#I was gonna read that as my entry for Colombia but

[iishmael]

Whew. Work is boring but I just read Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo and dear god that was Boringer. That book seems to be a Revelation for everyone else and I just. Who was even speaking. Who was dead who was alive what the fuck this whole book felt like wading through a foggy swamp, mentally.

Also Wikipedia says the themes of this book include hope. I would’ve called it “nightmareish”

[just-here-for-the-moment]

Friday Fic Recs - April 15, 2022: The “Hey, cool, I’m dead!” edition! 💀

Thought I would do something a little different this week! Instead of the mild/medium/spicy scale, I’m going to share 3 fics that KILLED me: Dead, Deader, and Deadest!

These are all installments from ongoing series that I am HOOKED on, and they ALL updated this week and just completely killed me. I’m reporting this from beyond the grave, and I hope that I will be revived by some hot fics. Send chili peppers!! 🌶

My blog and most of the ones I follow are 18+ only. Please heed all author warnings.

💀 Dead - Starman Chapter 9 by @imtryingmybeskar - Ezra falls to Earth and meets a woman, and mysterious things happen when they touch. This Soulmate Ezra x OFC AU is super innovative, and the writing is slow-burn, heart-melting, and full of desire. This chapter melted my brain and killed me. Go read the series if you haven’t already!

💀💀Deader - The Gift (Part IV of The Crush) by @the-ginger-hedge-witch - Javier Peña left for Colombia 8 years ago when you were just an awkward 14-year-old girl nursing a massive crush on your handsome neighbor. Now that he’s come home to Laredo lots of things have changed, but not your burning desire for him. So I went back to check the dates and APPARENTLY Ren only dropped the first installment of this personal attack on us 3 1/2 weeks ago?? And it’s already 4 parts long, stopped my breathing and is responsible for my death? I’m gonna need a minute after this installment. Come dig me up in about a week and ask me how I’m feeling.

💀💀💀 Deadest - Mine (latest installment of the Control’verse) by @whataperfectwasteoftime - Fuck you, Penny… and I mean that extremely affectionately, but goddamn. I only fucking started reading this series, what, like a month ago when there were only three installments? And you- you have now whipped up an additional EIGHT installments? And each one not only is fucking amazeballs on it’s own, but somehow ALSO builds upon and enhances the entire AU that you’ve built for slightly dark!total control Dom Marcus??? HOW??? WHY would you do this to me? What did I ever do to deserve to be murdered in this fashion? I swear to god my fucking heart stopped reading this chapter.

—-

<Previous entry

JHFTM Friday Fic Recs Masterlist

JHFTM Main Fic Recs Masterlist

[wineanddinosaur]

Advanced Cicerone Chris Leguizamon Is Using Beer Education to Make the World a Better Place

It was the two-hour bus ride to and from his previous job at Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, Calif., that gave Chris Leguizamon time to become one of only two Advanced Cicerones in San Diego. Armed with a collection of beer magazines and books like Randy Mosher’s “Tasting Beer: An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink,” Leguizamon honed his expertise as a craft beer expert, eventually becoming the education program manager at Pure Project, a 1% for the Planet Company and certified carbon and plastic-neutral organization known for ultra-complex and highly sought-after brews. He shares his knowledge with beer drinkers of all levels through an Instagram livestream series under his account @chris.thebeereducator, with a goal of helping San Diego become home to the most Cicerone-certified front-of-house staff anywhere else in the world.

Sharing knowledge comes naturally to Leguizamon. As a former brewery tour guide for six years, as well as a first generation Latino/Hispanic American with a degree in physics and passion for renewable energy, he’s as well versed in discussions about the diversity in beer styles as he is about diversity and social justice. After the #BlackoutTuesday initiative permeated Instagram last June, Leguizamon says he found himself avoiding discussions about beer in order to focus on conversations around equity (and the lack thereof) outside the beer industry.

“I could not fathom educating people about anything that pertains to this fizzy carbonated beverage without addressing real social issues, because that’s what the world is going through,” Leguizamon says. When responding to critics who say breweries should “stick to beer,” he says, “If you just think that life is about beer, you’re missing the point … Beer is made by someone with hands, that’s working, that also has three kids — there’s more to it [than beer].”

With Pure Project’s backing, Leguizamon shifted his educational efforts online. (He calls his employer “the best leadership company I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”) In the following interview, Leguizamon discusses his entry into beer, his upward trajectory, and his desire to empower others to make their own impacts.

Ed. note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

1. How, when, and why did you get into beer?

When I was 15, I was visiting my uncle in Bogota, Colombia. I’d never really had beer besides like, family gatherings when you’re like two years old (laughs). He brought in a mixed 6-pack, sits it right down in the living room, and says, ‘Chris, today we’re gonna drink the products of our country.’ He presented one — Club Colombia, which has won a bunch of awards — and told me to look at the color (yellow, fizzy, straw-like), smell it, and then I tasted it. It was nothing like soda, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, God, this sucks!’

The second beer was Poker, and it had this attractive amber hue to it. The two didn’t look the same at all, so I tried it and it had this recognizable toast that reminded me of breakfast with my mom, and a touch of caramel. Colombians are attracted to caramel because of our obsession with arequipe. We put that on everything, so right away I thought it was way better than the other one.

At that point, I went down a rabbit hole of: Why does beer taste different? There are cultures behind this. There are centuries of science and art. I began wanting to read, wanting to learn, and indirectly change the stigma of what a Latino or a guy that looks like me is in beer. I’m a brown-skinned kid from one of the poorest cities in the nation (Reading, Pa.) and I want people to have a ‘Oh, holy smokes, this kid knows his stuff!’ type of mentality.

2. So when did you formally enter the beer industry?

In 2014, I worked at a brewpub in Pennsylvania called Chatty Monks, and at that point I was the only non-family member that was on staff; it was just a staff of six, including the three owners. I was this bushy, big-eyed 21-year-old, excited to finally be in craft beer and I would sing praises about flavors, pairings, and there came a point where like the guests were looking at me and they’re like, ‘Dude, it’s just beer. Why do you have so much passion behind this?’ It got to a point where I became an outlier in my own industry-slash-town. So I thought, ‘I’m gonna move to the place I like to vacation, which is San Diego,’ and I did in 2014. I remember thinking, ‘Holy shit, these people get it.’ I worked at Mission Brewery as a tour guide until 2015, moved to Stone Brewing until 2016, and then AleSmith Brewing Company until early 2019.

3. You’ve worked at a few big name breweries in San Diego. But you’ve talked about getting burnt out on the industry after a couple of negative encounters. What kept you in beer?

In 2019, I wanted to leave the beer industry, defeated. I was like, ‘Maybe I could get into bourbon, maybe get into coffee’ … but Kira Bouchard [currently the regional manager at Pure Project], who is my saving grace, was having coffee with me and asked what ‘beer adventures’ I was having. When I told her I was considering leaving the industry altogether, she encouraged me to apply to Pure Project, despite there being no open positions at the time.

Things fell into place: Someone left, I applied. I went through the whole interview process and the rest is history. I went from not wanting to smell a beer or talk about it to signing up for the Advanced Cicerone exam three months later.

4. What was the [Advanced Cicerone] exam study process like?

I studied for five hours a day. I would wake up at 5:30 a.m., put a Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich in the microwave, and then coffee. I’d just sit there every single morning and by 6 a.m. the books were open. I sacrificed a lot. I’ve missed out on a lot, but that determination kind of got me back into the rhythm.

5. Why is beer education so important to you?

I’m very team-oriented, and I hate when people talk down to beertenders or try to stump them, mainly because of gender. That ticks me off. A lot of people try to stump [female bartenders] and I can’t stand that, so I want to empower everyone to be able to hold their own.

6. After you achieved Advanced Cicerone, how did you start to share your knowledge?

We at Pure Project all push each other to be better, and the way that it evolved was I was homebrewing this BrewDog beer through their DIY Dog program [an annual compilation of open-source homebrew recipes], and I asked Mike Czech [Pure Project director of distribution], ‘What if we do something like this at Pure Project? We’re releasing two new beers every two weeks. What if you announce the title, the ABV, and three important keywords the beertenders can use?’ But Mike tailored it so well; he cut out the fluff. I’m very raw with my ideas and I need someone to edit, and Mike made it happen.

At the same time, Matt [Robar, Pure’s co-founder] saw potential in me because I was a tour guide for so long. He asked me to jump on an IG Live, since we were about to release Hazelsaurus Rex and a barrel-aged sour. It was one of the rawest IG Lives ever, I’d never had the two beers and Winslow [Sawyer, Pure’s head brewer], who is like a foot taller than me, pours the beers and my face lights up. I’m just geeking out. When we cut, they thought I did a pretty good job, so they asked me to do it again the next week. And it went from there!

7. How did that segment on Pure Project’s Instagram transform into what you’re personally doing, and how did it change during Covid-19?

I started a beer account called Chris the Beer Educator, and the first video you find is literally me in the back of my girlfriend’s backyard, laying out the intention of this whole virtual education thing. It was literally just to highlight everyone who got me to the point where I’m at now — never to focus on me; it’s to highlight other people and what they’re doing.

Then Covid hits and I’m sitting there antsy, wanting to keep teaching people about beer. So this spawned off that IG Live that Pure Project had me do for a couple months. I thought if I can convince people to read one of the most fundamental books, which is ‘Tasting Beer,’ then hopefully people will follow along. It made me want to read that book again, and it kind of grew into its own beast.

Weirdly, people have told me I built a brand. I didn’t mean to — I literally just wanted to empower people that were just at home during quarantine, not knowing what the world is gonna look like, to read ‘Tasting Beer’ and show how amazing San Diego beer professionals are. It’s San Diego craft beer in its rawest form.

8. What’s one episode that stands out to you?

When George [Thornton, owner of Home Brewing Company] and I were talking, things were flowing, and we were talking about Black is Beautiful — that was just the most human side of me, and George. There was a lot of frustration with what’s happening in the world, a lot of ‘How can people not just want to listen?’ George and I had that one moment where we both had pain, we both had frustration, and this was the least we could do being beer professionals, just being human, is telling people, ‘Listen, we know that you feel attacked, but just stop yelling back — just listen, learn, read a book about what’s happening. Try to understand people’s perspective that you don’t understand. They’re not part of the same walk as you. Celebrate that diversity as we like to celebrate diversity in beer styles.’

9. Ultimately, what’s your goal in the beer industry?

The main goal of Chris the Beer Educator is to have everyone pass their Certified Cicerone and to get that Level 2. I’ve always, always, always wanted to have people go from Level 1 to Level 2 and say, Chris was that person when everyone else says ‘Just do it yourself,’ he didn’t mind that I messaged him and said, ‘Hey could you clear up this section for me?’

I asked a lot of people for help during the Advanced Cicerone studying, and I got a good amount of ‘nos.’ Then there’s those people that mentored me, and I want to be that person for San Diego, so that we have the most Certified Cicerones, the most [Advanced] Cicerones, and ideally the most Master Cicerones in the nation. Imagine San Diego not just having the most amount of breweries — that’s nice — but the most educated staff anywhere, where everyone’s really on top of their game. Making it both female and male, Latino, person of color, Black, Asian, whatever it may be to diversify. That’s the dream, honestly.

The article Advanced Cicerone Chris Leguizamon Is Using Beer Education to Make the World a Better Place appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/chris-leguizamon-beer-education/

[johnboothus]

Advanced Cicerone Chris Leguizamon Is Using Beer Education to Make the World a Better Place

It was the two-hour bus ride to and from his previous job at Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, Calif., that gave Chris Leguizamon time to become one of only two Advanced Cicerones in San Diego. Armed with a collection of beer magazines and books like Randy Mosher’s “Tasting Beer: An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink,” Leguizamon honed his expertise as a craft beer expert, eventually becoming the education program manager at Pure Project, a 1% for the Planet Company and certified carbon and plastic-neutral organization known for ultra-complex and highly sought-after brews. He shares his knowledge with beer drinkers of all levels through an Instagram livestream series under his account @chris.thebeereducator, with a goal of helping San Diego become home to the most Cicerone-certified front-of-house staff anywhere else in the world.

Sharing knowledge comes naturally to Leguizamon. As a former brewery tour guide for six years, as well as a first generation Latino/Hispanic American with a degree in physics and passion for renewable energy, he’s as well versed in discussions about the diversity in beer styles as he is about diversity and social justice. After the #BlackoutTuesday initiative permeated Instagram last June, Leguizamon says he found himself avoiding discussions about beer in order to focus on conversations around equity (and the lack thereof) outside the beer industry.

“I could not fathom educating people about anything that pertains to this fizzy carbonated beverage without addressing real social issues, because that’s what the world is going through,” Leguizamon says. When responding to critics who say breweries should “stick to beer,” he says, “If you just think that life is about beer, you’re missing the point … Beer is made by someone with hands, that’s working, that also has three kids — there’s more to it [than beer].”

With Pure Project’s backing, Leguizamon shifted his educational efforts online. (He calls his employer “the best leadership company I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”) In the following interview, Leguizamon discusses his entry into beer, his upward trajectory, and his desire to empower others to make their own impacts.

Ed. note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

1. How, when, and why did you get into beer?

When I was 15, I was visiting my uncle in Bogota, Colombia. I’d never really had beer besides like, family gatherings when you’re like two years old (laughs). He brought in a mixed 6-pack, sits it right down in the living room, and says, ‘Chris, today we’re gonna drink the products of our country.’ He presented one — Club Colombia, which has won a bunch of awards — and told me to look at the color (yellow, fizzy, straw-like), smell it, and then I tasted it. It was nothing like soda, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, God, this sucks!’

The second beer was Poker, and it had this attractive amber hue to it. The two didn’t look the same at all, so I tried it and it had this recognizable toast that reminded me of breakfast with my mom, and a touch of caramel. Colombians are attracted to caramel because of our obsession with arequipe. We put that on everything, so right away I thought it was way better than the other one.

At that point, I went down a rabbit hole of: Why does beer taste different? There are cultures behind this. There are centuries of science and art. I began wanting to read, wanting to learn, and indirectly change the stigma of what a Latino or a guy that looks like me is in beer. I’m a brown-skinned kid from one of the poorest cities in the nation (Reading, Pa.) and I want people to have a ‘Oh, holy smokes, this kid knows his stuff!’ type of mentality.

2. So when did you formally enter the beer industry?

In 2014, I worked at a brewpub in Pennsylvania called Chatty Monks, and at that point I was the only non-family member that was on staff; it was just a staff of six, including the three owners. I was this bushy, big-eyed 21-year-old, excited to finally be in craft beer and I would sing praises about flavors, pairings, and there came a point where like the guests were looking at me and they’re like, ‘Dude, it’s just beer. Why do you have so much passion behind this?’ It got to a point where I became an outlier in my own industry-slash-town. So I thought, ‘I’m gonna move to the place I like to vacation, which is San Diego,’ and I did in 2014. I remember thinking, ‘Holy shit, these people get it.’ I worked at Mission Brewery as a tour guide until 2015, moved to Stone Brewing until 2016, and then AleSmith Brewing Company until early 2019.

3. You’ve worked at a few big name breweries in San Diego. But you’ve talked about getting burnt out on the industry after a couple of negative encounters. What kept you in beer?

In 2019, I wanted to leave the beer industry, defeated. I was like, ‘Maybe I could get into bourbon, maybe get into coffee’ … but Kira Bouchard [currently the regional manager at Pure Project], who is my saving grace, was having coffee with me and asked what ‘beer adventures’ I was having. When I told her I was considering leaving the industry altogether, she encouraged me to apply to Pure Project, despite there being no open positions at the time.

Things fell into place: Someone left, I applied. I went through the whole interview process and the rest is history. I went from not wanting to smell a beer or talk about it to signing up for the Advanced Cicerone exam three months later.

4. What was the [Advanced Cicerone] exam study process like?

I studied for five hours a day. I would wake up at 5:30 a.m., put a Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich in the microwave, and then coffee. I’d just sit there every single morning and by 6 a.m. the books were open. I sacrificed a lot. I’ve missed out on a lot, but that determination kind of got me back into the rhythm.

5. Why is beer education so important to you?

I’m very team-oriented, and I hate when people talk down to beertenders or try to stump them, mainly because of gender. That ticks me off. A lot of people try to stump [female bartenders] and I can’t stand that, so I want to empower everyone to be able to hold their own.

6. After you achieved Advanced Cicerone, how did you start to share your knowledge?

We at Pure Project all push each other to be better, and the way that it evolved was I was homebrewing this BrewDog beer through their DIY Dog program [an annual compilation of open-source homebrew recipes], and I asked Mike Czech [Pure Project director of distribution], ‘What if we do something like this at Pure Project? We’re releasing two new beers every two weeks. What if you announce the title, the ABV, and three important keywords the beertenders can use?’ But Mike tailored it so well; he cut out the fluff. I’m very raw with my ideas and I need someone to edit, and Mike made it happen.

At the same time, Matt [Robar, Pure’s co-founder] saw potential in me because I was a tour guide for so long. He asked me to jump on an IG Live, since we were about to release Hazelsaurus Rex and a barrel-aged sour. It was one of the rawest IG Lives ever, I’d never had the two beers and Winslow [Sawyer, Pure’s head brewer], who is like a foot taller than me, pours the beers and my face lights up. I’m just geeking out. When we cut, they thought I did a pretty good job, so they asked me to do it again the next week. And it went from there!

7. How did that segment on Pure Project’s Instagram transform into what you’re personally doing, and how did it change during Covid-19?

I started a beer account called Chris the Beer Educator, and the first video you find is literally me in the back of my girlfriend’s backyard, laying out the intention of this whole virtual education thing. It was literally just to highlight everyone who got me to the point where I’m at now — never to focus on me; it’s to highlight other people and what they’re doing.

Then Covid hits and I’m sitting there antsy, wanting to keep teaching people about beer. So this spawned off that IG Live that Pure Project had me do for a couple months. I thought if I can convince people to read one of the most fundamental books, which is ‘Tasting Beer,’ then hopefully people will follow along. It made me want to read that book again, and it kind of grew into its own beast.

Weirdly, people have told me I built a brand. I didn’t mean to — I literally just wanted to empower people that were just at home during quarantine, not knowing what the world is gonna look like, to read ‘Tasting Beer’ and show how amazing San Diego beer professionals are. It’s San Diego craft beer in its rawest form.

8. What’s one episode that stands out to you?

When George [Thornton, owner of Home Brewing Company] and I were talking, things were flowing, and we were talking about Black is Beautiful — that was just the most human side of me, and George. There was a lot of frustration with what’s happening in the world, a lot of ‘How can people not just want to listen?’ George and I had that one moment where we both had pain, we both had frustration, and this was the least we could do being beer professionals, just being human, is telling people, ‘Listen, we know that you feel attacked, but just stop yelling back — just listen, learn, read a book about what’s happening. Try to understand people’s perspective that you don’t understand. They’re not part of the same walk as you. Celebrate that diversity as we like to celebrate diversity in beer styles.’

9. Ultimately, what’s your goal in the beer industry?

The main goal of Chris the Beer Educator is to have everyone pass their Certified Cicerone and to get that Level 2. I’ve always, always, always wanted to have people go from Level 1 to Level 2 and say, Chris was that person when everyone else says ‘Just do it yourself,’ he didn’t mind that I messaged him and said, ‘Hey could you clear up this section for me?’

I asked a lot of people for help during the Advanced Cicerone studying, and I got a good amount of ‘nos.’ Then there’s those people that mentored me, and I want to be that person for San Diego, so that we have the most Certified Cicerones, the most [Advanced] Cicerones, and ideally the most Master Cicerones in the nation. Imagine San Diego not just having the most amount of breweries — that’s nice — but the most educated staff anywhere, where everyone’s really on top of their game. Making it both female and male, Latino, person of color, Black, Asian, whatever it may be to diversify. That’s the dream, honestly.

The article Advanced Cicerone Chris Leguizamon Is Using Beer Education to Make the World a Better Place appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/chris-leguizamon-beer-education/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/advanced-cicerone-chris-leguizamon-is-using-beer-education-to-make-the-world-a-better-place

[evieisannoying]

hey, my name is ana, im from colombia, (i'm actually not sure why i'm writing this in english) anyway, i've been wanting to learn korean for a while now, i learned hangul but the thing is that i don't know where to continue or what resources i can use, since it's really hard to find something korean related here; so i just wanted to ask you how you started learning and how do you manage your study time. I hope i didn't bother you ^^

Hola Ana!! :D Learning hangul is the first step, asi que comenzaste bien! c:

What I did: learn hangul, build some vocab with memrise, and then not improve at all for months because I had so many resources that I didn’t know which one to pick. I did check a few lessons of TTMIK and I used the textbook My Korean 1 (made by an Australian University, I think), but to be honest I didnt improve as much as I could have. Now I know the two reasons why: 1. TOO MANY RESOURCES: I was accumulating resources, books, sites, EVERYTHING, but didnt actually pick one to use. 2. Lack of discipline: I didn’t make time to actually study.

Know that I’m more experienced I highly recommend yall to not repeat my mistakes lmao. PICK ONE TEXTBOOK OR WEBSITE AND STICK TO IT. Don’t worry about missing out extra information or whatever. Only look for another explanation if the first one you used wasnt clear enough and you really couldnt understand, but AFTER TRYING; annotate, practice, review, and if it is still unclear then switch to another (reliable) resource. I’m NOT saying that every explanation is going to be accurate and should be trusted, but if it isn’t correct you will probably realize it after you become more comfortable with the language.

Everyone praises TTMIK and they deserve it, they have awesome lessons. My advice is that you find their curriculum (on their page) and start. But remember: DONT STOP. You dont know what to do? Go to the next lesson. As simple as that. Listen to the audios, repeat what they say, read aloud, make flashcards with the vocab and say “I will learn ALL THIS WORDS by the end of the week”, make your own sentences to practice vocab and grammar points, KEEP GOING. You can even skip some lessons (advanced learners are gonna kill me for saying this tho). Dont stress over “but what im a gonna do after i finish all their lessons?!?” You’ll cross that bridge when you get there.

Another option that I recommendfor grammar is using the book Korean Grammar In Use (Beginner). It has a lot of grammar points with simple explanations, sample sentences, conjugations and exercises. You can pair it with the TTMIK lessons if you are a little worried about not getting enough practice.

For vocab I suggest the list of ‘Most common verbs/adjectives/nouns’, and I think some people have already created them on Memrise/Quizlet/Anki (I personally prefer quizlet).

I try to study at least 5 minutes a day. I’ll make a full post soon about how I’ve been managing my time these past few months, but this is what I try to do every week:

Grammar: it can take just 30 minutes to make notes for a grammar point. How many G.P. you do is up to how much time you have. I’m doing 3-5 per week (intensively selfstudying) but I think even one per week is fine!

Vocab: make a list at the start of each week (or month) and review every moment you can: before sleeping, while eating, on the bus. It shouldnt take you too much time either: 30 minutes for the list and 5 minute breaks for reviewing. Make goals: Ill memorize this list by the end of the week, Ill review 5 days of the week, Ill review 4 times each day. Be honest with yourself, but try to step out of your comfort zone.

Listening comprehension: listen to audios of the lessons, listen without reading the transcript and try to pick up words, listen to kpop too and other media like dramas or youtube videos. Doesnt take much time either and its fun to do.

Some kind of pronunciation practice: imitating the audios and reading aloud. If you have a native friend or anyone who knows/is learning korean, talk with them. 

Some kind of writing practice like journaling your day, solving workbook exercises or making sentences with what you learn. Time varies with this. My journal entries take me 5-15 minutes (they are very short but sometimes I have to look up words that I dont know/remember)

Reading practice: write the dialogues from the lessons that you study and read them! they probably combine the grammar and vocab you are studying. Also write the sample sentences that they use. Read kpop lyrics and webtoons.

Hope this helps a little bit c: I’ll probably make more posts about this with more information. Lo mas importante es comenzar y seguir! No te bloquees. Si ves algo, aprendelo; no lo guardes para despues. 

[fruitbootfizz]

It’s funny how so much can change in just a matter of weeks. Sometimes it’s not so funny. My life right now is in flux in so many different ways, it’s almost hard to keep track. Friendships shifting into people I used to know, living changing into desperation, and staying turning into traveling. I’m less than a week from heading to France and there’s so much revolving around me if I didn’t have good friends to talk to I’d probably lose my head from the pressure and it would pop right off. I thank God I’m not a stressed out person in my nature although this week has been a trial. Sleeping in my car full time has put me through the fire in a way. It’s brought me a lot closer to what it means to value my time and the mornings I wake up to the sunrise or rain hitting my windshields and it’s also made me confront respecting space, communication, and knowing my boundaries. I’m still looking for that van. In its own time, I understand that much. However, I can be putting a lot more effort and I just need to write down what that looks like tangibly.

I’ve learned a lot about what true friendship looks like in the last year. Rachel has shown me and spoken life into me. I’ll never forget the words she has said about my character and about the happiness and growth I’ve brought her. I hope she never forgets the encouragement I send her way either. She’s one of the greatest people I’ve ever known. I never knew people could exist like that. So whole, complicated in the best way, and so light. She’s taught me a lot about fear and how to battle through that. I’m not sure if I’ve ever told her that....I don’t think I knew that until now. I’ll tell her.

Rachel. Nick. Pete. Wyatt. Miranda. Morgan. Coop. Haley. Brooke. I get to tell my kids about these people someday. And about how much they mean to me. Maybe they’ll meet them? Maybe they’ll grow up alongside their kids. Only time knows where our lives will lead but I’m glad I’ve already gotten to know them.

Pete got a Subaru. So now we’re car buddies. I need to ask if he’s named it yet. Rachel and Nick will be married soon. I’ll miss her bridal shower. I’m really bummed about that. Really really bummed. Nick calls me Bella and I think that’s probably one of my favorite things. We’re friends. And that’s also a favorite. I wanna hear wyatt and nick play together again. Those were good times. I’m gonna help rachel pick dresses for her to wear at the bridal shower and something else. We get to hang out on Friday in the morning before she and I leave. She’s so special.

I haven’t seen Carrie since last summer when she was here with tanner. They’re broken up now but those were good times too. I wish I would’ve written more while she was there. But at least I have pictures. I dislike that Joy is in those pictures. Looking back, I don’t think I ever liked her. I just liked some moments that we had. Now it just makes me annoyed. That’s a real feeling. And it’s out there now.

I’m trying not to put writing in a box. And make up fake rules. Why do I have these imaginary rules about what I can and can’t do within a certain subject? I’m canceling that. I don’t wanna do that. My mom used to tell me when I was younger that I was a good writer. Obviously after that I shied away from it because when are moms right about things like that. Turns out more often than not. She’s always known me. Deep down. Maybe she doesn’t know everything but she knows a lot more than the younger parts of me like to admit. Rachel told me the other day that I should start writing more too. So this whole thing is a pretty new development. Brooklyn also inspired this. She wrote a lot about her trip here. I liked that. Pete has a couple voice recordings that he made about his day. I liked that too. I’ve always hated the physical act of writing. I think I’ve just gotten frustrated that my handwriting changes every 3 lines and I’m very much about uniformity when it comes to writing. I want it to look good. But who says writing has to be on paper? I don’t. So I’m here. My wrist would’ve been sore by now on paper with a pen. But I’m still here. Typing as fast as ever. So now I’m writing more. I also thought that writing has to be this big extraordinary thing and has to be perfect but I’m not perfect so why should my writing be? It’s like a daily photograph written down. It’s not necessarily pretty or perfect or whatever. It’s just what happened. What is. What future me and future people will see. What they’ll read. What they’ll understand about this period in my life. I don’t want to put my experience in a box. The other side of the coin is laziness coupled with not thinking my life/feelings/day is worth writing about. But every time I look through an (unfinished) journal and read past entries I realize the importance. These are the good days and I wanna remember them.

I was at Wyatt and Miranda’s house today and last night. I spent the night after hanging out with them and Haley and Judah. Woke up to a cute baby. Judah really is such a cute kid. Then we wanted to make a beef stew in the crock pot for tonight’s dinner so we went to smart and final and then we had Panda Express for lunch. Cravings is such a weird notion. You only want that thing you’re craving and you can already taste it and feel how you would feel after you’re full. I ran some errands. Switched a bag at Parker clay for a smaller one to take to Europe. I may have accidentally misplaced one of their wallets. But they don’t exactly pay me either which I think maybe start bothering me if I don’t figure out the clear boundaries between them and me as a business. But to ask them about it I should probably figure out a fair trade to propose to them instead of just complaining without a solution. I also hung out with Hannah today!! I sent her the photos from colombia of the camera bag she made me! She really loved them. I hope to take better ones in Europe now that I’ve got Carrie to help model. I think she’ll like that as well. I told her about the housing situation and the fall out with Joy. She sympathized with me which felt nice because it made me feel like I wasn’t crazy. We went outside and took some photos of these REALLY cute clutches with some second hand super cool zippers she got from clothing at the thrift store. It was such a nice day today. Ever since Peyton and Brooklyn left from here back to Santa Barbara it’s been all fun. It’s making me excited for summer. I can feel it in my body, makes my skin relax and melt into this feeling of remembering how summer has felt in the past, how it felt to have friends laying in the grass eating chips and snacks, knowing that it’s so soon to feel that again. My whole life I’ve been frustrated that I can’t take those feelings of excitement when the seasons change or giddiness with the environment I’m in and jar them up into something tangible, something I can take out and feel whenever I want to. I think that’s what heavens like. Always feeling that sweet spot where you belong and you feel at peace and at the same time you feel endless and abounding in joy. I’ll get there. But what’s frustrating here and now about when I get that rush of feeling something emotionally good and whole is that the only thing I can do about it, is feel it. I can’t grab it or reach for it. It’s this increasingly just out of my stretch feeling that I sense while feeling full and happy. I can’t a single thing about what I’m feeling except to feel it. Knowing that’ll it’ll pass. And sometimes I over think the thought that this moment will pass and then I don’t enjoy it as much as I can because I know it’s passing and then I miss it. I miss it because I don’t want to fucking miss it. It’s a mess really. But no one can take that feeling away either. One day I hope to be able to describe what that feels like to my kids so that they’ll look for that same feeling and appreciate where they are and what’s going on.

Life is so complicated and messy and whole and good. And sometimes you just have to sit in that and feel it.

[longitud-de-onda]

on my mind

pairing; javier peña x female reader summary; you’re trying to have a peaceful night in when javier brings home yet another informant, and while you brace yourself to hear the noises all night, you’re surprised to hear something else. rating; t warnings; strangling, medical inacurracies probably, some angst? idk it doesn’t feel super angsty to me but y’all’ll probably think it is word count; 2.4k requested; by anon “You are his next door neighbor and friend. At night, you often hear his escapades through the wall. One night, things sound more like a fight than sex. You aren't sure what to do. You have a key to his apartment. You sneak in to see what is going on. Javi's informant is strangling him with his tie for real. She runs away, Javi regains consciousness, & tells you that he thought he was going to die and the only thing he could think about was that he never told you he loves you.”

Javier fucking Peña. You’re gonna kill the man since this is the fifth time this week he’s brought a girl home and it’s only Wednesday and it’s 8pm and you want to relax after a long day. You can hear them coming up the stairs outside the building, the loud Spanish obscenities spilling from their lips in the hallway, the jingling of the keys as they enter his apartment.

He’s been doing it since you got to Colombia all those years ago, but it never ceases to hurt. Doesn’t he know how much noise he and all the women he has over make? Doesn’t he know how thin the walls are, that if they and you are in the right rooms in your respective apartments, you can hear every last word they say?

You’ve been Javier’s partner for what now feels like forever. And at some point between hiding behind walls during drug busts and the thrilling car chases through Bogotá, you fell in love.

Sometimes you wonder why you haven’t made a move. There are times when he grins at you after breaking a case or finding a lead and your heart soars, nights out drinking at bars, days where you’re on the hunt and you have each other’s backs when you wonder if maybe he feels the same. 

But you have to be reminded multiple times a week that your job relies on him fucking multiple women for valuable information, loudly.

He’s even gone so far as to offer you a night in bed with him. Multiple times. Those days are the worst. You know it would only be a one night stand and if you said yes it would break your heart.

So you settle for loving him from afar. You respect him enough to know that your feelings would only ruin things. If how he is is what makes him happy, then who are you to stop him?

You walk over to your bedroom to grab your walkman and try to drown out the sounds that will inevitably begin, hope you’ll be able to curl up on your couch and read the book you’ve been trying to start.

It takes all of three minutes for the sound of whatever is happening to breach the weak plastic of your headphones and you groan.

This is really the last straw. It’s been such a long day and Javier only made it worse by letting his hand linger a little longer than was considered friendly when handing you your coffee this morning and taking you out to lunch just to get out of the building. And then he had the nerve to leave early so that he could meet an informant, and you were stuck finishing up the paperwork, only to return home to the same sounds you were hearing now, finishing up.

You throw your headphones off and stand up. You were going to storm over and give Javier a piece of your mind when you hear something that is distinctively not sexual. It sounds like they’re fighting, there are some thumps on the floor that cannot feel good and you think you even hear something shatter.

You almost lunge over your dinner table to grab your handgun, and exit your apartment, quietly slipping over to his door, hoping he left his door unlocked. You try the handle and it glides right open. Leave it to Javier to forget to lock it in the heat of things.

You thank everything working in your favor that Javier has an entry hallway and you’re able to enter the apartment, back pressed against the wall, unnoticed. You slide closer, and the fighting has quieted. There’s no longer any human noises, just the sound of grappling, and that could definitely be sex and you really don’t want to walk in on that, but you assume the worst, Javier could really be in danger.

You peak around the corner and you freeze up. Javier is on the floor, some woman has her hand gripped around his tie and is pulling, hard, from behind. His face is bright red and a bit puffy and you notice he is unconscious.

“Hey!” you yell, pointing your gun at her, and she startles, dropping the tie, and Javier’s body flops to the ground.

You stare blankly at the limp body of your partner, which gives the woman enough time to slip out of the open window to the balcony, and you watch as she jumps over the railing, only a few feet to the ground below from the first-floor apartment.

She shouldn’t have gotten away. You could have shot her. You know that. But your breathing is shaky and you still are holding your gun up at the window, seconds after she’s gone, staring at Javier.

You finally come to and rush to the ground beside him, kneeling by his head. He can’t be dead. He just can’t be. You let out a sob and your throat is tight and pained with the oncoming tears. If Javier is dead? You don’t dare to think about what you would do.

You pull his arm into your hand, searching for a pulse, and upon finding it, you let yourself relax for a brief moment, before peeling off the tie from his neck. His skin is red and marred with a thick ring of abrasions from the rough fabric, and there are some frantic scratches on either side, suggesting he had further injured himself trying to get out.

You reach out a hand to touch the wounds, gasping as you feel how hot his skin is.

Javier sputters under your touch, his eyes springing open and coughing a few times until he calms down.

“Javi!” you exhale, “Javi, holy shit, I thought you were dead.”

He’s gasping for air, and you help him up, dragging his body over to the floor beside the couch, propping his back up against it.

You know he’s going to need treatment for the wounds on his neck, and you jump to your feet, rushing over to the kitchen. You open the freezer and push things around until you find an icepack and then throw open some cabinets, searching for some sort of pain medication. There. Inside one of the cabinets lies a few bottles of pills alongside a pitiful looking box of bandaids.

You bring the two items back to the living room where Javier is taking shallow breaths, and you sink to the ground next to him. The bottle is placed on the coffee table and you grab his hand and bring it and the ice pack to his neck, helping him hold it in place.

“Javi, when you’re ready, these pills are on the table here, you should take them,” you say.

“Y/N.” It’s the first word he’s said since you entered the apartment and you exhale shakily while managing to break a smile. He leans his head back on the couch, looking at the ceiling. “If you hadn’t come, I’d be—I’d—”

“Javi, don’t say that,” you say, “You’re okay now. That’s what matters.”

He brings his head back up and turns to look at you. You can feel his gaze but you really don’t know what to do. What to say. You look at the ground, waiting for something.

That something comes after almost five minutes of silence.

“If you think you can swallow you should try to take some pain meds,” you say.

“It doesn’t hurt much,” he says, voice hoarse. You know he’s lying.

“Still.”

Javier reaches forward to grab the bottle, sets down the ice pack, unscrews the cap and pours a pill into his palm. After swallowing, he replaces the ice on his neck, wincing at the contact.

“Do you need anything else?” you ask.

You want to say so much. You want to be mad at him. Mad that he got himself into this goddamn mess. But you can’t. All you can think about is how lost you would be if he hadn’t made it. How scared you had been, seeing him unconscious on the floor. The last time you had spoken with Javier about him doing this, about sleeping with the informants, it hadn’t gone well, and after today? You regretted every word you had said.

“Javi, you can’t keep sleeping with people to get information,” you said, slamming your hands on the desk after he brought up speaking with a fourth prostitute that week who he said would have valuable intel on one of Escobar’s sicarios.

“It works,” he shook his head, continuing to pack up his things.

“It works, but at what cost?” you threw up your hands, hoping it would emphasize your point, but Javier wasn’t even looking. “If someone finds out?”

“Tell me our most valuable leads haven’t resulted from it?” he said and he was right. Most anything of substance had come (quite literally) from Javier fucking them. But that didn’t mean you had to be okay with it.

“What if one of them knows what you’re doing? They get paid to get close to you? Try to take you out or something?” you said, voice getting dangerously loud.

“God, Y/N, you don’t have to be such a stickler for the rules, we’ve broken enough already. And I only do it with the women I trust,” he said, now at the door to your office about to leave.

“Fine, go fuck whoever you like, just don’t come running to me for help when you get hurt,” you said.

It had been four months since you had that conversation, but the irony of it all didn’t escape you. You felt bad after saying it but you feel even worse now.

“Please stay,” Javier croaks out beside you.

You nod. “Okay.”

As much as it hurts to sit next to him tonight, you can’t deny him anything. Not tonight.

It’s quiet for a while. You bring one leg up to your chest and with one hand trace little circles into the carpet.

“I thought I was going to die,” he says. He drops the ice pack in his lap. “The only thing I could think of was that I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to tell the woman I love how much she matters to me.”

Now it’s your turn to throw your head back on the couch and stare up at the ceiling. You blink a few times, realizing there are tears in the corners and you don’t know where they came from. You had gotten good at pushing your feelings away, but now, knowing that Javier had almost died? You don’t know what you would do if you had lost him. Life without Javier? It would probably break you.

And then there’s this woman he’s speaking of and you don’t know what to think of it, because Javier? In love with a woman? Singular? That wasn’t anything you had heard of. You couldn’t picture him falling for someone, wanting to spend a life with her. But you supposed it made sense. In the face of death, people realize exactly what they want in life.

It had happened to you, a couple times. Almost anyone in the field here in Colombia had those moments. Bullets flying inches from your face. Explosions where you’re caught only a few feet away from being fatally injured. Falls through unstable flooring in the apartments in the poorest parts of Bogotá. For you, those moments reminded you how important certain people were.

You didn’t have much family back home, no one significant enough to worry about, that’s why you took such a dangerous job so far from the States. But you remember waking up in the hospital a year ago, a bullet having grazed your side. Your final memories before blacking out were the feeling of warm blood pouring out across your stomach and Javier’s face. Javier, who was stuck in Bogotá for the week as you risked your life in Medellín.

“Maybe you shouldn’t waste any more time and tell her,” you say.

God knows you regretted not telling him. It was for the best, you knew. Javier wasn’t exactly the sort of guy to settle down. And the pain of rejection wouldn’t be as bad as the dull ache of seeing him every day afterwards. But if Javier loved someone? And she didn’t know? She deserved to know how much she mattered to him. That she was important enough to be the face he saw before he thought he would die.

“I don’t know,” he says, and you look over at him, brow furrowed. “She doesn’t think very highly of me.”

“How could she not think highly of you, Javi?” you say. You think the world of him, but there were plenty of reasons why someone might not. It’s not the moment to bring those up.

“It’s you, Y/N.”

You blink. Javier likes you?

“I know,” he continues, “I know you don’t—and you don’t have to—fuck. I don’t want to make this awkward”

“No,” you breathe, staring at him and shaking your head, “I—Me?”

You can’t believe what Javier had said. That all this time you were sitting on your feelings for each other, not saying anything.

“Yes, you,” he says, “Since day one, you’ve been the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. And you’re 100% there for everyone we work with. You care about people. You came rushing in today to save me even when you didn’t have to, when I didn’t deserve it. You said all that stuff, and you were right, but you still came—”

“I had to, Javi, I—I care about to you, too.” you say, “I couldn’t let you get hurt. I couldn’t lose you... I love you.”

Javier reaches an arm up to cup your cheek. Every inhale and exhale feels slower than ever before. His face has softened, a faint smile crosses his lips, more than his usual stern expressions ever allow, and there’s a certain something in his eyes, a glistening, and you bite your lip instinctively. And that’s when he leans in to take your lips in his own, and you, sinking into him, climb to your knees so that you can wrap an arm around his waist and intertwine your other hand into his hair.

It’s perfect until it isn’t as Javier jolts away with a noise that sounds painful and you jump back.

“Are you okay?” you’re back into panic mode, “Did I hurt you?”

“No, I, uh.” He lets out a breathy laugh. “I think I got too into it, moved my neck too much.”

“Do you need—”

“No, Y/N, I don’t need anything. I’m fine. I just, I need you,” he admits.

“Me too,” you say and sit back down next to him, leaning your head against his shoulder and reaching down, grabbing his hand, and interlocking his fingers with yours.

taglist; @pascalisthepunkest​ @turquiosenights @el-lizzie​ @sparrows-books​ @dxxkxx​ @opheliaelysia​ (edit: i completely forgot to tag @letaliabane​ i’m so sorry my document with my taglists was all messed up)