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iloveschiaparelli · 1 year ago

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This might come out a little bit late because my wrist is KILLING me but it's time for new garden update!!

I am, in fact, looking for advice for Spider Plant, African Violet, and random thing attached to my plants. This is a long post but if you are knowledgeable in any of those and would be willing to skip down to the section about those problems I would super appreciate it <3

First of all the spider plant is STILL flowering and making many new babies. I'm thinking about starting a plant section of my art business (which is usually inactive but I've been thinking of booting up again) so this is great news.

The two babies I propogated recently are doing well, for the most part. I didn't propogate them at the same time, so they are at different stages of progress. The first one went into a head-shaped pot with pebbles at the bottom for extra drainage and has found its home at the foot of my bed so that I can feel like I have some form of life in here besides Rookie sneaking in to take naps on my pillow or in my clean laundry when I'm not looking. The bedroom baby seems to have taken root, actually, judging by the fact that just now I pulled gently at it from the base and it didn't budge an inch from the soil, whereas when I first potted it it was looser than a 1900s social pariah (feminine). The leaves are also seeming to stand up straighter.

The second one however is just in a plastic container with no special drainage. The only reason I propogated it at all is because I was sitting watching My Hero Academia with my roommate and one of our friends when I looked Slightly to the right and had The Urge to Repot. I tried so hard to resist, I really did. I fought The Urge for at least 30 mins before finally, in the middle of an episode, i just stood up, went out on the balcony at 10.30 at night and propogated it without warning.

I'm pretty sure the only words I offered as explanation in the moment were "The plant was calling." I looked like a madman shoveling dirt into a cup in the middle of the night when previously I had shown zero indication that I would be leaving the couch until bedtime.

It's doing alright, the soil seems overly wet but that is probably because the plant is new enough that it hasn't yet developed the roots to drink up. I just need to give it time while I find a proper pot for it. I think I have one in my bedroom actually, I just need to paint it.

On the OTHER hand, the main spider plant is also turning brown at the ends which is kind of concerning. I don't know if it's the stem from the baby I just took off, drawing nutrients away (see blurry photo of long stem turning brown and dying) or if it's some kind of consequence of me accidentally overwatering her last week because I thought a water stake was a good idea (I'm never using water stakes again). If anyone has any insight on that, i would be thrilled to hear it. It's indoors so unless some nasty bug has gotten in, it's unlikely to be bug eating it.

One thing that I DO know bugs are eating is my BASIL!!!!!! I don't know if you guys are familiar with spotted lanternflies, but they're super invasive here in the US and in my state are actually considered "Under Quarantine" which means that affected counties/cities are kept track of and, if you live in one, you need a permit & training course on finding and eliminating spotted lanternflies before you can sell any kind of organic matter outside of the quarantine area. They eat grapevines like mad which is threatening to VA's economy (they're all big wine people)

Their main source of food is Tree of Heaven, which coincidentally is ALSO an invasive species from Asia. Including kudzu, bamboo and asian pear trees this is 4 plants and 1 HORRIBLE little bug that are wreaking havoc on Virginia's ecosystem because of being DELIBERATELY!!! introduced as an ornamental (Decorative!) plant. (bug hitched a ride) Unbelievable.

Anyway they also like to eat basil and I have my basil outside so that it can get a sufficient amount of sun to keep from wilting all the time, so guess what I find every time I go outside! This little PECKERHEAD (or his brothers) just hanging out on my basil sitting perfectly still just like I'm his dad and I just walked into the room and he's trying to pretend he wasn't just on his phone. Anyway today I went to get some leaves for cooking and like half of them were just absolutely emacerated with brown/black spots and holes because the lanternfly nymphs have been nibbling on them. Varmints.

Spotted lanternflies are vulnerable to neem oil (So are brown marmorated stinkbugs btw), tea tree oil, and peppermint oil. I mean to purchase whichever one is harmless to my other plants to spray the lanternflies with to kill them. They're also wildly attracted to milkweed, but it's actually toxic to them, so management strategies for spotted lanternflies often suggest planting milkweed on your property so that they will drink the sap and then die.

I intend to, once I am not struggling to pay bills, purchase a native milkweed plant and stick it allll the way on the end of the balcony AWAY from my other plants in order to draw the lanternflies away and hopefully kill them.

I'm not looking forward to cleaning up the bodies. In fact, a couple minutes before taking the above photo I actually leaned over to take a pic of another one and got a dead one in my hair. I was mortified when I sat up and realized. I'm really, really, really going to hate it when they start reaching maturity, because mature spotted lanternflies are HUGE. They're like 2 inches long, 1 inch wide, and fat-looking. I saw one smeared on the pavement last fall and wanted to throw up. I don't know if I have the strength to kill them myself, which is why I'm hoping neem oil spray and milkweed will kill them for me without having to deal with smashed moth remains,

Here are the life stages of spotted lanternfly, map of their invaded areas, and pictures of the Tree of Heaven for your information to kill/manage them <3

PEsTS aside, I have really good news! My wildflowers have all sprouted!!!!!!

Looking back, I wish I'd verified whether they were native or not. I hope I don't poison the landscape when they go to seed. Once they start flowering, I'll try to identify any invasive or harmful species and weed them out, I suppose.

They first started showing green on a day when i was feeling especially depressed about my recent breakup, so it was HUGE mood boost. It honestly felt like God was like "Yeah ya'll it's time to go green. Right now go go go go go!!"

Don't mind the plant water stakes, they're empty I just don't have a great place to put them right now. I intend to keep them only so I can use them when I go out of town for a few days at a time, so that I don't need to ask my roommates to water my basil daily, or whatever. The first two pictures I took when I first noticed the seedlings, and the third one is from today, along with most of the other photos.

One thing that I am concerned about is that I'm noticing these little banana-shaped things (pods? eggs? seeds?) that look like they've been clamped/clipped onto the leaves of many of the wildflower seedlings, especially the ones on the left end of the planter. They almost look like hairclips that have been shut onto the leaves? I'm really confused. They're pretty dry looking, and my friend James broke one apart and it just kinda disintegrated. (I was too wigged out to touch it) They can't have been there very long, a couple days before I noticed at least.

If anyone has ANY idea what these are, I'd really appreciate it. I'm worried that they're bug eggs. I really hate interacting with/looking at bugs, especially bug eggs, so I tried looking it up myself and had to stop because uhh... pictures of bug eggs. But they definitely don't look like part of the plant, especially since this planter is a mixture of different species and they're showing up on multiple types.

The beeblossom, which I've learned is also called a Whirling Butterflies or a Wand Flower much more commonly than it's called a beeblossom, is doing quite well! The leaves and stems have shifted completely from red to green, and it's showing signs that it might possibly flower for a second time. I really hope it does, the flowers last time only lasted a couple days and I don't remember if I got any good pictures but they were really pretty. I've repotted it into a neat woven-basket pot that I got at the local garden center (This garden center has a cat mascot! That lives at the store! I love him. He let me pet him.)

The lavender also went into a similar pot, to get it out of the rice pot that it was in before. Also at this garden center I found a catnip plant!!!! Rookie has been loving it whenever I give him a leaf, but surprisingly I don't think he's figured out the source plant because he doesn't go up to it and sniff it at all. I think he's more interested by the finches, cardinals, and robins that have (finally) found our birdfeeder. To give you an idea of how much the birds have been vibing, this feeder was full to the top only a week ago.

The Echinopsis babies are doing OK. Echinopsis generally do a terrible job of communicating how they are doing. They don't seem to be especially active in growing? Neither the babies nor the parent. I suspect know I repotted the parent into too-small of a pot, so I hope to remedy that at the next opportunity. Just.... large pots take up so much space!!! And they're much more expensive than small pots, especially since I'm so averse to plastic containers due to issues with overwatering plants in plastic containers.

The Echinopsis babies haven't been drinking as much as I'd like, but they HAVE been drinking, which is a sign that the roots are functioning just fine. They were each able to take a root or two from the parent when I propogated them about a month ago, so it's good to know that they're doing alright down under the soil. I'm thinking about selling each of them for $35, with the hand-painted pot, but I hate to part with them. I get so emotionally attached.

The Thyme, on the other hand, has shown ZERO signs of growth and it's been 12 days. I know they have a long germination time but between their complete silence and the fact that I planted them in the wrong soil (I should have used sandy loam but it's just Miracle Gro) and the soil has been wetter than a jellyfish since I planted, AND they're just from a dollar tree Herb Rocket, I'm starting to become suspicious that they're duds. I'll keep watering and watching them until after I hit the 28 days, but I'm definitely not feeling great about the thyme.

The herb rocket was supposed to be planted as just one roll, also, but because I was using a long container I took some scissors and just cut the rolled up seed tape in half lengthwise before rerolling and planting. The directions were also ambiguous as to whether I was supposed to leave the top of the rolls visible, level with the soil, or to cover them up with the 1/4 inch soil that I've begun to notice is typical of planting instructions.

The left roll you can see is a little bit messed up, because the other day in a fit of disappointment I pulled it out of the dirt and unrolled it to check for anything, ANYTHING, ANY!!! SIGNS OF GROWTH! I found nothing. But that, not before, is the point when I googled the germination time of thyme, then I felt like an idiot and did my best to stuff it back into the soaking wet soil.

God help me with this plant.

My roommate pulled out a little mushroom decoration (she loves mushrooms) for the garden, initially intended to go in the wildflower planter. It was there for about an hour before I took it out, because I didn't want it to kill any of the wildflower growth. Instead I put it between the two thyme rockets. Hopefully, when (if?) the thyme actually starts growing, it will look like there's a little mushroom home nestled between the two shrubs.

Another plant whose performance I am currently dissatisfied with is the African Violet. It's wilting again. At this point it's like, "What am I doing wrong now?" What makes it even worse is that this is the only plant that was given to me as like a, "nurture this plant as a metaphor for nurturing your spirit!" so it's even more depressing that I'm having difficulty keeping it alive. I feel like this plant's survival is tied to my success as a human being (Not really, but that's the vibe).

The leaves are just totally limp. Not really mushy, but I could see them getting that way if it weren't for the fact that they usually just dry up and wither away first. The soil is very wet, which I don't understand because I've been doing my best not to overwater it and it's been a week since it's last douse. The leaves have lost their yellow tinge from overwatering, but only on the topside. The bottomside of the leaves still look brownish, as if they're dried up (except that they arent) If there are any African Violet experts in the crowd, I would LOVE for you to lend me any advice you can give me from the picture <3 I love you.

I've been pruning off dead sections and kept it indoors with a stable temperature in a spot where it gets plenty of indirect light, so I don't understand what the issue is. I'm beginning to blame plastic containers for all of my problems due to all of my Problem Plants being in plastic. (Spider Plant momma, new baby Spider Plant, African Violet, Thyme, Basil in the early months, Beeblossom, probably the catnip soon too).

I desperately want to move all my plastic planted plants to ceramic/terracotta or woven containers, but the issue is just that plastic is the cheapest material for planters, and since I've been upsizing, I genuinely do not have the budget for terracotta right now. Maybe in 2 months, but by then the Basil & Echinopsis will already have had their growth stifled, the Thyme will be drowned, and the African Violet will be well and truly dead.

I wasn't able to get any good pictures of the snake plants in this lighting, but they are doing alright also. Their roots haven't quite put down in the new soil, but I think they're kind of growing anyways??? I dunno.

Finally, here is a photo of the Potted Plant Empire as it is today, excepting the indoor plants and the wildflower planter being cut off:

That little pot at the end is my roommate's rosemary, and the orange glass pot is her lavender. Mine is in the woven basket next to it.

I feel like that guy in the recent Drive Time app advertisement. "I FEEL STRONGG!!!"

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survivorinternational · 6 years ago

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Episode 5 - "I'm on a tribe full of fat flops." - Randy

Sooo breaking news of the day: Michael just approached me about working together with Emily I think the Veni boot made him spooked as well because he's been doing well in challenges too But Michael and Emily are the two I've been getting along the most with on this new tribe so I'm definitely not opposed to that He asked if I wanted to include someone else and I said, well, obviously I have a good relationship with Ginger since we started out on the same tribe But we shall see what happens The Ginger-Tyler connection could possibly complicate things Plus I predict Michael has an alliance with the og Ala Mai as well He's probably trying to secure his spot at merge right now But I'm open to any plans, and Michael would definitely be a good shield for me so I don't want to get rid of him anytime soon I could see us working together well Update: Talked to Ginger and as I predicted, he was not as ecstatic about the thought of working with Michael as he would've been about working with Tyler + Emily. But we agreed that it is always good to have as many allies as possible and we shouldn't turn this opportunity down. Michael should be doing the chat later tonight. Kinda hope we would've won reward, since none of the advantages seem to be on my good side as of now, and that's going to become a problem later in the game. But I can't really complain since there was no way I was going to step up and do the comp, I don't need any more attention drawn towards myself. My plan of laying lower has now put into action. I gave the immunity challenge my good 80% in hopes of avoiding tribal while not being the top scorer for my tribe. Plus I feel I am naturally bad at this type of challenge where you have to think and type really fast. I just hope I didn't flop ENTIRELY. I know my capitals and survivor seasons but the rest of the categories were not my jam at all. Also, according to Andreas 'Fuck' is a movie???? Who would've thought. Scored me a point so not complaining in the slightest. My social game is still kinda lacking, been feeling lazy to start conversations lately so I haven't talked to some of these people in a while. Ugh. I should fix that. Emphasis on SHOULD. Not sure if I will.

Man it really sucks that all it took was 5 points from anyone of us to win that challenge and it frustrates me that I scored a pretty good score, not the highest but I'm in danger of going home. I wasted my idol last tribal council and I have no more spare protection on me so it's like the game has taken a whole new life for me and it's all about social manoeuvring now. But the way I see it, if the tribe was playing long term, they would take out either Stephen or me because there's still 5 OG ala mai left compared to the 4 of the two other tribes, so I need to make myself useful to clash and allan and goat for them to save my butt because I need to M A K E M E R G E.

i’m drunk but we won we won we won baby boy we won boy i am happy i don’t have to vote off anyone i am drhnk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nt5bJDsUcCzUm-0tWRCtDbr6NRD78ntq/view?usp=drivesdk

Wooooohoooo we won the challenge, so no tribal once again! And I didn't even overperform this time, so that's just great. I hope to keep this going. I bet the Faatasi are sad they voted Veni out now, some of them tried their absolute hardest and they would've destroyed us if Veni was included in that group haha. But that's what you get, now you gotta vote someone out again! I hope to see some more idols or advantages being used so they can't be used against me later in the game haha. I'm gonna be really fucked if I don't find anything!!! I'm gonna get idoled out again fuck yesssss I can feel it. If Sluggy didn't perform so well in the challenge I would definitely predict he's going tonight, but I'm not as sure anymore. I kinda have a feeling Clash has the Faatasi idol because he stopped sharing me his idol guesses pretty early.... But that's simply a guess, literally anyone but me could have it haha. Anyhow I hope someone from og Ala Mai or Saolotoga is going tonight, just for numbers' sake. I haven't had a chance to meet them yet and it would be more difficult to start bonding at merge when there's so much tension and power shifts happening! It'll be interesting to see how their tribal turns out since the og tribes are split 2-2-2 on their side right now. Ginger is definitely not a huge fan of Michael, but we both agreed it's great for us if we let him run the show on our side right now. If we manage to work from his shadows, hopefully people will come at him come merge instead of us.

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Wait a minute the hosts want us to be around tonight after tribal council Are we merging???? Please no not yet I'm not ready!!!! It's a busy weekend for me

Doing this before i get in trouble. Why must they always remind me of confessionals when im at work or bed. Veni deserved better Its a bit Quiet in the Ala Mai alliance chat. Made new Alliance with Vilma, Ginger and Emily Immunity Challenge: Not happy with scores... could have done much bettee. Got scores back... 2nd best in tri e and the tribe won... huh... Safe for another day. Still no idol. Merge is being suggested... please not yet... i need more time

Lemme just say I don't feel so good about this tribal council. No one seems to be anywhere which makes me believe that I'm the target. All I can do is pray to God, but if He wants me gone now He'll send me home now. If He wants me to stay He will make a way and I just gotta trust Him.

um so this round has been very tough because we lost again but I genuinely don't want to keep Stephen in the dark the reason I told him, if that bites me in the ass its my own fault but I am thinking for long term and I really hope sludgy goes by a unanimous vote here and everything will be perfect

I'm so glad we won again! It is so nice to be on such a winning tribe.

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Did I submit? I dont remember. The bad thing about not going to tribal is that idk who I can work with.

So obvious the four of me Allan and randy are staying together. Stephen pulled me and clash into an alliance and that saved him and now sluggy is hopefully going to go home. I’m super pissed we lost by 4 points but it’s all based on loyalty for me this round, challenge abilities are out the window tbh

Hopefully merge is not THAT soon ! If it is I will lay low at the beginning because I suck at taking control when the numbers are so big and messy . Also I hope an ala Mai member will get evicted tonight so it will be 4-4-4 tribal division

i’m in an alliance with vilma, ginger, and michael! i’m happy with where i’m at in this game tbh. very content. and i think merge is next too gurl!!!!!!! i’m excited very very excited

We won the challenge again which is good, but knowing that Sluggy felt unsafe enough to play an idol, it is a slight worry for Stephen and Stephen, hopefully they vote off Randy or someone, but there's a good possibility won of them goes. The upcoming rumoured merge is slightly worrying, I have talked a bit to Vilma and Emily but Ginger and Liana haven't spoken much to me, and reply with very little substance. Coming into a merge I would love to keep everyone who is willing to speak to me in as long as possible. It might be best for me to "throw" a few of the first merge challenges to keep a target off of my back. After what happened to Veni, I don't trust that the threats wont go early.

Hi the power four which are me clash pay and allan are deciding to evict sluggy ive been building bonds with stephen, and trying to like mist sluggy but idk. If sluggy has an idol im afraid I'll go. But I scored the highest on the tribe so at least i didnt lose us the challenge so <<33 im on a tribe full of fat flops

Uhhh, everyone is really quiet, am I getting blindsided? This isn’t my time man I have so much more to put in to this game. If I get voted out I want everyone to know its Crash’s fault.

Okay so I was quite inactive this round but thank god clash really looked out for me this round and (to my knowledge) kept my name out of his mouth. All I have to do now is keep my head down and hopefully the 4 we’ve established can work together to get through this double.

So here I am, loving life, living it to the fullest. Getting drunk and also having a good time with no reception. So what I didn’t do was talk to anyone hehe awks. Anyway thriving. I’m now a close alliance with ginger hehe cheeky. Working hard on the challenge absolutely thriving

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nuclearnightterror · 5 years ago

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@thefuschiaroyaltyemissary

Do you know what I try to see when I'm talking to you guys? Imagine for a second you don't have an inline to all my styling online, and that I'm not desperately trying to fend off a self destructive attitude learned from well meaning people. You have the inline to what's been going on, really truly going on in the world, and I'm not jealous exactly, just pointedly curious. Even when I come off as impressive, I must seem like bad comedy to people all to well learned in the art of dealing with anxiety and responsibilities most people never even learn exist. Your lives are simply so different. Every single post you make, it's a game of minesweeper beneath a a deceptive exterior of ice, sand, war torn ground, the breathing land or the magma cracked plains of a fresh and all too common volcanic eruption. The slightest green text from you waaay back in the day felt like maybe I was being spied on by aliens, that ever so slightly I was living up to the name of the man I chose to keep on instead of the legally smart thing of allowing my step father to have adopted me, I'd like to think he would have. It would have been nice if he'd thought so too. You're born to a role I had to take my whole life to keep my momentum on, and from my admittedly easy to deduce perspective aided or un-such by you you almost represent who I'd have wanted my children to be like. The same short tempered ruthlessness, the same caprice and need for contradiction to keep an even keel, and the love -hate relationship with comedy that comes too easily to your minds but doesn't leave you smiling the everyone else has had a laugh. It's not nor ever has been any intention of mine when hale and hearty, and most importantly sane to ever hurt or by inaction bring harm to you. You are, in the truely ironic sense, my closest friends. The vision of what thought lurked in my own untold future, realized in the actions and lives of people. "Stop sucking my dick", all right. You're gunslingers to me. The real deal, the ones who see the world in an ancient and familiar fashion, and like Roland after the slaughter of Tull, you're increasingly weary. So, I say or do something just to keep my own nerves onff edge and it seems like a personal affront. Like I'm trying to make you like me. That's your own call, with or without the nebulous ">" that you were probably disgusted to see so many people abuse when you were introduced to the 21st centuries most impressive layabouts and depressives bordering on the degenerate. Worse to you, I say or do something and you'll flip your response, you're suddenly so optimistic, so EAGER and HAPPY and SUPER EXCITED, like whoever you think I am, or thought I was, had woken up from this long disappointing sleep that you share with me. I could have taken a hot bath to calm down just now, but with our uneven street ESP I'd, in your place, take that as a fucking insult. Nothing so common, you just scale your reactions to the people you meet, try to talk to others on what you can see of their own level without doing the unthinkable and failing the life lessons of your admittedly more gilded and far more strenuous youth. So fucking much is expected of you, by those that raised you, and by yourselves, always kept slightly apart from the world, always so disappointed with it. With, like waves up and down across the sea, me. Me, the person who honestly wants everything but to piss you off more than everything you've been through has made you. Your standards are the exacting standards of someone desperate to relax, and your joys that of a mind built on sturdy intricacy. That means the bullshit you put up with sticks with you longer, warps the joys you can find and presents, like Ryoma, a seemingly never ending hot blooded battle against a monster made of....well that's your business not mine. Your life. And of the especial amongst you that's constantly rocking back and forth in something almost like giddy teenage romance, always hanging onto every little post looking for some sign of faith to be rewarded, you get hit the hardest. Not the worst of the bunch, but it's a gamble on your part that your didn't ask for. I don't proclaim anything of your character I can't draw of myself, and what's mislabeled as a cliche is an all too real fact of your extremely sensitive and sheltered, though not ignorant life. I'm saying, if you're pissed off with me - the best thing you could do is beat it out of me, slap me around and force me to see things the way you've had to deal with them. I'm so scared of failing you, because the actual (hashtag: truth) for whatever reason, what I do *matters* *to* *you*. Every stupid little reaction, and you have to put up with the backlash. So setting aside the situation of the world long enough for you to casually read over this, I apologize to you. Sometimes you get used to failure in small respects to push forward what you tell yourself is the big victory. It's momentum, don't you know? Let's you cast away affection, childhood dreams, all the really important things. But that's an article you know all too well. The crux of it. You want, whatever this is to work, and I am not so haughty to say that you don't deserve that personal victory. That you don't deserve your attempt at kindness or passion to be rewarded decently. You're forced, you've told me, to take the offensive. And I have always been stuck on the defensive. Not an even split of failure and victory, just enduring. I know the sadism that you grapple with, it comes too easily to m - and it leaves an after aura to all my doings. That's why I try to be the hype man, try to keep my head down and my attitude aligned towards snarky, so you won't feel like that's a hopeless struggle. I'd give anything to meet your personally, and it seems like that's what you want up until I somehow throw cold water over you again and again. In fact, I'm throwing it over myself. All the little details, they make sense looking back - that's why it's always a guardians attitude towards depression, empty platitude, drug abuse, recklessness.

I hate being alone. I've been alone too much. So to you who suffer so much horseshit with so many strings attached the likes of which I was planning to manage when I was that bright chipper young man, you don't deserve your frustrations. You deserve to desire to do good, and for once the nagging in your head that says it can't work out to just shut the fuck up and let you do some actual good. So no lecture.

How was your day? What did you have for breakfast this morning? How many books did you sit down and read for the sheer pleasure of it? Any longstanding bets you've won? I'd like to know, when you want to tell me. Are your dreams good? Do you toss and turn too often and wake to tangled sheets? I'll bet. Your favorite color, food, play, musical, the happiest holiday you ever experienced, the first time you felt love, the moment the world stretched out and became so much larger for you. I'd like to ask you about it all, without the tired eyes and the cracked voice. No, since I was 13 years old, no one has asked me anything of the sort. SO WHEN *ahem* I appear over enthusiastic on some hilariously whimsical train of thought, it's because those sorts of things have faded so far into the distance I forgot I cared about them. Though, to you this is obvious, to me it's a weight that always bears down on my interactions. It's because of that pain, I don't think to judge you, I just wonder. And if, to you, I appear to do all of that with "> this annoying keyboard sign" it isn't out of anything like malice. It's frustrated concern. Not true of everyone, obviously.

But you care, you obviously care.

Did the news upset you today? Are there any friends you've....been kept from by this man made pandemic? Are you holding up well enough or is it just sitting there, waiting for you to slump down in a cozy chair amore a corner of your favorite room and shut it off with drink? You can be as cruel as you need to be with these truths, I've only ever stared at them head on for as long as my pluck, vim, fortitude, charisma, and fuck that attitude have afforded me.

I know I can do this, I just have to beat myself over the head to say it after decades of disappointment. And you'd have something to say about *that* little claim I've absolutely no doubt. : )

So continuing this retro style climb through dreary text like you dusted off your old copy of Ice Climbers, let's keep thwacking away at the emotional baggage. "Dear Abby, today I found out I have more siblings than I knew what to do with; I say "knew" because having suffered a form of amnesia like a depressive fog of bad nerves, they were probably at the forefront of my thoughts once upon a time. What do you do for someone who is a stranger by one turn and intimately familiar with just a sentence away? Can I be forgiven for being a fool who thinks about the problems of the stranger in front of me when the stranger I have to get up every day and deal with can't save himself? I want to know if you think that's a selfish viewpoint, Dissillusioned (wink, waggle nose) East Coast North AMerica."

How was that? Tugs at you doesn't it? No, of course not that's what everyone has to deal with whether they learn to see that in themselves or not. I don't wager you genuinely think it's funny either. Do you? Have you been around long enough to really hold that cynicism like a security blanket? Where do you wander even now, It feels like I should know. (==>)

It's like a knock against the head when I can tell you're thinking about me, a busted down window to you. A thing of numbers, and if the respondent scores high enough, you can look at them with something like pride again. That, I'd say, is entirely your choice to tell me about. I tried running the numbers like that when I was younger - it wore me down but left a stubborn ......... man, in its place. But this is about you. How do you wish to know peace in your life? That's important. Good looking, oh yes easy enough to tell from just talking with you online, that's no false confidence, though there's always a giddiness to it. Hence you always calling things "Based" as detestable a phrase to drop as "sauce" an all purpose clutch against mathematical banality. Those are what you say to sarcastically cop an attitude and brush off another minor betrayal of your expectations. It's that forbidden word rooted in hedonistic boredom that you find personally blasphemous, I'm certain you know the one. Opposite of "hope" I'm told. And boy, do I get told.

I'm not handling you with misplaced kid gloves, and like the abused fighter I am this monogram to you will come with the expectation of further deep disappointment from you taped on like a post it note. But despite our resonance with each other, I feel it's better to let this be known of me. Enough.

Tell me, in your own way, first time you had an adrenaline rush? Did you want to be a daredevil when you were just starting out, deep down seeking thrills in every little thing? It seems like a facet of you that shows up more often than not, you wouldn't scum the eyescratchingly painful abuse fest that is the common image board otherwise. Does your body have that special coordination of a ballet dancer who could kick box a mixed martial artist onto the mat? Every muscle, nerve sinew communicating so fiercely with each other it's an adventure in itself that you don't strain your own muscles getting so damn excited over life. And that's probably the anxiety and depression again, because it's always that distant repressed anger that makes it so easy at first to control yourself. Anyone who told you that you were using rage as a cover was full of shit, rage doesn't demand that level of detail to your personal life at all times, it just reverberates.

First pet dog? First pet cat? First time you memorized the constellations and recited them back to yourself under I assume a full night sky? Best I had was the local indoor planetarium. Are you vain about your looks, or merely conscience of how others look at you all the time? Sometimes, just sometimes, you want to walk out into the woods and stay there until all your clothes are torn up and your hair has to have pine needles picked out of it and you smell like brush and dirt and wood bark. Little like that, to counterbalance all the inescapably huge ones, the unfair things that keep themselves as your millstone. How did you first discover you couldn't stand getting drunk? Delirious hangover - el oh el - but more likely that the sour taste it left in your gut reminded you of the things in life it was supposed to be making you oblivious to. Never again is a hard adage to live up to, especially for those desperate to prove the validity of love. In my case, optimistic ambition. Half smile and bedroom eyes very much included, just see the back of the cardboard stand for details before our lives get thrown out of whack by an impulse purchase.

Did you want children? I mean, everyone on some level does, or has had and lost them - people or just opportunities like Frank Herbert wrote about. It may seem the shallow inquiry, but did you look forward to feeling love for them when all the other problems had been put away and you could focus on seeing something you made achieve excellence simply for it's own sake? For the sake of simply being better every day than it had been before, I mean. That one gets me all the time, and I mean that. No bitter dry hyena laughter, no intoxicated bullshit chortling, because imbedded into that impulsive complicated drive is what gives lasting personal ecstasy. There's a wall there of course, I noticed it once, you've told me about it every so often. Not diminishing returns, because that's about where you are, but the sameness and troublesome tradition(?) I suppose. Being so good at something, you can't imagine that you ever cared enough to get there at all. The most traitorous thoughts for the most level headed adventurers of eternity.

I know for a fact you want to be a writer? How? Right there up front in your mind between those boughts of tired incomprehension, the same stubborn certainty: Is there anything new left to write about? Bullshit, of course there is, part of living - ups and downs and a story you appreciate because you've lived through it.

Shame, heartbreak, regret, mortal fear, the taste of hypocrisy. You don't even have to say a word. That sticks itself into all the tiny spaces and stays there.

One no one ever asks even the closest, can you recall having to bite down and bear through something even though it was insurmountable, tough to the point of exhaustion? Maybe your perspective on that is a bit alien to mine, I seem to recall getting up enough times makes you eventually assume that's it's only a matter of attitude.

You're smarter than that. Impulsive too, the thing that carried you through your first automatic beatdown.

I ask this more of myself, than you, but maybe you have an answer from all your long research. The first time you managed to forgive? To look at someone who wronged you, know that you were right, and still say that they didn't deserve your anger at them - because aren't they a victim in all this too? Naive, that's what you may tell me. If you'd met me years earlier, I'd have complimented you such a rebuttal.

Alien mystery. There's one I haven't ever told anyone about. Hinted, never told. And that's the great big stupid missing part of me, next door neighbros to jealousy because of how it works it's way down to all the detail oriented parts and just looms, not monolithic, merely invisible to a common train of thought. I saw things once, you could lecture *me* on them no doubt and would get tired of it before I would. The mysteries hidden over the Earth, the things they don't tell anyone lurking in our own solar system, I've only seem them fragmentally remembered in old waking dreams, you've done that and more with your own eyes. You must be proud of that, what's that feel like again?

I don't have to lecture the predator. From the moment we crossed horns, that was as obvious as the wind in my face. You'll draw anyone in that interests you, whatever restrictions your life has placed, you'll always find a way. Must be nice running a multinational at your apparent age. Almost something you can do without thinking, crunching numbers and giving orders without any internal discord at all.

And now the truly unknown. The thing I envy, fear, hold as a point of proven personal weakness in my most shameful moments. When did you first conceive of stepping beyond your humanity. Did you fear that opportunity would be torn from your grasp? Were you WILLING TO KILL SOMEONE TO KEEP IT? Did it obsess you, how to take just one life in order that all you held precious would endure. Plenty has been written on the subject, I'll let you quote me if you really want to. There's an obvious artificiality to you, a quickness the human mind can't keep up with without skirting psychopathy. I've only known the mutations brought by medication and stress, what.... ah but didn't you say it was an unnaturally vacant sort of thing? Something uniquely artificial to the healthy living mind? Though I suspect you tell yourself you're not exactly sane these days.

I'm writing all of this blind, knowing that you have a hair trigger temper about me, and that you've in some way co-opted the life I fantasized about from me. You said, I believe, that between the life you would have lead and the one earned through this strange fiddling of possibilities that this life was somehow the worse of them. How you straddle despair, how you rail against it all, and with what innocence? Plenty of cruelty, this era fosters little else but the cruelty of mice about men.

Did you ever pity someone so hard you'd give up part of your life so that they could continue to live against all odds? Just so long as they were still there.

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