s either nullified or deemed false. I can’t blame anyone but myself because I react to things in a manner that a mature person shouldn’t have. I don’t do the things I’ve done in the past either, whether that’s being open to new ideas, doing my hobbies, or even actively looking for something new for myself. Okay, at least not all of those are true anymore. I’ve become more open to new ideas and tried to establish new relationship and reestablish old ones. But the truth remains, I’m constantly anxious. Anxious about what? Anxious about the future, my finances, my life, my sanity. What do people say again about insanity? Something you do over and over again and expect the same result. But what am I doing now that I keep on doing and just getting the same failing result?

What I’m doing is living life in an anxious state. I’m anxious about my relationship, my finances, my future. My anxiety towards my relationship is simple. That my partner will get mad at me. Each and every time I feel it feels like my heart is going to rip apart because it beats so fast and irregular. My mind tells me I shouldn’t do wrong nor say anything wrong. That mindset has been holding me back. But even when I step out of that mindset, if I stand my ground, I have such few energy for myself to give. Truth is, I’m just fighting the inevitable. What’s going to happen is I’m going to mess up, I’m going to say the wrong things, and I just avoid doing so and that affects other parts of my life. I can’t live a worry-free life with a mindset like that. You disappoint people, and so what? It’s just a form of running away. But why do I run away? Why do I not have the energy to face my fears and struggles?

Frankly, I have to think about that question. My energy goes to worrying. Why do I worry so much? Is it because I feel trapped? Is it because I’m hiding the facts that I’m weak, that I spend my money on things I want and not save, is it because I’m not being honest to myself and others? If that’s the case, that’s a simple solution. Just be honest. I want things and I want new things, shiny toys, cool gadgets, be the coolest whatever it is out there. I turn my excitement about my hobbies or certain things I like into almost a boast without words. I don’t necessarily feel that way or think that way but it might as well be. But why do I do that specifically? Is it because I feel like I’m not being heard or is it the simple fact that I just don’t have any friends to talk about hobbies and connect with others my wants and needs? Maybe both.

The weird thing is, I feel constantly tired. Lack of better words. I’m physically and mentally exhausted to even set goals for myself. Everything feels like an after thought. Anxiety has taken over me even unconsciously. That’s exactly why I just can’t relax and do nothing. I always have to think about something or do something. The idea of having fun hasn’t been in my vocabulary for a long time now. What is fun? What do I think of fun? What do I do for fun? Fun is something I personally enjoy without thinking of what others think. Currently, I don’t have anything as such. Maybe there is one. Paracording. Why I find paracording fun is I can outlet my ideas into a tangible object that I find useful or just plainly cool. I don’t have to show anyone what I’ve created but I would be willing to tell them that this is what I find fun and a peaceful activity. How does it make me feel? I feel calm, composed, excited, and in the sliver of things, happy. It slows me down and helps me be patient. The older I grow, the more I like things that help me slow down, such as rock climbing. I haven’t climbed in a while, but I hold myself back from going there. I can just go by myself to be honest. I find cleaning fun, mainly because it helps me slow down and I like things to be organized. I like to play out bag packing situations, but honestly that can lead to some stress and overthinking and wanting to buy new things. But what else? What else is something that even when I’m physically and mentally tired, that I actually want to do or did do? One thing was playing music in the past. It relaxes me but I’ve grown anxious of people hearing me at night. Writing blogs like this was one thing also. Doom scrolling is obviously I should avoid.

This is obviously a lot to unload, but it gives me a sense of what I used to do and what helps me relay my thoughts to someone or to myself. It’s a form of journaling and it can get better over time. It has definitely exhaust me a bit to write about my feelings and thoughts after a really long time, but this can be a start. Maybe I’ll look back again on these posts and see how my life have become in the future. Current me: anxious, low confidence, no clear goals, barely any hobbies, and frankly, out of shape at 155 lbs. Hey, if you’re reading this from the future, I just internally laughed and felt a little hopeful for myself. I’m pretty sleepy now and it’s 2:37 am. I think it’s a good time to call it quits.

[primabeecbd]

Cape Cod CBD by Primabee

Primabee hopes to squash uncertainty of CBD products

By Beth Treffeisen

Cape Cod Times

CHATHAM — Walking into Paul Borde’s office is like stepping into a candle store. A smell of lavender wafts through the air as one's eyes are immediately drawn to the array of CBD products splayed across a large table in the corner. 

Ranging from gummies and oils to salve sticks and hemp extract, the display is enough to spark anyone’s curiosity. 

Two summers ago in 2019, Borde — an avid golfer — suffered from severe lower back pain. After seeing a doctor who suggested surgery, Borde warily asked if there was another way to stop the pain. He was referred to a chiropractor, who introduced him to CBD products. 

At first, Borde said, it sounded like hocus-pocus, but he decided to try it. At the time, he was in so much pain that he struggled to get out of bed every day. Soon after using CBD products, he said, “I became a believer.” 

When he first retired, Borde didn’t know what he wanted to do next in life. “I was flopping around like a bluefish,” he said. 

After having such a positive experience with CBD products, he decided to open a business selling them. 

He did a big dive into researching the 130 cannabinoids that have been discovered and how they can help people with anxiety, pain and sleep problems. 

By December 2020, Borde and California-based partner Stephen Crane had launched the Primabee online store: primabee.com 

“We are putting out the best of the best,” Borde said. 

Users find that the products help support daily self-care for calmness, sleep habits, energy management, pain relief, inflammation reduction, skin care, epilepsy seizure reduction and even calming dogs and cats. 

Primabee’s CBD products are legal in all 50 states and do not give users the high or side effects of smoking marijuana.

“We decided to prove our distinct value by putting our customers first, by insisting on product quality transparency,” Crane said in a statement. “We source our hemp from the most ethical U.S.-based farms, and our custom formulators were carefully chosen for creating the purest, properly potent, broad-spectrum CBD products on the market."

The 2018 Farm Bill removed many of the restrictions on CBD derived from hemp plants. There are many varieties of the cannabis plant, and hemp is the nonintoxicating variety of cannabis. 

Both hemp and marijuana come from the same cannabis species. However, hemp, unlike marijuana, contains less than 0.3% THC, and cannot get someone high. 

In recent years, it seems as if CBD has popped up everywhere, from local pharmacies to being sold in coffee, to even dog kennels as a way to soothe pets' anxieties. 

Many of those products, however, are not of high quality. And some, Borde said, don’t even have CBD in them. 

Borde said he believes many of the products recently approved by the federal government were rushed to market with little regulation. 

To combat that, Borde said, he hopes Primabee can educate people about what CBD is and how it can help them. He also wants his business to provide “the best-in-class ingredients” and use top-notch manufacturing to give consumers the best products possible. 

For now, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, opening a brick-and-mortar store is not a top priority for the business, Borde said. The goal is to build out the online store while working with local businesses here on Cape Cod. 

Over the holiday season, the company partnered with Cape Cod Lavender Farms to offer customers gift packages that included a sachet of fresh lavender, bath bombs infused with CBD and a candle. 

If someone asks why they should start using CBD products, Borde said he would point to his own experience. 

“It has helped me with sleep, migraines and anxiety,” he said, adding that when his friend places the salve on his shoulder for pain, it is an “instant reaction.”

[castle-dominion]

c4x7 cops & robbers

castle: bored af Tho I like how he's with his mom at the bank not for co-signing or anything but just for... moral support?

MR: Richard, I’m a business woman now. I do not want your money, I do not want your signature, thank you very much. It’s the principle. Dp: No, Ms. Rogers, it’s the interest. RC: And I’ve just lost mine. Excuse me.

I'm watching this after covid, it didn't seem out of the ordinary At All to see ppl with masks. RC, seeing sussy stuff: Hm. I think this bank is about to be robbed. *robbery starts* RC: It’s not my imagination. It’s definitely not my imagination. I love how he Just Happens to be on the phone with the cops when this is going down lol. She's able to just call it over to her homicide team

Ok so I know This Guy & he just nods at castle's shh motion. Makes sense For Now. Castle should really put the phone in his bra or smth so he can have it still recording w/o needing to have it up to his ear obviously. If it was in his bra (which he totally has) he could still describe the scene (which is smart of him) Manager just has it on his neck? Make that four. "You a cop? (to Castle) You called a cop?" "No. I-- We were already on the line when you guys came in."

British sounding accent huh Love the different doctor names. My first thought was healthcare was so bad in the usa that they needed to rob a bank. How did he open the door I thought he locked it? He DID lock it the thing is right there! I guess it has some wiggle room. You know, come to think of it, those doors look lik ethey are made of glass. Strong structured & thick, but still. A heavy object a couple times... Love a good hostage situation. We've all seen Die Hard we know how this goes.

Man's right. You're homicide he's robbery. He's also very calm & direct. Not impolite but firm & short. (tho "missed your cue" was rude) Where's demming tho?

What if I raise my hand to ask a question? lmao acab tho I don't trust anything here

Ryan looks very s2 like. Blue shirt, tie, brown normal jacket. Espt looks bisexual with his layers. Nice to have contacts in emergency service units Bro I think the robbery people have this handled.

She's a woman she doesn't need to have a bedroom voice the robber is just like horny & straight or smth I don't think that keeping him calm is hard bc he seems like a pro. TJ: Yeah, I don't like that other guy. KB: Yeah, me neither. peterson: ?? Trapper John! Bro it's M*A*S*H! You should come down & watch this episode with us! He IS a pro Oh no now cap peterson thinks that he is beckett's boyf.

Wow what a jerk. Blaming someone for the bank getting robbed. Or well, for getting the cops here too soon. If the cops didn't get here maybe they would have left with the money & let the hostages go. Except the bank ppl said the silent alarms went so ok. Oh no don't tell me we're going to deliver a baby I like how she says they should let the pregnant lady go but the way she says it implies she's ok with being held hostage.

RC: Don’t worry mother. I saw this work on Die Hard. RC: Uh, Mr. Howser-- Excuse me, Doctor Howser. Why not just give them a cup behind a desk?

RC: So, why Doogie Howser? I mean there's so many cool TV doctors you could pick.

Was espt in ESU before homicide? What IS his exp?

omg he likes her <3 lmao the banker & actress hitting it off I wanted to check out the food at my new work before I start working there & ofc I ended up using the washroom & there was some sort of old b/w sensual film playing in the stall. it is not his box: how did he get the key? woah castle remembers which wall & row & column it was in?? & Dp knows the number??? Martha-?

Three hours sounds... reasonable...

it's me! I know morse code! ... -.. is what I saw but they kept cutting away. I also don't know numbers only letters. Numbers are easy I just don't know them. how DO you know it's him? It could be another smart civilian!

Martha actress moments Why is That Guy telling castle this? He was "in the washroom" during castle's secret message sal martino? idk I'll continue with That Guy (unless I quote). "you have no idea" WOW THIS EPISODE IS GOOD I don't make promises

Rick did too well, SM was supposed to freak out bc of the c-4 but rick calmed him down which was NOT the plan.

Wasn't gideon fields? Sus. KR: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't go in there, we don't have a warrant and we don't have probable cause. JE: Bro, Castle's life depends on this. KR: ... Did you just hear that? I think I just heard someone yell out, "Help, police!" JE: (in a voice) "Help, police!" There it is again. Ah yes, dead bodies. Grody. & perfect for the homicide detectives.

I couldn't tell if she was dead for a week or she was just old... but then again the smell of decomp

JE: I don't get it. This is a little, old, retired librarian. What could possibly be in her safe deposit box that would be worth doing all this? KR: Nazi gold, cold fusion, map to Atlantis. JE: Hey, Castle Jr., could you maybe start thinking like a cop, please? (Castle HAS mentioned nazi gold) KR standing with That Booty: I am!?? JE: Are you? KR: It had to have been something huge that was worth killing her over, right? Hey, Super Cop, check it out.

Hug alexis, becks, she needs it, you might too. But hey, rick made kate promise to take care of alexis! & esposito promised to get rid of his porn collection!

Rick just do the flashing bracelet thing again. Idk numbers but (-.-.) ..-. --- ..- .-. is easy enough What is HER accent? cushions is a good idea <3 GOSH WHAT aT Least put him sideways so he doesn't choke!

told Whom to stay with her? Y'all never leave me a voicemail, please text.

it's legit not enough time bestie Send in esposito he looks like a buff firefighter paramedic

Trapper would know her voice. Bad idea. Love the double talking obv not a paramedic since she didn't know she could put the gurney closer to the ground & then raise it up once the fellow is on there UM SIGN LANGUAGE MUCH? Castle could have totally slipped it into sal's shirt

Martha should totally have just kicked everyone's ass & the hostages could have gotten themselves out on the fury of a mother There is a second T in twenTy kate That chuckle was very nathan fillion bc that's where the money is lmao Castle why are you revealing your hand? Just like tf2 for real just like rvb for real Castle has escaped duck tape before. Zip ties are easy to get out of

RC: Mother, I find I'm no longer satisfied with the customer service at this establishment. I think we should take our business elsewhere. Me: Is that code? RC: no just trying to be funny ig

Ron Brandt. Good thing I didn't switch names Were those guys wearing black before? & now they are covered in dust? or were they always wearing that greyish colour?

PUT AWAY THE GUN BEFORE YOU UNTIE THEM BESTIE mr: *shaking her hands with a grin*

They would NOT have messed up Captain Peterson probably is surprised with how good castle is, he's like "wow this guy really does know his stuff" Whose body parts?

Oh no are castle's banker & mother going to sleep together?

I like how beckett has a touchphone & ryan has a flip or smth

See? Castle wasn't supposed to calm him down Holy crap bad bruising I sometimes hate being a christian (what with being who I am) but right now I love it.

That Guy: Honey, I'm home. what a line Girl u should have kicked his balls while he was outside the door TG: Oh, no. Hon, you bumped your head. Ha what a typical abuser line. Disgusting.

*kept the cop's face in shadow*

JE: Come on, let's go pick them up. KR: Ithaca??? Why is espt just going on this huge road trip with ryan? RC: Even as a hostage, I help you solve murders. Beckett, I think…I think you have the perfect partner.

Poor alexis. Poor Ash. Long distance sucks.

In my binge watch I should have counted these. 8th time becks saved castle, castle has saved her 9.

The vodun episode with the purses & champagne, I remember that. The nikki heat murders were not a save, she lived you just gave her your coat RC: Won't be forgetting that anytime soon.

[allthatwehear]

it was like a miracle

yesterday it was all aches and pains. my fingers struggled to text the words, “can you order me some food, mom” “i’m craving fruit”. then when the time came, to creep down the stairs, grab the bags. i’m two staircases up in a three story home. i gripped the staircase handles, and brought all the groceries back up into my room (though some were frozen), and felt like I just climbed mount everest. the screen hurt my eyes. i went between watching Harry & Meghan, to my eyes were no longer opening. it was all, sleep, bleary-eyed open, chew on some popcorn, everything hurt. it was a deep, deep, physical pain.

that morning i had contemplated/wanted to go drive to a station just ten minutes down the road to say goodbye to my partner, as he left for idaho for a few days. we were going to miss each other for 10 days, with the holidays. we’d had a big fight, and regardless of what happened, i didn’t want it to end that way. at least one more grasp. i was very sick. he sort of, didn’t really know that. didn’t ask. two negative covid tests, but my mom and i agreed that wasn’t the case. i was all alone, felt like.. some sort of corpse thing. my partner upset with me, us mad at each other. all i wanted was his body next to mine. to fly my mom out, come blow up an air mattress and sleep on my floor while i slept. i just didn’t want to be alone. bouts of panic came over me, every time i turned, because i knew, “this doesnt feel right”, “this is wrong”. 

at night, a great sweat came over me. it was probably 2 in the morning or something, but i just noticed i was so wet. however.. when i moved, my body didn’t shiver, and quake, and feel like it was the illest thing in the world, inside. it was normal, and smooth. so i’d toss and turn, and not grimace in pain. the sweat was weird.. but i kind of welcomed it. is it a thing, to truly sweat out your toxins? it’s 8:30 in the morning, and i’m feeling like night and day. what the hell did i just experience? a freaking one-day bout of covid? I had said something, not so jokingly, to a groupchat my partner was also a part of, “does anyone want to quarantine together” “i’ve been crying so much i feel like i’m dying”. it was not a lie. not now, not now of all times. do not make me feel ill now. do not make me be alone, at this time.. with an illness, i did not know what to expect, i’ve never had it. my partner, riding hundreds of miles away, already a couple hours gone. i didn’t even get to say goodbye.

i don’t think i could have done it if i had been sick, and couldn’t make it to the safer haven, that is my mother’s arms, and the warm, balmy beach (for christmas). if i had to miss that. and by that, i mean break up. sometimes the universe knows.

this one-bout sickness, this praying for a miracle, reminds me of another time i felt i almost experienced death. i almost experienced a limit. and it was just as poignant as a warning sign as i think this was. 

being called a “baby” and a “tyrant” by my last-year’s ex partner (the love of my life,), i cried, went berserk in a parking lot, and starting racing to his work so i could give him a piece of my mind. he’d been tormenting me for so long. asking to sext when we’d been broken up, giving me hope that we would be back together - but when we were, he was manipulative, emotionally abusive, cold. he’d watch me cry with blank eyes. he kicked me out of his work. he wouldn’t speak to me, while i would be sobbing on the phone.

love is not pain.

i got in a car accident. i hurtled down the road, tears down my eyes. i passed someone very violently in a middle lane, got in front of them. managed to make that safely - but. then i was speeding, thought the black car in front of me would surely go through the yellow (well, wanted them to), and bam. I slammed them so hard, probably going 45 miles or so. all because of this person.

the night before, i am sobbing in my car as my current partner wouldn’t let me come up to talk, to see him, to even say goodbye. i said, this is silly, we are on the phone, why can’t we be in person? he tells me you had your chance, you just dropped me off, why didn’t you talk to me then? the confusing thing is he’s always wrong, you see. but to him, he is not. he tells me things like - why didn’t you talk to me when you had the chance, when the reality was he walked away from me. he got up and left me. why do you have to control everything? why do i have to come home when you want me to? well, because you said 6. and you berated me that it wouldn’t be later than that.. yet it was. so i am not allowed to be mad? oh no, never. i am constantly punished. and blamed for things that aren’t my fault.

the reality of this situation is narcissism. my therapist says, you met an older one, who was more sly. his abuse was discrete, it came on quietly, and it was not as noticeable (M). however, C, C is a young narcissist. so you are seeing - tantrums, storming out, blaming you, gaslighting you, much more obviously. 

i am with her because i am trying to figure out how to not stay in these situations. suppose the first one really got me ready for the second.

the difficult part is that they do, entirely, 100%, believe themselves. C believes wholeheartedly that I am being controlling (or that is just the argument he is using), to cover up for the fact that he is doing wrong by not respecting me, and I am right in that he is choosing other things (drinking, etc) over me. hold a mirror up to them and they see, blameless. one of the stupidest things with narcissists is, entirely, “if you wanted to, you would”. yet somehow they find a myriad of ways to describe out of that. “No if you wanted to be with me, you would have come out with my friends,” “I was literally sick.” 

it is exhausting. as a child, i must have felt unheard. needs unmet, the stereotypical for targets of these emotionally abusive types. i can’t remember a time in my little archives of when i was a literal crying toddler, and a parent was telling me to stop. but boy, was that a situation here. what human being, what partner who says they love you, could let you stand, or crumple, or be crumpled, on the floor, and not feel empathy? and not touch? and not lean down? is that truly somebody that you love? 

I saw on a TikTok..

“this is what I learned: if hurting me, does not hurt you, you don’t love me, you’re using me.”

this may as well be the anthem for narcissists. 

what do they want - a cozy bed? a distraction? love and affection, someone adoring them? what happens when the sheet comes off, and the blinders are gone.. and I start arguing, I start putting up a fight? they don’t like you anymore. this is called the end of the idealization stage - where when they are first dating you, it is scary. they truly are some of the most wonderful people you have ever been with, and they, (believe it or not) truly believe, too, that you’re one of the most wonderful people. they might think you’re the one right alongside you. but they can’t keep up the kindness forever. it comes down.. at some point. what’s horrifying is sometimes some of them are so good, it can not come down for years. trust the true face, when you see it. 

C was quick. one insanely, ridiculous, heartbreaking joke, playing on the fact that i had lost dozens of photos on my phone (my stupid iphone just literally up and died one day,) and he was there with me while i held back tears in the apple store, cried in his arms outside (at this time, i was purposefully gathering photos/videos of people i loved that were moving away from my community in washington. so, that meant something). made a joke of it. “can someone take a picture?” at our friend yasmeine’s going-away party. C says, “don’t ask sarah because she lost all of hers”. i repeated this back, when i was telling my bestfriend susy, about this soft, sweet, wonderful boy i’d started seeing. she obviously knew because we were in europe together, and she saw me texting a person a bunch. i sat down with her, getting a croissant. i said, everything is great.. but.. there was this one thing. and before i know it, i am actually (in my feelings), explaining the joke. how much it haunted me. how much it made me want to run away. how “M” it was. she didn’t give me any consoling, either. susy seemed very disturbed, herself. she seemed to like C quite a bit, but i could tell, i think that mostly swayed her opinion completely. 

events only got worse, and worse. C could hold his own only for a little while. there was a time something sort of inappropriate